Perior had taken her hand, had shaken it warmly, looking at her with kindest eyes; but now he listened to Lady Paton, and Lady Paton, of course, after the first flood of rejoicing, condolences, and questionings, was talking of Camelia.
The resentment that had smouldered in Mary for many months seemed now to leap, and lick her heart with little flames of hatred. How she hated Camelia; she turned the black thought quite calmly in her mind—it was not unfamiliar.
Lady Paton was telling Perior about the cottages; she was rather proud of Camelia’s beneficent schemes, though gently teasing her about some of their phases: “And, Michael, she is going to make them into veritable palaces of art. Specially designed furniture—and Japanese prints on the walls! Now they won’t care about prints, will they?”
“They ought to, Camelia thinks,” laughed Perior, looking at Camelia, who, hat and coat thrown aside, leaned forward in the lamplight, smiling and radiant, the pathos that her thinner face had gained emphasizing its enchanting loveliness.
Mary looked at her too, at the curves of the figure in the perfect black dress, at the narrow white hands, one lying on her knee, like a flower, with the almost exaggerated length and delicacy of the fingers; at the profile, the frank upraised eyes, the smiling mouth, the flashing white and gold that rose from the nun-like white and black of the dress, and the wide cambric collar falling about her shoulders and clasping her throat. Beautiful! Mary felt the beauty with a sort of sickening. Of course he looked at her, had no eyes but for her. Of course he had come back.
“They must like them,” said Camelia, “I don’t see why such people should not grow into good taste; and taste is often such a negative thing—a mere leaving out of all ugliness. I have a lot of these prints; I picked them up in Paris—the arcade of the Odion, Alceste—cheap things, but excellent in their way; then a few good photographs. The rooms are to be very bare. I should ask for all decoration a vase of flowers on the table—I think I shall offer prizes to my cottagers for the best arrangement of flowers.”
“A very civilizing system!” Perior still laughed, for he found the prints and the flower-arrangements highly amusing, and he still looked at Camelia.
So that first meeting was over. It had passed so easily, with an inevitable ease, based on long years that would not be disowned. Yet when he had gone, Camelia was conscious of a sinking of the heart. The exhilarating moment could not last. Her friend had come back, fond, gently mocking, tender, yet unimpressed, blind to the change in herself she passionately clung to as consummated. As her love was noble, she thought that she had grown to match it. Her self-complacency, though on a higher plane, circled her more completely, and as the days went on, his blindness gave her a new sense of defeat. The ease remained, a tacit agreement to shut their eyes on a certain incident; it was done most successfully; they were quite prepared to meet tête-à-tête, and the inner wonder of each as to the other’s unconsciousness betrayed itself only in a certain gentle formality that grew between them. That he should come—and so often—fulfilled the only hope left her, and yet her heart was darkened at moments by the thought that in these visits there was an effort. She missed something of the old intimacy; it was not quite the same—how could it be? that, after all, would have been too big a feat of forgetfulness. He did not laugh at her, nor grow angry and rage at her, as he had used to do, yet she could not feel that he approved of her the more. He was fond of her—that was evident, even though he might find this rebuilding difficult, and undertake it from a sense of duty; but the fondness was graver than before, at least, it made no pretence of hiding its gravity.
CHAPTER XXIV
MARY came for Camelia one morning while Perior was with her, to tell her that Jane Hicks was dying and asking for her. Mary saw that Camelia’s promptitude, where compunction blushed, gratified Perior, as did Jane’s devotion; she knew that he supposed the devotion based upon some new blossoming of thoughtful kindness in Camelia, and the ironic bitterness of this reflection was in no way made easier to Mary as she heard Camelia, while they all three walked to the farm, confess dejectedly to the one visit.