“No, for sincerity; common honesty. I thought I could convince him. I didn’t want chivalry without conviction. What did Lady Henge say of me?” Camelia added bluntly.
Lady Tramley replied very frankly, “She said you were a shallow jilt. I quite agreed with her inwardly—though I shamelessly defended you.”
“If I say that I agree with you both it will only savor of ostentatious humility—so I refrain. But, Lady Tramley, it was not the breaking of our engagement that was shallow—that I will say. And so the bill is doomed. Can we do nothing? Shear no Samson in the lobbies? Mr. Rodrigg, of course, offers no hirsute possibilities.”
“Not a hair. Your Mr. Perior will be disappointed. He came back from the Continent, you know, and put his shoulder to the wheel.”
Camelia stirred her tea evenly. Her nerves, as she felt with pride, were very reliable.
“Our Mr. Perior then, is he not?” she asked, while her thoughts flew past Sir Arthur to nestle pityingly to Perior. His useless valiancy embittered her against the world of unconvinced opponents. Idiots indeed! But she could not see him yet; even her nerves were not yet tempered to a meeting. She had no comfortable background against which to present herself; when she did, the background must be so unfamiliar that for neither of them could there be the confusion of a hinted memory.
“Ours, by all means,” said Lady Tramley. “I only effaced myself before the paramount claim.—Not quite doomed. There is still the final fight, and it is to be heralded by a thunderous article in the Friday. Mr. Perior only goes down sword in hand.”
CHAPTER XXII
SO he was in London. Camelia, sitting at home in the library, could think of the nearness with a new calm. She was preparing herself to meet its closer approach. She was not leaving herself defenceless. She plunged into her reading—architecture, agriculture, decoration, and sociology. The books came down from London in heavy boxes, and she sat encompassed by the encouraging perfume of freshly-cut leaves.
“Are you happy, dear?” her mother asked her. She would come in with her usual air of deprecatory gentleness, and bend over the absorbed golden head that did not turn at her entrance. On this day the absorption wore a look of eager interest that seemed to justify the question.