“Yes, I have, haven’t I?” said Peter, smiling. He still held Hilda’s hands. The little flush that had come to her cheeks when he had kissed her was gone, and she looked very white.
“Are you glad to see me, Hilda?” he asked; “I beg your pardon, but it comes naturally to call you that.”
“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Odd,” Hilda smiled. Her voice was very like the child’s voice saying, “I thank you very much,” ten years ago. The same voice, grave and gentle. Odd had expected some little warmth, some little embarrassment even, in the girl, considering the parting from the child. But Hilda did not show any warmth, neither did she seem at all embarrassed, and Odd felt rather as one does when an unnecessary downward stride reveals level ground where one expected another step. He had stumbled a little, and now, half ruefully, half humorously, he considered the child Hilda grown up. She sat down near her mother.
“I am so sorry. I am afraid you waited for me,” she said, bending towards her; “I really couldn’t help it, mamma.”
“No, I think it kindest to consider you irresponsible; there is certainly an element of insanity in your exaggerated devotion to your work.” Mrs. Archinard smiled acidly, and Hilda, Odd thought, did look a little embarrassed now. He had adjusted himself to the reality of the present, and was able to study her. The same Botticelli Madonna mouth, the same Gainsborough eyes; the skin of dazzling whiteness—an almost unnatural white—but she was evidently tired.
Certainly her black gown looked strangely beside Katherine’s velvet, Mrs. Archinard’s silk and laces. Odd saw that there was mud on the skirt, a very short skirt, and Hilda’s legs were very long. She had walked, then. His own paternal solicitude struck him as amusing, and rather touching, as he glanced at her slim feet, to see with satisfaction that wet boots had been replaced by patent-leather shoes—heelless little shoes.
“I am afraid you work too much, you tire yourself,” he said, for after her mother’s rebuff she had sunk back in her chair with a weary lassitude of pose. Hilda immediately sat up straightly, giving him an almost frightened glance. How unchanged the little face, though the cloud of her hair no longer framed it. Hilda’s hair was as smooth as her sister’s, only it was brushed straight back, and the soft blue-black coils were massed from ear to ear, and showed, in a coronet-like effect above her head, almost too much hair; it emphasized the pale fragility of her look.
“Oh no, I am not tired,” she said, “not particularly. I walked home, you see. I am very fond of walking.”
“Hilda is fond of such funny things,” said Katherine, coming from the piano, “of walking in the mud and rain for instance. She is the most persistently, consistently energetic person I ever knew.” Katherine paused pleasantly as though for Hilda to speak, but Hilda said nothing and looked even more vague than before, almost dull in fact.
“Well, she has had no tea,” said Odd, “and after mud and rain that is rather cruel, even as a punishment.”