As it was, he made his studies for his own pleasure, and if the people he met ministered to him further than they knew, nothing came of it more than that.

What he liked best to achieve was an intimate knowledge of his fellow-beings from an outside point of view.

Where intimate knowledge came of intimate association he found that it usually compromised his independence of criticism, which in the Quartier Latin was a serious matter.

So he rather cold-bloodedly aimed at keeping his own personality independent of his observation of other people's, and as a rule he succeeded.
That Paris had neither made Kendal nor marred him may be gathered for the first part from his contentment to go back to paint in his native land, for the second from the fact that he had a relation with Elfrida Bell which at no point verged toward the sentimental.

He would have found it difficult to explain in which direction it did verge--in fact, he would have been very much surprised to know that he sustained any relation at all toward Miss Bell important enough to repay examination.