And now it seemed to her that she must ignore it again, that the wise, the necessary, the expedient thing to do was to go to Elfrida and re-establish, if she could, the old relation, cost what it might. She must take up her burden of obligation again in order that it might be mutual. Then she would have the right to beg Elfrida to stop playing fast and loose with her father, to act decisively. If Elfrida only knew, only realized, the difference it made, and how little right she had to control, at her whim, the happiness of any human being --and Janet brought a strong hand to bear upon her indignation, for she had resolved to go; and to go that night.

Lawrence-Cardiff bade his daughter an early, good-night after their unusually pleasant dinner. "Do you think you can do it?" he asked her before he went Janet started at the question, for they had not mentioned Elfrida again, even remotely.

"I think I can, daddy," she answered him gravely, and they separated. She looked at her watch; by half-past nine she could be in Ess.e.x Court.

Yes, Miss Bell was in, Miss Cardiff could go straight up, Mrs. Jordan informed her, and she mounted the last flight of stairs with a beating heart. Her mission was important--oh, so important! She had compromised with her conscience in planning it, and now if it should fail!

Her hand trembled as she knocked. In answer to Elfrida's "Come in!" she pushed the door slowly open. "It is I, Janet," she said; "may I?"

"But of course!"

Elfrida rose from a confusion of sheets of ma.n.u.script upon the table and came forward, holding out her hand with an odd gleam in her eyes, and an amused, slightly excited smile about her lips.

"How do you, do?" she said, with rather ostentatiously suppressed wonder. "Please sit down, but not in that chair. It is not quite reliable. This one, I think is better. How are--how are _you?_"

The slight emphasis she placed on the last word was airy and regardless. Janet would have preferred to have been met by one of the old affectations; she would have felt herself taken more seriously.

"It's very late to come, and I interrupt you," she said awkwardly, glancing at the ma.n.u.script.

"Not at all. I am very happy--"

"But of course I had a special reason for coming. It is serious enough, I think, to justify me."

"What can it be!"

"_Don't_, Elfrida," Janet cried pa.s.sionately. "Listen to me. I have come to try to make things right again between us--to ask you to forgive me for speaking as I--as I did about your writing that day. I am sorry--I am, indeed."

"I don't quite understand. You ask me to _forgive_ you--but what question is there of forgiveness? You had a perfect right to your opinion, and I was glad to have it at last from you, frankly."

"But it offended you, Elfrida. It is what is accountable for the--the rupture between us."

"Perhaps. But not because it hurt my feelings," Elfrida returned scornfully, "in the ordinary sense. It offended me truly; but in quite another way. In what you said you put me on a different plane from yourself in the matter of artistic execution. Very well. I am content to stay there--in your opinion. But why this talk of forgiveness?

Neither of us can alter anything. Only," Elfrida breathed quickly, "be sure that I will not be accepted by you upon those terms."

"That, wasn't what I meant in the least."

"What else could you have meant? And more than that,"

Elfrida went on rapidly--her phrases had the patness of formed conclusions--"what you said betrayed a totally different conception of art, as it expresses itself in the nudity of things, from the one I supposed you to hold. And, if you will pardon me for saying so, a much lower one. It seems to me that we cannot hold together there--that our aims and creeds are different, and that we have been comrades under false pretences. Perhaps we are both to blame for that; but we cannot change it, or the fact that we have found it out."

Janet bit her lip. The "nudity of things" brought her an instant's impulse toward hysteria--it was so characteristic a touch of candid exaggeration. But her need for reflection helped her to control it. Elfrida had taken a different ground from the one she expected--it was less simple, and a mere apology, however sincere, would not meet it.

But there was one thing more which she could say, and with an effort she said it.

"Elfrida, suppose that, even as an expression of opinion--putting it aside as an expression of feeling toward you--what I said that day was not quite sincere.

Suppose that I was not quite mistress of myself--I would rather not tell you why--"

"Is that true?" asked Elfrida directly.

"Yes, it is true. For the moment I wanted more than anything else in the world to break with you. I took the surest means."

The other girl regarded Janet steadfastly. "But if it is only a question of the _degree_ of your sincerity," she persisted, "I cannot see that the situation alters much."

"I was not altogether responsible, believe me, Elfrida.

I don't remember now what I said, but--but I am afraid it must have taken all its color from my feeling."

