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Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seemed unable to withdraw her attention from the kneeling figure. Suddenly, and as if the idea of Miriam had opened the whole volume of Hilda's reminiscences, she put this question to the sculptor: "Was Donatello really a Faun?"
Still if you think it will be any use there's no reason why you shouldn't mention it. Hilda has cried buckets full since the letter came." I am sorry for Hilda but I shall not write to her mother. I have enough on my hands without that. Besides, as Lalage says, I do not see the connection between my mother's position in society and Hilda's mother's schemes for her daughter's holidays.
The words were hardly uttered before Hilda's light step sounded outside, and her hand tried the door. Chris started violently, and cowered among her cushions. Noel chuckled softly. "Chris dear, what is the matter? Let me in!" Anxiety and persuasion were mingled in Hilda's voice. Noel's chuckle became audible. "She isn't going to. She doesn't want anyone but me. Do you, Chris?"
Indeed, there seemed a strange truth in Hilda's assertions, that in the form of his betrothed, his tutelary spirit lived and guarded. For smooth every step, and bright every day, in his career, since their troth had been plighted. And gradually the sweet superstition had mingled with human passion to hallow and refine it.
Really, the general ignorance that prevails among the working classes as to the clearest principles of political economy is something absolutely appalling, absolutely appalling. And his Grace scribbled a note in his memorandum-book of Hilda's ready-made peroration, for fear he should forget its precise wording before he began to give the House the benefit of his views that night upon the political economy of Small Urban Holdings.
As to the idea of her being left behind; of her father's starting off on a long journey without his lieutenant-general; of her mother's parting from her only child, whom she had watched with tender care and anxiety since the day of her birth, such a thought never came into Hilda's mind. Wherever her parents went she went, as a matter of course.
She isn't pretty. She isn't even kind, now. She's only depressing and tedious. As soon as she's fixed up here, I shall go. I shall leave her. I've done enough, and I've had enough. I must attend to my own affairs a bit. After all " And then Hilda's conscience interrupted: "But can you leave her altogether? Without you, what will happen to her? She's getting older and worse every day.
Only the image of Hilda remained, and seemed to drown in light the gloomy forebodings that had so much distressed him. As for Hilda's own warning, it had been nothing but the result of her sorrow at parting.
He spent the day in making such further search and investigation as he found practicable; and, though at first trammelled by an unwillingness to draw public attention to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the circumstances soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest.
Hilda's presence affected him unpleasantly. What he felt, when he was with her, strongly resembled an unconquerable dislike, which was at the same time wholly inexplicable to himself. He could appreciate her beauty only when he was at a distance from her, and then the memory of it attracted rather than repelled him.
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