His bewilderment at her audacity stung him to anger, and in self-defence, for her sake too as well as for his own, almost to brutality. “Ah, I love you enough to kiss you, Camelia,” he said; “you are only fit for that. There,” he unlocked the clasping arms, “go away.” The unmistakable sternness of his face struck her with pained perplexity. He would not meet her eyes; he turned from her, looking wretched. A flashing thought revealed the possibility of tempted loyalty. Did he think her bound? Divine the engagement? He could not have heard of it already. She saw, her heart throbbing at the half-truth, half-falseness of the unbecoming vision, how she must appear to him in that distorting illumination. Free in her own eyes, she hesitated on a lie that would release him from his doubts. But as she stood looking at him, smiling, a little sternly too, at the test, the door burst open with unpleasant suddenness, and Mr. Rodrigg, bull-like in his vehemence, charged into the room.
CHAPTER XVII
CAMELIA felt, in the glaring pause Mr. Rodrigg made before Perior’s baffling presence, that she herself was the red scarf he sought. Her mind, alert in self-defence, even in this stress of joy and terror, divined some unknown danger. Mr. Rodrigg had faded into complete insignificance, put away with the other toys; she looked coldly at him, as at a dusty jack-in-the-box, protruding its fatuousness in a grown-up world. Yet she felt the necessity for self-command and quick intelligence. Something ominous shone in Mr. Rodrigg’s eye. The lid must be pressed down firmly, fastened securely; she was sure of her complete control over the silly plaything, but an extinguishing dexterity might be requisite.
“Well, Mr. Rodrigg,” she said; and her tone fully implied the undesirability of his presence.
“Can I see you alone, Miss Paton?”
Mr. Rodrigg’s voice was offensively strident. Camelia looked at Perior, who, from under lowering brows, bent ungracious eyes on Mr. Rodrigg’s flushed insistency.
“No, I don’t think you can—at present.” She did not want to vex Mr. Rodrigg—she spoke not unkindly; but Mr. Rodrigg was dense, coarsely dense, or else coarsely angry. Angry with her; Camelia had time by now to wonder at that, and to feel less amicable with the greater need for feigning amiability.
He closed the door with decision. “Then I will speak before Mr. Perior. As a family friend, Mr. Perior will not be amiss between us. He is a witness of the whole affair. I appeal to Mr. Perior. Miss Paton, I have just met Lady Henge. She tells me that you accepted her son this morning.”
Camelia grew white. Though Perior spoke no word, his stillness equalling hers, she felt a fixed stare turned upon her. Unforeseen catastrophe! She had hoped to glide noiselessly from the cardboard stage, to pack up and send away the useless, even though misused puppets; and now the whole scenery, heavy too, fell crushingly upon her, pinning her in the very centre of the stage. There she was held—the mimic properties were stone-like—there she was held in the full glare of the footlights; and he was staring at her.
She drew herself together and clasped her hands behind her back. Her little head, with the intent resoluteness of its look, had never been more beautiful. Even Perior, in the frozen fury of his stupefaction, was aware of that. The mute, white cameo on the dim, rosy background gazing with not a tremor at its own perfidy, stamped itself ineffaceably on his memory as a Medusa type of splendid, pernicious courage. For one brief moment she wondered swiftly—and her thoughts flew like sharp flames—if a round, clear lie would save her, save her in Perior’s eyes, for she saw herself as he saw her, was conscious only of him, and cared not a button for Mr. Rodrigg, the ugly raven merely who had croaked out the truth. The uselessness, the hopelessness of a lie, and too—in justice to her struggling better self be it added—shame for its smirch between her and him on the very threshold of true life—this hopelessness, this shame nerved her to the perilous truth-telling. Better his scorn for the moment, than a scorn delayed, but sure to find her out. Could she not explain—confess—on his breast, with tears? She did not look at Perior. Keeping fixed eyes on Mr. Rodrigg, an unpleasant but necessary medium for the communication, “Yes, Mr. Rodrigg, I did,” she said.