Odd walked on silently.
“And might she not be forced into taking some girlish distraction?” he said presently. “It came out yesterday, with that astounding air of excusing herself she has, that she reads to her mother in the evening! Could not you do that, Katherine, and let Hilda profit now and then by the entourage you have created for her?”
Katherine’s flush deepened.
“Mamma doesn’t care for my reading, and Hilda won’t go out; she goes to bed too early.”
“And then,” Odd continued, ignoring her comment in a way most irritating to Katherine’s smarting susceptibility, “you might have gone with her now and again to these houses where she teaches. You would have stood for protection. You would have seen for yourself if, in this drudgery, there lurked any unpleasantness, any danger. A girl of her extreme beauty is—exposed to insult.”
Katherine gave him a stare of frank astonishment.
“Oh, you must not give way to unpleasant romancing of that sort! Things like that only happen in novels of the silliest sort—even to beauties! And Hilda would have told me. She tells me everything. Really, Peter, she must have given you a wrong impression; she enjoys her life!”
“So she tried to convince me,” said Odd, with a good deal of sharpness; “there was no hint of complaint, regret, reproach, in Hilda’s recountal; don’t imagine it, Katherine.”
Katherine was telling herself that never in all her life had she experienced so many rebuffs. She contemplated her own good temper with some amazement; she also wondered how long it would last. By this time they were half-way down the Avenue du Bois; the day was fine and clear, and the wintry trees were sharply definite against the sky.
“I have never even seen her in a well-made gown,” said Odd.