critic saying, “It should be on every drawing-room table,” and she almost laughed outright.  She thought of a number of other little things that might be said, of the same nature and equally amusing.  Her anger flamed up again at the thought of how Janet had concealed this ambition from her, had made her, in a way, the victim of it.  It was not fair—­not fair!  She could have prepared herself against it; she might have got her book ready sooner, and its triumphant editions might at least have come out side by side with Janet’s.  She was just beginning to feel that they were neck and neck, in a way, and now Janet had shot so far ahead, in a night, in a paragraph.  She could never, never catch up!  And from under her closed eyelids two hot tears started and ran over her cold cheeks.  It came upon her suddenly that she was sick with jealousy, not envy, but pure anger at being distanced, and she tried to attack herself about it.  With a strong effort she heaped opprobrium and shame upon herself, denounced herself, tried to hate herself.  But she felt that it was all a kind of dumb-show, and that under it nothing could change the person she was or the real feeling she had about this—­nothing except being first.  Ah! then she could be generous and loyal and disinterested; then she could be really a nice person to know, she derided herself.  And as her foot touched the little hand-bag on the floor she took a kind of sullen courage, which deserted her when she folded the paper on her lap and was struck again in the face with Lash and Black’s advertisement on the outside page announcing Janet’s novel in letters that looked half a foot long.  Then she resigned herself to her wretchedness till the train sped into the glory of Paddington.

“I hope you’re not bad, miss,” remarked the small boy’s mother as they pushed toward the door together; “them Banburys don’t agree with everybody.”

The effect upon Elfrida was hysterical.  She controlled herself just long enough to answer with decent gravity, and escaped upon the platform to burst into a silent quivering paroxysm of laughter that brought her overcharged feeling delicious relief, and produced an answering smile on the face of a large, good-looking policeman.  Her laugh rested her, calmed her, and restored something of her moral tone.  She was at least able to resist the temptation of asking the boy at the book-stall where she bought “John Camberwell” whether the volume was selling rapidly or not.  Buddha looked on askance while she read it, all night long and well into the morning.  She reached the last page and flung down the book in pure physical exhaustion, with the framework of half a dozen reviews in her mind.  When she awoke, at two in the afternoon, she decided that she must have another day or two of solitude; she would not let the Cardiffs know she had returned quite yet.