"And you talked with dear Katherine last night; you pleased her. She told Hilda and me this morning that you really pleased her immensely. Katherine is hard to please. I am proud of my girl, Mr. Odd, very, very proud. Did you not find her quite distinctive? Quite significant? I always think of Katherine as significant, many facetted, meaning much." The murmuring modulations of Mrs. Archinard's voice irritated Odd to such a pitch of ill-temper that he found it difficult to keep his own pleasant as he replied-- "Significant is most applicable. She is a charming girl." "Yes, charming; that too applies, and oh, what a misapplied word it is! Every woman nowadays is called charming. The daintily distinctive term is flung at the veriest schoolroom hoyden, as at the hard, mechanical woman of the world." Peter now said to himself that Mrs. Archinard was an ass--very unjustly--Mrs. Archinard was far from being an ass. She felt the atmosphere with unerring promptitude. Her effects were not to be made upon _ce type là_. She welcomed Katherine's entrance as a diversion from looming boredom. Katherine seemed to go in for a regal simplicity in dress. Her gown was again of velvet, a deep amethyst color. The high collar and the long sleeves that came over her white hands in points were edged with a narrow line of sable. A necklace of amethysts lightly set in gold encircled the base of her throat. Peter liked to see a well-dressed woman, and Katherine was more than well dressed. In the pearly tints of the room she made a picture with her purple gleams and shadows. "I _am_ glad to see you. Sit down. It is nice to have you in our little diggings. You are like a bit of England sitting there--a big bit!" "And you are a perfectly delightful condensation of everything delightfully Parisian." "The heart is British. True oak!" laughed Katherine; "don't judge me by the foliage." "Ah, but it needs a good deal of Gallic genius to choose such foliage." "No, no. I give the credit to my American blood, to mamma. But thanks, very much. I am glad you are appreciative." Katherine smiled so gayly, and looked so charmingly in the amethyst velvet, that Peter forgot for a moment to wonder where Hilda was, but Katherine did not forget. "I expect Hilda every moment. I have told them to wait tea until she comes, poor dear! 'Them' is Wilson, whom you saw, I suppose; Taylor, our old maid; and the cook! The cook is French, otherwise our staff is shrunken, but of the same elements. One doesn't mind having no servants in a little box like this. Yes, mamma, I have paid _all_ the calls, and only two people were out; so I deserve petting and tea. I hope Hilda will hurry." Mrs. Archinard's face took on a look of ill-used resignation. "We all pay dearly for Hilda's egotism," she remarked, and for a moment there was a rather uncomfortable silence. Odd felt a queer indignation and a queerer melancholy rising within him.