“She doesn’t approve, then?”
“Not exactly. Besides, it might hurt her. Please don’t ask me either. It really isn’t worth any mystery, and yet I must keep it a secret.”
Odd was silent for a moment, a baffling sense of pitfalls and hiding-places upon him.
“But Katherine ought to tell me,” he said at last, smiling.
“Now you are pushing an unfair advantage. She thinks, probably, that it might hurt me. Really, really,” she added urgently, “it isn’t so serious as all this seems to make it. The one serious thing is that it would hurt mamma, and that is why I make such a mountain out of my mole-hill. How mystery does magnify the tiniest things!”
“Tell me, at least, where you go in the afternoon. I mean to what part of Paris, to what street.”
“I go to several streets,” said Hilda, smiling resignedly, “since you will be so curious.”
“Where are you going to-morrow? Give me just an idea of your prowess.”
“I go to-morrow to the Rue d’Assas.”
“Near the Luxembourg Gardens?”