She had disappointed him--she did
her best, but the sympathy and enthusiasm and interest
would not come. She could not tell him why--her broken
friendship was still sacred to her for what it had been.
Besides, explanations were impossible. So she listened
and approved with a strained smile, and led him, with a
persistence he did not understand, to talk of other
things. He went away chilled and baffled, and he had not
come again. She knew that he was painting with every
nerve tense and eager, in oblivion to all but his work
and the face that inspired it. Elfrida, he told her, was
to give him three sittings a week, of an hour each, and
he complained of the scantiness of the dole. She could
conjure up those hours, all too short for his delight in
his model and his work. Surely it would not be long now!
Elfrida cared, by her own confession--Janet felt, dully,
there could now be no doubt of that--and since Elfrida
cared, what could be more certain than the natural issue?
She fought with herself to accept it; she spent hours in
seeking for the indifference that might come of accustoming
herself to the fact. And when she thought of her father
she hoped that it might be soon.
There came a day when Lawrence Cardiff gave, his daughter
the happiness of being almost his other self again.
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