Growth does not admit of much self-contemplation. One wakes suddenly to the accomplished change. If Peter was conscious of developments, he defined them as morbid enlargements of that self-doubt which would naturally thrill under the stress of new responsibilities.
Only from the force of newly formed habit did he go to the Rue Poulletier that afternoon, hardly expecting to meet Hilda. But Hilda had, as yet, not interrupted her usual avocations. She emerged from the gloomy portals of one of the old dismantled-looking hôtels that line the Rue Poulletier with a certain dignity, and she looked toward the corner where he stood with a confident glance. It was the second time he had met her there, twice in the Rue d’Assas too.
“It is so kind of you,” she said, as she joined him and they turned into the quai; “only you mustn’t think that you must, you know.”
“May I think that I must? Give me the assurance of necessity. I am always a little afraid of seeming officious.”
Hilda smiled round at him.
“Who is fishing? You know I love to have you come. You can’t think how I look forward to it.” She was walking beside him along the quai. The unobtrusive squareness of the “Doric little Morgue” was on their left, as they faced the keen wind and the dying sunset. Notre Dame stood gray upon a chilly evening sky of palest yellow. “I know now that I was lonely.”
“That implies the kindest compliment.”
“You really like to have me come?”
“You know I do. I am only afraid that you will rob yourself—of other things for me.”