Then she was not mistaken--there was no chance of it. She tried to look at him with smiling, sympathetic intelligence, while her whole being quivered in anticipation of the blow that was coming. "Does it--does it concern another person?" she faltered. Kendal looked grave, and suffered an instant's compunction. "It does--it does indeed," he assured her. "It concerns Miss Elfrida Bell very much, in a way. Ah!" he went on impatiently, as she still sat silent, "why are you so unnaturally dull, Janet? I've finished that young woman's portrait, and it is more--satisfactory--than I ever in my life dared hope that any picture of mine would be." "Is that all?" The words escaped her in a quick, breath of relief. Her face was crimson, and the room seemed to swim. "_All!_" she heard Kendal say reproachfully. "Wait until you see it!" He experienced a shade of dejection, and there was an instant's silence between them, during which it seemed to Janet that the world was made over again. "That young woman!" She disloyally extracted the last suggestion of indifference out of the phrase, and found it the sweetest she had heard for months. But her brain whirled with the effort to decide what it could possibly mean. "I hope you have made it as beautiful as Elfrida is," she cried, with sharp self-reproof. "It must have been difficult to do that." "I have made it--what she is, I think," he answered, again with that sudden gravity. "It is so like my conception of her which I have never felt permitted to explain to you, that I feel as if I had stolen a march upon her. You must see it. When will you come? It goes in the day after to-morrow, but I can't wait for your opinion till it's hung." "I like your calm reliance upon the Committee," Janet laughed. "Suppose--" "I won't. It will go on the line," Kendal returned confidently. "I did nothing last year that I will permit to be compared with it. Will you come to-morrow?" "Impossible; I haven't two consecutive minutes to-morrow. We sail, you know, on Thursday." Kendal looked at her blankly. "You _sail?_ On Thursday?" "I am going to America, Lady Halifax and I. And Elizabeth, of course. We are to be away a year. Lady Halifax is buying tickets, I am collecting light literature, and Elizabeth is in pursuit of facts. Oh, we are deep in preparation. I thought you knew." "How could I possibly know?" "Elfrida didn't tell you, then?" "Did she know?" "Oh yes, ten days ago." "Odd that she didn't mention it."