Remembering that to account comfortably for Mary’s absence she must lie to him, she came to a sudden standstill outside the door of the morning-room. How badly she had managed everything! She did not want to lie to him. Why had not Mary been delighted to go—as she should have been? Only the thought of Mary’s general disagreeableness fortified her a little.
Perior was still sitting on the sofa, abstractedly staring at the floor, as she entered.
“Oh, Camelia,” he said disappointedly.
“Only Camelia.” She felt herself, to her dismay and disgust, growing red.
“Where is Mary?”
“I have come to make Mary’s excuses. She can’t go—is so sorry.” With an effort she regained her composure. After all, he would never dream that to be with him she had sent off Mary, and the sudden seeing of the matter in that absolving light relieved her; it was rather to her credit, so seen, and her fondness for Perior really touching.
“Can’t go?” he repeated staring. “Why she sent me word that she would be ready in twenty minutes.”
“She had forgotten an engagement with Mrs. Grier; I was to have gone—” (it was as well to be as near the truth as possible), “but couldn’t because of my headache—I have a horrible headache. I would have put her off, but the engagement was one of a sort Mary especially likes, a round of village visits to the almshouses, and poor children, and afterwards tea and curates galore—” Camelia realized that with a confused uninventiveness she was repeating her own words to Mary. “Mary likes tea and likes curates,” she went on, pushed even further by that sense of confusion—she had never told her old friend so many lies, “and the curates like Mary, and no doubt one day she will see her way to making a choice among them.” Her voice was smooth, and certainly left no cranny for suspicion, yet Perior still stared.
“What a vacuous look!” laughed Camelia, wishing that she had not been forced to cross quite so many Rubicons.
“I feel sure that Mary has been sacrificing herself—as usual,” he said slowly.