"And a very lucky girl she is to be able to make money so easily," the Captain remarked, after a pause. "By Jove! I wish that doing what pleased me most would give me a large income!" and the Captain, who certainly had made most conscientious efforts to fulfil his nature, and had, at least, tried to do what most pleased him all his life long, and with the utmost energy, looked resentfully at his narrow well-kept finger-nails. "Does she work all day long at her studio?" Peter asked, conscious of a certain hesitation in his voice. The mystery of Hilda's afternoon absences would now be either solved or determined. It was determined--definitely. There was no shade of suspicion in Mrs. Archinard's sighing, "Dear me, yes!" or in the Captain's, "From morning till night. Wears herself out." Hilda, all too evidently, had a secret. "She ought to go to two studios, it would tire her less. Her own half the day, and a large atelier the other." Assurance might as well be made doubly sure. "Hilda left Julian's a long time ago. She has lived in her own place since then, really lived there. I haven't seen it; of course I could not attempt the stairs. Katherine tells me there are terrible stairs. Most shockingly unhealthy life she leads, I think, and most, _most_ inconsiderate." At the dinner-table Odd knew that Hilda had only him to thank for the thorough "heckling" she received at the hands of both her parents. Her silence, with its element of vacant dulness, now admitted many interpretations. It hedged round a secret unknown to either father or mother. Unknown to Katherine? Her grave air of aloofness might imply as much, or might mean only a natural disapproval of the scolding process carried on before her lover, a loyalty to Hilda that would ask no question and make no reproach. "Any one would tell you, Hilda, that it is positively not _decent_ in Paris for a young girl to be out alone after dusk," said the Captain. "Odd will tell you so; he was speaking about it only this evening. You must come home earlier; I insist upon it." Odd sat opposite to her, and Hilda raised her eyes and met his. He smiled gravely at her, and shook his head. "Naughty little Hilda!" but his voice expressed all the tender sympathy the very sight of her roused in him, and Hilda smiled back faintly. CHAPTER III Peter brought Katherine the engagement ring a few days afterward. The drifting had ceased abruptly, and he felt the new sense of reality as most salutary. His personality and hers now filled the horizon; their relations demanded a healthy condensation of thoughts before expanded in wandering infinity, and he was thankful for the consciousness of definite duty and responsibility that made past years seem the refinement of egotism. Katherine looked almost roguishly gay that afternoon, and, even after the ring was exclaimed over, put on, and Peter duly kissed for it, he felt that there was still an expression of happy knowingness not yet accounted for.