Whistler, and made wide, ineffectual,
and presumptuous grasps to include all beauty and all
faith. She threw handfuls of the foam of these things at
Kendal, who watched them vanish into the air with pleasure,
and asked if he might smoke. At which she reflected,
deciding that for the present he might not, but when they
reached her lodgings she would permit him to renew his
acquaintance with Buddha, and give him a cigarette.
During the hour they smoked and talked together Elfrida
was wholly delightful, and only one thing occurred to
mar the enjoyment of the evening as Kendal remembered
it. That was Mr. Golightly Ticke, who came up and smoked
too, and seemed to have an extraordinary familiarity,
for such an utterly impossible person, with Miss Bell's
literary engagements. On his way home Kendal reflected
that it was doubtless a question of time; she would take
to the customs of civilization by degrees, and the sooner
the better.
CHAPTER XV.
Shortly afterward Elfrida read Mr. Pater's "Marius," with
what she herself called, somewhat extravagantly, a "hungry
and hopeless" delight. I cannot say that this Oxonian's
tender classical recreation had any critical effect upon
her; she probably found it much too limpid and untroubled
to move her in the least.
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