The Dull Miss Archinard Part 15

"I am disappointed, Peter. Yes; we went to her studio this morning; Katherine took me there; Katherine's pride in her is pretty. Yes; I suppose the pictures are very clever, if one likes those rather misty things. They look as though they were painted in the back drawing-room behind the sofa!" Peter laughed. "I don't pretend to know. I suppose _au fond_ I am a Philistine, with a craving for a story on the canvas. I don't really appreciate Whistler, so of course I haven't a right to an opinion at all. But however clever they may be, I don't think those pictures should fill her life to the exclusion of _everything_. The girl owes a duty to herself; I don't speak of her duty to others. I have no patience with Mrs. Archinard, she is simply insufferable! Katherine's patience with her is admirable; but Hilda is completely one-sided, and she is not great enough for that. But she will fancy herself great before long. Lady---- told me that she was never seen with her sister--there is that cut off, you see--how natural that they should go out together! Of course she will grow morbidly egotistic, people who never meet other people always do; they fancy themselves grandly misunderstood. So unhealthy, too! She looked like a ghost."

"Poor little Hilda! She probably fancies an artist's mission the highest. Perhaps it is, Mary."

"Not in a woman's case"--Mrs. Apswith spoke with a vigorous decision that would have stamped her with ignominy in the eyes of the perhaps mythical New Woman; "woman's art is never serious enough for heroics."

"Perhaps it would be, if they would show a consistent heroism for it."

Peter opposed Mary for the sake of the argument, and for the sake of an old loyalty. _Au fond_ he agreed with her.

"A female Palissy would revolutionize our ideas of woman's art."

"A pleasant creature she would be! Tearing up the flooring and breaking the chairs for firewood! An abominable desecration of the housewifely instincts! I don't know what Allan Hope will do about it," Mary pursued.

"Ah! That is an accepted fact, then?"

"Dear me, yes. Lady Mainwaring is very anxious for it. It shows what Allan's steady persistency has accomplished. The child hasn't a penny, you know."

"You think she'd have him?"

"Of course she will have him. And a lucky girl she is for the chance!

But, before the definite acceptance, she will, of course, lead him the usual dance; it's quite the thing now among girls of that type.

Individuality; their own life to be lived, their Art--in capitals--to be lived for; home, husband, children, degrading impediments. Such tiresome rubbis.h.!.+ I am very sorry for poor Allan." Peter studied his boots.

"Allan probably accounts for that general absent-mindedness I observed in her; perhaps Allan accounts for more than we give her credit for; this desperate devotion to her painting, her last struggle to hold to her ideal. Really the theory that she is badly in love explains everything. Poor child!"

"Why poor, Peter? Allan Hope is certainly the very nicest man I know, barring yourself and Jack. He has done more than creditably in the House, and now that he is already on the Treasury Bench, has only to wait for indefinite promotion. He is clever, kind, honest as the day. He will be an earl when the dear old earl dies, and that that is a pretty frame to the picture no one can deny. What more can a girl ask?"

"This girl probably asks some impossible dream. I'm sorry for people who haven't done dreaming."

"Between you and me, Peter, I don't think Hilda is really clever enough to do much dreaming--of the pathetic sort. Her eyes are clever; she sees things prettily, and puts them down prettily; but there is nothing more.

She struck me as a trifle stupid--really dull, you know."

Odd s.h.i.+fted his position uncomfortably.

"That may be shyness, reserve, inability for self-expression." He leaned his arm on the mantelpiece and studied the fire with a puzzled frown.

"That exquisite face must _mean_ something."

"I don't know. By the law of compensation Katherine has the brains, the heart, and Hilda the beauty. _I_ didn't find her shy. She seemed perfectly mistress of herself. It may be a case of absorption in her love affair, as you say. I am not sure that he has asked her yet. He is a most modest lover."

Mary saw a great deal of Katherine during her stay, and her first impression was strengthened.

