“Dear me! I am really anxious to see this vial of wrath.”
“And since that is his footstep on the gravel, you shall see him immediately,” said Camelia.
A moment after Mr. Perior was announced.
CHAPTER III
MR. PERIOR was a tall man, well built, yet carrying himself with a certain ungainliness. He had an air of eagerness reined back. His face was at once severe and sensitive.
He gave no notice to Mrs. Fox-Darriel, whose head twisted round to observe his entrance, and walking up to Miss Paton he took her hands—she had put out both her hands in welcome—and, looking at her kindly, he said—
“Well, Célimène.”
“Well, Alceste.”
The smile that made of Camelia’s face a changing loveliness seemed to come and go, and come again while she looked at him, as a butterfly’s wings fold and open while it rests upon a flower. She rarely laughed outright, but her face in gravity was unfamiliar; one could hardly imagine it without the shifting charm.
“You might have come before,” she said—her hands in his, “and I expected you.”