The Dull Miss Archinard Part 13

"No one sees much of Hilda, not even her own mother," said Mrs.

Archinard from her sofa. "It is terrible indeed to feel oneself a c.u.mberer of the earth, unable to suffice to oneself, far less to others.

With my failing eyesight I simply cannot read by lamplight, and there are three or four hours at this season when I am absolutely without resources. Yet even those hours Hilda cannot give me."

Hilda now looked so painfully embarra.s.sed that Odd was perforce obliged, for very pity's sake, to avert his eyes from her face.

"Ah, Mr. Odd," Mrs. Archinard went on, "you do not know what that is. To lie in the gray dusk and watch one's own gray, gray thoughts."

"It must be very unpleasant," Odd owned unwillingly, feeling that his character of old friend was being rather imposed upon; this degree of intimacy was certainly unwarranted.

"Now, mamma, you usually have friends every afternoon," said Katherine, in her pleasant, even voice. She was preparing some fresh tea. "You make me as well as Hilda feel a culprit."

"No, my dear." Mrs. Archinard's deep sense of acc.u.mulated injury evidently got quite the better of her manners. "No, my dear, you never _could_ read aloud and never _did_. I never asked it of you. You are really occupied as a girl should be. At all events you fulfil your social duties. You see that people come to see me. As I cannot go out, as Hilda will not, I really don't know what I should do were it not for you. And, as it is, no one came this afternoon until Mr. Odd made his welcome appearance."

"But Mr. Odd came at five, and you always read till then." Katherine's voice was gently playful. Hilda had not said one word, and her expression seemed now absolutely dogged.

"At this season, Katherine! You forget that it is night by four! And how a girl with any regard for her mother's wishes can walk about the streets of Paris alone after that hour it pa.s.ses my comprehension to understand."

"Do you care about bicycling, Mr. Odd?" The change was abrupt but welcome. "Because I am going to the Bois to-morrow morning, and alone for once." Katherine smiled at him over the kettle which she was lifting. "Papa has deserted me."

"I should enjoy it immensely. And you," he looked at Hilda, "won't you come?"

"Oh, I can't," said Hilda, with a troubled look. "Thanks so much."

"Oh no, Hilda can't," laughed Mrs. Archinard.

"And where is the Captain off to?" queried Peter hastily. He felt that he would like to shake Mrs. Archinard. Hilda's stubborn silence might certainly be irritating, and Odd had sympathy for parental claims and wishes, especially concerning the advisability of a beautiful girl walking in the streets at night unescorted, sacrificed to youthful conceit; but Mrs. Archinard's personality certainly weakened all claims, and her taste was as certainly atrocious.

"Papa," said Katherine, pouring out the tea, "is going to-morrow morning to the Riviera. Lucky papa!" Odd thought with some amus.e.m.e.nt of the 120 that const.i.tuted papa's "luck." "I have only been once to Monte Carlo, and I won such a lot. Only imagine how forty pounds turned my head. I revelled in hats and gloves for a whole year. Then we go to-morrow, Mr.

Odd? I have my own bicycle. I have kept it near the Porte Dauphine, and you can hire a very nice one at the same place."

"May I call for you here at ten, then? Will that suit you?"

"Very well." Odd watched Katherine as she carried the tea and cake to her sister. Hilda gave a little start.

"O Katherine, how good of you! I didn't realize what you were doing."

"It is you who are good, my pet," said Katherine in a low, gentle voice.

Peter thought it a pretty little scene.

"A great deal of lat.i.tude must be granted to the young person who invented that teapot," he said to Hilda. "One must work hard to do anything in art, mustn't one? A most lovely teapot, Hilda."

"I am glad you like it." Hilda smiled her thanks, but her eyes still expressed that distance and reserve that showed no consciousness of the past, no intention of admitting it as a link to the present. She did not seem exactly shy, but her whole manner was pa.s.sive--negative. Katherine probably thought that Mr. Odd had by this time realized the futility of an attempt to draw out the unresponsive artist, for she seated herself between Odd and the sofa, thus protecting Hilda from Mrs. Archinard's severities and Odd from the ineffectual necessity for talking to Hilda.

Odd thought that were Katherine and Mrs. Archinard not there he might have "come at" Hilda, but the sense of ease Katherine brought with her was undeniable. She was charmingly mistress of herself, made him talk, appealed prettily to her mother, who even gave more than one melancholy laugh, and, with a tactful give and take, yet kept the reins of conversation well within her own hands.

Odd found her a nice girl, but the undercurrent of his thought dwelt on Hilda, and at every gayety of Katherine's, his eyes sought her sister's face; Hilda's eyes were always fixed on Katherine, and she smiled a certain dumbly admiring smile. As he sat near her, he could see that the little black dress was very shabby. He could not have a.s.sociated Hilda with real untidiness, and indeed the dress with its white linen cuffs and collar, its inevitable grace of severely simple outline, was neat to an almost painful degree. Hilda's artistic proclivities perhaps showed themselves in shiny seams and careful darns and patches.

When he rose to go he took her hands again; he hoped that his persistency did not make him appear rather foolish.

"I am sorry you won't come to-morrow. May I hope for another day?"

"I can't come to-morrow"--there was a touch of self-defence in Hilda's smile--"but perhaps some other day. I should love to," she finished rather abruptly.

"But you will be different--I will be different. We will both be changed," repeated itself in Odd's mind as he walked down the Rue Pierre Charron. Poor little child-voice! how sadly it sounded. How true had been the prophecy.

