“You know I cannot touch cake, Hilda.”
“There are buttered brioches, mamma, piping hot.”
“Properly buttered, I hope. Rosalie usually places a great clot in the centre, leaving the edges uneatable.”
“Mamma is like the princess who felt the pea through all the dozens of mattresses, isn’t she?” said Hilda, smiling at Odd. “But I buttered these with scientific exactitude.”
“Exactitude! Ah! the mirage of science! More milk, more milk!” Mrs. Archinard raised herself on one elbow to watch with expectant disapproval the concoction of her tea, and, relapsing on her cushions as the tea was brought to her, “I suppose it is milk, though I prefer cream.”
“No, it’s cream.” Hilda should know, as she had herself just darted round the corner to the crêmerie. Odd sprang up to take his cup from her. He thought she looked in danger of falling to the ground.
“Do sit down,” he said in a low voice; “you look very, very badly.”
“Have you read Meredith’s last?” asked Mrs. Archinard from the sofa. “Hilda is reading it to me in the evenings. We began it, ah! long, long ago. I have sympathy for Meredith, an intimité! It is so I feel, see things—super-subtly. Strange how coarsely objective some minds are! Did you order the oysters for my dinner, Hilda, and the ice from Gagé’s—pistache? I hope you impressed pistache. You will dine with Hilda, of course, Peter; I have my dinner here; I am not yet strong enough to sit through a meal. And then you must talk to me about Meredith. I always find you most suggestive—such new lights on old things. And Verhaeren, too; do you care for Verhaeren? Morbid? Yes, perhaps, but that is a truism—not like you, Peter. ‘Les apparus dans mes chemins,’ poor, modern, broken, bleeding soul! We must talk of Verhaeren. Just now I feel very sleepy. You will excuse me if I simply sans gêne turn over and take a nap? I can often sleep at this hour. Hilda, show Peter the Burne-Jones Chaucer over there. Hilda doesn’t find him limpid, sweet, healthy enough for Chaucer; but nous sommes tous les enfants malades nowadays. There is a beauty, you know, in that. Talk it over.”
Hilda and Peter sat down obediently side by side on the distant little canapé before the Burne-Jones Chaucer. They went over the pages, not paying much attention to the woodcuts, but looking down favorite passages together. The description of “my swete” in “The Book of the Duchess,” the complaint of poor Troilus, and, once more, Arcite’s death. The quiet room was very quiet, and they looked up from the pages now and then to smile, perhaps a little sadly, at one another. When the dinner was announced Hilda said, as they went into the dining-room—
“If your courage fails you, just say so frankly. I have very childish tastes and childish fare.”