Katherine shopped with her; they considered gowns together. Katherine's taste was exquisite, and the bonnets of her choice the most becoming Mrs. Apswith had ever worn. The girl was not above liking pretty things--that was already nice in her--for the girl was clever enough to pose indifference. Mary saw at once that she was clever. Katherine was very independent, but very attentive. Her sincerity was charmingly gay, and not priggish. She said just what she thought; but she thought things that were worth saying. She made little display of learning, but one felt it--like the silk lining in a plain serge gown. She did not talk too much; she made Mrs. Apswith feel like talking. Mary took her twice to the play with Peter and herself. Hilda was once invited and came. Odd sat in the back of the box and watched for the effect on her face of the clever play interpreted by the best talent of the Theatre Francais. The quiet absorption of her look might imply much intelligent appreciation; but Katherine's little ripples of glad enjoyment, clever little thrusts of criticism, made Hilda's silence seem peculiarly impa.s.sive, and while between the acts Katherine a.n.a.lyzed keenly, woke a scintillating sense of intellectual enjoyment about her in flashes of gay discussion, Hilda sat listening with that same smile of admiration that almost irritated Odd by its seeming acceptance of inability--inferiority.

The smile, from its very lack of all self-reference, was rather touching; and Mary owned that Hilda was "sweet," but the adjective did not mitigate the former severity of judgment--that was definite.

When Mary went, she begged Katherine to accept the prettiest gown Doucet could make her, and Katherine accepted with graceful ease and frankness.

The gown was exquisite. Mary sent to Hilda a fine Braun photograph, which Hilda received with surprised delight, for she had done nothing to make Mrs. Apswith's stay in Paris pleasant. She thought such kindness touching, and Katherine's gown the loveliest she had ever seen.

CHAPTER V

Mary gone, the bicycling tete-a-tetes were resumed, and Odd, too, began to call more frequently at the houses where he met Katherine. They were bon camarades in the best sense of the term, and Peter found it a very pleasant sense. He realized that he had been lonely, and loneliness in his present desoeuvree condition would have been intolerable. The melancholy of laziness could not creep to him while this girl laughed beside him. The frank, sympathetic relation--almost that of man to man--was untouched by the faintest infusion of sentiment; delicious breeziness and freedom of intercourse was the result. Peter listened to Katherine, laughed at her sometimes, and liked her to laugh at him. He told her a good many of his thoughts; she criticised them, approved of them, encouraged him to action. But Odd felt his present contemplativeness too wide to be limited by any affirmation. He had never felt so little sure of anything nor so conscious of everything in general. Writing in such a mood seemed folly, and he continued to drift.

He still read in an objectless way at the Bibliotheque, hunting out old references, pleasing himself by a circuit through the points of view of all times. Katherine offered to help him, and in the morning he would bring her his notes to look over; her quick comprehension formed another link. He was very sorry for Katherine too. She had no taste for drifting. In her eye he read a dissatisfaction, a thirst for wider vision, wider action, a restless impatience with the narrowness, the ineffectiveness of her lot, that made him muse on her probable future with a sense of pathos. Hilda's wide gaze showed no such rebellion with the actual; her art had filled it with a distant content that shut strife and the defeat of yearnings from her: or was it merely the placid consciousness of Allan Hope--a future a.s.sured and fully satisfactory?

Under Katherine's gayety there was a fierce beating of caged wings, and Odd fancied at times that, freed, the imprisoned birds might be strong and beautiful. He fancied this especially when she played to him; she played well, with surprising sureness of taste, and, as the winter came and it grew too cold for bicycling, Peter often spent the morning in listening to her. Mrs. Archinard did not appear until the afternoon in the drawing-room, and in the evenings he usually met her dining out or at some reception; their intimacy once noticed, they were invited together. Lady---- was especially anxious that Odd should have every opportunity for meeting her favorite.

But with all this intimacy, to Peter's consciousness thoroughly, paternally platonic, under all its daily interests and quiet pleasure lay a half-felt hurt, a sense of injury and loss. The little voice, seldom thought of during the last ten years, now repeated often: "But you will be different; I will be different; we will both be changed."

