Before he had been back in Norway a week Kendal felt his perturbation with regard to Elfrida remarkably quieted and soothed.

It seemed to him, in the long hours while he fished and painted, that in the progress of the little drama, from its opening act at Lady Halifax's to its final scene at the studio, he had arrived at something solid and tangible as the basis of his relation toward the girl.

It had precipitated in him a power of comprehending her and of criticising her which he had possessed before only, as it were, in solution.

Whatever once held him from stating to himself the results of his study of her had vanished, leaving him no name by which to call it.

He found that he could smile at her whimsicalities, and reflect upon her odd development, and regret her devouring egotism, without the vision of her making dumb his voluble thought; and he no longer regretted the incident that gave him his freedom.