But she could not
lose Elfrida, she told herself; and besides, it was only
a matter of a little tolerance--time and life would change
her, tone her inner self down into the something altogether
exquisite and perfect that she was, to look at, now.
Elfrida called the Cardiffs' house the oasis of Kensington,
and valued her privileges there more than she valued
anything else in the circumstances about her, except,
perhaps, the privilege she had enjoyed in making the
single contribution, to the _Decade_ of which we know.
That was an event lustrous in her memory, the more lustrous
because it remained solitary and when the editor's check
made its tardy appearance she longed to keep it as a
glorious archive--glorious that is to say, in suggestion,
if not particularly impressive intrinsically. In the end
she fought the temptation of giving herself a dinner a
day for a fortnight out of it, and bought a slender gold
bangle with the money, which she slipped upon her wrist
with a resolution to keep it there always. It must be
believed that her personal decoration did not enter
materially into this design; the bangle was an emblem of
one success and an earnest of others. She wore it as she
might have worn a medal, except that a medal was a public
voice, and the little gold hoop spoke only to her.
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