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 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Dull Miss Archinard 
 
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 shades are artistically blended." 
 
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 fully elaborated and thoroughly successful. The story is wholesome 
 and inspiriting, and should receive a cordial welcome. The interest 
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 studies of female character." 
 
 Manchester Courier. "A very good story, and well told."
 
 The Confounding 
 of Camelia
 
 Hew 6s. "Novels 
 
 Red Rock 
 
 By THOMAS NELSON PACK 
 
 The Rapin 
 
 By H. DB VERB STACPOOLK 
 
 Life at Twenty 
 
 By CHARLES RUSSELL MORSE 
 The Amazing Lady 
 
 By M. BOWLES 
 The Drones must Die 
 
 By MAX NOROAU 
 The Open Question 
 
 By C. E. RAIMOND 
 The House of Hidden Treasure 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 The Dull Miss Archlnard 
 
 By ANNS DOUGLAS SEDGWICK 
 The Victim 
 
 By GABRIELS D'ANNUNZIO 
 
 The Child of Pleasure 
 
 By GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 
 
 The Triumph of Death 
 
 By GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 
 
 LONDON : W. HEINEMANN 
 ai BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING 
 OF CAMELIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN
 
 ro 
 
 "CHARLIE" AND "JIMMIE"
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEN Camelia came down into the country after 
 her second London season, descended lightly upon 
 the home of her forefathers, her coming unannounced, 
 and as much a matter of caprice as had been her 
 long absence, a slowly growing opinion, an opinion 
 that had begun to form itself during Camelia's most 
 irresponsible girlhood, became clearly defined, a 
 judgment fixed and apparently irrevocable. The 
 Patons had always been good, quiet people ; abso 
 lutely undistinguished, were it not that the super 
 lative quality of their tranquil excellence gave a 
 certain distinction. There were no black sheep in 
 their annals, and a black sheep gives, by contrast, 
 a brilliancy lacking to unaccented bucolic group 
 ings, strikes a note of interest at any rate; but 
 none of the Paton sheep were even grey. They 
 fed in pleasant, plenteous pastures, for it was a 
 wealthy, though not noticeably wealthy family, and 
 perhaps a rather sheep-like dulness, an unimagi 
 native contentment not conducive to adventurous 
 strayings, accounted for the spotless fleeces. 
 
 Their cupboards had never held a skeleton nor 
 so much as the bone of one. The family portraits, 
 none even pretending to be Sir Joshuas or Van- 
 dycks, only presented a respectable number of 
 generations, so that the mellow perspective of old 
 
 A
 
 2 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 ancestry, remarkable at least for a lengthy retro 
 gression into antiquity, made no background to 
 their commonplace. Sir Charles, Camelia's father, 
 was the first Paton weighted with an individuality 
 that entailed nonconformity, and since Sir Charles's 
 individuality had confused all anticipations, further 
 developments of the wild streak could not be un 
 expected. Many of the quiet, conservative people, 
 who had known Camelia, her father and mother, 
 and Patons of an earlier epoch, pronounced with 
 emphasis that Camelia was spoiled ; there was a 
 tenderness in the term, an implication of might- 
 have-beens; and other people, more bitter and 
 perhaps more sensitive, remarked that not her 
 head-turning London successes, of which big echoes 
 had rolled down to Clievesbury, but the inherent, 
 the no doubt inherited defects of Miss Paton's 
 character were responsible for her noticeable varia 
 tion from family traditions. Did not that portion 
 of Blankshire, which lay about the dim old village 
 of Clievesbury, send up to the capital every year 
 its native offerings of maidenhood ? A London 
 season had never induced in these well-balanced 
 young ladies the merry arrogance so provokingly 
 apparent in Miss Paton. Old Mrs. Jedsley it was, 
 the last rector's widow, who most openly denounced 
 Camelia, and that, despite her long friendship for 
 the Patons ; denounced her frivolity, her insincerity, 
 her egotism, and her wonderful gowns their sim 
 plicity did not deceive Mrs. Jedsley 's keen eye ; 
 the price of one would keep the parish in flannel 
 for a year she declared, and, no doubt, include 
 the school feast. Mrs. Jedsley prided herself on
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 3 
 
 her impartial faculty for seeing disagreeable truths 
 clearly and for announcing them unflinchingly. 
 Her fondness for Lady Paton "poor Lady Paton" 
 could not blind or silence her. Poor Lady Paton 
 was more than ever effaced, Mrs. Jedsley said ; one 
 might have thought that Sir Charles had required 
 as much submission as a woman's life could well 
 yield, but the daughter had called forth further 
 capabilities. 
 
 " The very way in which she says 'Oh, Camelia ! ' 
 is flattering to the girl. Her mother's half-shocked 
 admiration encourages her in the belief that she 
 is very naughty and very clever ; and really while 
 Camelia talks Lady Paton looks like a hare under 
 a bramble." 
 
 The simile hit the mark so nicely that the alarmed 
 retirement of Lady Paton's attitude was pictorially 
 apparent forthwith. And, " Ah, well ! " Mrs. Jedsley 
 added, "what can one expect in the child of such 
 a father ! The most gracefully selfish man who 
 ever lived. Charles Paton would have smiled you 
 out of house and home, and left you to sit in the 
 snow, while he warmed himself at your fireplace." 
 
 Indeed this application of the laws of heredity 
 might have induced a certain charitable philosophy 
 on Camelia's behalf. The love of adventure, of 
 prowess, of power, had shown itself in Charles 
 Paton ; but much had been forgiven even .admired 
 with a sense of breathlessness, in a cloud -com 
 pelling younger son (his good looks had been 
 altogether supreme), which, when seen flaunting 
 indecorously in the daughter, was highly unpopular. 
 Charles Paton at a very early age had found the
 
 4 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 family traditions "devilish dull" (and, indeed, it 
 could not be denied that dull they were); he 
 entered the army, kicked over the traces, and was 
 " wild " with all his might and main. Clievesbury 
 disapproved, but at the same time Clievesbury was 
 dazzled. 
 
 Surrounded by this naughty atmosphere, rever 
 berating with racing and betting, dare-devil big- 
 game shooting, and the extreme fashion that is 
 supposed to reverse the "devilish dull" morality 
 of tradition, Charles Paton like his daughter 
 returned to Clievesbury, and there fell most mag 
 nanimously and becomingly in love with little 
 Miss Fairleigh, the eighth daughter of a country 
 baronet a softly pink and white maiden wooed 
 and married her and settled down, after a fashion, 
 to carve out an army career for himself. He 
 carved to good purpose, luck giving him the 
 opportunity. He carried his life as lightly and 
 gallantly as a flag ; sought peril, and the tingling 
 excitement of the strangest feats. His reckless 
 bravery won him a knighthood ; his fame, his happy 
 good-nature, and extreme good looks, made him a 
 hero wherever he went. Charles Paton's yellow 
 curls, his smile, the Apollo-like line of his lips, 
 were as well known as his martial exploits. 
 
