He placed all the
studies he had made after she left Paris before her, and
as she finished the last but one of the Italian cakes,
they discussed these in the few words from which they
both drew such large and satisfying meanings as do not
lie at all in the vocabulary of outsiders. Elfrida felt
the keenest pleasure of her whole life in the knowledge
that Kendal was talking to her more seriously, more
carefully, because of that piece of work in the _Decade_;
the consciousness of it was like wine to her, freeing
her thoughts and her lips. Kendal felt, too, that the
plane of their relations was somehow altered. He was not
sure that he liked the alteration. Already she had grown
less amusing, and the real _camaraderie_ which she
constantly suggested her desire for he could not, at the
bottom of his heart, truly tolerate with a woman. He was
an artist, but he was also an Englishman, and he told
himself that he must not let her get into the way of
coming there. He felt an obscure inward irritation, which
he did not analyze, that she should talk so well and be
so charming personally at the same time.
Elfrida, still in the flush of her elation, was putting
on her gloves to go, when the room resounded to a masterful
double rap.
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