"At pleasing me?" she murmured thickly back.
"Yes, you. I tried to see her as you do; to do her justice, and if it is overdone, or flattered, or idealized, it is because I've been working toward your notion——"
"Oh!" said Cornelia, and then, to the great amazement of herself as well as Ludlow, she began to laugh, and she laughed on, with her face in her handkerchief. When she took her handkerchief down, her eyes looked strange, but she asked, with a sort of radiance, "And did you think I thought Charmian was really like that?"
"Why, I didn't know—— You've been very severe with me when I've suggested she wasn't. At first, when I wanted to do her as Humbug, you wouldn't stand it, and now, when I've done her as Mystery, you laugh."
Cornelia pressed her handkerchief to her shining eyes, and laughed a little more. "That is because she isn't either. Can't you understand?"
"I could understand her being both, I think. Don't you think she's a little of both?"
"I told you," said Cornelia gravely, "that I didn't like to talk Charmian over."
"That was a good while ago. I didn't know but you might, by this time."
"Why?" she asked. "Am I so changeable?"
"No; you're the one constant and steadfast creature in a world of variableness. I didn't really expect that. I know that I can always find you where I left you. You are the same as when I first saw you."