“It is really charming,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel unblinkingly, while Mrs. Jedsley’s eyes travelled up and down poor Mary’s ungainliness.
“Against the deeper shades of green, you know, and with your golden hair, you looked quite—quite like an Albert Moore. Has your friend, Mr. Perior, gone? I saw him with you.” There was a subtly delightful intimation in this question that filled Mary with a half painful, half delicious embarrassment.
“Mr. Perior is with Camelia,” she said, the crude fact hardly jarring on the dulcet echo of Mrs. Fox-Darriel’s question. He was her friend, Mary knew, felt it with a wave of gratitude that quieted many aches, but was it then so evident—so noticeable?
“Ah yes! Camelia is rather fond of teasing him, I am afraid,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, observing Mary’s flush, and noting as an unkindness of nature that her hair, the only grace she possessed, should grow so thickly at the back and with such unbecoming scantiness around the high brow. Mary’s whole being had been quivering with the pain of her dispossession, but a grateful warmth now stole through the chill of bereavement.
Her flush had not died when Camelia came in, Perior following her. Camelia’s face was imperturbably gay, but from a certain severity and tension in Perior’s expression, Mrs. Fox-Darriel surmised that the pastoral promenade had not been altogether peaceful.
It was hardly possible, of course, that the indifference of this stiff provincial should pique Camelia into an attitude that might compromise real interests; no, hardly possible; yet Mrs. Fox-Darriel, with some acuteness, determined that all her efforts should tend to make such an absurdity impossible indeed.
Ugly Mary was evidently in love with the unattractive Diogenes; but Camelia need not know that. Mrs. Fox-Darriel almost laughed at herself while she meditated; Camelia could hardly intend more than the purposeless capturing of Diogenes; Camelia’s head was perfectly sound when it came to decisive extremes. Only—well—women, all women, were such fools sometimes. That bounding, pursuing step across the lawn had given Mrs. Fox-Darriel a new impression of Camelia.
“Look, Mamma, is not this beautiful? Look, Frances.” Camelia held out a branch of white roses, buds and leaves climbing on lovely curves to a heavy, swaying flower;—“it is such a perfect spray that I am going to attempt a Japanese arrangement with this bit of pine. Mary, will you fetch me that bronze vase out of the morning room—with its little stand, you know—and have it filled with water; and, Mary,—” Mary was departing obediently, “a pair of scissors—don’t forget. If there is anything I dislike,” Camelia went on, hers was always a temperate manner of speech, “it is a heavy mass of flowers bunched together with all the individuality, all the form and vitality, of line quite lost.”
She smiled at Mrs. Jedsley as she spoke, skimming caressing finger-tips over her rose branch, and adding, “You may see me at your place to-morrow, Mrs. Jedsley. Mr. Perior has been giving me a dreadful scolding on my neighborly deficiencies. To-morrow I make a conscientious round of calls—and pour balm into all the wounded bosoms.” Mrs. Fox-Darriel glanced quickly at Perior to see how he relished this offensive obedience; Perior, as he stood before the fireplace, was looking at his boots. Mrs. Jedsley’s eyebrows grew very red.
“I won’t be at home to-morrow,” she said decidedly, “and if I were conscious of wounds I’d keep at a good distance from you, Camelia.” Lady Paton looked from her daughter to Perior, an alarmed appeal, but he did not raise his eyes nor seem to notice Camelia’s graceful promises.