“peter, she is a nice, a clever, a delightful girl,” said mary apswith.
mrs. apswith sat in a bright little salon overlooking the rue de la paix. for her holiday week of shopping peter’s hotel was not central enough, but peter himself was at her command from morning till night. he stood before her now, his back to the flaming logs in the fireplace, looking alternately down at his boots and up at his sister. peter’s face wore an amused but pleasant smile. katherine must certainly be nice, clever, and delightful, to have won mary, usually so slow in friendship.
“whether she is deep—deeply good, i mean—i don’t know; one can’t tell. but, at all events, she is sincere to the core.” mary had called on the archinards some days ago, and had seen katherine every day since then.
mary’s stateliness had not become buxom. the fine lines of her face had lost their former touch of heaviness. her gray hair—grayer than peter’s—and fresh skin gave her a look of merely perfected maturity. life had gone well with her; everybody said that; yet mary knew the sadness of life. she had lost two of her babies, and sorrow had softened, ripened her. the mary of ten years ago had not had that tender look in her eyes, those lines of sympathetic sensibility about the lips. her decisively friendly sentence was followed by a little sigh of disapprobation.
“as for hilda!”
“as for hilda?”
“i am disappointed, peter. yes; we went to her studio this morning; katherine took me there; katherine’s pride in her is pretty. yes; i suppose the pictures are very clever, if one likes those rather misty things. they look as though they were painted in the back drawing-room behind the sofa!” peter laughed. “i don’t pretend to know. i suppose au fond i am a philistine, with a craving for a story on the canvas. i don’t really appreciate whistler, so of course i haven’t a right to an opinion at all. but however clever they may be, i don’t think those pictures should fill her life to the exclusion of everything. the girl owes a duty to herself; i don’t speak of her duty to others. i have no patience with mrs. archinard, she is simply insufferable! katherine’s patience with her is admirable; but hilda is completely one-sided, and she is not great enough for that. but she will fancy herself great before long. lady—— told me that she was never seen with her sister—there is that cut off, you see—how natural that they should go out together! of course she will grow morbidly egotistic, people who never meet other people always do; they fancy themselves grandly misunderstood. so unhealthy, too! she looked like a ghost.”
“poor little hilda! she probably fancies an artist’s mission the highest. perhaps it is, mary.”
“not in a woman’s case”—mrs. apswith spoke with a vigorous decision that would have stamped her with ignominy in the eyes of the perhaps mythical new woman; “woman’s art is never serious enough for heroics.”
“perhaps it would be, if they would show a consistent heroism for it.” peter opposed mary for the sake of the argument, and for the sake of an old loyalty. au fond he agreed with her.
“a female palissy would revolutionize our ideas of woman’s art.”
“a pleasant creature she would be! tearing up the flooring and breaking the chairs for firewood! an abominable desecration of the housewifely instincts! i don’t know what allan hope will do about it,” mary pursued.
“ah! that is an accepted fact, then?”
“dear me, yes. lady mainwaring is very anxious for it. it shows what allan’s steady persistency has accomplished. the child hasn’t a penny, you know.”
“you think she’d have him?”
“of course she will have him. and a lucky girl she is for the chance! but, before the definite acceptance, she will, of course, lead him the usual dance; it’s quite the thing now among girls of that type. individuality; their own life to be lived, their art—in capitals—to be lived for; home, husband, children, degrading impediments. such tiresome rubbish! i am very sorry for poor allan.” peter studied his boots.
“allan probably accounts for that general absent-mindedness i observed in her; perhaps allan accounts for more than we give her credit for; this desperate devotion to her painting, her last struggle to hold to her ideal. really the theory that she is badly in love explains everything. poor child!”
“why poor, peter? allan hope is certainly the very nicest man i know, barring yourself and jack. he has done more than creditably in the house, and now that he is already on the treasury bench, has only to wait for indefinite promotion. he is clever, kind, honest as the day. he will be an earl when the dear old earl dies, and that that is a pretty frame to the picture no one can deny. what more can a girl ask?”
“this girl probably asks some impossible dream. i’m sorry for people who haven’t done dreaming.”
“between you and me, peter, i don’t think hilda is really clever enough to do much dreaming—of the pathetic sort. her eyes are clever; she sees things prettily, and puts them down prettily; but there is nothing more. she struck me as a trifle stupid—really dull, you know.”
odd shifted his position uncomfortably.
“that may be shyness, reserve, inability for self-expression.” he leaned his arm on the mantelpiece and studied the fire with a puzzled frown. “that exquisite face must mean something.”
“i don’t know. by the law of compensation katherine has the brains, the heart, and hilda the beauty. i didn’t find her shy. she seemed perfectly mistress of herself. it may be a case of absorption in her love affair, as you say. i am not sure that he has asked her yet. he is a most modest lover.”
mary saw a great deal of katherine during her stay, and her first impression was strengthened.
katherine shopped with her; they considered gowns together. katherine’s taste was exquisite, and the bonnets of her choice the most becoming mrs. apswith had ever worn. the girl was not above liking pretty things—that was already nice in her—for the girl was clever enough to pose indifference. mary saw at once that she was clever. katherine was very independent, but very attentive. her sincerity was charmingly gay, and not priggish. she said just what she thought; but she thought things that were worth saying. she made little display of learning, but one felt it—like the silk lining in a plain serge gown. she did not talk too much; she made mrs. apswith feel like talking. mary took her twice to the play with peter and herself. hilda was once invited and came. odd sat in the back of the box and watched for the effect on her face of the clever play interpreted by the best talent of the théatre fran?ais. the quiet absorption of her look might imply much intelligent appreciation; but katherine’s little ripples of glad enjoyment, clever little thrusts of criticism, made hilda’s silence seem peculiarly impassive, and while between the acts katherine analyzed keenly, woke a scintillating sense of intellectual enjoyment about her in flashes of gay discussion, hilda sat listening with that same smile of admiration that almost irritated odd by its seeming acceptance of inability—inferiority.
the smile, from its very lack of all self-reference, was rather touching; and mary owned that hilda was “sweet,” but the adjective did not mitigate the former severity of judgment—that was definite.
when mary went, she begged katherine to accept the prettiest gown doucet could make her, and katherine accepted with graceful ease and frankness. the gown was exquisite. mary sent to hilda a fine braun photograph, which hilda received with surprised delight, for she had done nothing to make mrs. apswith’s stay in paris pleasant. she thought such kindness touching, and katherine’s gown the loveliest she had ever seen.
