Kendal, though
his virtue was not of the heroic order, would have turned
a contemptuous heel upon any imputation of the sort, and
Elfrida would have stared it calmly out of countenance.
To Elfrida it soon became a definite and agreeable fact
that she and the flower of Lucien's had things to say to
each other--things of the rare temperamental sort that
say themselves seldom. Within a fortnight she had made
a niche for him in that private place where she kept the
images of those toward whom she sustained this peculiarly
sacred obligation, and to meet him had become one of
those pleasures which were in Sparta so notably
unattainable. I cannot say that considerations which from
the temperamental point of view might be described as
ulterior had never suggested themselves to Miss Bell.
She had thought of them, with a little smile, as a possible
development on Kendal's part that might be amusing. And
then she had invariably checked the smile, and told
herself that she would be sorry, very sorry. Instinctively
she separated the artist and the man. For the artist she
had an admiration none the less sincere for its
exaggerations, and a sympathy which she thought the best
of herself; for the man, nothing, except the
half-contemptuous reflection that he was probably as
other men.
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