Part 16 (1/2)

”That must be very comforting to you, personally, but is Mary's?”

She looked at him candidly.

”You foolish, fussy old person! Mary is solidly, stolidly well; who could a.s.sociate the lilies and languors of illness with Mary? You are trying to poetize Mary's prose to worry me, but you can't rhyme it, I a.s.sure you.”

”I don't know about that!” Perior was again, for a moment, silent. ”I don't think Mary has a very gay time of it,” he said, speaking with a half nervous resolution, as though he had often wished to speak and kept back the words. ”She doesn't go out much with you in London, does she?”

Camelia did not like his tone, but she replied with lightness, ”Not much, Mary is a home-keeping body. She is not exactly fitted for worldly gaieties, and she understands it perfectly.”

”How trying for Mary”--the nervousness was quite gone now--once he had broached a delicate subject Perior could handle it with little compunction.

”Mary is very happy, if you please. She adores me, and is devoted to Mamma. Mamma is certainly nicer to her than I am--that is an affair of temperament, for Mary does bore me tremendously--I think she knows that she does, but she adores me, since I don't deserve it--the way of the world--a horrid place--I don't deny it.”

”Happy Mary! allowed to adore your effulgence--but at a distance--since she bores you, and knows she does!” And over his collar Camelia could observe that Perior's neck had grown red. She joined him at the window, and said, looking up at his face--

”Why do you force me to such speeches? I am not responsible for the inequalities of nature--though I recognize them so cold-bloodedly. The contrast does not hurt her, for she is a good, contented little soul, and then--for nature does give compensations--she has no keen susceptibilities;” she locked her hands on his shoulder, and smiling at him, ”Come, you know that I am fond of Mary. You should have seen how prettily I arranged her hair to-day--it would have softened your heart towards me. Come, we are not going to quarrel again.”

Perior's eye turned on her, certainly softened in expression, ”By no means, I hope,” and he smiled a little, ”especially as I must be off--since I have missed my ride.”

Camelia's face at this unlooked-for consummation took on an expression of sincerest dismay.

”Going! you will leave me all alone! They have all gone!”

Perior laughed, looking at her now with the same touch of irrepressible pleasure she could usually count on arousing.

”Poor little baby! and it has a headache, too?”

”Yes, it has; please stay with it.”

She was quite sure that he wanted to stay; indeed, Camelia's certainty of Perior's fundamental fondness for her was an article of faith untouched by doubt.

”Very well, you want to show off your dress, I see.” Perior's smile in its humoring coyness was charming; Camelia felt that she quite adored him when he so smiled at her. ”A very pretty dress it is; I have been taking it in.”

”And we will have tea in the garden,” said Camelia, in tones of happy satisfaction, ”and you will see how good I am--when you are good to me.

And I'll tell you all about the people who are coming--for I must have more of them--droves of them; in batches, artistic batches, 'smart'

batches, intellectual batches, political batches. You and I will look at them.”

”Thanks; you don't limit me to a batch then?”

They were still standing near the window, and she kept a hand on his shoulder, and looked at him now with the gravity that made her face so strange.

”No, dear Alceste, you know I don't.”

He returned her look, smiling with a little constraint.

”We must be more together,” Camelia went on, ”we must take up our studying. No, Mr. Rodrigg, I can't walk with you this morning, I am reading the Agamemnon with Mr. Perior.” Camelia's eyes, mouth, the delicately long lines of her cheek, quivered with the half malicious, half tender smile that tilted every curve and every shadow from calm to roguery.

”How Mr. Rodrigg will hate me, to be sure,” said Perior, who at that moment felt that he would like to kiss his bunch of primroses--an illusion of dewiness possessed him.

”And now for tea under the copper beech. And I will read to you. What shall I read? It will be quite like old days!”