"that I was invited through Leila Van Camp--that
ridiculously rich girl, you know, they say Lucien is in
love with. The Van Camp has been affecting me a good deal
lately. She says my manners are so pleasing, and besides,
Lucien once told her she painted better than I did. The
princess is a great friend of hers."

"Why didn't you go?" Kendal asked, without any appreciable
show of curiosity. If he had been looking closely enough
he would have seen that she was waiting for his question.

"Oh, it lies somehow, that sort of thing, outside my idea
of life. I have nothing to say to it, and it has nothing
to say to me."

Kendal smiled introspectively. He saw why he had been
shown the letter. "And yet," he said, "I venture to hope
that if we had met there we might have had some little
conversation."

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