“Disappointing,” he returned seriously.  “I should say bad—­as bad as possible.”  She gave him an impatient glance.

“But those people—­Loti and the rest—­it is only a serio-comic game to them to go the Princess Bobaloffs.  They wouldn’t if they could help it They don’t live their real lives in such places—­among such people!”

Kendal took the cigarette from his mouth and laughed.  “Your Bohemianism is quite Arcadian in its quality —­deliriously fresh,” he declared.  “I think they do.  Genius clings to respectability after a time.  A most worthy and amiable lady, the Princess.”

Elfrida raised the arch of her eyebrows.  “Much too worthy and amiable,” she ventured, and talked of something else, leaving Kendal rasped, as she sometimes did, without being in any degree aware of it.

“How preposterous it is,” he said, moved by his irritation to find something preposterous, “that girls like Miss Van Camp should come here to work.”

“They can’t help being rich.  It shows at least the germ of a desire to work out their own salvation.  I think I like it.”

“It shows the germ of an affectation in rather an advanced stage of development.  I give her three months more to tire of snubbing Lucien and distributing caramels to the less fortunate young ladies of the studio.  Then she will pack up those pitiful attempts of hers and take them home to New York, and spend a whole season in glorious apology for them.”

Elfrida looked at him steadily for an instant.  Then she laughed lightly.  “Thanks,” she said.  “I see you had not forgotten my telling you that Lucien said she painted better than I did.”

Kendal wondered whether he had really meant to go so far.  “I am sorry,” he said, “but I am afraid I had not forgotten it.”

“Well, you would not say it out of ill-nature.  You must have wanted me to know—­what you thought.”

“I think,” he said seriously, “that I did—­at least that I do—­want you to know.  It seems a pity that you should work on here—­mistakenly—­when there are other things that you could do well.”

“‘Other things’ have been mentioned to me before,” she returned, with a strain in her voice that she tried to banish.  “May I ask what particular thing occurs to you?”

He was already remorseful.  After all, what business of his was it to interfere, especially when he knew that she attached such absurd importance to his opinion?  “I hardly know,” he said, “but there must be something; I am convinced that there is something.”

Elfrida put her elbows on a tittle table, and shadowed her face with her hands.

“I wish I could understand,” she said, “why I should be so willing to—­to go on at any sacrifice, if there is no hope in the end.”

Kendal’s mood of grim frankness overcame him again.  “I believe I know,” he said, watching her.  Her hands dropped from her face, and she turned it toward him mutely.