They had much
more in common than their memories of a common friend. Indeed, they
seldom spoke of him. They saved that for the deep moments which do not
come often, and then their talk of him was mostly silence. Wilson knew
that Hilda had loved him; more than this he had not tried to know.
It was late when Wilson reached Hilda's apartment on this particular
December afternoon, and he found her alone. She sent for fresh tea
and made him comfortable, as she had such a knack of making people
comfortable.
"How good you were to come back before Christmas! I quite dreaded the
Holidays without you. You've helped me over a good many Christmases."
She smiled at him gayly.
"As if you needed me for that! But, at any rate, I needed YOU. How well
you are looking, my dear, and how rested."
He peered up at her from his low chair, balancing the tips of his long
fingers together in a judicial manner which had grown on him with years.
Hilda laughed as she carefully poured his cream. "That means that I was
looking very seedy at the end of the season, doesn't it? Well, we must
show wear at last, you know."
Wilson took the cup gratefully. "Ah, no need to remind a man of
seventy, who has just been home to find that he has survived all his
contemporaries. I was most gently treated--as a sort of precious relic.
But, do you know, it made me feel awkward to be hanging about still."
"Seventy? Never mention it to me." Hilda looked appreciatively at the
Professor's alert face, with so many kindly lines about the mouth and
so many quizzical ones about the eyes.
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