"Not to-day; I can"t." Odd knew that he was cowardly. "I shall see you to-morrow? I suppose not."
"Why, yes, if you come to the Boulevard St. Germain." Hilda had deposited Palamon on the floor of the cab and still stood by the open door looking rather dismayed.
"Really!"
"I shall go there."
"I too, then. Remember our vow of friendship, Hilda. I wish you everything that is good and happy."
There was seemingly a slightly hurt look on Hilda"s face as she drove away. In spite of the vow, Peter feared that this was the last of Hilda, of even this rather shadowy second edition of friendship.
He had done his duty; to hurt oneself badly seems a surety of having done one"s duty thoroughly.
CHAPTER VI
Hilda drove home, with Palamon leaning his warm body against her feet as he sat on the floor of the cab. She put out her hand now and then and laid it on his head, but absently. She leaned back presently and closed her eyes, only rousing herself with a little start when the cab drew up with a jerk in the Rue Pierre Charron. Palamon stood dully on the pavement while she spoke to the cabman--but the _monsieur_ had paid him, as Hilda had forgotten for the moment. Palamon was evidently tired too, and with a little turn of dread she wondered if the time would come when she must leave Palamon to a lonely day in the apartment. Mrs. Archinard did not like dogs near her. Katherine was always out, and although Rosalie the cook was devoted to the _tou-tou_, Hilda would miss him terribly and he would miss her.
She said to herself that if it came to that she would allow herself a daily cab-fare rather than leave Palamon, and she toiled up the steep stairs carrying him. Taylor opened the door to her.
"Give me the dog, Miss Hilda; you do look that tired. You are to go at once into the drawing-room, Miss. Lord Allan Hope has been waiting for some time."
Hilda was surprised to find that she had been thinking of Palamon rather than of the ordeal before her. She felt calm now, perfectly, as she walked into the drawing-room, a little taken aback, however, to find Lord Allan there waiting for her and alone.
Katherine was in the next room, her own pretty room, a rather perplexed smile of expectancy on her face. Taylor brought in Palamon, and Katherine gave him a drink and patted him kindly. Palamon would go with Hilda to her new home--dear old Palamon! The thought of Hilda"s new home and homes--of the castle in Somersetshire and the shooting-lodge in Scotland, and the big house in Grosvenor Square, deepened the look of perplexity on Katherine"s brow.
While Palamon lapped the water, she watched him with an expression of absent-minded concentration. She could hear nothing in the drawing-room, except now and then the slightly raised quiet of Allan Hope"s fine voice. Presently there was a long silence, and Katherine paused near the door.
The quizzical lift of her eyebrows spoke her amused inquiry. She could hardly imagine Hilda allowing herself to be kissed, and as the silence continued, Katherine felt a touch of impatience color her sisterly sympathy. Lord Allan"s voice, pitched on a deep note of pain, startled her. There followed quite a burst of ardent eloquence. With a little _moue_ of self-disapproval Katherine bent her ear to the door. She heard Lord Allan quite distinctly. He was pleading in more desperate accents than she could have imagined possible from him, and Katherine caught, too, the half frightened reiteration of Hilda"s voice: "I can"t, I can"t; really I can"t. I am so--_so_ sorry, so sorry--" The childishness of this helpless repet.i.tion brought a quick frown to Katherine"s brow.
"Little idiot! Baby!"
She straightened herself and stood staring at the gray houses across the way. Then, at renewed silence in the drawing-room, she walked to the mirror and looked at her amethyst-robed reflection.
Her eyes lingered on the contour of her waist, the supple elegance of the line that fell gleaming from her hip. She met the half-shamed, half-daring glance of her deeply set eyes. The silence continued, and Katherine walked out through the entrance and into the drawing-room.
Hilda was sitting upright on a tall chair, looking at the floor with an expression of painful endurance, and Lord Allan stood looking at her.
He turned his eyes almost unseeingly on Katherine and remained silent, while Hilda rose and put out her hand to him. Hilda had no variety of metaphor; "I am so sorry," she repeated.
She left her hand in his for one moment and then pa.s.sed swiftly out of the room. Katherine was left facing the unfortunate lover. Katherine showed great tact.
"Lord Allan, don"t mind me. Sit down for a moment. Perhaps then you may be able to tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
"No good, Miss Archinard; it"s all up with me."
Her gentle voice evidently turned aside the current of his frank despair. Instead of rushing out, he dropped on the sofa and looked at the carpet over his locked hands.
"I am not going to talk to you for a little while."
