Then came throbs of loneliness and terror. He was going away! She sprang up under the knife-like thrust of the thought. Oh! if at least he had believed her! If at least he had seen tragedy, not a poor, silly farce, the only noble thing in her life distorted to a wretched folly. Only outwardly had she been a child screaming for an unattainable toy. She walked up and down the room, her hands wrung together, until a quivering weakness of fatigue came over her, and she flung herself face downwards on the bed.
Sobs came with the despairing posture. Her whole body shook with them.
A tiny, timid knock at the door broke in on the miserable satisfaction of woe expressed.
Camelia held back her weeping and listened silently.
“Camelia,” said her mother’s voice, a voice tremulous with tears, “may I not see you, my darling?”
In her agonizing self-absorption Camelia heard the words with a resentment made fierce by sympathy crushed down.
“No,” she said, steadying her voice, for her mother must not think her weeping in regret over her act of repudiation, “you can’t.”
“Please, my child ”—Lady Paton evidently began to sob, and Camelia, wrapping herself in a sense of necessary and therefore justified brutality, again buried her head in the pillow. Yes, she was a brute, of course, but—how silly of her mother to stand there crying! How tactless, at least; for Camelia at once hated herself for the other word. What did she expect? She seemed nearly as remote as Frances—not quite, for she could see Frances and repulse her with complete indifference, and she could not meet her mother indifferently. There would be the pain, the irritation of feigning.
“Don’t be cruel, dear.” The words reached her dimly through the pillow. Cruel! Camelia smiled bitterly. She did not know. The apparent cause for grief was slight indeed; the real one was locked forever in her heart, so let them think her cruel.
The hopeless little click of the door-knob showed that her mother’s hand had been appealingly laid upon it. Her slow footstep passed along the hall. Camelia lay in her damp, hot pillow, her eyes closed. “Yes I am a brute,” she said to herself; and then, thinking of Perior, her tears flowed again.