“I thought the piece funny. Was I to tell her so?”
“You should have kept still about it. You mocked your guest behind her back and flattered her to her face. That is mean, despicable,” said Perior, planting his slashes very effectively.
“To laugh with you was like laughing to myself,” said Camelia, steadying her lips, and wondering vaguely if victory might not yet be wrested from this humiliation; his inflexible cruelty forced from her that half appeal. “It was merely thinking aloud, and to tell a few kindly little fibs—as every woman does, a hundred times a day—is not flattery.”
“To gain a person’s liking on false pretences is base; and I don’t care how many women do it—nor how often they do it. I shan’t argue with you, Camelia. We don’t see things alike. Follow your own path, by all means; it will lead you to success no doubt, and for a nature like yours there will be no bitterness in such success.”
He looked away from her now, as if, despite her immunity from it, he felt that bitterness. He felt it, though she did not. He looked away in the depth of his disgust and pain, conscious, though, of the golden blur of her hair, the indistinct oval of her face, the cool vague gray of her linen dress, as she stood still, not far from him. Camelia felt herself trembling. She beat off his cruel injustice—but it was hurting her—it was making her helpless.
“For what success do you imply that I am scheming?” she asked, and even while she spoke angry tears rushed to her eyes. To be misjudged was a new sensation; a hot self-pity smarted within her.
Perior did not see the tears, for he still looked away, saying in a voice that showed how clearly cut, how definitely perceived was the conviction, “The success of marrying a man you love little enough to lie to. Henge could not forgive you if he knew that you had lied to him and to his mother, yet he adores you—you have that on false pretences too. There is the truth for you, Camelia; and, upon my soul, I am sorry for Arthur. I pity him from the bottom of my heart.”
“How dare you! how dare you!” cried Camelia, bursting into tears. “It is false—false—false!”
Taken aback, Perior stared blankly at her. It was the first time that he had reduced her to weeping. “Oh, Camelia!” he stood still—he would not approach her; he felt that since she could cry her helplessness was fully armed, and he quite helpless; his supremacy robbed of all value.
“Every word you say is false!” she said, returning his stare defiantly, while the tears rolled down her cheeks. “I am not scheming to marry him! I have not let him propose to me yet! I am not sure that I shall; I am not sure that I shall accept him, and if I do, it will be because I love him!”