“Come and sit by me, Hilda,” he said from his place on the sofa, “you can hear better at this distance.”
The quick turn of her head, her pretty look of willingness were charming, he thought.
“I like to see you in that dress,” he said, as she sat down beside him on the sofa, “there isn’t a whiff of paint or palette about it, except that, in it, you look like a picture, and a prettier one than even you could paint.”
“That is a very subtle insult!” Hilda’s smile showed a most encouraging continuation of the pretty willingness.
“You see,” said Odd, “you are not fair to your friends. You should paint fewer pictures, and be more constantly a picture in yourself.” She showed a little uneasy doubtfulness of look.
“I am afraid I don’t understand you. I am afraid I am stupid.”
“You should be a little more, and act a little less.”
“But to act is to be,” said Hilda, with a sudden laugh. “We are not listening to Schumann,” she added, a trifle maliciously. Her face turned toward him in a soft shadow, a line of light just defining the cheek’s young oval, the lovely slimness of the throat affected Odd with a really rapturously artistic appreciation. The shape of her small head, too, with its high curves of hair, was elegant with an intimate elegance peculiarly characteristic. An inner gentle dignity, a voluntary submission to exterior facts of existence resulting in a higher freedom, a more perfect self-possession, seemed to emanate from her; the very poise of her head suggested it, and so strong and so sudden was the suggestion that Odd felt his curiosity intolerable, and those groping suspicions outrageously at sea.
“Hilda,” he said abruptly, “I went to your studio the other afternoon. You were not there.”
Her finger flashed warningly to her lip, and her glance towards her mother turned again to him, pained and beseeching.