“I may be silly,” Camelia here put in with a touch of coldness, “if so, I stand convicted with you, Lady Henge, for I found your ‘Thalassa’ neither crude, nor weak, nor incoherent; but I can’t be accused of fibbing. You will play your symphonic poem to me again, won’t you? and we will leave Mr. Perior to the pleasures of iconoclastic conservatism.” After so speaking, Camelia went back to her seat beside Sir Arthur.
He had a book in his hand, and was turning the leaves vaguely, he put it down as he looked up at her. For a man well over thirty, Sir Arthur had certain boyish traits, as a frank nervousness of glance now revealed.
“Well?” Camelia smiled, feeling a something in the silence.
“It was bad, wasn’t it?” said Sir Arthur.
“Bad?”
“Yes, poor mother.”
“I don’t think it bad.”
Sir Arthur surveyed her with pained hesitation.
“Why do you say that?” he demanded, with an abruptness of wounded tenderness that put Camelia alertly on her guard.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, rounding innocent eyes at him.