Odd still stood before her, and Hilda put out her hand.
“How can I thank you?” He put her hand to his lips, not looking at her but down at the heavy folds of her white dress; it had a shroud-like look that gave him a shudder. Hilda’s life seemed shroud-like, shutting her out from all brightness, from all love—love hers by right, and only hers.
“You know, you know that I would do anything for you,” he said.
The hand he kissed drew him down beside her, hardly consciously, and he yielded to the longing he felt in her for comforting kindness and nearness; yielded, too, to his own growing weakness; but he still held the hand to his lips, not daring to look at her. This childlike trust, this dependence, were dreadful. The long kiss seemed to his troubled soul a momentary shield. He found her eyes on him when he raised his own.
“I never thought it would come true—in this way,” she said.
“What come true?”
“That you would really care for me.”
Her pure look seemed to flutter to him, to fold peaceful wings on his breast; its very contentment constituted a caress. The child was still a child, and yet in the look there were worlds of ignorant revelation. A shock of possibilities made Odd dizzy, and the certain strain of weakness in him made it impossible for him to warn and protect her ignorance.
He was conscious of a quick grasp at the transcendental friendship of which alone she was aware.
“My little friend, I care for you dearly, dearly.” But with the words, his hold on the transcendental friendship slipped, fundamental truths surged up; he took both her hands, and clasping them on his breast, said, hardly conscious of his words—