Hilda

Hilda

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hilda, by Sarah Jeanette Duncan This
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Title: Hilda A Story of Calcutta
Author: Sarah Jeanette Duncan
Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18051]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HILDA
A STORY OF CALCUTTA
BY SARAH JEANETTE DUNCAN (MRS. EVERARD COTES)

Author of "A Social Departure," "An American Girl in London," "His
Honour and a Lady," "A Voyage of Consolation," "Vernon's Aunt," "A
Daughter of To-day," etc.

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1898 By Frederick A. Stokes Company

HILDA
CHAPTER I.
Miss Howe pushed the portière aside with a curved hand and gracefully
separated fingers; it was a staccato movement, and her body followed it
after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes
inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was
there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. She
entered the room with a little stride, and then crossed it quickly, the
train of her morning gown--it cried out of luxury with the cheapest
voice--taking folds of great audacity, as she bent her face in its loose
mass of hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bamboo sofa,
and said--
"You poor thing! Oh, you poor thing!"
She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to keep it; but the hand
was neutral, and she let it go. "It is a hand," she said to herself, in one
of those quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, "that
turns the merely inquiring mind away. Nothing but passion could hold
it."
Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, but it came to nothing,
or to a mere embarrassed accent of their greeting. Then her voice
showed this feeling to be merely superficial, made nothing of it, pushed
it to one side.

"I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your pity," she said. "Oh,
Miss Howe, I am happier than you are--much happier." Her bare feet,
as she spoke, nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and her
eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three foot high, and thick
with the gilded landscape of Japan which stood near it, in the cheap
magnificence of the squalid room.
Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world she had found,
acquiesced with the gladness of an explorer in Laura Filbert as a feature
of it.
"Don't be too sure," she cried; "I am very happy. It is such a pleasure to
see you."
Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person and Miss Filbert as a
pictorial fact; but that was because she could not help it. Her eyes were
really engaged only with the latter Miss Filbert.
"Much happier than you are," Laura repeated, slowly moving her head
from side to side, as if to negative contradiction in advance. She smiled
too; it was as if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness.
"Of course you are--of course!" Miss Howe acknowledged. The words
were mellow and vibrant; her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a
kind of rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious sweetness. "I
can imagine the beatitudes you feel--by your clothes."
The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went up to the only
semi-conventional item of her attire. It was a brooch that exclaimed in
silver letters, "Glory to His Name!" "It is the dress of the Army in this
country," she said; "I would not change it for the wardrobe of any
queen."
"That's just what I mean." Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her
head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room,
straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids.
A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy
in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like

that--so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go about
the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the
world--there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't
go on. At least I couldn't."
"I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took a curious soft, uplifted
note.