“No; some lives are too evidently and merely flaunting in the sunlight for even friendly eyes to poetize—to sentimentalize, as you rather unkindly said.”
“Sunlight is poetic, too.”
“Success and selfishness, and all the commonplaces that make up a happy life, are not poetic.”
“That is rather morbid, you know—décadent.”
“I don’t imply a fondness for illness and wrongness. Rather the contrary. It is a very beautiful rightness that keeps in the shade to give others the sunshine.”
Hilda’s eyes were downcast, and in her look a certain pale reserve that implied no liking for these personalities—personalities that glanced from her to others, as Odd realized.
He paused, and it was only after quite a little silence that Hilda said, with all her gentle quiet—
“You must not imagine that I am unhappy, or that my life has been an unhappy life. It is very good of you to trouble about it, but I can’t claim the rather self-righteously heroic rôle you give me. I think it is others who live in the shadow. I think that any work, however feebly done, is a happy thing. I find so much pleasure in things other people don’t care about.”
“A very nicely delivered little snub, Hilda. You couldn’t have told me to mind my own business more kindly.” Odd’s humorous look met her glance of astonished self-reproach. He hastened on, “Will you try to find pleasure in a thing most girls do care for? Will you go to the Meltons’ dance on Monday? Katherine told me I must go, this morning, and I said I would try to persuade you.”
“I didn’t mean to snub you.”