He tried to hold her off; her sobs made her helpless, but with arms outstretched—blindly, as he remembered to have seen a crying, stumbling child, she turned to him—it was too pitiful—as she might have turned to her mother. How repulse the broken creature? He could but take the outstretched hands, let her come to him again; she did not put her arms around him; there was no claim; only a clinging, her face hidden, as she sobbed, “Don’t leave me! Don’t! I love you! I adore you!”
“My poor child!”
“Yes, yes, your poor child! Be sorry for me, be kind—only a child. I did not mean to deserve that—torture, you—despising! I never meant anything—so wrong. Only a silly, a selfish, a frivolous child—won’t you see it?—never caring for the toys I played with—never caring for anything but you, really. Can’t you see it now, as I do? I have grown up, I have put away those things. Can’t you forgive me?”
“Yes, yes. Great heavens! I am not such a prig, such a fool! I have always hoped——”
“That you could allow yourself to love me! Ah, say it! say it!” She looked up, lifting her face to his.
“To be fond of you, Camelia,” said Perior. “I can’t say more than that!”
“Because you won’t believe in me! Can’t believe in me! And I can’t live without you to help me! Haven’t you seen, all along, that you were the only one I cared about? Half my little naughtinesses were only to provoke you, to make you angry, to see that you cared enough to be angry. All the rest—the worldliness—the using of people—yes, yes, I own to it!—but no one was better than I! Why should I have been good when no one else is? When all are playing the same game, and most people only fit to play with? Why should I have been better than they?”
“I don’t know, Camelia, but—my wife would have to be.”
“She will be.”