Captain Archinard returned from the Riviera in a temper that could mean but one thing; he had gambled at Monte Carlo, and he had lost. He did not mention the fact in the family circle; indeed, by a tacit agreement, money matters were never alluded to before Mrs. Archinard. Her years of successful invalidism had compelled even her husband's acquiescence in the decision early arrived at by Hilda and Katherine: mamma must be spared the torments to which they had grown accustomed. But to Katherine the Captain freed his querulous soul, never to Hilda. There was a look in Hilda's eyes that made the Captain very uncomfortable, very angry; conscious of those cases of wonderful champagne, the races, the clubs, the boxes at the play, and all the infinite array of his wardrobe--a sad, wondering look. Katherine's scoldings were far preferable, for Katherine was not so devilish superior to human weaknesses; she had plenty of unpaid bills on her own conscience, and understood the necessities of an aristocratic taste. He and Katherine had their little secrets, and were mutually on the defensive. Hilda never criticised, to be sure, but her very difference was a daily criticism. The Captain thought his younger daughter rather dull; Katherine, of finer calibre than her father, admired such dulness, and found some difficulty in stilling self-reproachful comparisons; temperament, circ.u.mstance, made a comforting philosophy. And then Hilda's art made things easy for Hilda; with such a refuge, would she, Katherine, ask for more? Katherine rather wondered now, after her father's exasperated recountal of ill-luck, where papa had got the money to lose; but papa on this point was prudently reticent, and borrowed two one-hundred-franc notes from Peter while the latter waited in the drawing-room for Katherine one morning.

Katherine and her father were making a round of calls one day, and the Captain stopped at his bank to cash a check. Katherine stood beside him, and, although he manoeuvred concealment with hand and shoulder, her keen eyes read the name.

Her mouth was stern as they walked away--the Captain had folded the notes and put them in his pocket.

"A good deal of money that, papa."

"I suppose I owe twice as much to my tailor," Captain Archinard replied, with irritation.

"Has Mr. Odd lent you money before this?"

"I really don't know that Mr. Odd's affairs--or mine--are any business of yours, Katherine."

"Yours certainly are, papa. When a father puts his daughter in a false position, his affairs decidedly become her business."

"What rubbish, Katherine. Better men than Odd have been glad to give me a lift. I can't see that Odd has been ill-used. He is rolling in money."

"I don't quite believe that, papa. Allersley is not such a rich property. But it is not of Mr. Odd's ill-usage I complain, it is of mine; for if this borrowing goes on, I hardly think I can continue my relations with Mr. Odd. It would rather look like--decoying."

The Captain stopped and fixed a look of futile dignity on his daughter.

"That's a strange word for you to use, Katherine. I would horsewhip the man who would suggest it. Odd is a gentleman."

"Decidedly. I did not speak of his point of view but of mine. All frankness of intercourse between us is impossible if you are going to sponge on him."

"Katherine! I can't allow such impertinence! Outrageous! It really is!

Sponge! Can't a man borrow a few paltry hundreds from another without exposing himself to such insulting language?--especially as Odd is to become my son-in-law, I suppose. He is always hanging about you."

"That is what I meant, papa." Katherine's tone was icy. "Your suppositions were apparent to me, you drain Mr. Odd on the strength of them. Borrow from any one else you like as much as you can get, but, if you have any self-respect, you won't borrow from Mr. Odd in the hope that I will marry him."

"Devilish impertinent! Upon my word, devilish impertinent!" the Captain muttered. He drew out his cigar-case with a hand that trembled.

Katherine's bitter look was very unpleasant.

Katherine expected Odd the next morning; he was reading a ma.n.u.script to her, and would come early.

She was waiting for him at ten. She had put on her oldest dress. The severe black lines, a silk sash, knotted at the side, suggested a soutane--the slim buckled shoes with their square tips carried out the monastic effect, and Katherine's strong young face was cold and stern.

"Shall we put off our work for a little while? I want to speak to you,"