“That depends.” Katherine laughed. “But regrets of that kind are unnecessary as far as Hilda is concerned. I don’t think little Hilda is much less the child than when you last saw her. Having lovers doesn’t imply that one is ready for them, and I don’t think that Hilda is ready.”
Odd had looked away from her again, and Katherine’s black eyes rested on him with a sort of musing curiosity. She had not spoken quite truthfully in saying that the ten years had left him unchanged. A good deal of white in the brown hair, a good many lines about eyes and mouth might not constitute change, but Katherine had seen, in her first keen clear glance at the old friend, that these badges of time were not all.
There had been something still boyish about the Mr. Odd of ten years ago; the lines at the eye corners were still smiling lines, the quiet mouth still kind; but the whole face wore the weary, almost heavy look of middle age.
“His Parliamentary experience probably knocked the remaining illusions out of him,” Katherine reflected. “He was certainly very unsuccessful, he tried for such a lot too, sought obstacles. He should mellow a bit now (that smile of his is bitter) into resignation, give up the windmill hunt (I think all nice men go through the Quixotic phase), stop at home and write homilies. And he certainly, certainly ought to marry; marry a woman who would be nice to him.” And it was characteristic of Katherine that already she was turning over in her mind the question as to whether it would be feasible, or rather desirable—for Katherine intended to please herself, and had not many doubts as to possibilities if once she could make up her mind—to contemplate that rôle for herself. Miss Archinard was certainly the last woman in the world to be suspected of matrimonial projects; her frank, almost manly bonhomie, and her apparent indifference to ineligibility had combined to make her doubly attractive; and indeed Katherine was no husband-hunter. She would choose, not seek. She certainly intended to get married, and to a husband who would make life definitely pleasant, definitely successful; and she was very keenly conscious of the eligibility or unfitness of every man she met; only as the majority had struck her as unfit, Miss Archinard was still unmarried. Now she said to herself that Peter Odd would certainly be nice to his wife, that his position was excellent—not glittering—Katherine would have liked glitter, and the more the better; and yet with that long line of gentlefolk ancestry, that old Elizabethan house and estate, far above the shallow splendor of modern dukedoms or modern wealth, fit only to impress ignorance or vulgarity. He had money too, a great deal. Money was a necessity if one wanted a life free for highest flights; and she added very calmly that she might herself, after consideration, find it possible to be nice to him. Rather amusing, Katherine thought it, to meet a man whom one could at once docket as eligible, and find him preoccupied with a dreamy memory of such slight importance as Hilda’s child friendship; but Katherine’s certainty of the slightness—and this man of forty looked anything but sentimental—left her very tolerant of his preoccupation.
Hilda was a milestone, a very tiny milestone in his life, and it was to the distant epoch her good-bye on that autumn night had marked as ended, rather than to the little closing chapter itself, that he was looking. Indeed his next words showed as much.
“How many changes—forgive the truism, of course—in ten years! Did you know that my sister, Mrs. Apswith, had half-a-dozen babies? I find myself an uncle with a vengeance.”
“I haven’t seen Mrs. Apswith since she was married. It does seem ages ago, that wedding.”
“Mary has drawn a lucky number in life,” said Odd absently.
“She expects you to settle down definitely now, I suppose; in England, at Allersley?”
“Yes, I shall. I shall go back to Allersley in a few months. It is rather lonely.”