With Hilda it had been different. When the story put into circulation by the Mesdames Plummer and King had first come to her, she had undergone a variety of emotions. First was indignation against those who dared say anything against Mimi. She resented, too, any disparagement of Carl for whom her affection, unexpressed though it yet remained, had grown instead of decreased since he had begun to show so deep an interest in Mimi.
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