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.”
Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her hands. A turquoise on one of them made them whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently she drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched the other woman with eyes that nevertheless refused confirmation for their astonishment.
“Well?” said Hilda.
“I can think of no one—there IS no one—except—oh, it's too absurd! Not Stephen—poor dear Stephen!”
The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if for an instant she contemplated a thing inscrutable. Then the light came back, dashed with a gravity, a gentleness.
“I admit the absurdity. Stephen—poor dear Stephen. How odd it seems,” she went on, while Alicia gazed, “the announcement of it—like a thing born. But it is that—a thing born.”
“I don't understand—in the least,” Alicia exclaimed.