The white fragility of her neck and shoulders, in the generous display of which he recognized the gown's quondam possessor, gave him a little pang of fear. She looked extremely delicate, and the youthfulness of cheek and lip pathetic. That wretched drudgery! For, even through the happy candor of her eyes, he saw a deep fatigue--the long fatigue of a weary monotony of days. But in neither eyes nor voice was there a tinge of the aloofness--the reserve that had formerly chilled him. To-night Hilda seemed near once more; almost the little friend of ten years ago. "You dance well, too, Mr. Odd," she said. "I very seldom waltz." "In _my_ honor then?" "Solely in your honor. I haven't waltzed five times in one evening with one young woman--for ages!" "You haven't waltzed five times with me yet. I may wear you out!" "What an implied reflection on my forty years! Do I seem so old to you, Hilda?" "No; I don't think of you as old." "But I think of you as young, very young, deliciously young." "Deliciously?" she repeated. "That is a fallacy, I think. Youth is sad; doesn't see things in _value_; everything is blacker or whiter than reality, so that one is disappointed or desperate all the time." "And you, Hilda?" Her eyes swept his with a sweet, half-playful defiance. "Don't be personal." "But you were. And, after the other day--your declaration of contentment." "Everything is comparative. I was generalizing. I hate people who talk about themselves," Hilda added; "it's the worst kind of immodesty. Material and mental braggarts are far more endurable than the people who go round telling about their souls." "Severe, rigid child!" Odd laughed, and, after a little pause, laughed again. "You are horribly reserved, Hilda." "Very sage when one has nothing to show. Silence covers such a multitude of sins. If one is consistently silent, people may even imagine that one isn't dull," said Hilda maliciously. "You are dull and silent, then?" "I have few opinions; that is, perhaps, dulness." "It may be a very wide cleverness." "Yes; it may be. Now, Mr. Odd, the next waltz is yours too, you know. You have quite a cluster here. Let us sit out the next. I should like an ice." Odd fetched the ice and sat down beside her on a small sofa in a corner of the ballroom. Katherine passed, dancing; her dark eyes flashed upon them a glance that might have been one of amusement. Odd was conscious of a painful effort in his answering smile. Hilda's eyes, as she ate her ice, followed her sister with a fond contemplation. "Isn't that dress becoming to her? The shade of deepening, changing rose." "Your dress, too, Hilda, is lovely." "Do you notice dresses, care about them?" "I think I do, sometimes; not in detail as a woman would, but in the blended effect of dress and wearer."