“That would be rather foolish,” Katherine said, in a tone of kind but restraining wisdom; “one shouldn’t let one’s feelings run away with one like that. Shall I tell you what I think about Mr. Odd?”
“Oh yes, please.”
“I think he is like the river where we jumped in to-day—ripples on the top, kindness and smiles, you know—but somewhere in his heart a big hole—a hole with stones and weeds in it.” Katherine was quoting from her journal, but Hilda might as well think the simile improvised: Katherine felt some pride in it; it certainly justified, she thought, the conventionally illicit act of the candle.
Hilda lay in silent admiration.
“Oh, Katherine, I never know how I feel things till you tell me like that,” she said at last. “How beautiful! Yes, I am sure he has a hole in his heart.” And tears came into Hilda’s eyes and into her mind the line:—
“Allone, withouten any companye,”
“As for Mrs. Odd,” Katherine continued, pleased with the success of her psychology, “she has no heart to make a hole in.”
“Katherine, do you think so? How dreadful!”
“She is a thorough egotist. She doesn’t know much either, Hilda, for when Darwin came in she laughed a lot at the name and said she wouldn’t be paid to read him—the real Darwin.”
“Perhaps she likes other things best.”