“What are you up to, Camelia?” he asked.
“We do see through one another, don’t we?” she cried joyfully. “I see you are going to pretend not to mind anything. ‘That will sting her!—take down her conceit! I’ll not flatter her by scoldings!’ Eh! Alceste?”
“You little scamp!” he murmured, while Camelia, sitting down on the sofa, swept her white draperies over her feet and motioned to the place beside her. “You will not—no, you will not take me seriously.”
“If you see through me, Camelia,” said Perior, taking the seat beside her with a certain air of resignation, “you see that I am very sincere in finding your behavior perfectly normal—not in the least surprising. You are merely gay, and happy, and self-centred; and behaving as all girls, who have the chance, behave,” he added, putting his finger under her chin with a paternal pat and a look of gentle ridicule.
“Well done! That was very neat! Do you want me to show signs of discomfiture. I won’t. You know that I am quite individual, and that for years you have thought me a selfish, hard-hearted little scoundrel.”
“Oh no; not so bad as that.”
“What have you thought, then?” she demanded.
“I have thought that, like other girls, you can’t evade that label——”
“Oh, wretch!” Camelia interjected.
“That, like other girls,” Perior repeated with an unkind emphasis, “you are going to try to make a ‘good match.’” His face, for all its attempt at lightness, took on a shade of irrepressible repugnance as he spoke. “The accessories don’t count for much. You may be quite individually naughty, but in your motives I see only a very conventional conformity.”