"And even if one gained, one would never trust one's success," Alicia faltered.
"Ah, if one gained one would hold," Hilda said; and while she smiled on her pupil in the arts of life, the tenderness grew in her eyes and came upon her lips. As if she knew her betrayal already complete, "I wish I had such a chance," she said.
Alicia looked at her as they might have looked, across the desert, at a mirage of the Promised Land.
"Then after all he has prevailed," she said.
"Who?"
"Hamilton Bradley."
Hilda laughed—the laugh was full and light and spontaneous, as if all the training of the notes of her throat came unconsciously to make it beautiful.
"How you will hold me to my metier," she said. "Hamilton Bradley has given up trying."
"Then——"
"Then think! Be clever. Be very clever."