 He was vastly popular, and his little wife in the 
 shadow by his side, looked up, like the others, and 
 adored where they admired. Sir Charles liked a 
 sunny atmosphere, and though the hearthstone 
 flame in its steady commonplace did not count 
 for so much as the wider outdoor effulgence, it was 
 very cosy to come back to, when domesticity was
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 5 
 
 a momentary necessity. He would not have liked 
 a change of temperature, and tolerated the wifely 
 worship very graciously. He was fond of her 
 too; she was very pretty, not clever (an unde 
 sirable quality in a wife) far more of a help than 
 a hindrance, though how much of a help he perhaps 
 never realised. That broad triumphal road down 
 which the hero marched was swept and garnished 
 by the indefatigable wife. The dustiness and 
 thorniness of daily life were kept from him. Lady 
 Paton packed and paid, and dashed from post to 
 pillar. She was a delicate woman who, petted 
 and made much of, might have allowed herself an 
 occasional headache and a tea-gown existence. 
 The years in India were not easy years ; through 
 them all she unwaveringly adored her husband, 
 and in many phases of a varied life showed the 
 steely fibre so often and so unexpectedly displayed 
 by the most delicately inefficient looking women. 
 
 Camelia was the fifth child; the others died, 
 two in India and two in England, away from the 
 poor mother. This last one was little more than 
 a baby when ill-health and the death of his brother 
 decided Sir Charles on a return to England. Lady 
 Paton rejoiced in the home-coming. With her 
 pretty baby a girl, alas ! but the estate was un 
 entailed and her great and glorious husband by 
 her side the future seemed to open on an unknown 
 happiness. But Lady Paton was to know few com 
 pensations. Sir Charles found the role of country 
 gentleman very flavourless, and his attempts to 
 evade boredom left his wife more lonely and too, 
 more conscious of loneliness, than in busier days.
 
 6 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 When Camelia was eight her father died. One 
 saw then that Lady Paton was supremely adapted 
 to eternal mourning. As a widow, she reached a 
 black-encompassed repose, a broken-hearted finality 
 of woe. Camelia was the one reason for her life. 
 The child had never to enforce her will, her 
 mother's devotion yielded to the slightest pressure. 
 Camelia was hardly conscious of ruling, nor the 
 mother of being ruled. As the stronger egoism, 
 Camelia domineered inevitably. She was a gay, 
 kind child, happy in the unfettered expansion of 
 her individuality; she delighted in its exercise, 
 and in all sorts of unconventional acquirements. 
 She read voraciously and loved travel. Lady Paton 
 had by no means reached the end of packing and 
 paying days. Camelia hated beaten tracks ; the 
 travelling must be different from other people's ; 
 she managed in a tourist-ridden Europe to find 
 the element of adventurous experience. Camelia 
 was keen on experiences. Lady Paton did not 
 appreciate them properly; but then Lady Paton 
 saw life from no artistic standpoint. She thought 
 undiscovered Greece and Poland more trying than 
 the most trying places in India. The steppes de 
 pressed her; she dared not mention wolves, but 
 her mind dwelt dejectedly upon them. She could 
 hardly think of the cooking in certain out-of-the- 
 way corners in Spain without shuddering. But she 
 bore all with apparent placidity, and her helpful 
 qualities won her daughter's approval just as they 
 had won her husband's. 
 
 There was nothing rude or uncouth in Camelia's 
 domineering spirit, it was too happy, too spon-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 7 
 
 taneous, too sure of its own right. Even after 
 these two years of London her severest detractors 
 could not accuse her of the grosser forms of 
 vanity, nor of affectation, nor of the ugly thing 
 that goes by the name of " fastness." Her un 
 erring sense of the best possible taste made " fast " 
 girls seem very tawdry, and her coolly smiling eyes 
 told them that she found them so. Even with 
 the fact of her serene indifference to them grow 
 ing into the consciousnesses of the people about 
 Clievesbury, they still owned, generously, but per 
 force, that she was neither strident nor slangy, 
 nor given to any form of posing. The change in 
 Camelia, if change there were, was a mere evolu 
 tion. She had tasted the joys of a wide effective 
 ness. She was only twenty-three, and more than 
 once had been told that she was the only woman 
 in London fitted to hold a "salon," a "salon" that 
 would be a power social, artistic, and political. 
 Authors talked to her about their books, painters 
 about their pictures ; her presence at the opera 
 was recorded as having judicial importance ; a new 
 pianist was made if he played at one of her musicals. 
 She was a somebody to whom the Clievesburyites 
 were nobodies indeed. 
 
 Camelia smiled at her own power. She did not 
 think more highly of herself, but less well of other 
 people, for she measured at once the comparative 
 worth of her own attributes in a world of medio 
 crity. She saw through the flattery, valued it at 
 its proper rate, but enjoyed it, and indulged in a 
 little air of self-mockery that to appreciative minds 
 crowned her beauty irresistibly. But she was
 
 8 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 rather disappointed in rinding most people so 
 stupid. It was difficult to hold to one's standard 
 in a world where the second-best passed so fluently. 
 By those standards Camelia saw herself very second- 
 best; but were there then no clever people to see 
 it with her? She caught herself in a yawning 
 weariness of it all. A lazy month or so in the 
 country appealed to her ; other motives, too, were 
 perhaps not wanting. With a little retinue of 
 friends she reappeared at Clievesbury, and, by de 
 grees, old neighbours discovered that little Camelia 
 had developed into a rather prickling personality. 
 On calling they found Lady Paton very much in 
 the background. Camelia seemed to make no claim, 
 and yet she was the important personage, and to 
 ignore her prominence was to efface oneself with 
 her mother. It was thought and hoped that 
 Lady Haversham, the magnate of the county, 
 would vanquish that complacent sweetness, the 
 aerial lightness of demeanour that glanced over 
 one's head while one spoke, and " positively," said 
 Mrs. Jedsley, "makes one feel like a cow being 
 looked at along with the landscape." 
 
 But although Lady Haversham held rule in the 
 country, in London she, too, was a nobody, and 
 Camelia very much the contrary. Lady Haversham 
 knew right well that in going to see her old friend 
 Lady Paton, Camelia was her objective point, and 
 to try a fall with Camelia upon her native heath, her 
 intention. Lady Haversham knew that in the eyes 
 of the world the world that counted she was a 
 mere country mouse creeping into the radiant efful 
 gence of the young beauty, and this unpleasant
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 9 
 
 consciousness gave her quite a drum-like sonority 
 of manner a fatal manner, as she felt helplessly 
 while she beat out her imposing phrases beneath 
 the clear smiling of Camelia's eyes. Lady Haver- 
 sham tried in the first place to exclude Camelia, and 
 addressed herself with most solicitous fondness to 
 Lady Paton; but Camelia's silent placidity stung 
 her into self- betrayal. Camelia evidently cared 
 nothing for Lady Haversham's graciousness or 
 lack of it ; seemed, indeed, unconscious of the cold 
 shoulder turned so emphatically upon her. Lady 
 Haversham thumped and rumbled, and knew her 
 self worsted. 
 
 " Manner ! Unpleasant manner ! " she said to 
 Mrs. Jedsley later on in the day, " the child has no 
 manners at all ! That takes in London nowadays 
 you know. Anything in the shape of arrogant 
 youth and prettiness is sure of having its head 
 turned. And as to prettiness, I should call her 
 curious-looking rather than pretty." And by this 
 Mrs. Jedsley knew that Camelia had snubbed Lady 
 Haversham, without trying to there was the 
 smart; Camelia was making no effort at all to be 
 unpleasant, to impose herself, but, unmistakably, 
 she only thought of the good people about her home 
 as cows in the landscape. 
 
