“Go on, Hilda,” said Odd, as she paused.
“Well, you know all the rest. When you were engaged and she more than friend, I had hoped for it, and I saw that my turn might come; that I might step into Kathy’s vacated shoes, so to speak; that we might be friends, and all my dreams be fulfilled after all. I began then to let myself know that I did care, for I had tried to help myself before by pretending that I didn’t. I wouldn’t do anything to make you like me. If you were to like me, you would of yourself; all the joy of having you care for me would be in having made no effort. And the dream did come true. I saw more and more that you cared. To-day I feel it, like sunshine.” Odd still stared at her, and again through sudden tears she smiled at him. “Only—isn’t it strange?—things are always so; it must be, too, that I am weak, overwrought, for I feel so sad, as though I were at the bottom of the sea, and looking up through it at the sun.”
“Great heavens!” muttered Odd. He looked at her for a silent moment, then suddenly putting his arm around her neck, he drew her to him.
He did not kiss her, but he said, leaning his head against hers—
“And I—so unworthy!”
“No, no,” said Hilda, and with a little sigh, “not unworthy, dear Peter.”
“I, dully stumbling about your exquisite soul,” Peter went on, pressing her head more closely to his. “Ah, Hilda! Hilda!”
“What, dear friend?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Unkind; I tell you everything.”