cigarette.

"It is necessary now that you should know, petite--nobody
else does, Lucien would be sure to make a fuss, but--I
have a lover, and we have decided about marriage that it
is ridiculous. It is a _brave ame_. You ought to know
him; but if it makes any difference--"

Elfrida reflected afterward with satisfaction that she
had not even changed color, though she had found the
communication electric. It seemed to her that there had
been something dignified, noble almost, in the answer
she had made, with a smile that acknowledged the fact
that the world had scruples on such accounts as these:

"_Cela m'est absolument egal!_"

So far as the life went it was perfect. The Quartier
spoke and her soul answered it, and the world had nothing
to compare with a conversation like that. But the question
of production, of achievement, was beginning to bring
her moments when she had a terrible sensation that the
temperature of her passion was chilled. She had not yet
seen despair, but she had now and then lost her hold of
herself, and she had made acquaintance with fear. There
had been no vivid realization of failure, but a problem
was beginning to form in her mind, and with it a distinct
terror of the solution, which sometimes found a shape in
her dreams. In waking, voluntary moments she would see
her problem only as an unanswerable enigma.