 " I suppose she finds us all very provincial," said 
 Mrs. Jedsley, not averse to planting the shaft, for 
 she had felt Lady Haversham's graciousness to be 
 rather rasping at times.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ON the sunny autumn day with which this story 
 opens, Miss Paton was in the morning room at 
 Enthorpe Lodge, waiting for some one a some one 
 who to her was not a nobody ; and though her 
 attitude hardly denoted much anxiety, her mind 
 was alert and very conscious of a pleasing and 
 yet exasperating suspense. Her friend Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel was with her. Miss Paton leaned against 
 the mantelpiece as she talked, her eyes often swerv 
 ing to the clock, but calmly, with no perceptible 
 impatience, or passing in a quiet glance over her 
 hand, the falling folds of her white dress, her 
 friend's face and figure figure and face equally 
 artificial, and perhaps affording to Miss Paton's 
 mind a pleasing contrast to her own distinctive 
 elegance. 
 
 There is in Florence a plaque by one of the 
 della Robbia ; a long -throated girl's head leans 
 from it, serenely looking down upon the world ; a 
 delicate head, with a clear brow, a pure cheek, 
 a mouth of sad enchanting loveliness ; Camelia's 
 head was like it; saint-like in contour, but with 
 an added air, an air of merry irresponsibility. The 
 outward corners of her eyes smiled into a long 
 upward curve of shadow, her brows above them 
 made a wing-like line, wings hovering extended,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA n 
 
 and a little raised. The upward tilt pervaded the 
 corners of her mouth, a sad mouth, yet even in 
 repose it seemed just about to smile, and its smile 
 sliding to a laugh. The very moulding of her 
 cheek and chin showed a tender gaiety. As for 
 colouring it might have been the colouring of a 
 pensive Madonna, so white was her skin, so palely 
 gold her smooth thick hair. She was slender too, 
 with the long narrow hands and feet of an Artemis, 
 and on seeing her one thought of a maiden-goddess, 
 of a Saint Cecilia, and, without surprise over the 
 incongruity, of an intimately modern young taster 
 of life, whose look of pagan joyousness took neither 
 herself nor other people seriously, said "que voulez- 
 vous," to all blame, and gently mocked puritanical 
 earnestness. 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel was plunged into the depths of 
 an easy-chair, a type without hints and whispers to 
 baffle and fascinate. She was thoroughly conven 
 tional and not in the least perplexing. Her ela 
 borate head, a masterpiece of wave and coil and 
 curl, rested against the high-chair back, its lustre a 
 trifle suspicious where the light caught too gold a 
 bronze on the sharp ripples. 
 
 She was considered a beauty, and her steely, 
 regular face looked at one from every stationer's 
 shop in London. Miss Paton's photographs were 
 to be procured at no stationer's, one among the 
 many differences that distinguished her from her 
 friend. 
 
 On Camelia's " coming-out " in all the dryad-like 
 freshness of her one-and-twenty years, Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel, smartest of the " smart," kindly determined
 
 12 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 to " form " and " launch " her. She was very win 
 ning, and Camelia seemed very willing. But Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel soon recognised that she was being led 
 not leading, soon recognised that Camelia would 
 never follow. The first defeat was at the corsetiere's 
 visible symbol of the " forming " process. Under 
 Mrs. Fox-Darnel's eye, Miss Paton's nymph-like 
 slinmess was measured for stays of all sorts and 
 descriptions ; Camelia, when the stays were done, 
 surveyed her figure therein confined, with reflective 
 rather than submissive silence. 
 
 The week after she went to Paris, and when she 
 returned it was with a stayless wardrobe. Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel was fairly quelled as Camelia swept 
 before her in these masterpieces of the Rue de la 
 Paix. 
 
 "They are not aesthetic," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, 
 " I own that not a greenery-yallery whiff about 
 them ; nor too self-conscious ; but, my dear, why ? 
 Don't you like my figure ? " 
 
 Camelia turned candid eyes upon the accurate 
 waist, the rigid curves and right angles. " I can't 
 say I do, Frances," she owned, wherewith Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel winced a little. " I don't think it looks 
 alive, you know," said Miss Paton. "Of course 
 one must know how to dress one's nonconformity. 
 I think I have succeeded." And Camelia went to 
 court looking like a glorified Romney, with hardly 
 a whalebone about her. Their future relationship 
 was forecast by this declaration of independence. 
 The stayless protegee conferred, did not receive 
 lustre. 
 
 Inevitably Mrs. Fox-Darriel found herself re-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 13 
 
 volving about the young beauty a satellite among 
 the other satellites, and more than Camelia her 
 self was Mrs. Fox-Darriel impressed by Camelia's 
 effectiveness. 
 
 On this morning from the depth of her laziness 
 she observed her young friend's glances at the clock 
 with some wondering curiosity; it was difficult to 
 imagine a cause for the stirring of Camelia's con 
 templative quiescence under country influences, but 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel was quick to see the faintest 
 ripple of change, and to her well-sharpened acute- 
 ness the ripple this morning was perceptible. 
 
 " No new guests coming to-day ? " she had asked, 
 receiving a placid negative. "And what are you 
 going to do ? " she pursued, patting the regular 
 outline of her fringe. 
 
 " I thought of a ride with Mr. Merriman and Sir 
 Harry. Do you care to come ? " 
 
 "No, no; I have too much of Sir Harry and Mr. 
 Merriman as it is." 
 
 " It is dull down here, Frances. Perhaps you 
 had best be off to Homburg. I am bent on recu 
 perative vegetating, you know." 
 
 " Whom are you waiting for ? " Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 asked, coming to the point with a circumspection 
 rendered rather ridiculous by the frank promptness 
 of Miss Paton's answer. 
 
 "I'm waiting for Mr. Perior, Frances," and she 
 laughed a little, glancing at her friend with a rapid 
 touch of ridicule, " and he is half-an-hour late ; and 
 I want to see him very badly." 
 
 " Mr. Perior ? " Mrs. Fox-Darnel's vagueness 
 was not affected. " One of the vegetables, my dear ?
 
 14 THE CONFOUNDING OF. CAMELIA 
 
 Has not the curiosity of the neighbourhood ex 
 hausted itself?" 
 
 "Ah this vegetable isn't curious, I fear, not a 
 shoot shows at least. If he is curious he will pre 
 tend not to be, and pretend very successfully." 
 
 "That is subtle for a vegetable. Perior, the 
 name is familiar. Who is this evasive person ? " 
 
 Miss Paton's serene eyes looked over her friend's 
 head at the strip of blue and green outside framed 
 by the long window. She was asking herself with 
 an inward smile for her own perversity, whether 
 she had not come down into the country for the 
 purpose of seeing the "evasive person." She 
 would not mind owning to it in the least. Pickles 
 after sweets; she anticipated the tart taste of dis 
 approval pleasantly. 
 
 "Who is he?" Mrs. Fox-Darriel repeated. 
 
 " He is my oldest friend ; he doesn't admire me 
 in the least so I am very fond of him. I christened 
 him ' Alceste,' and he retaliated with ' Celimene.' 
 He is forty odd ; a bachelor ; he lives in a square 
 stone house, and taught me very nearly everything 
 I know. My Greek is almost as good as my skirt 
 dancing." 
 
 "The square-stone gentleman didn't teach you 
 skirt-dancing, I suppose. I begin to place him. 
 The editor ; the family friend ; the misanthrope." 
 
 "Yes, my 'Alceste.' He has reason for mis 
 anthropy. His life has been a succession of dis 
 appointments. I am one of them, I fear." 
 
