The Confounding of Camelia Part 12

"What have you got to say, now that you've got me here?" he asked, putting down his music and looking at her.

"You banders.n.a.t.c.h!" Camelia still held his arm. "I am sure you look like a banders.n.a.t.c.h; a biting, snarling creature. You have a truly _s.n.a.t.c.hing_ way of speaking."

"What have you got to say, Camelia?" Perior repeated, withdrawing his arm from the circling clasp upon it.

"I have got to say that you must stay to lunch."

"Well, I can't do that."

"Then you may sit down and talk to me a little--scold me if you like; do you feel like scolding me?"

"I have never scolded you, Camelia," said Perior, knowing that before her lightness his solemnity showed to disadvantage; but he would be nothing but solemn, ludicrously solemn if necessary.

"You were never sure I deserved it, then," said Camelia, stooping to gather up her dog for a swift kiss, and laughing over his round head at Perior's stiffness; "else you would have done your duty, I am sure--you never forget your duty."

"Thanks; your recognition is flattering."

"There, my pet, go--poor Sir Arthur is lonely, go to him," said Camelia, opening the window for Siegfried's exit, "you know your sarcasm doesn't impress me one bit--not one bit," she added.

"I don't fancy that anything I could say would impress you," Perior replied, eyeing her little manoeuvres, "and since I have seen Siegfried receive his kiss, I really must go," and at this Perior took up his music with decision; to see him a.s.suming indifference so badly was delightful to Camelia.

"_Why_ were you so rude to poor Lady Henge the other evening?" she demanded, couching her lance and preparing for the shock of encounter; "you were hideously rude, you know."

"Yes, I know." Perior still eyed her, his departure effectually checked.

"Then, why were you?"

"Because you lied."

"Oh, what an ugly word!" cried Camelia lightly, though with a little chill, for the unpleasant sincerity of Perior's look she felt to be more than she had bargained for. "What a big, ungainly word to fling at poor little me! You should eschew such gross elementary forms of speech, Alceste; really, they are not becoming."

"I hate lies," said Perior tersely, thinking, as he spoke, that by the logic of the words he should hate Camelia too--for what was she but unmitigated falseness personified? He had lost his nervousness, now that the moment for plain speaking had arrived.

"And you call _that_ a lie?"

"I call it a lie." She considered him gravely.

"I tried to give pleasure, you tried to give pain."

"I tried to restore the balance."

"I cannot think it wrong to slight the truth a little--from mere kindness."

"And I think it wrong to lie. And," Perior added, his voice taking on an added depth of indignant scorn, "you lied to Arthur; I saw you."

"You saw!" Camelia could not repress a little gasp.

"I saw that he caught your humorous and hospitable comments on his mother's performance, and I saw your cajolery afterwards. I am sure I can't imagine how you hoodwinked him. It was neatly done, Camelia."

Camelia felt herself growing pale, losing the victor's smiling calm.

Here he was brutally voicing the very scruples she had laid to rest after moments of most generous self-doubt--atoning moments, as she felt.

The playful game in which she would tease him into comprehension--absolution, had been turned into an ugly punishment. The wrinkled rose leaves of self-accusation that had disturbed her serenity had actually--in his hands--grown into th.o.r.n.y branches, and he was whipping her with them.

She had never felt so at a loss, for she could not laugh.

"You would have had me pain him too!" she cried, her anger vindictively seeking a retaliatory lash. "Well, you are a prig!--an insufferable prig! I did nothing wrong!--except mistake your sense of humor."

This was certainly on her side a less dignified colloquy than the one with the looking-gla.s.s; she fancied that Perior looked with some curiosity at her anger.

"Was it wrong to smile at you, then?" she said.

"Yes, it was wrong." Perior had all the advantage of calm, and she was helplessly aware that her excitement fortified his self-control.

"I thought the piece funny. Was I to tell her so?"

"You should have kept still about it. You mocked your guest behind her back and flattered her to her face. That is mean, despicable," said Perior, planting his slashes very effectively.

"To laugh with you was like laughing to myself," said Camelia, steadying her lips, and wondering vaguely if victory might not yet be wrested from this humiliation; his inflexible cruelty forced from her that half appeal. "It was merely thinking aloud, and to tell a few kindly little fibs--as every woman does, a hundred times a day--is not flattery."

"To gain a person's liking on false pretences is base; and I don't care how many women do it--nor how often they do it. I shan't argue with you, Camelia. We don't see things alike. Follow your own path, by all means; it will lead you to success no doubt, and for a nature like yours there will be no bitterness in such success."

He looked away from her now, as if, despite her immunity from it, he felt that bitterness. He felt it, though she did not. He looked away in the depth of his disgust and pain, conscious, though, of the golden blur of her hair, the indistinct oval of her face, the cool vague gray of her linen dress, as she stood still, not far from him. Camelia felt herself trembling. She beat off his cruel injustice--but it was hurting her--it was making her helpless.

"For what success do you imply that I am scheming?" she asked, and even while she spoke angry tears rushed to her eyes. To be misjudged was a new sensation; a hot self-pity smarted within her.

Perior did not see the tears, for he still looked away, saying in a voice that showed how clearly cut, how definitely perceived was the conviction, "The success of marrying a man you love little enough to lie to. Henge could not forgive you if he knew that you had lied to him and to his mother, yet he adores you--you have that on false pretences too.

There is the truth for you, Camelia; and, upon my soul, I am sorry for Arthur. I pity him from the bottom of my heart."

"How dare you! how dare you!" cried Camelia, bursting into tears. "It is false--false--false!"

Taken aback, Perior stared blankly at her. It was the first time that he had reduced her to weeping. "Oh, Camelia!" he stood still--he would not approach her; he felt that since she could cry her helplessness was fully armed, and he quite helpless; his supremacy robbed of all value.

"Every word you say is false!" she said, returning his stare defiantly, while the tears rolled down her cheeks. "I am _not_ scheming to marry him! I have not let him propose to me yet! I am not sure that I shall; I am not sure that I shall accept him, and if I do, it will be because I love him!"

Perior hardly believed her, and yet he was much confused, especially as with a fresh access of sobs her face quivered in the pathetic grimace of loveliness distorted; before that the real issue of the situation seemed slipping away; her repudiation of the greater dishonesty effaced, for the moment, the smaller; he had nothing to say--she probably believed in herself; and those helpless sobs were so touching to him that, notwithstanding his unappeased anger against her, he could have gone to her and taken her in his arms to comfort her, at any cost--even at the cost of seeming to ask pardon. He did not do this, however, but said, "Don't cry, don't cry, Camelia; you mustn't cry. I'm glad you feel it in that way; I am glad you can cry over it." He did not go to her, but his very att.i.tude of nervous hesitation told Camelia that he was worsted--at least worsted enough for the practical purposes of the moment.

She got out her handkerchief and dried her eyes, still feeling very sore-hearted, very much injured; but when the tears were gone she came up to him saying, while she looked at him with all the victorious pathos of wet lashes and trembling lips, "You are not kind to me, Alceste."

He moved away from her a little, but took her hands. "Because you are naughty, Celimene."

"I will be good. I won't tell fibs."

"A very commendable resolution."

"You mock me. You won't believe a liar."

"Don't, please don't speak of it again, Camelia."

"Say you are sorry for having said it."