The Dull Miss Archinard Part 32

"Do sit down," he said in a low voice; "you look very, very badly."

"Have you read Meredith's last?" asked Mrs. Archinard from the sofa.

"Hilda is reading it to me in the evenings. We began it, ah! long, long ago. I have sympathy for Meredith, an _intimite!_ It is so I feel, see things--super-subtly. Strange how coa.r.s.ely objective some minds are! Did you order the oysters for my dinner, Hilda, and the ice from Gage's--_pistache?_ I hope you impressed _pistache_. You will dine with Hilda, of course, Peter; I have my dinner here; I am not yet strong enough to sit through a meal. And then you must talk to me about Meredith. I always find you most suggestive--such new lights on old things. And Verhaeren, too; do you care for Verhaeren? Morbid? Yes, perhaps, but that is a truism--not like you, Peter. '_Les apparus dans mes chemins_,' poor, modern, broken, bleeding soul! We must talk of Verhaeren. Just now I feel very sleepy. You will excuse me if I simply _sans gene_ turn over and take a nap? I can often sleep at this hour.

Hilda, show Peter the Burne-Jones Chaucer over there. Hilda doesn't find him limpid, sweet, healthy enough for Chaucer; but _nous sommes tous les enfants malades_ nowadays. There is a beauty, you know, in that. Talk it over."

Hilda and Peter sat down obediently side by side on the distant little _canape_ before the Burne-Jones Chaucer. They went over the pages, not paying much attention to the woodcuts, but looking down favorite pa.s.sages together. The description of "my swete" in "The Book of the d.u.c.h.ess," the complaint of poor Troilus, and, once more, Arcite's death.

The quiet room was very quiet, and they looked up from the pages now and then to smile, perhaps a little sadly, at one another. When the dinner was announced Hilda said, as they went into the dining-room--

"If your courage fails you, just say so frankly. I have very childish tastes and childish fare."

Indeed, half a cold chicken and a dish of rice const.i.tuted the repast. A bottle of claret stood by Odd's place, and there was a white jar filled with b.u.t.tercups on the table; but even Rosalie seemed depressed by the air of meagreness, and gave them a rather _effare_ glance as they sat down. Odd suspected that the cold chicken was in his honor. He had come to the conclusion that Hilda was capable of dining off rice alone.

"Delightful!" he said. The chicken and rice were indeed very good, but Hilda saw that he ate very little.

"I make no further apologies," she said, smiling at him over the b.u.t.tercups; "your hunger be upon your own head."

"I am not hungry, dear."

Hilda had to do most of the talking, but they were both rather silent.

It was a happy silence to Hilda, full of a loving trust.

When he spoke, it was in a voice of the same gentle fatigue that his eyes showed; but as the eyes rested upon her she felt that the past and the present had surely joined hands.

CHAPTER X

Odd went in the same half-dreamy condition through the morning of the next day. He walked and read, but where he walked and what he read he could hardly have told.

He was to fetch Hilda from the Rue d'a.s.sas and go home to tea and dinner with her. His love for Hilda had now reached such solemn heights that his late flight seemed degrading.

So loving her, he could not be base.

The Rue d'a.s.sas was dreary in a fine drizzling rain. In the Luxembourg Gardens the first young green made a mist upon the trees.

It was only half-past four when Odd reached his accustomed post, but hardly had he taken a turn up and down the street when he saw Hilda come quickly from the Lebon abode. She was fully half-an-hour early, but Odd had merely time to note the fact before seeing in a flash that Hilda was in trouble. She looked, she almost ran toward him; and he met her half-way with outstretched hands.

"O Peter!" It was the first time she had used his name, and Odd's heart leaped as her hands caught his with a sort of desperate relief. "Come, come," she said, taking his arm. "Let us go quickly." Peter's heart after its leap began to thump fast. The white distress of her face gave him a dizzy shock of anger. What, who had distressed her? He asked the question as they crossed the road and entered the gardens. Tears now streamed down her face.

He had only once before seen Hilda weep, and as she hung shaken with sobs on his arm, the past child, the present Hilda merged into one; his one, his only love.

