them to indicate a more than slightly fantastic young
woman with an appreciation of certain artistic verities
out of all proportion to her power to attain them. But
he had not gone so far. His encounters with her were
among his casual amusements; and if the result was an
occasional dinner together or first night at the Folies
Dramatiques, his only reflection was that a girl who
could do such things and not feel compromised was rather
pleasant to know, especially so clever a girl as Elfrida
Bell. He did not recognize in his own mind the mingled
beginnings of approval and disapproval which end in a
personal theory. He was quite unaware, for instance, that
he liked the contemptuous way in which she held at arm's
length the moral laxities of the Quartier, and disliked
the cool cynicism with which she flashed upon them there
the sort of _jeu de mot_ that did not make him uncomfortable
on the lips of a Frenchwoman. He understood that she had
nursed Nadie Palicsky through three weeks of diphtheria,
during which time Monsieur Vambery took up his residence
fourteen blocks away, without any special throb of
enthusiasm; and he heard her quote Voltaire on the
miracles--some of her ironies were a little old-fashioned
--without conscious disgust He was willing enough to meet
her on the special plane she constituted for herself--not
as a woman, but as an artist and a Bohemian. But there
were others who made the same claim with whom it was an
affectation or a pretence, and Kendal granted it to
Elfrida without any special conviction that she was more
sincere than the rest. Besides, it is possible to grow
indifferent, even to the unconventionalities, and Kendal