Hilda | Page 7

and
she ordered more bread and butter in the worst possible Hindustani
without a thought except that the bread and butter should be brought.
Lindsay liked to think that with him she was particularly simple and
direct, that he was of those who freed her from the pretty consciousness,
the elegant restraint that other people fixed upon her. It must be
admitted that this conviction had reason in establishing itself, and it is
perhaps not surprising that, in the security of it, he failed to notice
occasions when it would not have held, of which this was plainly one.
Alicia reflected, with her cheek against the Afghan wolf-skins on the
back of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes that one could
usually see things being turned over in them. She would sometimes
keep people waiting while she thought. She thought perceptibly about
Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between sheltering eyelids to the
floor. Presently she re-arranged the rose in its green glass vase and said:
"Then it's impossible not to be interested."
"I thought you would find it so."

Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small fragments of cress
sandwich upon a terrier. "Fancy your being so sure," she said, "that you
could present her entertainingly!" She looked past him toward the soft
light that came in at the draped window, and he was not aware that her
regard held him fast by the way.
"Anyone could," he said cheerfully; "she presents herself. One is only
the humblest possible medium. And the most passive."
Alicia's eyes still rested upon the light from the window. It silhouetted
a rare fern from Assam, it certainly rewarded them.
"I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some more."
"Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing her?"
"Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction; "but I'm not a bit
satisfied. A few simple facts sometimes--sometimes are better. Wasn't
it a little difficult to make her acquaintance?"
"Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of Honour and was
charmed. Charmed in a new way. Next day I discovered her
address--it's obscure--and sent up my card for permission to tell her so.
I explained to her that one would have hesitated at home, but here one
was protected by dustur.[1] And she received me warmly. She gave me
to understand that she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind
from Calcutta. The truthful ring of it was pathetic, poor dear."
[Footnote 1: Custom.]
"That was in--"
"In February."
"In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, musingly. Then she took up
her divining-rod again. "One can imagine that she was grateful. People
of that kind--how snobbish I sound, but you know what I mean--are
rather stranded in Calcutta, aren't they? They haven't any world here;"

and with the quick glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she
added, "The arts conspire to be absent."
"Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any gratitude it was all mine.
But we met as kindred, if I may vaunt myself so much. A mere theory
of life will go a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of
that sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to treat me as if she
admitted it."
"What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded, quickly. "I should be
glad of a new one."
Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a little, as at the touch
of a finger light but cold.
"I don't think she has ever told me," he said. "No, I am sure she has
not." His reflection was, "It is her garment--and how could it fit another
woman?"
"But you have divined it--she has let you do that! You can give me
your impression."
He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon impalpabilities, but
not without a shade of embarrassment.
"Perhaps. But having perceived to pass on--it doesn't follow that one
can. I don't seem able to lay my hand upon the signs and symbols."
The faintest look of disappointment, the slightest cloud of submission,
appeared upon Miss Livingstone's face.
"Oh, I know!" she said. "You are making me feel dreadfully out of it,
but I know. It surrounds her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual
atmosphere. Though I confess that is the part I don't understand in
connection with an actress."
There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. Alicia lay back
upon her wolf-skins like a long-stemmed flower cast down among them,

and looked away from the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat.
He had the subtlest intimations with women.
"It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. "My continual wonder is that
I'm not in love with her. A fellow in a novel, now, in my situation,
would be embroiled with half his female relations by this