Part 19 (1/2)

When Peter reached the Archinards' at half-past six that evening, he found the Captain and Mrs. Archinard alone in the drawing-room.

”Hilda not in yet?” he asked. His anxiety was so oppressive that he really could not forbear opening the old subject of grievance. Indeed, Odd fancied that in Mrs. Archinard's jeremiads there was an element of maternal solicitude. That Hilda should voluntarily immolate herself, have no pretty dresses, show herself nowhere--these facts perhaps moved Mrs. Archinard as much as her own neglected condition. At least, so Peter charitably hoped, feeling almost cruel as he deliberately broached the painful subject.

Mrs. Archinard now gave a dismal sigh, and the Captain shook his head impatiently as he put down _Le Temps_.

Odd went on quite doggedly--

”I didn't know that Hilda sold her pictures. I saw one of them at Mrs.

Pope's this afternoon.”

There could certainly be no indiscretion in the statement, for Mrs.

Pope herself had mentioned the fact of Hilda's success as well known.

Indeed, although the Captain's face showed an uneasy little change, Mrs.

Archinard's retained its undisturbed pathos.

”Yes,” she said, ”oh yes, Hilda has sold several things, I believe. She certainly needs the money. We are not _rich_ people, Peter.” Mrs.

Archinard had immediately adopted the affectionate intimacy of the Christian name. ”And we could hardly indulge Hilda in her artistic career if, to some extent, she did not help herself. I fancy that Hilda makes few demands on her papa's purse, and she must have many expenses.

Models are expensive things, I hear. I cannot say that I rejoice in her success. It seems to justify her obstinacy--makes her independent of our desires--our requests.”

Odd felt that there was a depth of selfish ignorance in these remarks.

The Captain's purse he knew by experience to be very nearly mythical, and the Captain's expression at this moment showed to Peter's sharpened apprehension an uncomfortable consciousness. Peter was convinced that, far from making demands on papa's purse, Hilda had replenished it, and further conjectures as to Hilda's egotistic one-sidedness began to shape themselves.

”And a very lucky girl she is to be able to make money so easily,” the Captain remarked, after a pause. ”By Jove! I wish that doing what pleased me most would give me a large income!” and the Captain, who certainly had made most conscientious efforts to fulfil his nature, and had, at least, tried to do what most pleased him all his life long, and with the utmost energy, looked resentfully at his narrow well-kept finger-nails.

”Does she work all day long at her studio?” Peter asked, conscious of a certain hesitation in his voice. The mystery of Hilda's afternoon absences would now be either solved or determined. It was determined--definitely. There was no shade of suspicion in Mrs.

Archinard's sighing, ”Dear me, yes!” or in the Captain's, ”From morning till night. Wears herself out.”

Hilda, all too evidently, had a secret.

”She ought to go to two studios, it would tire her less. Her own half the day, and a large atelier the other.” a.s.surance might as well be made doubly sure.

”Hilda left Julian's a long time ago. She has lived in her own place since then, really lived there. I haven't seen it; of course I could not attempt the stairs. Katherine tells me there are terrible stairs. Most shockingly unhealthy life she leads, I think, and most, _most_ inconsiderate.”

At the dinner-table Odd knew that Hilda had only him to thank for the thorough ”heckling” she received at the hands of both her parents. Her silence, with its element of vacant dulness, now admitted many interpretations. It hedged round a secret unknown to either father or mother. Unknown to Katherine? Her grave air of aloofness might imply as much, or might mean only a natural disapproval of the scolding process carried on before her lover, a loyalty to Hilda that would ask no question and make no reproach.

”Any one would tell you, Hilda, that it is positively not _decent_ in Paris for a young girl to be out alone after dusk,” said the Captain.

”Odd will tell you so; he was speaking about it only this evening. You must come home earlier; I insist upon it.”

Odd sat opposite to her, and Hilda raised her eyes and met his.

He smiled gravely at her, and shook his head.

”Naughty little Hilda!” but his voice expressed all the tender sympathy the very sight of her roused in him, and Hilda smiled back faintly.

CHAPTER III