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rsation." Elfrida leaned back in her chair and threw up her head, locking her slender fingers over her knee. "Of coarse," she said indifferently. "I understand why you should go. You must. You have arrived at a point where the public claims a share of your personality. That's different." Kendal's face straightened out. He was too much of an Englishman to understand that a personally agreeable truth might not be flattery, and Elfrida never knew how far he resented her candor when it took the liberty of being gracious. "I went in the humble hope of getting a good supper and seeing some interesting people," he told her. "Loti was there, and Madame Rives-Chanler, and Sargent." "And the supper?" Miss Bell inquired, with a touch of sarcasm. "Disappointing," he returned seriously. "I should say bad--as bad as possible." She gave him an impatient glance. "But those people--Loti and the rest--it is only a serio-comic game to them to go the Princess Bobaloffs. They wouldn't if they could help it They don't live their real lives in such places--among such people!" Kendal took the cigarette from his mouth and laughed. "Your Bohemianism is quite Arcadian in its quality --deliriously fresh," he declared. "I think they do. Genius clings to respectability after a time. A most worthy and amiable lady, the Princess." Elfrida raised the arch of her eyebrows. "Much too worthy and amiable," she ventured, and talked of something else, leaving Kendal rasped, as she sometimes did, without being in any degree aware of it. "How preposterous it is," he said, moved by his irritation to find something preposterous, "that girls like Miss Van Camp should come here to work." "They can't help being rich. It shows at least the germ of a desire to work out their own salvation. I think I like it." "It shows the germ of an affectation in rather an advanced stage of development. I give her three months more to tire of snubbing Lucien and distributing caramels to the less fortunate young ladies of the studio. Then she will pack up those pitiful attempts of hers and take them home to New York, and spend a whole season in glorious apology for them." Elfrida looked at him steadily for an instant. Then she laughed lightly. "Thanks," she said. "I see you had not forgotten my telling you that Lucien said she painted better than I did." Kendal wondered whether he had really meant to go so far. "I am sorry," he said, "but I am
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