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Ishmael was dancing opposite Hilaria Eliot, and his enjoyment of it lay in knowing that Killigrew, who had basely tried to trip him up shortly before, was suffering pangs of envy. After some four years of knowing her, Killigrew was suddenly in love with Miss Eliot and didn't mind who knew it.
That such happenings should be possible would have seemed incredible till the realisation of Hilaria drove it home. Of no use to say that these things were the exception. They could still happen. And now Killigrew before his natural time, though not so violently as had been the case with the other two old playmates.
Then with a sudden flash he remembered it was Hilaria, little Hilaria Eliot she too had that look which, being in the middle of the period himself, he did not recognise as alien to its stamp, but which was so conspicuously so that women might have called it dowdy and men individual. But this girl was feminine, that was obvious in the timid shyness even of her trusting attitude.
The nearest way to the hollow on the moor that Hilaria had made her own was a tiny track so overgrown with brambles and gorse as hardly to be worthy the name, and on this particular evening, out of care for her strange garb, she took a path which curved with some semblance of smoothness in a wider arc.
"He's a fraud, isn't he, Ishmael, who pretends to love to wallow in blug just to hide his lamblike disposition." "You always did talk wot," remarked Carminow placidly. "You're weally not a bit changed, Killigrew, in spite of Paris. By the way, I suppose you heard about Polkinghorne?" "Yes, from Old Tring. I went to St. Renny a little while ago." "Ah! then you heard about Hilaria?
At that moment Killigrew relieved the tension by jumping up and calling a wild, long-drawn "Hullo-o" to the approaching boys. They came running up the slope and flung themselves down in a circle, while Polkinghorne major, a big, jolly, simple-minded boy, one of the best liked in the school, laid audacious hands on the bag, which Hilaria snatched from him with a shriek.
It was impossible to imagine Hilaria happy in a crinoline, and she fought them fiercely, yet crinolines were in full flower, and the one disported by the doctor's daughter of a Sunday was the admiration and envy of the feminine members of the town.
And mind you keep your jaws shut about it when you get back to the school, you two." Polkinghorne minor and Moss both looked considerably taken aback, but not more so than Hilaria.
The two boys scrambled down the boulders and assisted Hilaria the hem of whose white tarlatan skirts showed already the worse for her walk over the hummocky patch of rocks and gorse that fringed the hollow. Laughing rather ruefully, she flung herself down, scattering her bonnet, shawl, and bag over the turf in the impetuous movement.
Hilaria was at present going through a phase of "trying to be good," as the bishop was coming to hold a confirmation, and only those accounted worthy were to be confirmed. Her goodness was of that healthy elastic kind natural to children, which never prevents them doing what they wish, because they instinctively keep it in a compartment to itself.
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