hers
by her power of perception, and that, with the completeness
of her repudiation of the bourgeois, had given her Nadie
Palicsky, whom the rest found difficult, variable,
unreasonable. Elfrida was certain that if she might only
talk to Lucien she could persuade him of a great deal
about her talent that escaped him--she was sore it escaped
him--in the mere examination of her work. It chafed her
always that her personality could not touch the master;
that she must day after day be only the dumb, submissive
pupil. She felt sometimes that there were things she
might say to Lucien which would be interesting and valuable
for him to hear.

Lucien was always non-committal for the first few months.
Everybody said so, and it was natural enough. Elfrida
set her teeth against his silences, his casual looks and
ambiguous encouragements for a length of time which did
infinite credit to her determination. She felt herself
capable of an eternity of pain; she was proudly conscious
of a willingness to oppose herself to innumerable
discouragements--to back her talent, as it were, against
all odds. That was historic, dignified, to be expected!
But in the inmost privacy of her soul she had conceived
the character of the obstacles she was prepared to face,
and the list resolutely excluded any idea that it might
not be worth while. Indifference and contempt cut at the
very roots of her pledges to herself. As she sat listening
on this afternoon to the vivid terms of Lucien's disapproval
of what the Swede had done, she had a sharp consciousness
of this severance.

She had nothing to say to any one in the general babble
of the anteroom, and nobody notified her white face and
resolute eyes particularly--the Americans were always
so pale and so _exalte_. Nadie kept away from her.
Elfrida had to cross the room and bring her, with a little
touch of angry assertion upon the arm, from the middle
of the group she had drawn around her, on purpose, as
her friend knew.

"I want you to dine with me--really _dine_," she said,
and her voice was both eager and repressed. "We win go
to Babaudin's--one gets an excellent haricot there--and
you shall have that little white cheese that you love.
Come! I want you particularly. I will even make him
bring champagne--anything."

Nadie gave her a quick look and made a little theatrical
gesture of delight.

"_Quell bonheur!_" she cried for the benefit of the
others; and then in a lower tone: "But not Ba