Peter's friends talked of the amusing and touching spectacle of the universe. The representation of each man's illusion on the subject, and the manner of that representation, were never-ceasing sources of interest. Peter also read a little at the Bibliothèque Nationale, paid a few calls, dined out pretty constantly, and bicycled a great deal in the mornings with Katherine Archinard. She understood things well, and her taste was as sure and as delicate as even Odd could ask. Katherine had absorbed a great deal of culture during her wanderings, and it would have taken a long time for any one to find out that it was of a rather second-hand quality, and sought more for attainment than for enjoyment. Katherine talked with clever people and read clever reviews, and being clever herself, with a very acute critical taste, she knew with the utmost refinement of perception just what to like and just what to dislike; and as she tolerated only the very best, her liking gave value. Yet _au fond_ Katherine did not really care even for the very very best. Her appreciation was negative. She excelled in a finely smiling, superior scorn, and could pick flaws in almost any one's enjoyment, if she chose to do so. Katherine, however, was kind-hearted and tactful, and did not arouse dislike by displaying her cleverness except to people who would like it. Enthusiasm was banal, and Katherine was not often required to feign where she did not feel it; her very rigor and exclusiveness of taste implied an appreciation too high for expression; but Katherine had no enthusiasm. Her rebellious and iconoclastic young energy amused Odd. He thought her rather pathetic in a way. There was a look of daring and revolt in her eye that pleased his lazy spirit. Meanwhile Hilda troubled him. Would she never bicycle? Katherine, wheeling lightly erect beside him, gave the little shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders characteristic of her. She evidently found no fault with Hilda. Others might do so--the shrug implied that, implied as well that Katherine herself perhaps owned that her sister's impracticable unreason gave grounds for fault-finding--but Hilda was near her heart. When could he see her? That, too, seemed wrapped in the general cloud of vagueness, unaccountableness that surrounded Hilda. Odd called twice in the evening; once to be received by Katherine alone, Hilda was already in _dèshabille_ it seemed, and once to find not even Katherine; she was dining out, and Miss Hilda in bed. In bed at nine! "Was she ill?" he asked of Taylor. Wilson had evidently accompanied the Captain. "No wonder if she were, sir," Taylor had replied, with a touch of the grievance in her tone that Hilda always seemed to arouse in those about her; "but no, she's only that tired!" and Odd departed with a deepened sense of Hilda's wilful immolation. Katherine brought him home to lunch on several occasions after the bicycling, but Hilda was never there. She lunched at her studio.