From her own seat she could draw her face into
the deepest shadow in the room. She made the arrangement
almost instinctively, and the lines of intensity the last
week had drawn upon Cardiffs face were her first reward.
"I have come to ask you to give up this thing," he said.
Elfrida leaned forward a little in her favorite attitude,
clasping her knee. Her eyes were widely serious. "You
ask me to give it up?" she repeated slowly. "But why do
you ask me?"
"Because I cannot associate it with you--to me it is
impossible that you should do it."
Elfrida lifted her eyebrows a little. "Do you know why
I am doing it?" she asked.
"I think so."
"It is not a mere escapade, you understand. And these
people do not pay me anything. That is quite just, because
I have never learned to act and I haven't much voice. I
can take no part, only just--appear."
"_Appear!_" Cardiff exclaimed. "Have you appeared!"
"Seven times," Elfrida said simply, but she felt that
she was blushing.
Cardiff's anger rose up hotly within him, and strove with
his love, and out of it there came a sickening sense of
impotency which assailed his very soul. All his life he
had had tangibilities to deal with.
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