Part 28 (2/2)

”My darling, it can't hurt--it doesn't, does it?”

”I'd like to say no, but it does, a little. Not so much as it would have done a while ago.”

”Are you going to accept Miss Bell's souvenir of her shattered ideal? That's the best thing in the letter --that's really supreme!” and Kendal, still broadly mirthful, stretched out his hand to take it again; but Janet drew it back.

”No,” she said, ”of course not; that was silly of her.

But a good deal of the rest is true, I'm afraid, Jack.”

”It's d.a.m.nably impudent,” he cried, with, sudden anger.

”I suppose she believes it herself, and that's the measure of its truth. How dare she dogmatize to you about the art of your work! _She_ to _you_!”

”Oh, it isn't that I care about. It doesn't matter to me, how little she thinks of my aims and my methods. I'm quite content to do my work with what artistic conception I've got without a.n.a.lyzing its quality--I'm thankful enough to have any. Besides, I'm not sure about the finality of her opinion--”

”You needn't be!” Kendal interrupted, with scorn.

”But what hurts--like a knife--is that part about my insincerity. I _haven't_ been honest with her--I haven't!

From the very beginning I've criticised her privately.

I've felt all sorts of reserves and qualifications about her, and concealed them--for the sake of--of I don't know what--the pleasure I had in knowing her, I suppose.”

”It seems to me pretty clear, from this precious communication, that she was quietly reciprocating,” Kendal said bluntly.

”That doesn't clear me in the least. Besides, when she had made up her mind she had the courage to tell me what she thought; there was some principle in that. I--I admire her for doing it, but I couldn't, myself.”

”Thank the Lord, no. And I wouldn't be too sure, if I were you, darling, about the unmixed heroism that dictates her letter. I dare say she fancied it was that, but--”

Janet's head leaped up from his shoulder. ”Now you are unjust to her,” she cried. ”You don't know Elfrida, Jack.

If you think her capable of a.s.suming a motive--”

”Well, do you know what I think?” said Kendal, with an irrelevant smile, glancing at the letter in her hand. ”I think she has kept a copy.”

Janet looked at him with reproachful eyes, which nevertheless had the relief of amus.e.m.e.nt in them. ”Don't you?” he insisted.

”I--dare say.”

”And she thoroughly enjoyed writing as she did. The phrases read as if she had rolled them under her tongue.

It was a _coup_, don't you see?--and the making of a _coup_, of any kind, at any expense, is the most refined joy which life affords that young woman.”

”There's sincerity in every line.”

”Oh, she means what she says. But she found an exquisite gratification in saying it which you cannot comprehend, dear. This letter is a flower of her egotism, as it were--she regards it with natural ecstasy, as an achievement.”

Janet shook her head. ”Oh no, no” she cried miserably.

”You can't realize the--the sort of thing there was between us, dear, and how it should have been sacred to me beyond all tampering and cavilling, or it should not have been at all. It isn't that I didn't know all the time that I was disloyal to her, while she thought I was sincerely her friend. I did! And now she has found me out, and it serves me perfectly right--perfectly.”

Kendal reflected for a moment, and then he brought comfort to her from his last resource.

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