The red-armed, white-capped proprietress of a _cremerie_ had effected their introduction by regretting to them jointly that she had only one helping of _compote de cerises_ left, and leaving them to arrange its consumption between them.
And it is safer than it would be in most similar cases to say that neither Elfrida's heavy-lidded beauty nor the smile that gave its instant attraction to Kendal's delicately eager face had much to do with the establishment of their acquaintance, such as it was.

Kendal, though his virtue was not of the heroic order, would have turned a contemptuous heel upon any imputation of the sort, and Elfrida would have stared it calmly out of countenance.
To Elfrida it soon became a definite and agreeable fact that she and the flower of Lucien's had things to say to each other--things of the rare temperamental sort that say themselves seldom.

Within a fortnight she had made a niche for him in that private place where she kept the images of those toward whom she sustained this peculiarly sacred obligation, and to meet him had become one of those pleasures which were in Sparta so notably unattainable.

I cannot say that considerations which from the temperamental point of view might be described as ulterior had never suggested themselves to Miss Bell.
She had thought of them, with a little smile, as a possible development on Kendal's part that might be amusing.

And then she had invariably checked the smile, and told herself that she would be sorry, very sorry.