If Lucien had examined Miss Bell's work during the week
of her experiment with Anglo-Parisian journalism, he
would have observed that it grew gradually worse as the
days went on. The devotion of the small hours to composition
does not steady one's hand for the reproduction of the
human muscles, or inform one's eye as to the correct
manipulation of flesh tints. Besides, the model suffered
from Elfrida an unconscious diminution of enthusiasm.
She was finding her first serious attempt at writing more
absorbing than she would have believed possible, and she
felt that she was doing it better than she expected. She
was hardly aware of the moments that slipped by while
she dabbled aimlessly in unconsidered color meditating
a phrase, or leaned back and let nothing interfere with
her apprehension of the atelier with the other reproductive
instinct. She did not recognize the deterioration in her
work, either; and at the very moment when Nadie Palicsky,
observing Lucien's neglect of her, inwardly called him
a brute, Elfrida was to leave the atelier an hour earlier
for the sake of the more urgent thing which she had to
do. She finished it in five days, and addressed it to
Frank Parke with a new and uplifting sense of
accomplishment. The ever fresh miracle happened to her,
too, in that the working out of one article begot the
possibilities of half a dozen more, and the next day saw
her well into another. In posting the first she had a
premonition of success. She saw it as it would infallibly
appear in a conspicuous place in _Raffini's Chronicle_,
and heard the people of the American Colony wondering
who in the world could have written it. She conceived
that it would fill about two columns and a half. On
Saturday afternoon, when Kendal joined her crossing the
courtyard of the atelier, she was preoccupied with the
form of her rebuff to any inquiries that might be made
as to whether she had written it.
They walked on together, talking casually of casual
things. Kendal, glancing every now and then at the wet
study Elfrida was carrying home, felt himself distinctly
thankful that she did not ask his opinion of it, as she
had, to his embarrassment once or twice before; though
it was so very bad that he was half disposed to abuse it
without permission. Miss Bell seemed persistently
interested in other things, however--the theatres, the
ecclesiastical bill before the Chamber of Deputies, the
new ambassador, even the recent improvement of the police
system. Kendal found her almost tiresome. His
half-interested replies interpreted themselves to her
after a while, and she turned their talk upon trivialities,
with a gay exhilaration which was not her frequent mood.
She asked him to come up when they arrived, with a frank
cordiality which he probably thought of as the American
way. He went up, at all events, and for the twentieth
time admired the dainty chic of the little apartment,
telling himself, also for the twentieth time, that it
was extraordinary how agreeable it was to be there
--agreeable with a distinctly local agreeableness whether
its owner happened to be also there or not. In this he
was altogether sincere, and only properly discriminating.
He spent fifteen minutes wondering at her whimsical
interest, and when she suddenly asked him if he really
thought the race _had_ outgrown its physical conditions,
he got up to go, declaring it was too bad, she must have
been working up back numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_.
At which she consented to turn their talk into its usual
personal channel, and he sat down again content.
"Doesn't the Princess Bobaloff write a charming hand!"
Elfrida said presently, tossing him a square white
envelope.
"It isn't hers if it's an invitation. She has a wretched
relation of a Frenchwoman living with her who does all
that. May I light a cigarette?"
"You know you may. It is an invitation, but I didn't
accept."
"Her soiree last night? If I'd known you had been asked
I should have missed you."
"I ought to tell you," Elfrida went on, coloring a little,
"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
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 afraid I had not forgotten it."
"Well, you would not say it out of ill-nature. You must
have wanted me to know--what you thought."
"I think," he said seriously, "that I did--at least that
I do--want you to know. It seems a pity that you should
work on here--mistakenly--when there are other things
that you could do well."
"'Other things' have been mentioned to me before," she
returned, with a strain in her voice that she tried to
banish. "May I ask what particular thing occurs to you?"
He was already remorseful. After all, what business of
his was it to interfere, especially when he knew that
she attached such absurd importance to his opinion? "I
hardly know," he said, "but there must be something; I
am convinced that there is something."
Elfrida put her elbows on a tittle table, and shadowed
her face with her hands.
"I wish I could understand," she said, "why I should be
so willing to--to go on at any sacrifice, if there is no
hope in the end."
Kendal's mood of grim frankness overcame him again. "I
believe I know," he said, watching her. Her hands dropped
from her face, and she turned it toward him mutely.
"It is not achievement you want, but success. That is
why," said he.
There was silence for a moment, broken by light footsteps
on the stair and a knock. "My good friends," cried
Mademoiselle Palicsky from the doorway, "have you been
quarrelling?" She made a little dramatic gesture to match
her words, which brought out every line of a black velvet
and white corduroy dress, which would have been a horror
upon an Englishwoman. Upon Mademoiselle Palicsky it was
simply an admiration-point of the kind never seen out of
Paris, and its effect was instantaneous. Kendal
acknowledged it with a bow of exaggerated deference.
"_C'est parfait!_" he said with humility, and lifted a
pile of studies off the nearest chair for her.
Nadie stood still, pouting. "Monsieur is amused," she
said. "Monsieur is always amused. But I have that to tell
which monsieur will graciously take _au grand servieux_."
