And, being human, she found herself just a little bit glad this had come to them. She had two reasons for this feeling, the first of them being summed up in the words, “It serves them right!” Had Hilda cared less for Mimi and Carl, her momentary elation on hearing that they were being talked about would have been far slighter, if indeed she had felt the emotion at all. The very intensity of her passionate love for them both made her capable of greater cruelty, a vindictiveness that bordered on gloating over their descent into disfavour. A second reason for her fleeting satisfaction was wrapped in the possibility that through some means, she knew not what, there might come a break in the friendship between Carl and Mimi. Then she would, if the fates were kind, gain the interest and perhaps later the deeper affection for herself which she was sure Carl was lavishing on Mimi. Who can tell? she reflected; stranger things than that have happened.
As soon as this emotion became a conscious one, Hilda furiously rejected it as treachery of the basest kind to her friends. Filled with remorse, she rushed to see Mimi, fearing a return of the unworthy feeling. Her task there was made less easy by the somewhat cool manner in which Mimi greeted her. A very decided chilliness had entered into their hitherto warm relations which they both very distinctly dated from that day of the picnic early in the summer. Hilda through an essential honesty that governed all she did or thought found herself unable to act towards Mimi with the old cordiality and, to save both of them embarrassment, had stayed away from Mimi as much as she could. Mimi noticed this change and wondered what had caused it. Vaguely she felt it was due to her own friendship with Carl but she could not see why this should affect Hilda—it was only a friendship and nothing more. She had become vexed with Hilda and hurt that Hilda by her actions had shown there was a certain distrust of Mimi’s loyalty. Thus the breach had widened and the intense pride of the two had kept each from making any advance that might have closed it.
The two girls faced each other, praying for an opening while they talked of little and unimportant things which served, rather ineffectually, as a mask for their real feelings. Ineffectually, for both knew the other was eager for some chance phrase, some little thing, which might put them at ease. Five—ten—fifteen minutes passed. They still talked of inconsequentialities. The air was becoming more tense. They each longed, ached desperately, for some way out of the difficult situation between them. Hilda began to wish she had not come, to think of excuses for leaving, her mission unfulfilled.
It was Mimi who in desperation and uneasiness broke the spell.
“You’ve been acting queerly all summer, Hilda,” she challenged. “Why have you acted so?” She hated herself for the awkward way in which she had spoken, the almost belligerent note in her voice when she had intended to speak with utmost casualness.
“Why?” Hilda echoed. “Don’t you know why?”
“No—I can’t see—Has it anything to do with Carl?” she blurted out, knowing, as she spoke, it had wholly to do with Carl.
Hilda flushed and twisted her hands. Now that it was out, she felt a sense of nakedness, of being stripped bare and forced to walk through crowded streets, as she had often dreamed—a dream that always awoke her with fright. Even to her mother, close as she was to her, and to Mimi she had never dared reveal the extent of her love for Carl. A natural shyness and a fear of being made or thought ridiculous had forced her to keep her real feeling to herself. Now that Mimi had put it into words, she wished fervently she had kept to her former secretiveness. Not knowing the extent to which Carl’s and Mimi’s friendship had developed, she felt she had laid herself open to ridicule. Her perturbation was answer enough for Mimi.
“But why have you acted as you have?” she pursued the inquiry. “You of all people ought to know there’s nothing between Carl and me—”
Hilda silenced her with a raising of her hand.
“Tell me truthfully—Mimi—is that true?”
Her tone was so earnest, so appealing and fraught with apprehension, Mimi was startled.
“Of course I am telling you the truth,” she answered, irritation creeping into her voice despite her efforts to keep it out. “Don’t be silly, Hilda. And you might at least have trusted me.”
“I have trusted you—I have trusted you, Mimi, and I’ve hated myself forever doubting you, but you know how I’ve always liked Carl—” she ended miserably.
Mimi’s heart filled with pity and her eyes with tears. She clasped Hilda in her arms and Hilda clung to her passionately, pleading through her tears for forgiveness. All the misunderstanding was wiped away and they smiled happily through their tears. It was some time before Hilda could tell her the thing which had brought her. She felt great relief when Mimi merely laughed at the slanderous tales which were going the rounds.
“Oh, I’m not paying any attention to these gossipy old women around here. Why should I? If I had done anything of which I felt ashamed, it might worry me, but why worry one’s head over something that doesn’t exist? Life’s too short for that.” …
VIII
Mimi went to her room after Hilda had gone, and lay across the bed for a long time in deep thought. Hilda was a silly little goose for her anxiety, she thought, but she must care a great deal more about Carl than she, Mimi, had ever dreamed of. She determined to see Carl, tell him as much as was necessary about Hilda’s affection for him, and then refuse to see or go out with Carl herself. It
