peter brought katherine the engagement ring a few days afterward. the drifting had ceased abruptly, and he felt the new sense of reality as most salutary. his personality and hers now filled the horizon; their relations demanded a healthy condensation of thoughts before expanded in wandering infinity, and he was thankful for the consciousness of definite duty and responsibility that made past years seem the refinement of egotism.
katherine looked almost roguishly gay that afternoon, and, even after the ring was exclaimed over, put on, and peter duly kissed for it, he felt that there was still an expression of happy knowingness not yet accounted for.
“the ring wasn’t a surprise, but you have one for me, katherine.”
katherine laughed out at his acuteness.
“the ring is lovely; clever, sensitive peter!”
“you have quite convinced me of your pleasure and my own good taste. what is the news?”
“well, peter, a delightful thing has happened, or is going to happen, rather. allan hope is coming to paris next week! peter, we may have a double wedding!”
“hilda has accepted him?”
“oh, we have not openly discussed it, you know. mamma got his letter this morning; very short. he hoped to see us all by wednesday. of course, mamma is charmed. hilda said nothing, and went off to the studio as usual; but hilda never does say anything if she is really feeling.”
“doesn’t she?” there was a musing quality in odd’s voice.
“i think the child is in love with him; i thought so from the first. wednesday! a week from to-morrow! oh, of course she will have him!” katherine said jubilantly.
“allan isn’t the man to fail in anything. he has a great deal of determination.”
“yes, he seems the very embodiment of success, doesn’t he? that is because he doesn’t try to see everything at once, like some people i know.” and katherine nodded her head laughingly at her fiancé. “intellectual epicureanism is fatal. allan hope has no unmanageable opinions. his party can always count on him. he is always there, unchanged—unless they change! he pins his faith to his party, and verily he shall have his reward! by mere force of honest mediocrity he will mount to the highest places!”
“venomous little katherine! what are you trying to insinuate?”
“why, that lord allan isn’t particularly clever, nor particularly anything, except particularly useful to men who can be clever for him. he is the bricks they build with.”
“allan is as honest as the day,” said peter, a little shortly.
“honest? who’s a denygin’ of it, pray? his honesty is part of his supreme utility. my simile holds good; he is a brick; a dishonest man is a mere tool, fit only to be cast away, once used.”
“how rhetorical we are!” said odd, smiling at her with a touch of friendly mockery.
“lord allan most devoutly believes that in his party lies the salvation of his country,” katherine pursued. “oh, i have talked to him!”
“you have, have you? poor chap!” ejaculated peter. “will you ever serve me up in this neatly dissected way, as a result of our confidential conversations?”
“willingly! but only to yourself. don’t be afraid, peter. i could dissect myself far more neatly, far more unpleasantly. i have a genius for the scalpel! and i have said nothing in the least derogatory to allan hope. he couldn’t disagree with his party, any more than a pious catholic could disagree with his church. it is a matter of faith, and of shutting the eyes.”
if hilda was so soon to pass to the supreme authority of an accepted lover, peter felt that for his own satisfaction he must make the most of the time left him, and solve the riddle of her occupations. that delicate sense of loyal reticence had held him from a hinted question to even katherine. if katherine were as ignorant as he, a question would arouse and imply suspicion. odd could suspect hilda of nothing worse than a silly disobedience founded on a foolish idea of her own artistic worth; a dull self-absorption, unsaved by a touch of humor. yet this very suspicion irritated odd profoundly; it seemed logical and yet impossible. he felt, in his very revulsion from it, a justification for a storming of her barriers.
that very evening, while katherine played schumann, the captain having gone out and mrs. archinard dozing on the sofa, he determined to have the truth if possible.
hilda stood behind her sister, listening. her tall slenderness looked well in anything that fell in long lines, even if made by the most petite of petite couturières, as the gray silk had been. the white fichu covered deficiencies of fit, and left free the exquisite line of her throat. her head, in its attitude of quiet listening, struck odd with the old sense of a beauty significant, not the lovely mask of emptiness.
“come and sit by me, hilda,” he said from his place on the sofa, “you can hear better at this distance.”
the quick turn of her head, her pretty look of willingness were charming, he thought.
“i like to see you in that dress,” he said, as she sat down beside him on the sofa, “there isn’t a whiff of paint or palette about it, except that, in it, you look like a picture, and a prettier one than even you could paint.”
“that is a very subtle insult!” hilda’s smile showed a most encouraging continuation of the pretty willingness.
“you see,” said odd, “you are not fair to your friends. you should paint fewer pictures, and be more constantly a picture in yourself.” she showed a little uneasy doubtfulness of look.
“i am afraid i don’t understand you. i am afraid i am stupid.”
“you should be a little more, and act a little less.”
“but to act is to be,” said hilda, with a sudden laugh. “we are not listening to schumann,” she added, a trifle maliciously. her face turned toward him in a soft shadow, a line of light just defining the cheek’s young oval, the lovely slimness of the throat affected odd with a really rapturously artistic appreciation. the shape of her small head, too, with its high curves of hair, was elegant with an intimate elegance peculiarly characteristic. an inner gentle dignity, a voluntary submission to exterior facts of existence resulting in a higher freedom, a more perfect self-possession, seemed to emanate from her; the very poise of her head suggested it, and so strong and so sudden was the suggestion that odd felt his curiosity intolerable, and those groping suspicions outrageously at sea.