"Let us walk here, dear," he said; "you will be quieter."

The little path down which they turned was empty, and the fine rain enveloped but hardly wet them. They came to a bench under a tree, circled by an unwet area of sanded path. Odd led the weeping girl to it and they sat down. She still held his arm tightly.

"Now, what is it?"

"O Peter! I can hardly tell you! The brother, the horrible brother."

"Yes?" Peter felt the acc.u.mulations of rage that had been gathering for months hurrying forward to spring upon, to pulverize "the brother."

"He made love to me, said awful things!" Odd whitened to the lips.

"Tell me all you can."

"I wish I were dead!" sobbed Hilda, "I am so unhappy."

Peter did not trust himself to speak; he took her hand and held it to his lips.

"Yes; you care," said Hilda. She drew herself up and wiped her eyes. "I never thought he would be unpleasant. At times I fancied that he came a good deal into the studio where we worked and, behind his sister's back, looked silly. But he never really annoyed me. I thought myself unkindly suspicious. To-day Mademoiselle Lebon was called away and he came in. I went on painting. I did not dream--! When, suddenly he put his arms around me--and tried to kiss me!" Hilda gave an hysterical laugh. "Do you know, I had my palette on my hand, and I gave him a great blow with it! You should have seen his head! Oh, to think that I can find that funny now! His ear was covered with cobalt!" Hilda sobbed again, even while she laughed. "He was very angry and horrible. I said I would call his mother and sister if he did not leave me at once, and then--and then"--Hilda dropped her face into her hands--"he jeered at me; 'You mustn't play the prude,' he said."

Odd clenched his teeth.

"Hilda, dear," he said, in a voice cold to severity, "you must go home; I will put you in a cab. I will come to you as soon as I have punished that dog."

"Peter, don't! I beg of you to come _with_ me. You can do nothing. I must bury it, forget it." She had risen as he rose.

"Yes, bury it, forget it, Hilda. He, at least, shall never forget it."

Odd's fixed look as he led her into the street forced her to helpless silence.

"Peter, _please!_" she breathed, clasping her hands together and gazing at him as he hailed a _fiacre_.

"I will come to you soon. Good-bye."

And so Hilda was driven away.

It was past six when Odd reached the Rue Pierre Charron. Rosalie opened the door. Madame was in bed, she had had a bad day. Mademoiselle? she is lying down. She seemed ill. "_Et bien malade meme,_" and had said that she wanted no dinner.

"I should like to see her, if only for a moment; she will see me, I think," said Odd, walking into the drawing-room. Hilda entered almost immediately.

She had been crying, and the disorder of her hair suggested that she had cried with her head buried in a pillow, after the stifled feminine fashion. Her face was most pathetically disfigured by tears; the disfigurement almost charming of youth and loveliness; but she looked ill, too. The white cheek and the heavy eyelids, the unsteady sweetness of her lips showed that an extreme of physical exhaustion, as well as the tempest of grief, had swept her beyond all thought of self-control, beyond all wish for it. The afternoon's unpleasantness had been merely the last straw. The long endurance of the past month--the past months indeed--that had asked no pity, had been hardly conscious of a claim on pity--was transformed by her knowledge of near love and sympathy to a quivering sensibility. There was no reticence in her glance. He was the one she turned to, the one she trusted, the only one who understood and loved her in the whole world. Odd saw all this as the supreme confidence of a supremely reserved nature looked at him from her eyes.

He met her, stooping his head to hers, and, like a child, she put up her face to be kissed. When he had kissed her, he drew back. A sudden horrible weakness almost overcame him.

"Sit down, dear; no, I will walk about a bit. I have been playing the fiery _jeune premier_ to such an extent this afternoon that dramatic restlessness is in keeping."

Hilda smiled faintly, and her eyes followed him as he took a few turns up and down the room.

"You look so badly," he said, pausing before her; "how do you feel?"

"Not myself; or, perhaps, too much myself." Hilda tried to smile, stretching out her arms with a long shaken sigh. "I feel weak and foolish," she added, clasping her hands on her knee.

"It is all right, you know. He apologized profusely."

"How did you make him do that?"