at," he
said over the top of it. "There is really no occasion.
I shall get on very well. There is always the club, you
know. And this is an opportunity you ought not to miss."

Janet said nothing, and Lawrence Cardiff went back to
his newspaper. She tried to go on with her breakfast,
but scalding tears stood in her eyes, and she could not
swallow. She was unable to command herself far enough to
ask to be excused, and she rose abruptly and left the
room with her face turned carefully away.

Cardiff followed her with his eyes and gave an
uncomprehending shrug. He looked at his watch; there was
still half an hour before he need leave the house. It
brought him an uncomfortable thought that he might go
and comfort Janet--it was evident that something he had
said had hurt her--she was growing absurdly hypersensitive.
He dismissed the idea--Heaven only knew into what
complications it might lead them. He spent the time
instead in a restless walk up and down the room, revolving
whether Elfrida Bell would or would not be brought to
reconsider her refusal to let him take her to "Faust"
that night--he never could depend upon her.

Janet had not seen John Kendal since the afternoon he
came to her radiant with his intention of putting all of
Elfrida's elusive charm upon canvas, full of its intrinsic
difficulties, eager for her sympathy, depending on her
enthusiastic interest. She had disappointed him--she did
her best, but the sympathy and enthusiasm and interest
would not come. She could not tell him why--her broken
friendship was still sacred to her for what it had been.
Besides, explanations were impossible. So she listened
and approved with a strained smile, and led him, with a
persistence he did not understand, to talk of other
things. He went away chilled and baffled, and he had not
come again. She knew that he was painting with every
nerve tense and eager, in oblivion to all but his work
and the face that inspired it. Elfrida, he told her, was
to give him three sittings a week, of an hour each, and
he complained of the scantiness of the dole. She could
conjure up those hours, all too short for his delight in
his model and his work. Surely it would not be long now!
Elfrida cared, by her own confession--Janet felt, dully,
there could now be no doubt of that--and since Elfrida
cared, what could be more certain than the natural issue?
She fought with herself to accept it; she spent hours in
seeking for the indifference