"No; not meanly so, I am sure." Odd's eyes were quietly scrutinizing, as, another sign of the ten years, he adjusted a pair of eyeglasses and looked at her, but not, as Katherine felt, unsympathetic. "And meanwhile? you will find your weapons in time, no doubt, but, meanwhile, what do you do with yourself?" "Meanwhile I study my _milieu_. I go out a good deal, if one can call it going out in this dubious Parisian, Anglo-American _mélange_; I read a bit, and I bicycle in the Bois with papa in the morning. It sounds like sentimentality, but I do feel that there is an element of tragedy in papa and myself bicycling. Oh, for a ride across country!" "You rode so well, too, Mary told me." "Yes, I rode well, otherwise I shouldn't regret it." Katherine smiled with even more assurance under the added intensity of the _pince-nez_. "You enjoy the excelling, then, more than the feeling." "That sounds vain; I certainly shouldn't feel pleasure if I were conscious of playing second fiddle to anybody." "A very vain young lady," Odd's smile was quite alertly interested, "and a self-conscious young lady, too." "Yes, rather, I think," Katherine owned; frankness became her, "but I am very conscious of everything, myself included. I am merely one among the many phenomena that come under my notice, and, as I am the nearest of them all, naturally the most intimately interesting. Every one is self-conscious, Mr. Odd, if they have any personality at all." "And you are clever," Peter pursued, in a tone of enumeration, his smile becoming definitely humorous as he added: "And I am very impudent." Katherine was not sure that she had made just the effect she had aimed for, but certainly Mr. Odd would give her credit for frankness. It was agreed that he should come for tea the next afternoon. "After five," Katherine said; "Hilda doesn't get in till so late; and I know that Hilda is the _clou_ of the occasion." "Does Hilda take her painting so seriously as all that?" "She doesn't care about anything, _anything_ else," Katherine said gravely, adding, still gravely, "Hilda is very, very lovely." "I hope you weren't too much disappointed," Lady---- said to Odd, just before he was going; "is she not a charming girl?" "She really is; the disappointment was only comparative. It was Hilda whom I knew so well. The dearest little girl." "I have not seen much of her," Lady---- said, with some vagueness of tone. "I have called on Mrs. Archinard, a very sweet woman, clever, too; but the other girl was never there. I don't fancy she is much help to her mother, you know, as Katherine is. Katherine goes about, brings people to see her mother, makes a _milieu_ for her; such a sad invalid she is, poor dear! But Hilda is wrapt up in her work, I believe. Rather a pity, don't you think, for a girl to go in so seriously for a fad like that? She paints very nicely, to be sure; I fancy it all goes into that, you know."