OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE
103
deceptive, Howe knew, for he had been present at the Aikens' pre–
Christmas conference about its purchase. It was only a fairly good
domestic camera. Still, it looked very impressive. Hilda carried another
leather case from which she drew a collapsible tripod. Decisively she
extended each of its gleaming legs and set it up on the path. She removed
the camera from its case and fixed it to the tripod. In its compact effi–
ciency the camera almost had a life of its own, but Hilda treated it with
easy familiarity, looked into its eye, glanced casually at its gauges. Then
from a pocket she took still another leather case and drew from it a
small instrument through which she looked first at Howe, who began
to feel inanimate and lost, and then at the sky. She made some adjustment
on the instrument, then some adjustment on the camera. She swept the
scene with her eye, found a spot and pointed the camera in its direction.
She walked to the spot, stood on it and beckoned to Howe. With each
new leather case, with each new instrument and with each
~ew
adjustment
she had grown in ease and now she said, "Joe, will you stand here?"
Obediently Howe stood where he was bidden. She had yet another
instrument. She took out a tape-measure on a mechanical spool. Kneeling
down before Howe, she put the little metal ring of the tape under the
tip of his shoe. At her request, Howe pressed
it
with his toe. When she
had measured her distance, she nodded to Howe who released the tape.
At a touch, it sprang back into the spool. "You have to be careful if
you're going to get what you want," Hilda said. "I don't believe in all
this snap-snap-snapping," she remarked loftily. Howe nodded in agree–
ment, although he was beginning to think Hilda's care excessive.
Now at last the moment had come. Hilda squinted into the camera,
moved the tripod slightly. She stood to the side, holding the plunger of
lhe
shutter-cable. "Ready," she said. "Will you relax, Joseph, please?"
Howe realized that he was standing frozen. Hilda stood poised and
precise as a setter, one hand holding the little cable, the other extended
with
curled dainty fingers like a dancer's, as if expressing to her subject
the
precarious delicacy of the moment. She pressed the plunger and
there was the click. At once she stirred to action, got behind the camera,
turned
a new exposure. "Thank you," she said. "Would you stand under
that
tree and let me do a character study with light and shade?"
The childish absurdity of the remark restored Howe's ease. He
went to the little tree. The pattern the leaves made on his gown was
what
Hilda was after. He had just taken a satisfactory position when
~heard
in the unmistakable voice, "Ah, Doctor! Having your picture
!Ibn?"
Howe gave up the pose and turned to Blackburn who stood on the
nlk,
his hands behind his back, a little too large for his bachelor's
pwn.
Annoyed that Blackburn should see him posing for a character
lllady
in light and shade, Howe said irritably, "Yes, having my picture
*·"
Blackburn beamed at Hilda. "And the little photographer," he