 " Dear me, Camelia ! " Mrs. Fox-Darriel sat up 
 right, "have you ever dallied with this provincial 
 Diogenes ? "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 15 
 
 Miss Paton smiled over the supposition. " His 
 disappointments are moral, not amorous. Why do 
 I tell you this, I wonder ? " 
 
 "To show me that you don't care for him, per 
 haps," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, who, to tell the truth, 
 was rather alarmed. Since she had resigned her 
 self to a planetary, a reflected brilliancy, her star 
 at least must never wane ; its orbit must widen. 
 Camelia's whole manner seemed suddenly suspicious. 
 She was evidently waiting for this person, pleased, 
 evidently, to talk of him, and though Camelia might 
 be trusted for a full appreciation of her future's pos 
 sibilities, Mrs. Fox-Darriel was hardly satisfied by 
 the frankness of her "Oh ! but I do care for him; 
 he preoccupies me." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel reflected for some moments on 
 the dangers of country-house propinquity and retro 
 spective intimacy before saying pleasantly 
 
 " What does he look like ? " 
 
 Camelia laughed again, soothing Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 somewhat by the good-humoured glance which 
 seemed to pierce with amusement the anxiety on 
 her behalf. 
 
 "His eyes are thunderous ; his lips pale with 
 suppressed anger." 
 
 " Dear me ! I am really anxious to see this vial 
 of wrath." 
 
 "And since that is his footstep on the gravel, 
 you shall see him immediately," said Camelia. 
 
 A moment after Mr. Perior was announced.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MR. PERIOR was a tall man, well built, yet carrying 
 himself with a certain ungainliness. He bad an air 
 of eagerness reined back. His face was at once 
 severe and sensitive. 
 
 He gave no notice to Mrs. Fox-Darnel, whose 
 head twisted round to observe his entrance, and 
 walking up to Miss Paton he took her hands she 
 had put out both her hands in welcome and, 
 looking at her kindly, he said 
 
 "Well, Celimene." 
 
 "Well, Akeste." 
 
 The smile that made of Camelia's face a changing 
 loveliness seemed to come and go, and come again 
 while she looked at him, as a butterfly's wings fold 
 and open while it rests upon a flower. She rarely 
 laughed outright, but her face in gravity was un 
 familiar; one could hardly imagine it without the 
 shifting charm. 
 
 "You might have come before," she said her 
 hands in his, " and I expected you." 
 
 " I was away until yesterday." 
 
 " You will come often now." 
 
 "Yes, I will." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Daniel's eye a none too friendly eye 
 travelled meanwhile up and down the "vial of 
 wrath." Clever, eccentric, he had evidently made 
 
 16
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 17 
 
 an impression upon the not easily impressed 
 Camelia, and his clean-shaved face, and the rough 
 grey hair that gave his head a look of shaggy heavi 
 ness, seemed to express both qualities significantly. 
 
 " Did you ride over ? " Camelia asked. " No ? 
 Hot for walking, isn't it ? Frances, my friend Mr. 
 Perior." 
 
 "You live near here, Mr. Perior?" said Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel, glancing at his boots, which were 
 peculiarly solid and very dusty. 
 
 " Only five miles away," he said. Mr. Perior's 
 very boots partook of their wearer's expression of 
 uningratiating self-reliance. 
 
 " We have heard of you in London too, I believe. 
 You are editor of what review is it, Camelia ? " 
 
 " I was the editor of the Friday Review, but I've 
 given that up." 
 
 " He quarrelled with everybody ! " Camelia put in, 
 " but you can hear him once a week in the leading 
 article dealing hatchet-blows right and left. They 
 don't care to keep him at closer quarters." 
 
 Mr. Perior looked at her, smiling but making no 
 repartee. 
 
 " And Camelia has been telling me that you are 
 responsible for her Greek." 
 
 " Is Camelia ashamed of her Greek ? She needn't 
 be. She was quite a good scholar." 
 
 " But Greek ! For Camelia ! Don't you think it 
 jars ? To bind such dusty laurels on that head ! " 
 
 " Laurels ? Camelia can't boast of the adorn 
 ment dusty or otherwise." 
 
 " Oh ! leave me a leaf or two. You are disloyal. 
 I am glad of my Greek. When one is so frivolous 
 
 B
 
 18 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 the contrast is becoming. And every twig of know 
 ledge is useful nowadays in a woman's motley 
 crown, provided she wears it like a French bonnet." 
 
 Perior observed her laughingly Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 had as yet seen no hatchets. 
 
 "No danger of your being taken for a blue 
 stocking, Camelia." 
 
 " No, indeed ! I see to that ! " 
 
 " You little hypocrite," said Perior. 
 
 Mrs. Fox- Darriel's eyebrows arched into her 
 fringe. She got out of her chair trailingly. 
 
 " I will go into the garden. Lady Paton is there, 
 Camelia? I think so. I know that you have 
 reminiscences. I am in the way." 
 
 "You are, rather," said Perior, when she had 
 gone out. " A very disagreeable face that, Camelia; 
 how do the women manage to look so hard 
 nowadays ? " 
 
 " Thanks. She is a dear friend." 
 
 " I am sorry for it. I hate to see eyes touched 
 up ; it gives me the creeps. I am sorry she is a 
 dear friend." 
 
 " I am afraid I shall often give you cause for 
 sorriness." Camelia stood by the mantelpiece, 
 smiling most winningly. " Come, now, let us 
 reminisce. I saw you last in London. Why didn't 
 you stop there longer ? " 
 
 " I had enough of London to last me for a life 
 time when I lived there," said Perior. " I do go up 
 for a bout of concerts now and then," he added, 
 and looking away from her he took up a large 
 photograph that stood on the table beside him. " Is 
 this the latest ? "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 19 
 
 " How do you like it?" she asked, leaning forward 
 to look with him. 
 
 " It makes a very saintly little personage of you ; 
 but it doesn't do you justice. Your Whistler por 
 trait the portrait of a smile is the best likeness 
 you'll ever get." 
 
 Camelia looked pleased, and yet a trifle taken 
 aback. 
 
 " What a nice Alceste you are this morning ! " 
 she said. " Tell me, what are you doing with your 
 self down here ? Growing more and more of the 
 stoic ? I expect some day to hear that you have 
 left the Grange and moved into a tub. How do you 
 get on without your pupil ? " and Camelia as she 
 stood before him made ever so faint a little dancing 
 step backwards and forwards, expressive of her 
 question's merriment. 
 
 " I have existed more comfortably perhaps than 
 when I had her." 
 
 " Now tell me, be sincere." She came close to him, 
 her own gay steadiness of look exemplary in the 
 quality she recommended. "Are you crunchingly 
 disapproving? Ready to bite me? Have you heard 
 dreadful tales of frivolity and worldliness ? " 
 
 " Not more than are becoming to a pretty young 
 woman with such capacities for enjoyment." 
 
 " You don't disapprove then ? " 
 
 " Of what, my dear Camelia ? " 
 
 " Of my determination to enjoy myself." 
 
 " Why should I ? Why shouldn't you have your 
 try like the rest of us ? I am not going to throw 
 cold water on your laudable aspirations." 
 
 Camelia still looked at him steadily, smilingly,
 
 20 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 and a little mockingly. Their eyes at these close 
 quarters could but show a consciousness of fami 
 liarity that made evasions funny. Camelia's eyes 
 were grey, the sunlit grey of a brook reflecting 
 broken browns and greens, yeux pailletes, as chang 
 ing as her smile ; and Perior's eyes, too, were grey, 
 but the fixed, stony grey that is altogether another 
 colour, and they contemplated her fluctuations 
 with an apparently unmoved, though smiling 
 calm. 
 