"What is it, Nadie?" Elfrida asked, with something like
dread in her voice. Nadie's air was so important, so
rejoiceful.
"_Ecoutez donc!_ I am to send two pictures to the Salon
this year. Carolos Duran has already seen my sketch for
one, and he says there is not a doubt--_not a doubt_--that
it will be considered. Your congratulations, both of you,
or your hearts' blood! For on my word of honor I did
not expect it this year."
"A thousand and one!" cried Kendal, trying not to see
Elfrida's face. "But if you did not expect it this year,
mademoiselle, you were the only one who had so little
knowledge of affairs," he added gaily.
"And now," Nadie went on, as if he had interrupted her,
"I am going to drive in the Bois to see what it will be
like when the people in the best carriages turn and say,
'That is Mademoiselle Nadie Palicsky, whose picture has
just been bought for the Luxembourg.'"
She paused and looked for a curious instant at Elfrida,
and then slipped quickly behind her chair. "_Embrasse
moi, cherie!_" she said, bringing her face with a bird-like
motion close to the other girl's.
Kendal saw an instinctive momentary aversion in the
backward start of Elfrida's head, and from the bottom of
his heart he was sorry for her. She pushed her friend
away almost violently.
"No!" she said. "No! I am sorry, but it is too childish.
We never kiss each other, you and I. And listen, Nadie:
I am delighted for you, but I have a sick headache--_la
migraine_, you understand. And you must go away, both of
you--both of you!" Her voice raised itself in the last
few words to an almost hysterical imperativeness. As they
went down the stairs together Mademoiselle Palicsky
remarked to Mr. John Kendal, repentant of the good that
he had done:
"So she has consulted her oracle and it has barked out
the truth. Let us hope she will not throw herself into
the Seine!"
"Oh no!" Kendal replied. "She's horribly hurt but I am
glad to believe that she hasn't the capacity for tragedy.
Somebody," he added gloomily, "ought to have told her
long ago."
Half an hour later the postman brought Elfrida a letter
from Mr. Frank Parke, and a packet containing her
manuscript. It was a long letter, very kind, and
appreciative of the article, which Mr. Parke called
bright and gossipy, and, if anything, too cleverly
unconventional in tone. He did not take the trouble to
criticise it seriously, and left Elfrida under the
impression that, from his point of view at least, it had
no faults. Mr. Parke had offered the article to _Raffini_,
but while they might have printed it upon his
recommendation, it appeared that even his recommendation
could not induce them to promise to pay for it. And it
was a theory with him that what was worth printing was
invariably worth paying for, so he returned the manuscript
to its author in the sincere hope that it might yet meet
its deserts. He had been thinking over the talk they had
had together, and he saw more plainly than ever the
hopelessness of her getting a journalistic start in Paris,
however, and he would distinctly advise her to try London
instead. There were a number of ladies' papers published
in London--he regretted that he did not know the editors
of any of them--and amongst them, with her freshness of
style, she would be sure to find an opening. Mr. Parke
added the address of a lodging-house off Fleet Street,
where Elfrida would be in the thick of it, and the fact
that he was leaving Paris for three months or so, and
hoped she would write to him when he came back. It was
a letter precisely calculated to draw an unsophisticated
amateur mind away from any other mortification, to pour
balm upon any unrelated wound. Elfrida felt herself armed
by it to face a sea of troubles. Not absolutely, but
almost, she convinced herself on the spot that her solemn
choice of an art had been immature, and to some extent
groundless and unwarrantable; and she washed all her
brushes with a mechanical and melancholy sense that it
was for the last time. It was easier than she would have
dreamed for her to decide to take Frank Parke's advice
and go to London. The life of the Quartier had already
vaguely lost in charm since she knew that she must be
irredeemably a failure in the atelier, though she told
herself, with a hot tear or two, that no one loved it
better, more comprehendingly, than she did. Her impulse
was to begin packing at once; but she put that off until
the next day, and wrote two or three letters instead.
One was to John Kendal. This is the whole of it:
"Please believe me very grateful for your frankness
this afternoon. I have been most curiously blind. But
I agree with you that there is something else, and I
am going away to find it out and to do it. When I
succeed I will let you know, but you shall not tell
me that I have failed again.
"ELFRIDA BELL."
The other was addressed to her mother, and when it reached
Mr. and Mrs. Bell in Sparta they said it was certainly
sympathetic and very well written. This was to disarm
one another's mind of the suspicion that its last page
was doubtfully daughterly.
"In view of what are now your very limited resources,
I am sure dear mother, you will understand my
unwillingness to make any additional drain upon them,
as I should do if I followed your wishes and came
home. I am convinced of my ability to support myself,
and I am not coming home. To avoid giving you the pain
of repeating your request, and the possibility of your
sending me money which you cannot afford to spare, I
have decided not to let you know my whereabouts until
I can write to you that I am in an independent position.
I will only say that I am leaving Paris, and that no
letters sent to this address will be forwarded. I
sincerely hope you will not allow yourself to be in
any way anxious about me, for I assure you that there
is not the slightest need. With much love to papa and
yourself,
"Always your affectionate daughter,
"ELFRIDA.
"P.S.--I hope your asthma has again succumbed
to Dr. Paley."