The Confounding of Camelia Part 18

Camelia gazed at the gra.s.s. She had cried when he accused her unjustly; but now that her own hurrying, searching thoughts could find no loop-hole for denial she felt no wish to cry. She was not touched, but silenced, quelled. The enormity of her misdeeds made her thoughtful, now that they were put so plainly before her. She felt herself contemplating the sum of lies with an almost impersonal curiosity.

"Camelia!" The odd pitch of his voice, sharp with a sudden, uncontrollable emotion, made her look up.

He rose, paused, looking back at her. "You are breaking my heart," he said. He had not intended to say it, nor known the truth that now came imperatively to his lips. How she had hurt him, after all! He felt that he was almost appealing to her, that indignation, scorn, hatred of her baseness, were as nothing compared with that appeal--not to hurt him; and he grew very white. An answering pang shot through Camelia's heart--whether pain, pity, or triumph she could not have told; but she said quickly, her eyes rounded in unfamiliar solemnity, still on his--

"Breaking your heart?"

"I care for you," said Perior; "I only ask for a mere cranny, where a friendly tenderness might find foothold--one ray of sincerity, of honor--to make me feel that my fondness for you is not a--a contemptible, a weakening folly. It's as if you dashed me down on the rocks--just as I fancy I've found something to hold on by!" he spoke brokenly, clutching and unclutching his hands on his riding cane. "And I have to watch you dragging yourself through the dustiest meannesses; would I care if it was another woman!--no--let her be contemptible, ugly, puny, I could give it a laugh--one can only laugh; but you! to be fond of you! to watch you growing more and more greedy, soulless; a liar, a flatterer! Oh, it makes me sick!"

Camelia had again lowered her eyelids, but her eyes stared, startled at the gra.s.s. A creeping coldness went through the roots of her hair; she knew that her face was pale. For quite a long time there was perfect silence.

"To rob that poor child of her little pleasure," Perior said at last, "to lie to her--to me; and for what? What use had you for me? Were you so anxious to read me the _Revue des Deux Mondes_? _Why_ did you lie?"

"I don't know," said Camelia feebly.

"_You don't know?_" he repeated.

"No--I thought Mary would not mind. I thought she would like to go."

"And you left me intending to ask her?"

"Yes."

"Telling me you were going to hurry her?"

"Yes."

"Pretending to her that you did not know I had come for her?"

"Yes." There was an impulse struggling in Camelia's heart--frightening her--but worse than fright, the thought of not freeing it. "One ray of sincerity." Mary had been n.o.ble enough not to tell him--she must be n.o.ble enough to tell.

"More than that--" she added, feeling her very breath leave her.

"More!"

"Yes; I let Mary think you would rather stay with me;--that you didn't care to ride with her----"

"_Camelia!_" They were in full view of the house, but his hand fell heavily upon her shoulder; and so he stood for a long moment, too much stupefied by the confession to find another word.

But Camelia took a long breath of recovery; sighed with it, and felt the blood come back gratefully to her heart.

"But why?--why?--why?" Perior said at last, in a voice from which anger seemed to have ebbed despairingly away, leaving only an immense and wondering sadness, "_Why_, Camelia?"

A faint, appealing little sparkle lit her face as she glanced up at him; that weight gone, all the buoyancy of her nature rose, ready to win smiles and rewarding looks of caressing encouragement.

"I wanted to read you the _Revue des Deux Mondes_."

He stared at her, baffled and miserable.

"And though I was a viper--it was true, wasn't it? You _would_ rather stay with me."

"Yes, no doubt I would," said Perior with a gloom half dazed.