 She laughed outright, and then Perior permitted 
 himself a dry little responsive laugh that left his lips 
 un parted. 
 
 "What are you up to, Camelia?" he asked. 
 
 " We do see through one another, don't we ? " she 
 cried joyfully. " I see you are going to pretend not 
 to mind anything. ' That will sting her ! take down 
 her conceit ! I'll not flatter her by scoldings ! ' 
 Eh ! Alceste ? " 
 
 " You little scamp !" he murmured, while Camelia, 
 sitting down on the sofa, swept her white draperies 
 over her feet and motioned to the place beside her. 
 " You will not no, you will not take me seriously." 
 
 "If you see through me, Camelia," said Perior, 
 taking the seat beside her with a certain air of 
 resignation, "you see that I am very sincere in 
 finding your behaviour perfectly normal not in the 
 least surprising. You are merely gay, and happy, 
 and self-centred; and behaving as all girls, who 
 have the chance, behave," he added, putting his 
 finger under her chin with a paternal pat and a look 
 of gentle ridicule. 
 
 " Well done ! That was very neat ! Do you
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 21 
 
 want me to show signs of discomfiture. I won't. 
 You know that I am quite individual, and that for 
 years you have thought me a selfish, hard-hearted 
 little scoundrel." 
 
 "Oh no; not so bad as that." 
 
 " What have you thought, then ?" she demanded. 
 
 " I have thought that, like other girls, you can't 
 evade that label " 
 
 " Oh, wretch ! " Camelia interjected. 
 
 " That, like other girls," Perior repeated with an 
 unkind emphasis, " you are going to try to make a 
 'good match.'" His face, for all its attempt at 
 lightness, took on a shade of irrepressible repug 
 nance as he spoke. " The accessories don't count 
 for much. You may be quite individually naughty, 
 but in your motives I see only a very conventional 
 conformity." 
 
 "That's bad bad and crude. The good match 
 is, with me, the accessory ; therein lies my difference, 
 and you know it. You know I am not like other 
 girls. You saw it in London. You saw," Camelia 
 added, wrinkling up her nose in a self-mockery that 
 robbed the coming remark of fatuity, " that I was a 
 personage there." 
 
 "As a noticeably pretty girl is a personage. You 
 really are beating your drum rather deafeningly, 
 Camelia." 
 
 "Yes; I'll shock you by mere noise. But, Al- 
 ceste, I am not as conceited as I seem ; no, really, I 
 am not," and with her change of tone her look be 
 came humorously grave. " I know very well that 
 the people who make much of me who think me a 
 personage are sillies. Still, in a world of sillies,
 
 22 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 I am a personage. It does come round to that, 
 you see." 
 
 "Yes; I see." 
 
 Camelia leaned back in her end of the little sofa, 
 her arms folded, her head bent in a light scrutiny 
 of her companion's face. The warm quiet of the 
 summer day pervaded the peaceful room, a room 
 with so many associations for both of them. They 
 had studied, read there together for years ; laughed, 
 quarrelled, been the best of friends and the fondest 
 of enemies. Perior, as he looked about it, could 
 call up a long vista of Camelias, all gay, all attach 
 ing, all evasive, all culminating and fulfilling them 
 selves with an almost mathematical inevitableness, 
 as was now so apparent to him, in the long, slim 
 "personage" beside him, her eyes, as he knew, 
 studying him, her mind amused with conjectures 
 as to what he really thought of her, she herself 
 quite ready to display the utmost sincerity in the 
 attempt to elicit that thought. Oh no, Camelia 
 would keep up very few pretences with him. 
 Perior, gazing placidly enough at the sunlit green 
 outside the morning-room, knew very well what he 
 thought of her. 
 
 " Are you estimating the full extent of my folly," 
 she asked presently, " tempering your verdict by 
 the consideration of extenuations ? " 
 
 This was so apt an exposition of his mental 
 process that Perior smiled rather helplessly. 
 
 " See," she said, rising and going to the writing- 
 table, " I'll help you to leniency ; show you some 
 very evident extenuations." From a large bundle 
 of letters she selected two. "Weigh the extent
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 23 
 
 of my influence, and find it funny, if you like, as 
 I do." 
 
 " I wonder if you quite realise the ludicrous 
 aspect of our conversation," said Perior, taking a 
 thick sheaf of paper from the first letter. 
 
 " Quite quite. Only you push me to extremes. 
 I must make you own my importance my indivi 
 duality." 
 
 "Ah, from Henge," said Perior, looking at the 
 end of the letter. " He was my fag at Eton, you 
 know ; dear old Arthur ! " 
 
 "Yes, and you quarrelled with him five years 
 ago, about politics." 
 
 " We didn't quarrel," said Perior, with a touch of 
 asperity ; " he was quite big enough not to mis 
 understand my opposition. Must I read all this, 
 Camelia ? It looks rather dry." 
 
 " Well, I should like you to. He is one of the 
 strongest men in the government, you know." 
 
 "Quite. He is the man for me, despite past 
 differences of opinion. The man for you too, 
 perhaps," he added, glancing sharply up at her 
 from the letter; "his devotion is public property, 
 you know." 
 
 " But my reception of his devotion isn't," laughed 
 Camelia. 
 
 " I am snubbed," said Perior, returning to the 
 letter, and flushing a little. Camelia noted the 
 flush. Dear old Alceste ! Shielding so ineffec 
 tually, under his sharp blunt bearing, that quivering 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 She put her hand through his arm, sinking down 
 beside him, her eyes over his shoulder following his
 
 24 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 while he read her certificate. Perior quite under 
 stood the smooth making of amends. 
 
 " Well, what do you say to that ? " she asked 
 when he had obediently read to the very end. 
 
 " I should say that he was a man very much in 
 love," said Perior, folding the letter. 
 
 "You are subtle if you can trace an amorous 
 influence in that letter." 
 
 " It doesn't call for subtlety. Samson only 
 abandons himself so completely under amorous 
 circumstances. I hope you are not going to shear 
 the poor fellow." 
 
 "For shame," said Camelia, while Perior, looking 
 at her reflectively, softly slapped the palm of his 
 hand with Arthur Henge's letter ; " I am his com 
 rade. I help him ; I am on his side, if you please, 
 and against the Philistines." 
 
 " Oh, are you ? And this ? Ah ! this is from 
 the leader of the Philistines, Rodrigg. Yes, I 
 heard that Rodrigg was in the toils." Perior 
 examined the small compact handwriting without 
 much apparent curiosity. 
 
 " That is simply nonsense. There was a time 
 but he soon saw the hopelessness. He is my friend 
 now; not that I am particularly fond of him the 
 grain is rather coarse; but he is a good creature, 
 far more honest than he imagines, simple, after a 
 clumsy fashion. He aims at distinguished diplo 
 matic complexity, I may tell you, and, I fancy, 
 comes to me for the necessary polishing. Read 
 his letter." 
 
 Perior had looked at her, still smiling, but more 
 absently, while she spoke.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 25 
 
 " Oh ! Rodrigg is more cautious," he said, glanc 
 ing through the great man's neatly constructed 
 phrases. "You are not with the Philistines; he 
 feels that." 
 
 "Politically, no; but I have a good deal of in 
 fluence with him. You see those reviews he men 
 tions ; I went through a lot of heavy French and 
 Italian reading for him sociology, industrialism 
 and saw the result in his last speech." 
 
