Of course Hilda obeyed, though it appeared strange to her that Mrs. Orgreave had not sent Alicia on such an errand. Passing out of the bright dining-room where the gas was lit, she hesitated a moment in the dark broad corridor that led to the drawing-room. The mission, she felt, would make her rather prominent in front of Edwin Clayhanger, the stranger, and she had an objection to being prominent in front of him; she had, indeed, taken every possible precaution against such a danger. "How silly I am to loiter here!" she thought. "I might be Alicia!" The boys, she could now hear, were discussing French literature, and in particular Victor Hugo. When she caught the name of Victor Hugo she lifted her chin, and moved forward a little. She worshipped Victor Hugo with a passion unreflecting and intense, simply because certain detached lines from his poems were the most splendid occupants of her memory, dignifying every painful or sordid souvenir. At last Charlie's clear, gay voice said: "It's all very well, and Victor Hugo _is_ Victor Hugo; but you can say what you like--there's a lot of this that'll bear skipping, your worships." Already she was at the doorway. In the dusk of the unlighted chamber the faces of the four Orgreaves and Clayhanger showed like pale patches on the gloom. "Not a line!" she said fiercely, with her extremely clear articulation. She had no right to make such a statement, for she had not read the twentieth part of Victor Hugo's work; she did not even know what book they were discussing--Charlie held the volume lightly in his hand--but she was incensed against the mere levity of Charlie's tone. She saw Edwin Clayhanger jump at the startling interruption. And all five looked round. She could feel her face burning. Charlie quizzed her with a word, and then turned to Edwin Clayhanger for support. "Don't _you_ think that some of it's dullish, Teddy?" Edwin Clayhanger, shamefaced, looked at Hilda wistfully, as if in apology, as if appealing to her clemency against her fierceness; and said slowly: "Well--yes." He had agreed with Charlie; but while disagreeing with Hilda he had mysteriously proved to her that she had been right in saying to herself on the previous evening: "_I like him_." The incident appeared to her to be enormous and dramatic. She moved away, as it were breathless under emotion, and then, remembering her errand, threw over her shoulder: "Mrs. Orgreave wants to know when you're coming to supper." III