"No; I won't be angry with you." Odd felt that his very lips were white. "Well, he gave me a letter one day." Hilda paused. "What a despicable man!" she said reflectively; "I taught his wife! I tore the letter in two, gave it back to him, and walked out. Naturally, I never went back again." Her voice suddenly broke. "Oh! it was horrible! I felt--" "What did you feel?" "I felt as though I were for evermore set apart from _my_ kind of girl, from girls like Katherine. I felt smirched, as though some one had thrown mud at me. That was morbid. I got over it." "Heavens!" Odd ejaculated. "Katherine knows this too?" he asked bitingly. "Oh no, no! Mr. Odd, you are the only person. Never speak of it, will you? Never, never! Poor Kathy! It would drive her mad!" "And she knows of your work?" "Yes; I had to tell her of that. She felt dreadfully about it. She wanted me to go out with her, and have pretty dresses, and meet the clever people she meets. You should have seen how happy she was in London last spring! To have me with her! Wrenched away from my paint! Of course I could not give up my work, even if there had been money enough. I made her see that, and I can't say I made her agree, but I made her yield. She takes a false view of it still, and worries over it. She wants me to give up the teaching and paint pictures only; but that would be too risky, they don't sell so surely. I have several on my hands. But Katherine knows nothing of lions and unpleasantness. I must keep such things secret, or I should not be allowed to go on." "You think I am safe. I must allow you, I suppose?" "Yes, you must." She smiled a very decided little smile, adding gravely, "I have confided in you." "Trust me." There was silence in the cab for some moments. The tall trees of the Cours la Reine dripped in a misty mass on one side; on the other was the Seine with its lights. "And the young man I saw at the door as you came out to-day?" said Odd. "Oh, that is nothing, I hope. He is Mademoiselle Lebon's brother. A harmlessly disagreeable creature, I fancy." Odd resumed his brooding silence. "What are you thinking of so solemnly?" she asked. "Of you." "Why so solemnly? I am afraid you are laboring under all sorts of false impressions. I have told my story stupidly." "The true impression has stupefied me. Good heavens! Theoretically I believe in the development of character at all costs, and you have certainly developed a _rara avis_ in the line; but practically, practically, my dear little girl, I would have you taken care of in cotton-wool, guarded, protected; you would always be lovely, and you would have been happy. You have been very unhappy." Hilda was looking at him with that rather vague look of impersonal contemplation characteristic of her. "How you exaggerate things," she said, smiling; "I have not been unhappy." "The pity of it! The pathos!" Odd pursued, not heeding her comment. Hilda looked at him rather sadly.