 " Really." 
 
 "Ah, really. Don't be sarcastic, Alceste, to me. 
 One of those men will probably be Prime Minister 
 some day. You can't deny that they are eminent 
 men." 
 
 "And therefore you are an eminent woman. 
 Well, the logic isn't too lame. I'll conclude, 
 Camelia. that you may do quite a lot of harm in 
 the world." 
 
 "You don't believe that a woman's influence in 
 politics can be for good ? " 
 
 " Not the influence of a woman like you a 
 afemme bibelot.' 11 
 
 " Good ! " cried Camelia, gently clapping her 
 hands. 
 
 " It is as that, you know, that these men court 
 you. An objet d'art for their drawing-rooms." 
 
 " You are mistaken, Alceste." 
 
 " If I am mistaken if they cherish ideals, they 
 are unlucky devils." 
 
 "No, Alceste, I am well justified in keeping my 
 self-respect intact. It is not for my beaux yeux 
 that I am courted yes, yes that wry look isn't 
 needed ! I know in what hideously bad taste I
 
 6 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 am talking, but one can't use artistic methods with 
 you. As I say, I have my finger in any number 
 of pies besides the pie political. You should see 
 the respect in which I am held by the writers 
 and painters. And I have good taste ; I know 
 that. You can't deny it, since you helped it to 
 grow. What other woman in London has a col 
 lection to equal mine ? D6gas Outamaro Oh, 
 Alceste, don't look so funnily ! Do you really 
 imagine that I am not conscious of the baldness 
 of my exposition ? But what is the good of putting 
 on a wig for you ! " 
 
 "And all this to convince me " 
 
 "Yes, to convince you." 
 
 " Of what, pray ? " 
 
 " That I am not a little insignificance to be passed 
 by with indulgence." 
 
 "Should you prefer severity?" and Perior, con 
 scious that she had succeeded in " drawing " him, 
 could not repress "You are an outrageous little 
 egotist, Camelia." 
 
 Camelia, her hands clasped over her knee, con 
 templated him with more gravity than he had 
 expected. 
 
 "No," she demurred, "selfish, but not egotistic. 
 There is a difference, isn't there ? Egotism is sub 
 jective, selfishness objective. I wonder," she added, 
 " what you do think of me. Not that I care much ! 
 Am I not frank ? I must care, since I am shuffling 
 about before you ; getting a cuffing for my pains ! " 
 She rose suddenly, laughing, not in the least bitterly, 
 and walked to the window. 
 
 'Mammaand Mary/'she announced. "Did Frances
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 27 
 
 evade them ? They disconcert her. Frances, you 
 know, goes in for knowingness cleverness the 
 modern vice. Don't you hate clever people ? Frances 
 doesn't dare talk epigrams to me; I can't stand it. 
 You saw a lot of Mamma and Mary last winter, 
 didn't you ? Took Mary out riding. Now, come 
 here, Mr. Perior, and tell me how she looked on 
 horseback." 
 
 Camelia was smiling irrepressibly as he joined 
 her, and they watched the approach of the two 
 ladies across the lawn. Certainly the angular, 
 thick-set form of the younger gave no hint of 
 pleasing possibilities under circumstances so trying 
 as the equestrian. 
 
 " / never could wheedle Mary into the saddle. I 
 should like to see her on horseback immensely." 
 Camelia's eyes twinkled. " A sort of cowering des 
 peration, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " No, she rode rather nicely," said Perior con 
 cisely. There was something rather brutal in 
 Camelia's comments as she stood there with such 
 rhythmic loveliness of pose and contour. 
 
 " I wish Mary did not look so much like a milk 
 pudding," she went on ; " a raisinless milk pudding 
 so sane, so formless, so uneventful." 
 
 Perior did not smile.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LADY PATON was a thin, graceful woman, her 
 slenderness emphasised, like her daughter's, by a 
 very small head. Since her husband's death she 
 had worn black, and even now it seemed to invade 
 her delicate whiteness rather overwhelmingly, rising 
 closely about her throat, falling over her fragile 
 hands, enfolding her with a soft solemnity. Her 
 white hair was smoothed thickly under the trans 
 parent cambrics of an exquisite cap, and framed the 
 sweetness of a faded face, in profile like Camelia's. 
 Camelia's eyes were her father's, and her smile ; 
 Lady Paton's eyes were round like a child's, and 
 her smile half-frightened, half-explanatory. With 
 all the gentlewoman's mild dignity, her look was 
 timid, as though it besought indulgence for a life 
 long sense of insignificance, a look that aroused in 
 Perior his grimmest scorn for a world in which such 
 flower-like moral loveliness is inevitably victimised 
 by garish egotisms. He had known Sir Charles, 
 a charming companion, a good fellow in the some 
 what widely licensed sense the term implies, but 
 not fit to untie his wife's shoe-strings when it 
 came to a comparison. Camelia now had stepped 
 upon her father's undeserved pedestal, and Perior, 
 watching the new epoch of incense-burning, had 
 
 smiled more and more grimly. He was devoted to 
 
 28
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 29 
 
 Lady Paton, and had been so since the days when 
 a raw, sensitive, high-strung youth, fresh from 
 college, her Madonna head had roused in him 
 poetical idealisations, and her husband's gay in 
 difference a chafing resentment. With years he 
 had grown rather fond of Sir Charles, could make 
 allowances for him, and, too, had no longer idealised 
 Lady Paton ; but though he now saw her, sweet but 
 dull, lovely in unselfishness, yet weak in all except 
 a submission noble in its own way, the fragrant 
 charm still stirred him with an almost paternal 
 tenderness, a pity, even a reverence. She was 
 too obtuse to see her own cramped and imprisoned 
 life, but he saw it, and her unconsciousness was 
 part of the pathos. He was very fond of her, and 
 she of him, so that with all his protective partisan 
 ship there was, too, a willing filial deference. 
 
 This little corner of appreciation and affection 
 was the softest spot in Perior's character. He took 
 both her hands now, and said, looking at her with 
 a whimsical gentleness, " So you are back at last ! 
 And glad to be back, too, are you not ? " 
 
 " Oh, very. And Camelia seems to like it so 
 much." She smiled round at her daughter. " She 
 was beginning to look quite fagged ; already the 
 country has done her good." 
 
 Camelia smiled back with a humouring lightness. 
 
 Mary Fairleigh stood quietly behind her aunt. 
 Her expressionless face certainly did suggest a lac 
 teal dulness. The Fairleighs were not responsible 
 for her short nose and clumsily cut mouth. Im 
 pecunious Maurice Fairleigh, third son, had " done 
 for himself" when he married his younger sisters'
 
 30 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 nursery governess. Maurice had no money and 
 not many brains, and poor Miss Hockey had neither 
 brains nor beauty, nor family nor money. Her 
 flaxen hair and vacant blue eyes captured Maurice's 
 vagrant fancy during a lazy summer. He was very 
 young, that fact was the only excuse possible ; but, 
 as the Fairleighs said, there was no accounting for 
 Maurice's folly. Maurice himself, after a very little 
 time, could no longer account for it. He was a 
 good-natured fellow, and his wonder at himself did 
 not become too painfully apparent to his wife ; but 
 the short years of their married life were by no 
 means a success. Maurice was very delicate, and 
 the struggle to make both ends meet was but 
 grudgingly aided by disapproving relatives. Lady 
 Paton, only, was sympathetic, practically sympa 
 thetic too; but during the greater part of Maurice's 
 matrimonial venture she was in India, and, as the 
 other Fairleighs said, Angelica never had the wit 
 to resent anything. Maurice died at Davos-Platz, 
 and Mrs. Fairleigh, when her daughter was sixteen, 
 departed her seemingly very pointless existence. 
 Her last years had been sweetened by Lady Paton's 
 devoted kindness, and she left Mary to this guardian 
 angel. Since that time Mary had lived at Enthorpe 
 Lodge; a grave, good little girl, solemnly submissive 
 to her cousin, painstaking in dutiful gratitude toward 
 her aunt. Camelia had always found this gratitude 
 irritating, and Mary's manner as of one on whom 
 Providence had laid the patiently borne burden of 
 obscurity and dependence, very vexing. Camelia 
 intended as little as her mother to recognise 
 a difference, and did not realise that her own
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 31 
 
 dominant characteristics necessitated Mary's non- 
 resistance. 
 
