“well, hilda, we have some news for you!” with these words, spoken in the triumphant tone of the news-breaker, the captain greeted his daughter as she came into the drawing-room at half-past six. odd had been paying his respects to his future parents-in-law, and was sitting near mrs. archinard’s sofa. he rose to his feet as hilda entered and looked at her, smiling a trifle nervously.
“guess what has happened, my dear,” said the captain, whose good humor was apparent, while mrs. archinard murmured, “she would never guess. hilda, only look at your hat in the mirror.” it was windy, and hilda’s shabby little hat was on the back of her head.
“what must i guess? is it about you?” she asked, turning her sweet bewildered eyes from odd to her father, to her mother, and back to odd again.
“yes, about me and another person.”
“you are going to marry katherine!” her eyes dilated and their sweetness deepened to a smile; “you are going to marry katherine, that must be it.”
“that is it, hilda. congratulate me.” he took her hands in his and kissed her. “welcome me, and tell me you are glad.”
“oh! i am very glad. i welcome you. i congratulate you!”
“you will like your brother?”
“a brother is dearer than a friend, and you have always been a friend, haven’t you, mr. odd?”
“always, always, hilda; i didn’t know that you realized it.”
“did you realize it?”
“did i, my dear hilda! i did, i do, i always will.” hilda’s face seemed subtly irradiated. her listless look of pallor had brightened wonderfully. no one could have said that the lovely face was dull with this sudden change upon it. peter felt that he himself was grave in comparison.
“and i am going to claim all a brother’s rights immediately, hilda.”
“what are a brother’s rights?”
“i am going to look after you, to scold you, to see you don’t overwork yourself.”
“i give you leave, but you mustn’t presume too much on the new rights.”
“ah! but i have old ones as well.”
“you mustn’t be tyrannical!” she still laughed gently as she withdrew her hands; “i must go and see katherine.”
“yes, go and dress now, hilda.” mrs. archinard spoke from the sofa, having watched the scene with a slight air of injury; hilda’s unwonted gayety constituted a certain grievance. “mr. odd dines with us, and i really can’t bear to see you in that costume. the skirt especially is really ludicrous, my dear. i am glad that i don’t see you walking through the streets in it.”
“hilda knows that her feet bear showing,” remarked the captain, crossing his own with complacency; “she has her mother’s foot in size and mine in make—the archinard foot; narrow, arched instep, and small heel.
“really, charles, i think the maxwells will bear the comparison!” mrs. archinard, though she smiled, looked distinctly distressed.
hilda found her sister before the long mirror in her room, taylor fastening the nasturtium velvet. katherine always had a commanding air, and it was quite regally apparent to-night; all things seemed made to serve her, and taylor’s crouching attitude symbolic.
hilda put her arms around her neck.
“my dear, dear kathy, i am so glad! to think that good things do come true!”
“you like my choice, pet?”
“no one else would have done,” cried hilda; “he is the only man i ever saw whom i could have thought of for you. why, katherine, from that first day when you told me you had met him at the dinner, i knew it would happen.”
“yes, i certainly felt a prophetic sense of proprietorship from the first,” katherine owned musingly. she looked over her sister’s shoulder at the fine outline of her own head and neck in the glass.
“aren’t you rather splashed and muddy, pet? poor people can’t afford an affection that puts their velvet gowns in danger. there, i mustn’t rumple my lace.”
“i haven’t hurt, have i?” hilda stood back hastily. “i forgot, i am rather muddy. and, katherine, you will help one another so much; that makes it so ideal.”
“idealistic little hilda!”
“but that is evident, isn’t it? you with all your energy and cleverness and general sanity, and he so widely sympathetic that he is a bit impersonal. i mean that he doubts himself because he doubts everything rather; he sees how relative everything is; he probably thinks too much; i am sure that is dangerous. you will make him act.”
“i am to be the concrete to his abstract. he certainly does lack energy. i wonder if even i shall be able to prod him into initiative.”
katherine patted down the fine old lace that edged her bodice, and looked a smiling question from her own reflection in the mirror to her sister. “suppose i fail to arouse him.”
“you will understand him. he will have something to live for; that is what he needs. he won’t be able to say, ‘is it worth while?’ about your happiness. as for initiative, you will probably have to have that for both. after all, he has made his name and place. he has the nicest kind of fame; the more apparent sort made up by the admiration of mediocrities isn’t half as nice.”
“ah, pet, you are an intellectual aristocrat. my pate is coarser. i like the real thing; the donkey’s brayings make a noise, and one must take the whole world with all its donkeys conscious of one, to be famous. i like noise.” katherine smiled as she spoke, and hilda smiled, too, a little smile of humorous comprehension, for she did not take katherine in this mood at all seriously. she was as stanch in her belief of katherine’s ideals as she was in sticking to her own.
“we will be married in march,” said katherine, pausing before her dressing-table to put on her rings—a fine antique engraved gem and a splendid opal. “you may go, taylor; and taylor, you may put out my opera-cloak after dinner. i think, hilda, i will go to the opera; papa has a box. he and i and peter might care about dropping in for the last two acts. you don’t care to come, do you?”
“well, mamma expects me to read to her; it’s a charming book, too,” added hilda, with tactful delicacy.
“well, i shall envy you your quiet evening. i can’t ask peter to spend his here in the bosom of my family. yes, march, i think, unless i decide on making that round of visits in england; that would put it off for a month. i hope the ravens will fetch me a trousseau—for i don’t know who else will.”
“i shall have quite a lot by that time, katherine. i haven’t heard from the dealer in london yet, but those two pictures will sell, i hope. and, at all events, with the other things, you know, i shall have about a hundred pounds.”
katherine flushed a little when hilda spoke of “other things,” and looked round at her sister.
“i hate to think of taking the money, hilda.”
“my dear, why should you? except, of course—the debts,” hilda sighed deeply: “but i think on this occasion you have a right to forget them.” katherine’s flush perhaps showed a consciousness of having forgotten the debts on many occasions less pressing.
“i meant, in particular, taking the money from you.”
hilda opened her wide eyes to their widest.
“kathy! as if it were not my pleasure! my joy! i am lucky to be able to get it for you. can you get a trousseau for that much, kathy?”
“well, linen, yes. i don’t care how little i get, but it must be good—good lace. i shall manage; i don’t care about gowns, i can get them afterwards. peter, i know, will be an indulgent husband.” a pleasant little smile flickered across katherine’s lips. “he is a dear! i only hope, pet, that you will be able to hold on to the money. don’t let the duns worry it out of you!” the weary, pallid look came to hilda’s face.
“i’ll try, kathy dear. i’ll do my very best.”
“my precious hilda! you need not tell me that! run quickly and dress, dear, it must be almost dinner-time. what have you to wear? shall i lend you anything?”
“why, you forgot my gray silk! my fichu! insulting kathy!”
“so i did! and you look deliciously pretty in that dress, though she did make a fiasco of the back; let the fichu come well down over it. you really shouldn’t indulge your passion for petites couturières, child. it doesn’t pay.”
