IX
AN IDYL OF PLAIN PEOPLE
Hilda had not spent her nineteen years in the glare of the Spartan publicity in which the masses live without establishing a character. Just as she knew all the good points and bad in all the people of that community, so they knew all hers, and therefore knew what it was possible for her to do and what impossible. And if a baseless lie is swift of foot where everybody minutely scrutinizes everybody else, it is also scant of breath. Sophie's scandal soon dwindled to a whisper and expired, and the kindlier and probable explanation of Hilda's wan face and downcast eyes was generally accepted.
Her code of morals and her method of dealing with moral questions were those of all the people about her—strict, severe, primitive. Feuerstein was a cheat, a traitor. She cast him out of her heart—cast him out at once and utterly and for ever. She could think of him only with shame. And it seemed to her that she was herself no longer pure—she had touched pitch; how could she be undefiled?
She accepted these conclusions and went about her work, too busy to indulge in hysteria of remorse, repining, self-examination.
She avoided Otto, taking care not to be left alone with him when he called on Sundays, and putting Sophie between him and her when he came up to them in the Square. But Otto was awaiting his chance, and when it came, plunged boldly into his heart-subject and floundered bravely about. "I don't like to see you so sad, Hilda. Isn't there any chance for me? Can't things be as they used to be?"
Hilda shook her head sadly. "I'm never going to marry," she said. "You must find some one else."
"It's you or nobody. I said that when we were in school together and—I'll stick to it." His eyes confirmed his words.
"You mustn't, Otto. You make me feel as if I were spoiling your life. And if you knew, you wouldn't want to marry me."
"I don't care. I always have, and I always will."