Lucien was always non-committal for the first few months. Everybody said so, and it was natural enough. Elfrida set her teeth against his silences, his casual looks and ambiguous encouragements for a length of time which did infinite credit to her determination. She felt herself capable of an eternity of pain; she was proudly conscious of a willingness to oppose herself to innumerable discouragements--to back her talent, as it were, against all odds. That was historic, dignified, to be expected! But in the inmost privacy of her soul she had conceived the character of the obstacles she was prepared to face, and the list resolutely excluded any idea that it might not be worth while. Indifference and contempt cut at the very roots of her pledges to herself. As she sat listening on this afternoon to the vivid terms of Lucien's disapproval of what the Swede had done, she had a sharp consciousness of this severance. She had nothing to say to any one in the general babble of the anteroom, and nobody notified her white face and resolute eyes particularly--the Americans were always so pale and so _exalte_. Nadie kept away from her. Elfrida had to cross the room and bring her, with a little touch of angry assertion upon the arm, from the middle of the group she had drawn around her, on purpose, as her friend knew. "I want you to dine with me--really _dine_," she said, and her voice was both eager and repressed. "We win go to Babaudin's--one gets an excellent haricot there--and you shall have that little white cheese that you love. Come! I want you particularly. I will even make him bring champagne--anything." Nadie gave her a quick look and made a little theatrical gesture of delight. "_Quell bonheur!_" she cried for the benefit of the others; and then in a lower tone: "But not Babaudins, petite. Andre will not permit Babaudin's; he says it is not _convenable_," and she threw up her eyes with mock resignation. "Say Papaud's. They keep their feet off the table at Papaud's--there are fewer of those _betes des Anglais_." "Papaud's is cheaper," Elfrida returned darkly. "The few Englishmen who dine at Babaudin's behave perfectly well. I will not be insulted about the cost. I'll be answerable to Andre. You don't lie as a general thing, and why now? I can afford it, truly. You need not be distressed."