“Doesn’t need you! Why, the man is desperately in love with you!”
“He needs a wife, but he doesn’t need me.”
“You are subtle, Hilda.”
“I don’t think I am that.”
“You are waiting, then, for some one who can satisfy you as to his need of you?”
“I shall only marry that person.”
Hilda jumped up. “But I’m not waiting at all, you know. Dansons maintenant! Your task is nearly over!”
It was very late when Odd gave Hilda up to her last partner, and joined Katherine in a small antechamber, where she was sitting among flowers, talking to an appreciative Frenchman. This gentleman, with the ceremonious bow of his race, made away when Miss Archinard’s fiancé appeared, and Odd dropped into the vacated seat with a horrible sinking of the heart. The dull self-reproach was now acute, he felt meanly guilty. Katherine looked at him funnily—very good-humoredly.
“I didn’t know you had it in you to dance so well and so persistently, Peter. You have done honor to Hilda’s ball.”