 She laughed at Mary's gravity, tried to tease her 
 out of her stolid acceptance of the role of poor 
 relation, but, inevitably, she came to treat Mary 
 with the tolerant carelessness she seemed only to 
 expect. As for Lady Paton, she never surmised 
 about Mary, nor analysed her. Lady Paton ac 
 cepted people and things as they appeared, and 
 without conjecture. Mary was a dear, good girl. 
 It was indeed impossible that her uninteresting 
 virtues should arouse enthusiasm, and her aunt's 
 appreciation from its very fulness was calmly un 
 emotional. 
 
 Lady Paton having become in these latter days 
 a sort of decorative adjunct to her daughter for 
 Camelia used her mother to the very best advantage, 
 lace caps, sweetness and all, it was upon Mary 
 that the duller duties fell. Mary managed bills and 
 servants, and household matters ; wrote little notes, 
 ran little errands, chose embroidery silks, and sent 
 for the books to Mudie's, the tender books with 
 happy matrimonial endings that Lady Paton liked. 
 She read these books aloud, and talked to her aunt 
 as Camelia never did, never could. Lady Paton 
 listened to her daughter, but she and Mary talked 
 about her. Mary's conversation required no ad 
 justment of amazed faculties, no quelling of old- 
 fashioned alarms, nor acceptance of a wondering 
 incompetence. 
 
 The little prattle of gardening and gowns, and 
 Camelia's doings went on happily, unless hushed 
 in an absorbed observance of that young heroine
 
 32 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 herself, flinging pretty missiles of speech far above 
 the heads of her mother and cousin. 
 
 Both dull dears ; such was Camelia's realistic 
 inner comment, but Mary was an earthenware dear, 
 and Mamma translucent porcelain. Camelia, who 
 appreciated and loved all dainty perfection, appre 
 ciated and loved her mother, with much the same 
 love that she would have given a slender white 
 vase of priceless ware, displayed on a stand of 
 honour in- her knowingly grouped drawing-room. 
 She was a distinctly creditable and decorative 
 Mamma. As for Mary, she was not decorative ; a 
 harmless, necessary hot water jug. 
 
 Camelia, now, as her mother spoke to Perior, 
 went to her side and gave the muslin that fell over 
 her shoulder a little touch and settling. 
 
 " You have had a nice walk round the garden ? " 
 she said, smiling; "your cheek is just the pink of a 
 sweet-pea." 
 
 " And how are you, Mary ? " Perior asked, 
 turning to Miss Fairleigh. " You might have more 
 colour, I think." 
 
 " Mary has a headache," said Lady Paton, the 
 fluttering smile with which she had received her 
 daughter's commendation fading; "I think she often 
 has them and says nothing." 
 
 "You must play tennis with the Mappuck girls. 
 You need more exercise," Perior continued. " They 
 are at it vigorously from morning till night." 
 
 "Oh really," Mary protested, "it is only Aunt 
 Angelica's kindness I am quite well." 
 
 " And no one must dare be otherwise in this 
 house," Camelia added. " Go and play tennis at
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 33 
 
 once, Mary. I don't approve of headaches." Mary 
 smiled a modest, decorous little smile. 
 
 " Nor do I," said Perior, and then as Lady Paton 
 had taken a chair near her work-table, he sat down 
 beside her, while Mary sank from her temporary 
 prominence, and, near the window, took up some 
 sewing. Camelia remained near her, looking out at 
 the smooth green stretches of the lawn, lending half 
 an ear to the talk behind her, but keeping up at the 
 same time a kindly little flow of question and reply 
 with her cousin. How were the flowers getting 
 on ? and the hay-making ? Had she seen that morn 
 ing her poor village people ? The questions were 
 rather perfunctory; and while she spoke Camelia 
 aided the faltering march of a burnished little 
 beetle up the window, and helped him out on to 
 the fragrant branch of syringa that brushed the 
 pane. 
 
 " I hear that you are embarked on a season of 
 parties," said Perior to Lady Paton. 
 
 " Yes, Camelia has so many friends. She thought 
 she would like it here if she could keep it gay with 
 people." 
 
 "You will like it too. ' You were lonely last 
 winter." 
 
 "Ah, Camelia was not here; but I was not 
 lonely, Michael ; you were too kind for that ; and 
 I had Mary. You don't think Camelia looks thin, 
 Michael?" She had always called the family 
 friend by his Christian name. Perior had Irish 
 ancestry. " She has been doing so much all spring 
 all winter too ; I can't understand how a delicate 
 girl can press so many things into her life and 
 
 C
 
 34 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 studying with it too; she must keep up with every 
 thing." 
 
 " Ahead of everything," Perior smiled. 
 
 "Yes, she is really so intellectual, Michael. You 
 don't think she looks badly ? " 
 
 "She is as pretty a little pagan as ever," said 
 Perior, glancing at Miss Paton. 
 
 "A pagan ! " Lady Paton looked rather alarmed. 
 " You mean it, Michael ? I have been troubled, but 
 Camelia comes to church with me. It is you who 
 are the pagan, Michael," she added, finding the 
 gentle retort with evident relief. 
 
 "Oh, I wasn't speaking literally. I have no 
 doubt that Camelia is a staunch church-woman," 
 he smiled to himself. Camelia was a brazen little 
 conformist, when conformity was of service. 
 
 "No, not that. I don't quite know. I have 
 heard her talk of religion with Mr. Ballenden, who 
 writes those books, you know, scientific, atheistic 
 books, and Camelia seemed quite to overpower him ; 
 the illusions of science, the claims of authority." 
 Lady Paton spoke with some little vagueness. " I 
 did not quite follow it all ; but he became very 
 much excited. Controversial religion does not in 
 terest me, it confuses me. It is the inner change 
 of heart, Michael," she added with a mild glance 
 of affection, "the reliance on the higher will that 
 guides us, that has revealed itself to us." 
 
 Perior looked somewhat gloomily on the ground. 
 The thought of Lady Paton's religion, and Camelia's 
 deft juggling with negatives, jarred upon him. 
 
 "You don't agree with me, Michael?" Lady 
 Paton asked timidly.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 35 
 
 "Of course I do," he said, looking up at her, 
 "that is the only definition needful. We may 
 interpret differently, from different points of 
 view." 
 
 " You would find, I think, greater peace in mine, 
 Michael. May you come to it in time ! " 
 
 They were both silent for a moment, and both 
 looked presently at Camelia. 
 
