“The man is insufferable,” said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, “il porte sa tête comme un saint sacrement; provincial apostolics. Your flattering wish to please him is not at all in character.”
“Your knowledge of my character, Frances, is very restricted,” Camelia replied, walking away to her room.
CHAPTER XV
CAMELIA during the next few days was conscious of an expectant pause. There was a page to be turned. She kept her own hand from it; for a day or two, at least, she would not stir a finger; and if Perior chose to turn it, the turning bound her to nothing—would probably reveal mere blankness, whereon he might inscribe an affectionate dedication for her new life. In that case the new chapter would be hymeneal; indeed, it seemed inevitable that she should marry Arthur Henge; the waiting volume seemed inevitably that of her married life.
But her thoughts were not with Arthur. They fixed themselves persistently on Perior. Let him come—write the friendly dedication, certify, by his blessing, to the sincerity and wisdom of her choice; or else, was it not possible that he might dash the volume out of her hands? No doubt she would pick it up again. Still, to see him dash it down would be eventful. Therefore, she waited, more breathlessly than she quite realized.
The last act of the drama had left her with no spite at all against Mary—its chief but insignificant factor. She was not resentful on the score of Mary’s revelations; on the other hand, Mary’s charitable reticence did not move her to gratitude. After all, it was a very explicable reticence; her own confession to Perior had lent it the kindest glamour. For Mary to have told Perior all would have been a humiliating plea for his negative; and the negative he could not have given with sincerity. Mary had felt that. No; Camelia’s analysis disowned any obligation; but neither was she conscious of the least anger. A mean revengefulness was not in her nature, she was as easy towards Mary as towards herself; she quite saw that to Mary she must have seemed horrid, and that perfectly atoned for the whines in which poor Mary had probably indulged. She was sure the whines had not been spiteful. She could imagine Mary injured, but not at all spiteful; and on their first meeting after the portentous dressing-room scene, her eyes rested in blankest serenity upon her cousin’s flushed and miserable face.
She felt serenity and blankness to be tactful kindnesses, and they were very easy. The thought of Mary hardly stirred her deep, still absorption in the purely dual problem, for, after Mary’s ride—and Camelia missed him then—Perior did not come again.
The trial of strength in silence, they the two opponents facing one another for the test, filled her days with an excited sense of contest. It was not made more complex by outer jars. Mr. Rodrigg was unavoidably called away for a fortnight, and Sir Arthur might still be evaded, though Lady Henge’s brow had grown gloomy. Camelia rather enjoyed the grave inquiry in the looks bent upon her by her future mamma (oh yes, almost without doubt, future mamma); but she did not intend to brighten them by the announcement of that fact until her own good time. Lady Henge’s gloom and Arthur’s patience touched only the outer rings of her consciousness. For Perior did not come. At the end of the first week her patience was out-worn; the detachment of mere contemplation became impossible. She essayed a flag of truce. Let it be peace, or, at all events, more close, more keenly realized warfare.
“Are you never coming to see me again?” she wrote. “Please do; I will be good.”
Perior laughed over the document. It was merely the case of the cat again dignified by its persistent absence. His reply was even more laconic. “Can’t come. Try to be good without me.” The priggishness of this pleased him, and would probably amuse her. He did not want to hurt her. Neither did he intend that she should hurt him. She probably guessed that.