“Well, what did you tell her? She has hurt you. I can see that.”
“No, not she. She asked me if I had never seen that Mary loved you, so, in reply, I said that I had only seen that I loved you.”
“Did that excellent piece of truth-telling pain you?”
“No; it was a delicious mouthful. But, she said too, that the flattery of my love had pierced your indifference—or your priggishness, she called it”—and Camelia gave him a rather arch glance, “and I didn’t really wonder, not really; but you were so much more indifferent than I was, weren’t you?” and she paused in the path to look at him, not archly, but very seriously. Her candor was so charming, with its little touch of fear, that Perior’s answer could not resist an emphasis.
“Dearest,” he said, and Camelia’s wonder was not unpleasant, and his daring went unrebuked, as he put his arm around her.
“That means you were not?”
“It means a great deal more. I was in love with you when I was nothing to you. I’ve always been in love with you—horribly in love with you. Indifference! Great heavens! that was what I prayed for, that was what I tried to feign, for I thought you such an abominable little siren. All the time that you were picking me up, and putting me down, and whisking past me, and torturing and teasing me, all the time I was adoring you, I couldn’t help myself! adoring you with all your crimes upon you! thinking myself a fool for it, I grant.”
“Putting you down? No, I never did that,” Camelia demurred.
“Well, I thought so. And at all events you know that you were most comfortably indifferent until you found out that you couldn’t get me for the asking.”
“No, no!” cried Camelia. “From the first, if you had really let me think you loved me, told me so, nicely, and begged a little, I should have fallen straight into your arms, and perhaps never have found out how bad I was!”