What he liked best to achieve
was an intimate knowledge of his fellow-beings from an
outside point of view. Where intimate knowledge came of
intimate association he found that it usually compromised
his independence of criticism, which in the Quartier
Latin was a serious matter. So he rather cold-bloodedly
aimed at keeping his own personality independent of his
observation of other people's, and as a rule he succeeded.
That Paris had neither made Kendal nor marred him may be
gathered for the first part from his contentment to go
back to paint in his native land, for the second from
the fact that he had a relation with Elfrida Bell which
at no point verged toward the sentimental. He would have
found it difficult to explain in which direction it did
verge--in fact, he would have been very much surprised
to know that he sustained any relation at all toward Miss
Bell important enough to repay examination. The red-armed,
white-capped proprietress of a _cremerie_ had effected
their introduction by regretting to them jointly that
she had only one helping of _compote de cerises_ left,
and leaving them to arrange its consumption between them.
And it is safer than it would be in most similar cases
to say that neither Elfrida's heavy-lidded beauty nor
the smile that gave its instant attraction to Kendal's
delicately eager face had much to do with the establishment
of their acquaintance, such as it was.
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