Chapter 21

John Kendal had turned the key upon his dusty work-room in Bryanston Street among the first of those who, according to the papers, depopulated London in July. He had an old engagement to keep, which took him, with Carew of the Dial and Limley of the Civil Service, to explore and fish in the Norwegian fjords. The project matured suddenly, and he left town without seeing anybody—a necessity which disturbed him a number of times on the voyage. He wrote a hasty line to Janet, returning a borrowed book, and sent a trivial message to Elfrida, whom he knew to be spending a few days in Kensington Square at the time. Janet delivered it with an intensity of quiet pleasure which she showed extraordinary skill in concealing. "May I ask you to say to Miss Bell—" seemed to her to be eloquent of many things. She looked at Elfrida with inquiry, in spite of herself, when she gave the message, but Elfrida received it with a nod and a smile of perfect indifference. "It is because she does not care—does not care an iota," Janet told herself; and all that day it seemed to her that Elfrida's personality was inexhaustibly delightful.

Afterward, however, one or two letters found their way into the sandal-wood box, bearing the Norwegian postmark. They came seldomer than Elfrida expected. "Enfin!" she said when the first arrived, and she felt her pulse beat a little faster as she opened it. She read it eagerly, with serious lips, thinking how fine he was, and with what exquisite force he brought himself to her as he wrote. "I must be a very exceptional person," she said in her reverie afterward, "to have such things written to me. I must—I must!" Then as she put the letter away she reflected that she couldn't amuse herself with Kendal without treachery to their artistic relationship; there would be somehow an outrage in it. And she would not amuse herself with him; she would sacrifice that, and be quite frank and simple always. So that when it came to pass—here Elfrida retired into a lower depth of consciousness—there would be only a little pity and a little pain, and no reproach or regret. There was a delay in the arrival of the next letter which Elfrida felt to be unaccountable, a delay of nearly three weeks. She took it with an odd rush of feeling from the hand of the housemaid who brought it up, and locked herself in alone with it.

A few days later, driving through Bryanston Street in a hansom, Elfrida saw the windows of Kendal's studio wide open. She leaned forward to realize it with a little tumult of excitement at the possibility it indicated, half turned to bid the cabman stop, and rolled on undecided. Presently she spoke to him.

"Please go back to number sixty-three," she said, "I want to get out there," and in a moment or two she was tripping lightly up the stairs.

Kendal, in his shirt-sleeves, with his back to the door, was bending over a palette that clung obstinately to the hardened round dabs of color he had left upon it six weeks before. He threw it down at Elfrida's step, and turned with a sudden light of pleasure in his face to see her framed in the doorway, looking at him with an odd shyness and silence. "You spirit!" he cried, "how did you know I had come back?" and he held her hand for just an appreciable instant, regarding her with simple delight. Her tinge of embarrassment became her sweetly, and the pleasure in his eyes made her almost instantly aware of this.

"I didn't know," she said, with a smile that shared his feeling. "I saw the windows open, and I thought the woman downstairs might be messing about here. They can do such incalculable damage when they really set their minds to it, these concierge people. So I—I came up to interfere. But it is you!" She looked at him with wide, happy eyes which sent the satisfaction she found in saying that to his inmost consciousness.

"That was extremely good of you," he said, and in spite of himself a certain emphasis crept into the commonplace. "I hardly realize myself that I am here. It might very well be the Skaagerak outside."

"Does the sea in Norway sound like that?" Elfrida asked, as the roar of London came across muffled from Piccadilly. She made a tittle theatrical movement of her head to listen, and Kendal's appreciation of it was so evident that she failed to notice exactly what he answered. "You have come back sooner than you intended?"

"By a month."

"Why!" she asked. Her eye made a soft bravado, but that was lost. He did not guess for a moment that she believed she knew why he had come.

"It was necessary," he answered, with remembered gravity, "in connection with the death of—of a relative, a granduncle of mine. The old fellow went off suddenly last week, and they telegraphed for me. I believe he wanted to see me, poor old chap, but of course it was too late."

"Oh!" said Elfrida gently, "that is very sad. Was it a granduncle you were—fond of?"

Kendal could not restrain a smile at her earnestness.

"I was, in a way. He was a good old fellow, and he lived to a great age—over ninety. He has left me all the duties and responsibilities of his estate," Kendal went on, with sudden gloom. "The Lord only knows what I'll do with them."

"That makes it sadder," said the girl.

"I should think it did," Kendal replied; and then their eyes met, and they laughed the healthy instinctive laugh of youth when it is asked to mourn fatuously, which is always a little cruel.

"I hope," said Elfrida quickly, "that he has not saddled you with a title. An estate is bad enough, but with a title added it would ruin you. You would never do any more good work, I am sure—sure. People would get at you—you would take to rearing farm creatures from a sense of duty—you might go into Parliament. Tell me there is no title!"