But he had not gone so far.

His encounters with her were among his casual amusements; and if the result was an occasional dinner together or first night at the Folies Dramatiques, his only reflection was that a girl who could do such things and not feel compromised was rather pleasant to know, especially so clever a girl as Elfrida Bell.

He did not recognize in his own mind the mingled beginnings of approval and disapproval which end in a personal theory.

He was quite unaware, for instance, that he liked the contemptuous way in which she held at arm's length the moral laxities of the Quartier, and disliked the cool cynicism with which she flashed upon them there the sort of _jeu de mot_ that did not make him uncomfortable on the lips of a Frenchwoman.

He understood that she had nursed Nadie Palicsky through three weeks of diphtheria, during which time Monsieur Vambery took up his residence fourteen blocks away, without any special throb of enthusiasm; and he heard her quote Voltaire on the miracles--some of her ironies were a little old-fashioned -- without conscious disgust He was willing enough to meet her on the special plane she constituted for herself--not as a woman, but as an artist and a Bohemian.