If Hilda was so soon to pass to the supreme authority of an accepted lover, Peter felt that for his own satisfaction he must make the most of the time left him, and solve the riddle of her occupations. That delicate sense of loyal reticence had held him from a hinted question to even Katherine. If Katherine were as ignorant as he, a question would arouse and imply suspicion. Odd could suspect Hilda of nothing worse than a silly disobedience founded on a foolish idea of her own artistic worth; a dull self-absorption, unsaved by a touch of humor. Yet this very suspicion irritated Odd profoundly; it seemed logical and yet impossible. He felt, in his very revulsion from it, a justification for a storming of her barriers. That very evening, while Katherine played Schumann, the Captain having gone out and Mrs. Archinard dozing on the sofa, he determined to have the truth if possible. Hilda stood behind her sister, listening. Her tall slenderness looked well in anything that fell in long lines, even if made by the most _petite_ of _petite couturières_, as the gray silk had been. The white fichu covered deficiencies of fit, and left free the exquisite line of her throat. Her head, in its attitude of quiet listening, struck Odd with the old sense of a beauty significant, not the lovely mask of emptiness. "Come and sit by me, Hilda," he said from his place on the sofa, "you can hear better at this distance." The quick turn of her head, her pretty look of willingness were charming, he thought. "I like to see you in that dress," he said, as she sat down beside him on the sofa, "there isn't a whiff of paint or palette about it, except that, in it, you look like a picture, and a prettier one than even you could paint." "That is a very subtle insult!" Hilda's smile showed a most encouraging continuation of the pretty willingness. "You see," said Odd, "you are not fair to your friends. You should paint fewer pictures, and be more constantly a picture in yourself." She showed a little uneasy doubtfulness of look. "I am afraid I don't understand you. I am afraid I am stupid." "You should _be_ a little more, and _act_ a little less." "But to act is to be," said Hilda, with a sudden laugh. "We are not listening to Schumann," she added, a trifle maliciously. Her face turned toward him in a soft shadow, a line of light just defining the cheek's young oval, the lovely slimness of the throat affected Odd with a really rapturously artistic appreciation. The shape of her small head, too, with its high curves of hair, was elegant with an intimate elegance peculiarly characteristic. An inner gentle dignity, a voluntary submission to exterior facts of existence resulting in a higher freedom, a more perfect self-possession, seemed to emanate from her; the very poise of her head suggested it, and so strong and so sudden was the suggestion that Odd felt his curiosity intolerable, and those groping suspicions outrageously at sea.