before the appearance of any star,
she was in the habit of stating that he would have no
truer friend than Filly Fane. She "spoke to" the manager,
she pointed out Mr. Ticke's little parts to the more
intimate of her friends of the press. She sent him delicate
little presents of expensive cigars, scents, and soaps;
she told him often that he would infallibly "get there."
The fact of his having paid his own cab-fare from the
Criterion on this particular morning gave him, as he
found his way upstairs, almost an injured feeling of
independence.

As the sounds defined themselves move distinctly, troublous
and uncertain, Elfrida laid down her pen and listened.

"What an absurd boy it is!" she said. "He's trying to go
to bed in the fireplace."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Ticke's stage of intoxication
was not nearly so advanced as that; but Elfrida's mood
was borrowed from her article, and she felt the necessity
of putting it graphically. Besides, a picturesque form
of stating his condition was almost due to Mr. Ticke.
Mr. Ticke lived the unfettered life; he was of the elect;
Elfrida reflected, as Mr. Ticke went impulsively to bed,
how easy it was to discover the elect. A glance would do
it, a word, the turning of an eyelid; she knew it of
Golightly Ticke days before he came up in an old velvet
coat, and without a shirt collar, to borrow a sheet of
note paper and an envelope from her. On that occasion
Mr. Ticke had half apologized for his appearance, saying,
"I'm afraid I'm rather a Bohemian," in his sympathetic
voice. To which Elfrida had responded, hanging him the
note paper, "Afraid!" and the understanding was established
at once. Elfrida did not consider Mr. Ticke's other
qualifications or disqualifications; that would have been
a bourgeois thing to do. He was a _belle dame_, that was
sufficient. He might find life difficult, it was natural
and probable. She, Elfrida Bell, found it difficult. He
had not succeeded yet; neither had she; therefore they
had a comradeship--they and a few others--of revolt
against the dull conventional British public that barred
the way to success. Yesterday she had met him at the
street-door, and he had stopped to remark that along the
Embankment nature was making a bad copy of one of
Vereschagin's pictures. When people could say things like
that, nothing else mattered much. It is impossible to
tell whether Miss Bell would have found room in this
philosophy for the godmotherly benevolen