“Yes, but I am still wounded. I did not think you would have deserted me for the babies of Copley.”
It was rather useless to attempt humor with Mary, for even he could interpret as alarmed and distressed the look of her face as it turned to him.
“Oh! but I did not want to go!” she exclaimed; “you know that! Camelia wished it—she had a headache, and said Mrs. Grier expected her, so, though I was quite ready for our ride, looking forward to it so much, I had to go; but I didn’t want to—indeed I was dreadfully disappointed—” And then suddenly the sense of injury, of resentment, of dismay at herself that she should wish to display that resentment—should wish to retaliate for humiliations too deep for display, getting altogether the better of her, two large tears—and Mary had been swallowing tears all the afternoon—rolled suddenly down her cheeks and splashed upon her dusty gloves.
“Why, Mary! Mary!” said Perior, aghast.
She searched for her handkerchief in hasty confusion. “How silly I am! I can’t help it; it has been so hot, I am so tired.”
“My poor child!” But Perior was more stricken than the sympathy of his tone made manifest. His pity sprang comprehendingly to Mary, but a deeper emotion underlay it. It was as if Mary had thrust that dusty dog-skin glove right through his beautiful, fragile spider web, and as he was dashed from his illusion his thoughts gathered themselves in quick bitter avengefulness.
“You were ready? dressed, you say?” he was already sure of Camelia’s falseness, but he wished to define it, to see just how much she had lied, to see just how far went her heartlessness.
“Yes,” Mary could not restrain the plaintive note, though she was drying her eyes in a sort of terror over her weakness.
“And Camelia forced you to go?”
“Oh, don’t think that!” Mary had thought it, but the words spoken by him shocked her. “She did not know how much I had set my heart on the ride, and it would have been a pity had Mrs. Grier been disappointed. That is what Camelia thought of—” and Mary quite believed Camelia as far as that went; but the cruel manner of discharging her duty! the deep injury of the forces brought to bear! The memory of them rose irrepressibly, poignantly.