IT was just past four when Peter walked up the Rue Bonaparte and stationed himself at the corner of the Rue Vavin and the Rue d’Assas, opposite the Luxembourg Gardens.
From this point of vantage he could look up and down the street, and there would be no chance of missing her. She rarely reached home till past six, and, even allowing for very slow walking, he was if anything too early.
He felt, as he opened his umbrella—it had begun to rain—that his present position might look foolish, but was certainly justifiable. He would ask Hilda no questions, force in no way her confidence, but really on the gray dreariness of such a day she ought not to reject but rather to be glad for his proffered and unexpected companionship. The combined dreariness of the afternoon with its cold rain, the gray street, the desolate-looking branches of the trees in the Luxembourg Gardens, inspired him with a painful sympathy for Hilda’s pursuits. She was, probably, working in one of these tall, severe houses; perhaps with some atelier chum fallen beneath the ban of Mrs. Archinard’s disapproval, and clung to with a girl’s enthusiasm. Disobedient of Hilda, very. The chum might be masculine. This was a new and disagreeable supposition; a Marie Bashkirtseff, Bastien Lepage affair; Bohemia gloried in such audacities; it was difficult to associate Hilda with such feats of independence. There was a mystery somewhere, however, and if not mountainous, it must be more than mere mole-hill. It was very windy, and the rain blew slantingly. Katherine would find the situation amusing. A vision of the sympathetic amusement was followed by the realization that to betray his Quixotism might be to betray Hilda’s confidence. Yet Hilda had made no confidence. Peter rebelled at the mere suggestion of concealment. Knowing all, Katherine could surely know that he had been admitted into the outer courts of the mystery. He had ample time for every variety of reflection, for he had been standing in the rain for over an hour, when Hilda appeared not far from him, stepping from the door of one of the largest and most dignified of the gray houses. She paused on the wet pavement to open her umbrella, and Peter had a glimpse of the wide red lips and small black beard of an unpleasant-looking French youth, who seemed to loiter behind her with a certain air of expectancy. It was impossible to connect his commonplace vulgarity of aspect with Bohemian friendships or with Hilda, and, indeed, she gave him a mere nod, not looking at him at all, and came walking up the street, her skirt raised in one hand, showing slim feet and ankles. Odd, as he contemplated her advance, was reminded of the light poise of a Jean Goujon nymph. Her umbrella, lowered against the wind, hid him from her.
“Well, Hilda,” he said amicably, when she was almost beside him—the umbrella tilted back over her shoulder, and the rain fell on her startled face—“Here I am.”
Her stare of utmost amazement was very amusing, but she looked white and tired.
“I must get a fiacre, I haven’t your taste for plodding through rain and mud, and you’ll be kind enough to forgo the enjoyment for one day, won’t you?” Her stupefaction at last resolved itself into one word: “Well!” she exclaimed with emphasis, and then she laughed outright.
“By Jove, child, you look done up. I’m glad you’re not angry, though. You wouldn’t laugh if you were angry, would you? Here is a fiacre.” He hailed the approaching vehicle; the cocher’s hat and cape, the roof of the cab, the horse’s waterproof covering glistened with rain in the dying light.
“You are very, very kind,” Hilda said, rather gravely now, as they stood side by side on the curb while the fiacre rattled up to them.
“I always intend to be kind, Hilda, if you will let me. Jump in.” He followed her, slamming the door with relief, and depositing the two dripping umbrellas in a corner.
“You must be drenched,” said Hilda solemnly.
“Imitation is the sincerest flattery, I believe; your fondness for drenchings inspired me. You are not one bit angry, then? You see I ask you no questions.”
“Angry? It was too good of you!” Her voice was still meditative.
“I am much relieved that you should say so. I was only conscious of guilt.”
“How long did you wait?”
“About an hour.”
“And it was pouring!”
“Oh no, not pouring. I have suffered far worse drenchings for far less pleasure. One has no umbrella in Scotland on the moors.”
“One has, at least, the scenery.” Hilda smiled.
“Yes; the Rue d’Assas isn’t particularly inspiring. I don’t disclaim honor; that corner was most wearing. Only the irritation of waiting for my mysterious little truant kept me from finding it dreary.”
“Don’t call me mysterious, please.”
“But you are mysterious, Hilda; very. However, I promised myself, and I promise you, to say no more about it, to ask no questions.”
“You are so kind, so good.” There was deep feeling in her voice; she looked at him with a certain wistful eagerness. “You really do care, don’t you? Shall I tell you? I should like to. It seems silly not to tell you, and I think you have a right to know—after to-day.”
“I really care a great deal, Hilda; but—I don’t want to take an unfair advantage, you know; I really have no right whatsoever. Wait till this impulse of unmerited gratitude has passed.”