The lamps were lighted and the tea-things all in readiness on the little table. Katherine lit the kettle and turned a log on the fire. Lord Allan"s silence implied a dull acquiescence. He did not move until Katherine came and sat down on the chair beside him.
"_I_ am so sorry, too," she said, with a sad little smile. "Lord Allan, I thought she cared for you."
"I hoped so."
"And have you no more hope?"
"None--absolutely none. I tell you it"s rough on a fellow, Miss Archinard. I--I _adore_ that child."
"Poor Lord Allan," Katherine gently breathed. She stretched out her slim hand and laid it almost tenderly on his. Katherine was rather surprised at herself, and to herself her motives were rather confused. "I should have liked you as a brother, Lord Allan."
"You are awfully kind." He lifted his dreary eyes and surveyed her absently, but with some grat.i.tude. "I suppose I had best be going," he added suddenly, as if struck by the anti-climax of his position.
"No, no; not unless you feel you must." Katherine put out her hand again and detained his rising. "I can"t bear to think of you going out alone like that into the cold. Just wait. You are bruised. Get back your breath. I am not going to be tiresome."
Lord Allan leaned back in the sofa with a long sigh, relapsing into the same half stunned silence, while Katherine moved about the tea-table, measuring out the tea from the caddy to the teapot, pouring on the boiling water, and pausing to wait for the tea to steep. Presently Lord Allan was startled by a proffered steaming cup.
"Will you?" she said. "I made it for you. It is such a chilly evening."
"Oh, how awfully kind of you," he started from his crushed rec.u.mbency of att.i.tude, "but you know I really _can"t!_" But at the grieved gentleness of Katherine"s eyes he took the cup. "It is too awfully kind of you. I do feel abominably chilly." He gulped down the tea, and gave a half shame-faced smile as she took the cup for replenishment.
"No, don"t get up," she urged, as he made an effort to collect his courtesy; "let me wait on you," and she returned with a discreetly tempting plate of the thinnest bread and b.u.t.ter. She sat down beside him again, looking into the fire with kind, sad eyes as she stirred her tea.
She asked him presently, in the same quietly gentle voice, some little question about the most recent debate in the House. Lord Allan had rather distinguished himself in that debate; it was on the crest of that wave of triumph that he had come to Hilda. From monosyllabic replies he was led on to a rather doleful recitation of his own prowess; it seemed that Katherine had followed it all in the newspapers, so tactfully intelligent were her comments. He found himself sipping his third cup of tea, enjoying in a dreary way the expounding of his favorite political theories to the quiet, purple-robed figure beside him. He remembered that Miss Archinard had always been interested in his career; she, of course, was the intellectual one, though Hilda"s beauty sent a sharp stab of pain through him as he made the comparison; he appreciated now Miss Archinard"s kindness and sympathy with a brotherly warmth of grat.i.tude. When he at last rose to go, he was dejected; but no longer the crushed individual of an hour before.
"You have been too good to a beaten man," he said, taking her hand.
"Oh, Lord Allan, by the laws of compensation you must lose _sometimes_.
Hilda, poor child, doesn"t know what she has done; she cannot know. Her little achievements bound the world for her. She doesn"t see outside her studio walls. _Your_ great world of action, true beneficent action, would stun her. Do you leave Paris directly, Lord Allan? Yes! Then won"t you write to me now and then? I am interested in you. I won"t relinquish the claim of "it might have been." May I keep in touch with you--as a sister would?"
"You are too good, Miss Archinard."
"To an old friend? A man I have followed and admired as I have you? Lord Allan, I respect you from the bottom of my heart for the way in which you have borne this knock-down from fate. You are strong, it won"t hurt you in the end. Let me know how you get on."
Katherine"s eyes were compelling in their candid kindness. Lord Allan said that he would, with emphasis. As he went down the long staircase, the purple-robed figure filled his thoughts with a reviving beneficence. He felt that the blow was perhaps not so bad as he had imagined--might even be for the best; better for him, for his career.
Katherine"s words enveloped him in an atmosphere that was soothing.
Left alone, Katherine finished her second cup of tea, and made, as she looked thoughtfully into the fire, a second little _moue_ of self-disapprobation.
CHAPTER VII
Odd, as usual, found Katherine in the drawing-room when he called next morning. The Captain and Mrs. Archinard had a.s.sumed almost the aspect of illusions of late; for the regularity of his daily routine--the morning spent with Katherine, and the afternoon with Hilda--excluded the hours of their appearance, and Odd was rather glad of the discovered immunity.