It was provoking that
she should be still so loyally _avengle_; that he would
not be able to discuss Elfrida with her, when he went
back to London, from an impersonal point of view. He had
a strong desire to say precisely what he thought of her
friend to Janet, in which there was an obscure recognition
of a duty of reparation--obscure because he had no overt
disloyalty to Janet to charge himself with, but none the
less present. He saw the intimacy between the two girls
from a new point of view; he comprehended the change the
months had made, and he had a feeling of some displeasure
that Janet Cardiff should have allowed herself to be so
subdued, so seconded in it.
Kendal came back a day or two before Elfrida's
disappearance, and saw her only once in the meantime.
That was on the evening--which struck him later as one
of purposeless duplicity--before the Peach-Blossom Company
had left for the provinces, when he and Elfrida both
dined at the Cardiffs'. With him that night she had the
air of a chidden child; she was silent and embarrassed,
and now and then he caught a glance which told him in so
many words that she was very sorry, she hadn't meant to,
she would never do it again.
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