"And you see I did want you so much! Mary could not have wanted you nearly so much! Why, I gave up my ride to stay with you! I had no headache!" she announced the fact quite joyously; "I simply thought suddenly how nice it would be to spend the afternoon with you--like old days--when we were young together! I really thought Mary would prefer Mrs. Grier--really I did! And once embarked on a fib--for I did not want her to think that I cared so much to have you--I had to go on--they all came one after the other," said Camelia, dismally now, "and even when I saw how disappointed she was I hardened my heart in its selfishness--a perfect devil, of course; yes, I see quite well that I was a devil. So there is the truth for you. Really the truth. More than _one ray of sincerity_, is it not? And I need not have told you, since good old Mary was such a trump. There! I have lain down under your feet--and you may scrub your boots on me if you want to!"

"Alas, Camelia!" said Perior. He sat down again. Her confession had indeed forced upon him a certain resignation. For some moments he did not speak. "I believe I am the only person in the world to whom you would humble yourself like this," he said at last. "I am a convenient father-confessor for you. You find yourself more comfortable after dumping your load of sins on me. It's a corner in your psychology I've never quite understood--another little twist of egotism my mind is too blunt to penetrate. I am not worth while deceiving--is that it?" and as her eyes rested on his in mute, but unmistakable pain, he added, the note of resignation deepened, "You do not repent, that is evident. You confess; but it is very much as if I particularly hated dirty finger-nails, and to please my fastidiousness you washed yours."

"I might have hidden them," Camelia murmured, glancing down at the translucent pink and white of those _objets d'art_.

"Yes, you might; that is your advantage. The speck of dirt worried you, knowing my taste. The matter to you is just about on that level of seriousness. You are not sorry for Mary; you are merely preening yourself for me. It is that; your heartlessness, your selfishness, your hard indifference to other people's feelings that makes me despair of you. For I do despair of you."

"Am I so heartless, so selfish, so hard?"

"I am afraid you are."

"And it breaks your heart?"

Perior laughed shortly.

"Ah; you find compensation in that! I shall survive, Camelia. I have managed to survive a great many disagreeable experiences."

"And I am one. Don't you feel a little more kindly towards me? Are you not a little flattered by the realization that my misdeeds arose entirely from my affection for you?" Camelia smiled sadly, adding, "It's quite true."

"You want to monopolize me, as you monopolize everything, Camelia. If there was a cat that did not devote itself exclusively to you, you would woo the cat. In this case I am the cat."

"Dear cat!" she stretched out her hand and put it on his arm. "May I stroke you, cat?"

"No, thanks. You shall not enthral me." He rose as he spoke. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye? Will you not stay to dine?"

"No; I am in no dining humor."

"Haven't you forgiven me--absolved me--one little bit?"

"Not one little bit, Camelia."

His farewell look she felt to be steeled against her in its resoluteness, though weak in its long dwelling. She knew that when he was gone the resoluteness would remain with him; the weakness would leave him with his departure from her presence. She enthralled him by the mere fact of being before him, baffling and exquisite; therefore he was leaving her. There was an air of finality in his very way of turning from her in silence. She watched him walk away over the lawn, and sat on in the dusk. She was a little dazed, and an evening dreaminess veiled from her the poignancy of her own fear. She evaded it, too, by the thought: he cares so much, so much. Then, too, what difference did it make? She could always wrap herself, in case of a shivering emergency, in that cloak of carelessness; but the fact of his caring so very much kept her now from shivering. When she went into the house at last she found Mrs. Fox-Darriel still alone in the morning-room.

"My dear Camelia," she said, looking round at her young friend, "when next you submit to being shaken by Mr. Perior, I really would choose a more secluded spot. The whole house might have been staring at you; and I can a.s.sure you that the spectacle you offered was highly ludicrous. A rabbit in an eagle's claws."

"And, really, if I choose to be whipped up and down the drive by Mr.

Perior, I shall do it, Frances, notwithstanding your disapproval."

Camelia was in no temper for smarting advice.

"The man is insufferable," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, "_il porte sa tete comme un saint sacrement_; provincial apostolics. Your flattering wish to please him is not at all in character."

"Your knowledge of my character, Frances, is very restricted," Camelia replied, walking away to her room.