“Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should you play with your sincerity?”
“I didn't play with it,” she flashed; “I abandoned it. I am an actress.”
They often permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently she spoke quietly, in a different key.
“I sometimes think,” she said, “of a child I knew, in the other years. She had the simplest nature, the finest instincts. Her impulses, within her small limits, were noble—she was the keenest, loyalest little person; her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I look at the woman she is now I think the uses of life are hard, my friend—they are hard.”
He missed the personal note; he took what she said on its merits as an illustration.
“And yet,” he replied, “they can be turned to admirable purpose.”
“I wonder!” Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had turned down the leaf of that mood. “But we are not cheerful—let us be cheerful. For my part I am rejoicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of December. Look at this!”
She opened a small black leather bag, and poured money out of it, in notes and currency, into her lap.
“Is it a legacy?”
“It's pay,” she cried, with pleasure dimpling about her lips. “I have been paid—we have all been paid! It's so unusual—it makes me feel quite generous. Let me see. I'll give you this, and this, and this,”—she counted into her open palm ten silver rupees,—“all those I will give you for your mission. Prends!” and she clinked them together and held them out to him.