"Of course." Elfrida hesitated, and her tone showed her touched. "I can understand that what I told you about --about Mr. Cardiff must have been a shock. For the moment I became an animal, and turned upon you--upon you who had been to me the very soul of kindness. I have hated myself for it--you may be sure of that."

Janet Cardiff had a moment's inward struggle, and yielded.

She would let Elfrida believe it had been that. After all it was partly true, and her lips refused absolutely to say the rest.

"Yes, it must have hurt you--more, perhaps, than I can guess." Elfrida's eyes grew wet and her voice shook. "But I can't understand your retaliating that way, if you didn't believe what you said. And if you believed it, what more is there to say?"

Janet felt herself possessed by an intense sensation of playing for stakes, unusual, exciting, and of some personal importance. She did not pause to regard her att.i.tude from any other point of view; she succ.u.mbed at once, not without enjoyment, to the necessity for diplomacy. Under its rush of suggestions her conscience was only vaguely restive. To-morrow it would a.s.sert itself; unconsciously she put off paying attention to it until then. Elfrida must come back to her. For the moment the need was to choose her plea.

"It seems to me," she said slowly, "that there is something between us which is indestructible, Frida. We didn't make it, and we can't unmake it. For my part, I think it is worth our preserving, but I don't believe we could lose it if we tried. You may put me away from you for any reason that seems good to you, as far as you like, but so long as we both live there will be that something, recognized or unrecognized. All we can do arbitrarily is to make it a joy or a pain of it. Haven't you felt that?"

The other girl looked at her uncertainly. "I have felt it sometimes," she said, "but now it seems to me that I can never be sure that there is not some qualification in it--some hidden flaw."

"Don't you think it's worth making the best of? Can't we make up our minds to have a little charity for the flaws?"

Elfrida shook her head. "I don't think I'm capable of a friendship that demands charity," she said.

"And yet, whether we close each other's lips or not, we will always have things to say, the one to the other, in this world. Is it to be dumbness between us?"

There was a moment's silence in the room--a crucial moment, it seemed to both of them. Elfrida sat against the table with her elbows among its litter of paged ma.n.u.script, her face hidden in her hands. Janet rose and took a step or two toward her. Then she paused, and looked at the little bronze image on the table instead. Elfrida was suddenly shaken by deep, indrawn, silent sobs.

"It is finished, then," Janet said softly; "we are to separate for always, Buddha, she and I. She will not know any more of me nor I of her--it will be, so far as we can make it, like the grave. You must belong to a strange world, Buddha, always to smile!" She spoke evenly quietly, with, restraint, and still she did not look at the convulsively silent figure in the chair. "But I am glad you will always keep that face for her, Buddha. I hope the world will, too, our world that is sometimes more bitter than you can understand. And I say good-by to you, for to her I cannot say it." And she turned to go.

Elfrida stumbled to her feet and hurried to the door.

"No!" she said, holding it fast. "No! You must not go that way--I owe you too much, after all. We will--we will make the best of it."

"Not on that ground," Janet answered gravely. "Neither your friendship nor mine is purchasable, I hope."

"No, no! That was bad. On any ground you like. Only stay a little--let us find ourselves again!"

Elfrida forced a smile into what she said, and Janet let herself be drawn back to a chair.

It was nearly midnight when she found herself again in her cab, driving through the empty lamplit Strand toward Kensington. She had prevailed, and now she had to scrutinize her methods. That necessity urged itself beyond her power to turn away from it, and left her sick at heart. She had prevailed--Elfrida, she believed, was hers again.

They had talked as candidly as might be of her father.

Elfrida had promised nothing, but she would, bring matters to an end, Janet knew she would, in a day or two, when she had had time to think how intolerable the situation would be if she didn't. Janet remembered with wonder, however, how little Elfrida seemed to realize that it need make any difference between them compared with other things, and what a trivial concession she thought it beside the restoration of the privileges of her friendship.

The girl asked herself drearily how it would be possible that she should ever forget the frank cynical surprise with which Elfrida had received her entreaty, based on the fact of her father's unrest and the wretchedness of his false hopes--"You have your success; does it really matter--so very much?"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"To-day, remember. You promised that I should see it to-day," Elfrida reminded Kendal, dropping instantly into the pose they had jointly decided on. "I know I'm late, but you will not punish me by another postponement, will you?"

Kendal looked sternly at his watch. "A good twenty minutes, mademoiselle," he returned aggrievedly. "It would be only justice--poetic justice--to say no. But I think you may, if we get on to-day."