“You enjoy the excelling, then, more than the feeling.”
“That sounds vain; I certainly shouldn’t feel pleasure if I were conscious of playing second fiddle to anybody.”
“A very vain young lady,” Odd’s smile was quite alertly interested, “and a self-conscious young lady, too.”
“Yes, rather, I think,” Katherine owned; frankness became her, “but I am very conscious of everything, myself included. I am merely one among the many phenomena that come under my notice, and, as I am the nearest of them all, naturally the most intimately interesting. Every one is self-conscious, Mr. Odd, if they have any personality at all.”
“And you are clever,” Peter pursued, in a tone of enumeration, his smile becoming definitely humorous as he added: “And I am very impudent.”
Katherine was not sure that she had made just the effect she had aimed for, but certainly Mr. Odd would give her credit for frankness.
It was agreed that he should come for tea the next afternoon.
“After five,” Katherine said; “Hilda doesn’t get in till so late; and I know that Hilda is the clou of the occasion.”
“Does Hilda take her painting so seriously as all that?”
“She doesn’t care about anything, anything else,” Katherine said gravely, adding, still gravely, “Hilda is very, very lovely.”