Hilda now looked so painfully embarrassed that Odd was perforce obliged, for very pity’s sake, to avert his eyes from her face.
“Ah, Mr. Odd,” Mrs. Archinard went on, “you do not know what that is. To lie in the gray dusk and watch one’s own gray, gray thoughts.”
“It must be very unpleasant,” Odd owned unwillingly, feeling that his character of old friend was being rather imposed upon; this degree of intimacy was certainly unwarranted.
“Now, mamma, you usually have friends every afternoon,” said Katherine, in her pleasant, even voice. She was preparing some fresh tea. “You make me as well as Hilda feel a culprit.”
“No, my dear.” Mrs. Archinard’s deep sense of accumulated injury evidently got quite the better of her manners. “No, my dear, you never could read aloud and never did. I never asked it of you. You are really occupied as a girl should be. At all events you fulfil your social duties. You see that people come to see me. As I cannot go out, as Hilda will not, I really don’t know what I should do were it not for you. And, as it is, no one came this afternoon until Mr. Odd made his welcome appearance.”
“But Mr. Odd came at five, and you always read till then.” Katherine’s voice was gently playful. Hilda had not said one word, and her expression seemed now absolutely dogged.
“At this season, Katherine! You forget that it is night by four! And how a girl with any regard for her mother’s wishes can walk about the streets of Paris alone after that hour it passes my comprehension to understand.”
“Do you care about bicycling, Mr. Odd?” The change was abrupt but welcome. “Because I am going to the Bois to-morrow morning, and alone for once.” Katherine smiled at him over the kettle which she was lifting. “Papa has deserted me.”
“I should enjoy it immensely. And you,” he looked at Hilda, “won’t you come?”
“Oh, I can’t,” said Hilda, with a troubled look. “Thanks so much.”