The Dull Miss Archinard Part 9

They walked in silence through the woods. Clouds hid the moon, and the wind had risen.

Peter had dreary thoughts. He felt like a ghost in the ghost-like unreality of existence. The walk through the melancholy dimness seemed symbolical of a wandering, aimless life. The touch of Hilda Archinard's little hand in his was comforting. When they had pa.s.sed through the Priory shrubbery and were nearing the house, Hilda's step beside him paused.

"Will you kiss me 'Good-bye' here, not before them all?"

"What beastly things 'Good-byes' are," Odd said, looking down at the glimmering oval of her uplifted face; "what thoroughly beastly things."

He took the little face between his hands and kissed her: "Good-bye, dear little Hilda."

"Thank you so much--for everything," she said.

"Thank you, my child. I shall not forget you."

"Don't be different. _Try_ not to change."

"Ah, Hilda! Hilda!"

That she, not he, would change was the inevitable thing. He stooped and kissed again the child beside him.

Part I

KATHERINE

CHAPTER I

Odd knew that he was late as he drove down the Champs Elysees in a rattling, closed _fiacre_. He and Besseint had talked so late into the evening that he had barely had time to get to his hotel in the Marboeuf quarter and dress.

Besseint was one of the cleverest French writers of the day; he and Peter had battled royally and delightfully over the art of writing, and as Besseint was certainly more interesting than would be the dinner at the Emba.s.sy, Peter felt himself excusable.

Lady---- welcomed him unresentfully--

"Just, only just in time. I am going to send you down with Miss Archinard--over there talking to my husband--she is such a clever girl."

Peter was conscious of a shock of surprise; a shock so strong that Lady---- saw a really striking change come over his face. Peter himself was startled by his own pleasure and eagerness.

"Evidently you know her; and evidently you _were_ going to be bored and are _not_ going to be now! Your change of expression is really unflattering!" Lady---- laughed good humoredly.

"I haven't seen her for ten years; we were the greatest chums. Oh! it isn't Hilda, then!" Odd caught sight of the young lady.

"I am _very_ sorry it isn't 'Hilda.' Hilda is the beauty; she is, unfortunately, almost an unknown quant.i.ty; but Katherine will be a stepping-stone, and I a.s.sure you that she is worth cultivation on her own account."

Yes, Katherine was a stepping-stone; that atoned somewhat for the disappointment that Odd felt as he followed his hostess across the room.

"Miss Archinard--an old friend. Mr. Odd tells me he has not seen you for ten years."

"Mr. Odd!" cried Miss Archinard. She was evidently very glad to see him.

"It is astonis.h.i.+ng, isn't it?" said Peter. "Ten years does mean something, doesn't it?"

"So much and yet so little. It hasn't changed you a bit," said Katherine. "And here is papa. Papa, isn't this nice? Mr. Odd, do you remember the day you fished Hilda out of the river? Poor Hilda! And her romantic farewell escapade?"

Captain Archinard was changed; his hair had become very white, and his good looks well worn, but his greeting had the cordiality of old friends.h.i.+p.

"And Hilda?" Peter questioned, as he and Katherine went into the dining-room together. "Hilda is well? And as lovely as ever?"

"Well, and as lovely as ever," Katherine a.s.sured him. "She is not here because she rarely goes out. Papa and I are the frivolous members of the family. Mamma goes in for culture, and Hilda for art." Peter had a good look at her as they sat side by side.

Katherine was no more beautiful than in childhood, but she was distinctly interesting and--yes--distinctly charming. Her black eyes, deeply set under broad eyebrows, held the same dominant significance; humorous, cynical, clever eyes. Her white teeth gave a brilliant gayety to her smile. There was distinction in her coiffure--the thick deeply rippled hair parted on one side, and coiled smoothly from crown to neck; and Peter recognized in her dress a personal taste as distinctive--the long unbroken lines of her nasturtium velvet gown were untinged by any hint of so-called artistic dowdiness, and yet the dress wrinkled about her waist as she moved with a daring elegance far removed from the moulded conventionality of the other women's bodices. This glowing gown was cut off the shoulders; Katherine's shoulders were beautiful, and they were triumphantly displayed.

"And now, please tell me," said Peter, "how it comes that I haven't seen you for ten years?"

"How comes it that we have not seen _you_? You have been everywhere, and so have we; really it is odd that we should never have met. Of course you know that we left the Priory only a year after you went to India?"

Peter nodded.

"I was dismayed to find you gone when I got back. I heard vague rumors of Florence, and when I went there one winter you had disappeared."

"We must have been in Dresden. How I hated it! All the shabby second-rate culture of the world seems to gravitate to Dresden. We had to let the Priory, you know. We are so horribly poor."

Katherine's smiling a.s.sertion was not carried out in her appearance, yet the statement put a bond of familiarity between them; Katherine spoke as to an old friend who had a right to know.

"Then we had a year or two at Dinard--loathsome place I think it! Then Florence again, and at last Paris, and here we have been for over three years, and here we shall probably stick for who knows how long! Hilda's painting gives us a reasonable background; at least as reasonable as such exiles can hope for."

"But you don't mean to say that your exile is indefinite?"

Katherine nodded, with eyebrows lifted and a suggestion of shrug in the creamy expanse of shoulder.

"And Hilda paints? Well?"

"Hilda paints really well. She has always painted, and her work is really individual, unaffectedly individual, and that's the rare thing, you know. Over four years of atelier work didn't scotch Hilda's originality, and she has a studio of her own now, and is never happy out of it."

"What kind of work does she go in for?" Peter was conscious of a vague uneasiness about Hilda. "Portraits?"

"No; Hilda is not very good at likenesses. Her things are very decorative--not j.a.panese either--except in their air of choice and selection; well, you must see them, they really are original, and, in their own little way, quite delightful; they are, perhaps, a wee bit like baby Whistlers--not that I intimate any real resemblance--but the sense of color, the harmony; but you must see them," Katherine repeated.

"And Mrs. Archinard?" Peter felt some remorse at having forgotten that rather effaced personality.

"Mamma is just the same, only stronger than she used to be in England.

I think the Continent suits her better. And now _you_, Mr. Odd. The idea of talking about such n.o.bodies as we are when you have become such a personage! You have become rather cynical too, haven't you? As a child you did not make a cynical impression on me, and your 'Dialogues' did. I think you are even more cynical than Renan. Some stupid person spoke to me of a _rapport_ between your 'Dialogues' and his 'Dialogues Philosophiques.' I don't imply that, except that you are both sceptical and both smiling, only your smile is more bitter, your scepticism less frivolous."

"I'm sceptical as to people, not as to principles," said Peter, smiling not bitterly.

"Yet you are not a misanthrope, you do not hate people."