“hilda,” he said abruptly, “i went to your studio the other afternoon. you were not there.”
her finger flashed warningly to her lip, and her glance towards her mother turned again to him, pained and beseeching.
“she—they can’t hear,” said odd, in a still lower voice.
“no, i was not there,” hilda repeated.
“and your father, your mother, katherine, think you are there when you are not. is that wise? don’t be angry with me, my dear hilda. you may have confidence in me. tell me, do you work somewhere else?”
“no. i am not angry. you startled me.” her look was indeed shaken, but sweet, touched even. “yes, i work somewhere else.”
“and you keep it a secret?”
she nodded.
“is it safe to keep secrets from your father and mother? or is it a secret kept for their sakes, hilda?” peter had made mental combinations, yet he suspected that in this one he was shooting rather far from the mark. no matter. hilda looked away, and seemed revolving some inner doubt. her hesitation surprised him; he was more surprised when, half unwillingly, she whispered, “yes,” still not looking at him.
“for their sakes,” repeated odd, his curiosity redoubled. “come, hilda, please tell me all about it. for their sakes?”
“in one way.” hilda spoke with the same air of half-unwilling confidence. but that she should confide, that she should not lock herself in stubborn silence, was much.
“and as you need not keep it for my sake, you may tell me,” he urged; “i may be able to help you.”
“oh! i don’t need help.” she turned a slightly challenging look upon him. “it is no hardship to me, no trouble to keep my little secret.”
“you are really unkind now, hilda.”
“no,”—her smile dwelt on him meditatively; “but i see no reason, no necessity for telling you. i have nothing naughty to confess!” and there was a touch of pride in her laugh.
“yes, you are unkind, for you turn my real anxiety to a jest.”
“you must not be anxious.” her eyes still rested on his, sweetly and gently.
“not when i see you surrounded by an atmosphere of carping criticism? when i see you coming home, night after night, worn out, too fatigued to speak? when i see that you are thin and white and sad?”
hilda drew herself up a little.
“oh, you are mistaken. but—how kind of you!” and again the irradiated look lit up her face.
“does that surprise you? hilda, katherine is in the dark about this too?”
“katherine knows; but please don’t ask her about it.”
“she doesn’t approve, then?”
“not exactly. besides, it might hurt her. please don’t ask me either. it really isn’t worth any mystery, and yet i must keep it a secret.”
odd was silent for a moment, a baffling sense of pitfalls and hiding-places upon him.
“but katherine ought to tell me,” he said at last, smiling.
“now you are pushing an unfair advantage. she thinks, probably, that it might hurt me. really, really,” she added urgently, “it isn’t so serious as all this seems to make it. the one serious thing is that it would hurt mamma, and that is why i make such a mountain out of my mole-hill. how mystery does magnify the tiniest things!”
“tell me, at least, where you go in the afternoon. i mean to what part of paris, to what street.”
“i go to several streets,” said hilda, smiling resignedly, “since you will be so curious.”
“where are you going to-morrow? give me just an idea of your prowess.”
“i go to-morrow to the rue d’assas.”
“near the luxembourg gardens?”
“yes.”
“i fancied you were walking yourself to death. and next day?”
“next day—the rue poulletier.”
“and where may that be? i fancied i knew my paris well.”
“it is a little street in the ?le st. louis. that is my favorite walk; home along the quays. i get the view of notre dame from the back, with all the flying buttresses, and the sunset beyond.”
“no wonder you are tired every night. you always walk?”
“usually. i have palamon with me, and they would not take him in a ‘bus. but from the ?le st. louis i often take the boat, and that is one of the treats of paris, i think, especially when the lights are lit. and on some days i go to the boulevard st. germain. there; now you shall ask me no more questions.”
odd made no further comment on the information he had received, but he resolved to be in the rue d’assas to-morrow. he did not intend to spy, but he did intend to walk home with hilda, and to make her understand that one of the brotherly offices he claimed was the right to protecting companionship. he revolved the r?le and its possibilities, as he lay back in the sofa watching hilda’s profile, and listening to schumann—a r?le that could, at all events, not last long, since allan hope arrived on wednesday. allan’s arrival would put an end to mysteries, to a need for brotherly protection. odd felt a certain curiosity on this point; indeed his attitude towards hilda was one of continual curiosity.
“so allan hope turns up wednesday week,” he said. “i shall be glad to see allan again.”
hilda’s silence might imply displeasure, but odd, in an attitude of manly laziness, one leg crossed over the other, one hand holding an ankle, thought a little gentle teasing quite allowable.
“will you go bicycling with him, unkind hilda?” he was not prepared for the startled look she turned on him.
“when i would not go with you?” her own vehemence seemed to embarrass her. “i hardly know how to bicycle at all,” she added lamely; “i would have gone with you if i had had time.” she looked away again, and then, taking a book from the table beside her—
“have you seen the last volume of décadent poetry? isn’t the binding nice?” odd felt himself justly, but rather severely, reproved; yet the gentle candor of her eyes was kind and soothing. katherine was playing the “chopin” from schumann’s “carnaval,” and peter, still holding his ankle and feeling rather like a naughty little boy forgiven, did not look at the fantastic volume she held, but at hilda herself. how blue the shadows were on the milky whiteness of her skin. odd’s eyes followed the thick, soft eddies of hair about her forehead. “aren’t the margins generous?” said hilda, turning the pages; “a mere trickle of print through the whiteness. some of the verses are really very pretty,” and she talked gayly, in her gentle way, as they went through the pages together.