“But it is nothing to tell, really nothing. You see—I make money. I have to—I teach. There; that is all.”
Peter looked at her, at the white oval of her face, at the unfashionable little hat, at the shabby coat and skirt. A lily of the field who toiled and spun. And a hot resentment rose within him as he thought of the father, the mother, the sister.
“Why have you to?” he asked, in a hard voice.
“We are so dreadfully poor, and we are so dreadfully in debt.”
“But why you alone? What can you do?”
“I can do a good deal. I have been very lucky. I love my work too, and I make money by it, so it is natural. Mamma, of course, would think it terrible, degrading even; but I can’t agree with mamma’s point of view; I think it is quite wrong. I see nothing terrible or degrading.”
“No; nothing terrible or degrading, I grant you.”
“You think I am right, don’t you?”
“Yes; quite right, dear, quite right.”
Odd paused before adding: “It is the incongruity that is shocking.”
“The incongruity?” Hilda’s voice was vague.
“Between your life and theirs; yes.”
“Oh, you don’t understand. I love my work; it is my pleasure. Besides, they don’t know; they don’t realize the necessity either.”
“Why the teaching? I thought your pictures sold well.”
“And so they do, often; but I took up the teaching some years ago, before I had any hope of selling my pictures; it is very sure, very well paid, and I really find it a rest after five hours of studio work; after five hours I don’t feel a picture any longer.”
“Yet they must know that the money comes from somewhere?”
Hilda’s voice in replying held a pained quality; this attack on her family very evidently perplexed her.
“Mamma thinks it comes from papa, and papa, I suppose, doesn’t think about it at all; he knows, too, that I sell my pictures. You mustn’t imagine,” she added, with a touch of pride and resentment, “that they would let me teach if they knew; you mustn’t imagine that for one moment. And I don’t mean to let them know, for then I couldn’t help them; as it is, my help is limited. The money goes, for the most part, towards guarding mamma. She could not bear shocks and anxiety.”
Odd said nothing for some moments.
“How did it begin? how did you come to think of it?” he asked.
“It began some years ago, at the studio where I worked when I first came to Paris. There was a kind, dull French girl there; she had no talent, and she was very rich. She heard my work praised a good deal, and one day, after I had got a picture into the Salon for the first time, she came and asked me if I would give her lessons. Fifteen francs an hour.” Hilda paused in a way which showed Odd that the recollection was painful to her.
“It seemed a very strange thing to me at first, that she should ask me. I had, I’m afraid, rather silly ideas about Katherine and myself; as though we were very elevated young persons, above all the unpleasant realities of life. But my common sense soon got the better of my pride; or rather, I should say, the false pride made way for the honest. We were awfully poor just then. Papa, of course, never could, never even tried to make money; but that winter he went in for exasperated speculation, and really Katherine and I did not know what was to become of us. To keep it from mamma was the great thing. Katherine was just beginning to go out, and no money for gowns and cabs; no money, even, for mamma’s books. Keeping up with current literature is expensive, you know, and mamma has a horror of circulating libraries. The thought of poor mamma’s empty life soon decided me. I remember she had asked one day for John Addington Symonds’s last book, and Katherine and I looked at one another, knowing that it could not be bought. I realized then, that at all events I could make enough to keep mamma in books and Katherine in gloves. You can’t think how nasty, how egotistic my vulgar hesitation seemed to me. My life so full, so happy, and theirs on the verge of ruin. There is something very selfish about art, you know; it shuts one off so much from real life, makes one so indifferent to scrapings and pinchings. I realized that, with my shabby clothes and apparent talent, it was most natural for the French girl to think I should be glad of her offer; and indeed I was. It was soothing, too, to have her so eager. She wanted me very much, so I yielded gracefully.” Hilda gave a little smile of self-mockery. “I have taught her ever since. She lives in that house in the Rue d’Assas; rich, bourgeois people, common, but kind. She has no talent”—Hilda’s matter-of-fact manner of knowledge was really impressive—“but I don’t feel unfair in going on with her, for she really does see things now, and that is the greatest pleasure next to seeing and accomplishing; and, indeed, how rarely one accomplishes. Through her I have a great many pupils, for other girls at the studio heard of her progress with me, and wanted private lessons too. All my afternoons are taken up, and, with fifteen francs an hour, you can see what a lot I make. It rather annoys me to think of people far cleverer than I am who can make nothing, and I, just because I have had luck, making so much. But among my pupils, I really have quite a vogue; and I am a good teacher, I really think I am.”
“I am sure your pupils are very lucky. You have a great many, you say?”
“Yes, quite a lot. Sometimes I give three lessons in an afternoon. With Mademoi............