CHAPTER XXXIII.
Kendal, as the door closed behind Elfrida on the afternoon
of her last sitting, shutting him in with himself and
the portrait on the easel, and the revelation she had
made, did his best to feel contrition, and wondered that
he was so little successful. He assured himself that he
had been a brute; yet in an uncompromising review of all
that he had ever said or done in connection with Elfrida
he failed to satisfy his own indignation with himself by
discovering any occasion upon which his brutality had
been particularly obvious. He remembered with involuntary
self-justification how distinctly she had insisted upon
_camaraderie_ between them, how she had spurned everything
that savored of another standard of manners on his, part,
how she had once actually had the curious taste to want
him to call her "old chap," and how it had grated. He
remembered her only half-veiled invitation, her challenge
to him to see as much as he cared, and to make what he
could of her. He was to blame for accepting, but he would
have been a conceited ass if he had thought of the danger
of a result like this. In the midst of his reflections
an idea came to him about the portrait, and he observed,
with irritation, after giving it a few touches, that the
light was irretrievably gone for the day.
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