Henge knew of the long paternal intimacy with Camelia, and relied perhaps too much on a paternal sympathy. Henge and his mother were coming down to Clievesbury to spend some weeks at Enthorpe. He avowed no intention, but the whole note, its very restraint, was big with intention. He seemed, too, to emphasize his mother’s pleasure in coming, and Perior felt in the emphasis a touch of triumph. He hoped to see a great deal of Perior, there was in the concluding passages of the note quite a prophecy of future relationship, nearer than any they had known. But through it all Perior fancied just the hint of an appeal—a quite unconscious appeal, none the less significant for that.
Camelia was to be put on trial before Lady Henge, and to Arthur the process would be painful. The Henges had stately requirements; and although Perior imagined that, were these requirements not satisfied, Arthur had almost determined to overlook them, he felt the keenness of the hope that all would be satisfactory, the support that the hope found in Perior’s intimacy with Camelia.
Lady Henge shared her son’s respect for Perior, and to her Perior’s friendship could interpret many phases in Camelia’s charming character perplexing to the anxious mother’s unaided vision.
“I am glad my mother is to know her better; she has seen only the surface as yet,” wrote Arthur. Arthur’s love was a surety not quite trustworthy, but the lifelong friendship of a man like Perior must convince grave Lady Henge of many depths. Perior felt that his rigidity was to be made use of. His well-known earnestness was to vouch for Camelia’s. His brow was very black as he finished the letter. He was nearly angry with Arthur.
CHAPTER VI
“Mrs. Jedsley is in the drawing-room,” Camelia announced, “so I ran away. I am really afraid of her.”
Mrs. Fox-Darriel laughed slightly; she put down the book with which she was solacing a lazy afternoon on the sofa, and, looking at Camelia’s cloth dress and sailor hat, asked her if she had been out again.
“Yes, just back. I only stayed in the drawing-room long enough to show Mrs. Jedsley that she scared me. It’s those eyebrows, you know, that lack of eyebrow rather, emphasized by an angry redness in the place where they should be. No, I cannot face her.”
“She is rather épatante. I suppose you were walking with your brace of suitors.”
“No, I don’t know where they are. I was walking by myself. I think I must have walked eight miles,” Camelia added, stretching out her feet to look at her dusty shoes.