“Why, that Lord Allan isn’t particularly clever, nor particularly anything, except particularly useful to men who can be clever for him. He is the bricks they build with.”
“Allan is as honest as the day,” said Peter, a little shortly.
“Honest? Who’s a denygin’ of it, pray? His honesty is part of his supreme utility. My simile holds good; he is a brick; a dishonest man is a mere tool, fit only to be cast away, once used.”
“How rhetorical we are!” said Odd, smiling at her with a touch of friendly mockery.
“Lord Allan most devoutly believes that in his party lies the salvation of his country,” Katherine pursued. “Oh, I have talked to him!”
“You have, have you? Poor chap!” ejaculated Peter. “Will you ever serve me up in this neatly dissected way, as a result of our confidential conversations?”
“Willingly! but only to yourself. Don’t be afraid, Peter. I could dissect myself far more neatly, far more unpleasantly. I have a genius for the scalpel! And I have said nothing in the least derogatory to Allan Hope. He couldn’t disagree with his party, any more than a pious Catholic could disagree with his church. It is a matter of faith, and of shutting the eyes.”
If Hilda was so soon to pass to the supreme authority of an accepted lover, Peter felt that for his own satisfaction he must make the most of the time left him, and solve the riddle of her occupations. That delicate sense of loyal reticence had held him from a hinted question to even Katherine. If Katherine were as ignorant as he, a question would arouse and imply suspicion. Odd could suspect Hilda of nothing worse than a silly disobedience founded on a foolish idea of her own artistic worth; a dull self-absorption, unsaved by a touch of humor. Yet this very suspicion irritated Odd profoundly; it seemed logical and yet impossible. He felt, in his very revulsion from it, a justification for a storming of her barriers.
That very evening, while Katherine played Schumann, the Captain having gone out and Mrs. Archinard dozing on the sofa, he determined to have the truth if possible.
Hilda stood behind her sister, listening. Her tall slenderness looked well in anything that fell in long lines, even if made by the most petite of petite couturières, as the gray silk had been. The white fichu covered deficiencies of fit, and left free the exquisite line of her throat. Her head, in its attitude of quiet listening, struck Odd with the old sense of a beauty significant, not the lovely mask of emptiness.