"How charming of you!" she said. "But I have to thank
you for coming as well. Now let us shake hands, or we
shan't feel properly acquainted." Janet detected a
half-tone of patronage in her voice, and fell into a rage
with herself because of it. She looked at Elfrida sharply
to note a possible resentment, but there was none. If
she had looked a trifle more sharply she might have
observed a subtler patronage in the little smile her
visitor received this commonplace with; but, like the
other, she was too much occupied in considering her
personal effect. She had become suddenly desirous that
it should be a good one.
Elfrida went on in the personal key. "I suppose you are
very tired of hearing such things," she said, "but I owe
you so much."
This was not quite justifiable, for Miss Cardiff was only
a successful writer in the magazines, whose name was very
familiar to other people who wrote in them, and had a
pleasant association for the reading public. It was by
no means fame; she would have been the first to laugh at
the magniloquence of the word in any personal connection.
For her father she would accept a measure of it, and only
deplored that the lack of public interest in Persian made
the measure small.
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