She looked at him with a look of knowledge that went strangely with her delicate face.
“Of course one must be careful. I am young—and pretty. I have learned that.”
“My child, what other things have you learned?” And Odd’s hold tightened on her hand.
“That terrifying things might happen if one were not brave. Don’t exaggerate, please. I really have found so few lions in my path, and a girl of dignity cannot be really annoyed beyond a certain point. Lions are very much magnified in popular and conventional estimation. A girl can, practically, do anything she likes here in Paris if she is quiet and self-reliant.”
Odd stared at her.
“Of course I have always been a coward, after a fashion; I was frightened at first,” said Hilda. He understood now the look of moral courage that had haunted him; natural timidity steeled to endurance. “The greatest trouble with me is that I am too noticeable, too pretty.” She spoke of her beauty in a tone of matter-of-fact experience; “it is a pity for a working woman.”
“My child,” Odd repeated. He felt dazed.
“Please don’t exaggerate,” Hilda reiterated.
“Exaggerate? Tell me about these lions. How have you vanquished them?”
“I have merely walked past them.”