Perior wheeled round, and stumbled to his feet; the papers he held fell in a sprawling heap upon the floor, and the dozing cat jumped down and took nervous refuge under a chair.
Camelia, following old Lane with dexterous determination, saw the astonished commotion and found it encouraging. She was determined but not desperate. Even without encouragement she fancied that she could have held her own, sustained as she was by her inner conviction, and while Lane went out and closed the door, she was even able to cast a reassuring smile at the cat, whose widened eyes shone at her from under the chair edge.
The door safely shut, she turned a steady look upon Perior’s rough head, silhouetted in monotone on the pale landscape outside. She herself faced the light. She had walked, and her face showed an exquisite freshness, an imperative youth and energy. In the austere room the sudden rose and white of cheeks and lips and brow, the lustre of her eyes, the pale gold of her hair, dazzled.
Fixing Perior with this steady look, she said: “He has been here.”
“Henge? yes,” said Perior. Even in the shock of his dismayed confusion he felt with thankfulness a strong throb of an unswerving energy quite fit to match hers. He could look at her, dazzled, but not wavering, and, stooping from the successful encounter of eyes, he picked up the fallen papers, pushed them into shape, and laid them on the table coolly enough.
“You have heard what has happened, then?” Camelia was in nowise disconcerted by these superficialities.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him why I broke my engagement?”
Perior looked again, and very firmly, at the rose and white and gold.
“He gave me the reason you had given him. That was sufficient, wasn’t it?”