That was a little later. At first there was the transformation to lament, the loss, the break.
“You look,” cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters' black and white, “you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and yet made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing those things I shall end by understanding you perfectly.”
“If you don't understand me,” Hilda said, dropping into the corner of a sofa, “Cela que je m'en doute, it's because you look for too much elaboration. I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad brush—voila tout!”
Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy impression. The neutrality of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed: one saw in a special way the significance of lines and curves; it was an astonishingly vigorous human expression.
Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin tucked into her palm, and looked at it. The elbow bent itself in light blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour found a wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to the look, and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however charming.
“Just now,” Alicia said, “the shadows under your eyes are brushed too deep.”
“I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory.”
“Horrible! All the little comforts of life—don't you miss them?”
“I never had them, my dear—I never had them. Life has never given me very many luxuries—I don't miss them. An occasional hour to one's self—and that we get even at the Institution. The conventions are strictly conserved, believe me.”
“One imagines that kind of place is always clean.”