CHAPTER III

Peter Odd, at this epoch of his life, felt that he was resting on his oars and drifting. He had spent his life in strenuous rowing. He had seen much, thought much, done much; yet he had made for no goal, and had won no race; how should he, when he had not yet made up his mind that racing for anything was worth while?

Perhaps the two years in Parliament had most closely savored of consciously applied contest, and in that contest Odd considered himself beaten, and its efforts as though they had never been. Every one had told him that to bring the student's ideals into the political arena was to insure defeat; one's friends would consider a carefully discriminating honesty and broad-mindedness mere disloyal luke-warmness, foolish hair-splitting feebleness; one's enemies would rejoice and triumph in the impartiality of an opponent. Certainly he had been defeated, and he could not see that his example had in any way been effectual. At all events, he had held to the ideals.

His fine critical taste found even his own books but crude and partial expressions of still groping thoughts. His unexpressed intention, good indeed, if one might so call its indefiniteness, had been to make the world better for having lived in it; better, or at least wiser. But he doubted the saving power of his own sceptical utterances; the world could not be saved by the balancings of a mind that saw the tolerant point of view of every question, a mind itself so una.s.sured of results.

A strong dash of fanaticism is necessary for success, and Odd had not the slightest flavor of fanaticism. Perhaps he had given a little pleasure in his more purely literary studies, and Peter thought that he would stick to them in the future, but he had put the future away from him just now. He had only returned from the great pa.s.sivity of the Orient a few weeks ago, and its example seemed to denote drifting as the supreme wisdom. No effort, no desire; a peaceful receptivity, a peaceful acceptance of the smiles or buffets of fate; that was Odd's ideal--for the present. He was a little sick of everything. The Occidental's energy for combat was lulled within him, and the Occidental's individualistic tendencies seemed to stretch themselves in a long yawn expressive of an amused and tolerant observation free from striving; and, for an Occidental, this mood is dangerous. Odd also did a good deal of listening to very modern and very clever French talk. He knew many clever Frenchmen. He did not agree with all of them, but, as he was not sure of his own grounds for disagreement, he held his peace and listened smilingly. Certainly the exclusively artistic standpoint was a most comforting and absorbing plaything to fall back on.

Peter's friends talked of the amusing and touching spectacle of the universe. The representation of each man's illusion on the subject, and the manner of that representation, were never-ceasing sources of interest. Peter also read a little at the Bibliotheque Nationale, paid a few calls, dined out pretty constantly, and bicycled a great deal in the mornings with Katherine Archinard. She understood things well, and her taste was as sure and as delicate as even Odd could ask. Katherine had absorbed a great deal of culture during her wanderings, and it would have taken a long time for any one to find out that it was of a rather second-hand quality, and sought more for attainment than for enjoyment.

Katherine talked with clever people and read clever reviews, and being clever herself, with a very acute critical taste, she knew with the utmost refinement of perception just what to like and just what to dislike; and as she tolerated only the very best, her liking gave value.

Yet _au fond_ Katherine did not really care even for the very very best.

Her appreciation was negative. She excelled in a finely smiling, superior scorn, and could pick flaws in almost any one's enjoyment, if she chose to do so. Katherine, however, was kind-hearted and tactful, and did not arouse dislike by displaying her cleverness except to people who would like it. Enthusiasm was ba.n.a.l, and Katherine was not often required to feign where she did not feel it; her very rigor and exclusiveness of taste implied an appreciation too high for expression; but Katherine had no enthusiasm.

Her rebellious and iconoclastic young energy amused Odd. He thought her rather pathetic in a way. There was a look of daring and revolt in her eye that pleased his lazy spirit. Meanwhile Hilda troubled him.

Would she never bicycle? Katherine, wheeling lightly erect beside him, gave the little shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders characteristic of her. She evidently found no fault with Hilda. Others might do so--the shrug implied that, implied as well that Katherine herself perhaps owned that her sister's impracticable unreason gave grounds for fault-finding--but Hilda was near her heart.

When could he see her? That, too, seemed wrapped in the general cloud of vagueness, unaccountableness that surrounded Hilda. Odd called twice in the evening; once to be received by Katherine alone, Hilda was already in _deshabille_ it seemed, and once to find not even Katherine; she was dining out, and Miss Hilda in bed. In bed at nine! "Was she ill?" he asked of Taylor. Wilson had evidently accompanied the Captain.

"No wonder if she were, sir," Taylor had replied, with a touch of the grievance in her tone that Hilda always seemed to arouse in those about her; "but no, she's only that tired!" and Odd departed with a deepened sense of Hilda's wilful immolation. Katherine brought him home to lunch on several occasions after the bicycling, but Hilda was never there. She lunched at her studio.

On a third call Hilda appeared, but only as he was on the point of going. She wore the same black dress, and the same look of unnatural pallor.

"Hilda," said Odd, for amid these unfamiliar conditions he still used the familiar appellation, "I must see the cause of all this."

"Of what?" Her smile was certainly the sweet smile he remembered.

"Of this unearthly devotion; these white cheeks."

"Hilda is naturally pale," put in Mrs Archinard; "she has my skin. But, of course, now she is a ghost."

"Well, I want to see the haunted studio. I want to see the masterpieces." Odd spoke with a touch of gentle irony that did not seem to offend Hilda.

"You will see nothing either uncanny or unusual."

"Well, at all events, when can I come to see you in your studio?" The vague look crossed Hilda's smile.

"You see--I work very hard;" she hesitated, seemed even to cast a beseeching glance at Katherine, standing near. Katherine was watching her.