 "She is so much admired, and so unspoiled 
 by it. So frank, so unaffected. She is found so 
 clever." 
 
 " So she tells me," Perior could not repress. 
 
 "And so humorous," Lady Paton added, taking 
 his smile in its kindest sense, " she says the most 
 amusing things." 
 
 " Mr. Perior," said Camelia, turning rather abruptly, 
 " if Mamma is singing my praises I give you leave 
 to repress her sternly." She joined them, stand 
 ing behind Lady Paton's chair, and, over her head, 
 looking at Perior. " I know how trying such praises 
 are, heard outside the family circle." 
 
 " In which I hope I may include myself. I enjoy 
 Lady Paton's interpretation." 
 
 " Mamma would not believe the biting intention 
 of that speech. Cuff! cuff! cuff! // me fait des 
 misres } Mamma ! " 
 
 Lady Paton's smile went from one to the other. 
 
 "You have always teased Michael, Camelia, and 
 he has always been so patient with you." 
 
 " Every one is patient with me, because I am 
 a good girl. ' Be good, sweet maid ' I believe in 
 a moral universe," and Camelia over her mother's 
 head wrinkled up her nose roguishly as she made
 
 36 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 the edifying statement. " Mamma," she added, 
 "where is my flock this morning? I fancied that 
 you were shepherding some of them. I want to 
 trot them out before Mr. Perior. I want to study 
 his expression as Sir Harry and Mr. Merriman 
 present themselves. Sir Harry the mere super 
 lative of Mr. Merriman's fatuity. I imagine that 
 by some biological adaptation of function they use 
 their brains for digestive purposes, since I am sure 
 they never think with them." 
 
 Lady Paton took refuge from a painful recogni 
 tion of the inhospitable nature of these remarks 
 in a vague smile. Lady Paton had a faculty for 
 misunderstanding when either misunderstanding or 
 disapproval was necessary. If Camelia hoped by 
 her brisk personalities to shock her former pre 
 ceptor she failed signally, for laughing appreciatively 
 he asked, "And for what purpose were these latest 
 sports of evolution imported ? " 
 
 " Purpose ! Could one pin a purpose to such 
 aimless beings ? They came because I like to have 
 beautiful things about me, and, in their way, they 
 are beautiful. Then, too, with a plant-like per 
 sistency they turn to the sun, and I do not flatter 
 myself in owning that I am their sun. It would 
 have been cruel to deny them the opportunity of 
 basking." 
 
 "The hunting, dancing, yachting species, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 "Yes; their lives comprise a few more move 
 ments, but very few. It is a mere sort of rhythmic 
 necessity." 
 
 Perior laughed again, and his eyes met hers, as
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 37 
 
 she leaned above her mother's chair, in quite a 
 twinkling mood. 
 
 Mary, near the window, paused in her stitching 
 to look at them both with a seemingly bovine con 
 templation. 
 
 " And who are your other specimens ? " asked 
 Perior, less conscious perhaps than was Camelia of 
 the purely dual nature of the conversation. She 
 enjoyed this little display before him, and her en 
 joyment was emphasised by the presence of two 
 alien listeners, it defined so well the fundamental 
 intellectual sympathy. 
 
 Her smile rested on him as she replied, " You 
 saw Mrs. Fox-Darriel." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " My only other guest just now is Gwendolen 
 Holt, in appearance a youthful replica of Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel, but in character very embryotic." 
 
 "A very pretty girl," said Lady Paton, finding at 
 last her little foothold. 
 
 "A spice of ugliness just a something to jar 
 the insignificant regularity of her face, would make 
 her charming. As it is, her prettiness is a bore. 
 You will stay to lunch, Alceste, and see these 
 people ? " 
 
 " I can't say that you have made me anxious to 
 see them." 
 
 " Have you no taste for sociology ? " 
 
 "You will stay and see us, however, will you 
 not ? " said Lady Paton, advancing now in happy 
 security. " I want a long talk with you." 
 
 "Then I stay." 
 
 " His majesty stays ! " Camelia murmured.
 
 38 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " How are the tenants getting on ? " asked Lady 
 Paton, taking from the table a soft mass of white 
 wool, and beginning to knit. She was one of 
 those women whose hands are always uselessly and 
 prettily busy. " Mary and I drove past the cottages 
 yesterday I wish you had come, dear you would 
 have liked to see them. So pretty they are, among 
 their orchards, with such beautiful gardens full of 
 flowers." 
 
 " Yes, don't they look well ? " said Perior, much 
 pleased. " I am trying to get the people to devote 
 themselves to fruit and flower growing. It pays 
 well." 
 
 " And do the cottages themselves pay ? " Camelia 
 inquired mischievously. " I hear that, asking the 
 ridiculous rents you do, you need never expect to 
 make the smallest profit or even get back the 
 capital expended." 
 
 "Thank Heaven the money-making epoch of my 
 life is over," said Perior, folding his arms and looking 
 at her rather defiantly. 
 
 " But what blasphemy against political economy ! 
 Cottages that don't pay ! It's very immoral, Alceste. 
 It is feminine. You are pauperising your tenants." 
 
 " I don't at all disbelieve that a little infusion of 
 femininity into political economy would be a very 
 good thing. Besides, the cottages will pay in the 
 end." 
 
 "The rents are lower than the lowest in the 
 village. Lord Haversham was telling me about it 
 yesterday." 
 
 " Oh, Haversham ! " laughed Perior. 
 
 " He was very plaintive. Said that times were
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 39 
 
 hard enough for landlords as it was, without you 
 charitable visionaries and your socialistic theories." 
 
 "The two accusations don't fit; but of the two I 
 prefer the latter." 
 
 " It is a mere egotistic diversion then ? " 
 
 "Yes, a purely scientific experiment." 
 
 "And your tenants have bath-tubs, I hear. Do 
 they use them with Pear's soap every morning ? " 
 
 " I flatter myself that they are fairly clean. That 
 alone is an interesting experiment. Dirt I firmly 
 believe to be the root of all evil" 
 
 "Ah, we come down to the bed-rock of ethics at 
 last, don't we ? Well, how is the laboratory getting 
 on ? Have you found traces of original sin in 
 protoplasm ? " 
 
 " I think I have spotted perverse tendencies," 
 Perior smiled. 
 
 " What a Calvinist you are ! " 
 
 " Michael a Calvinist, my dear child ! " Lady 
 Paton looked up from her knitting in amazement. 
 
 "An illogical Calvinist. Instead of burning sinners 
 he washes them ! and I've no doubt that to some of 
 them the latter form of purification is as disagree 
 able as the former. He puts them into model 
 cottages, with Morris wall-papers." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. No Morris wall-papers." 
 
 " Camelia, my dear, how extravagantly you talk," 
 said Lady Paton, her smile reflecting happily Perior's 
 good-humour. Michael did not mind the teasing 
 liked it perhaps; and though she did not under 
 stand she smiled. Camelia sank down to a low 
 chair beside her mother's, and taking her mother's 
 hand she held it up solemnly, saying, " Mamma,
 
 40 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Mr. Perior is a tissue of inconsistencies. He 
 despises humanity; and he works for it like a 
 nigger." 
 
 " You are an impressionist, Camelia. Don't lay 
 on your primaries so glaringly." 
 
 "Confess that you are a philanthropist, though 
 an unwilling one." 
 
 " I confess nothing," said Perior, looking across 
 the room at Mary with a smile that seemed to invite 
 her participation in his well-borne baiting. 
 
 " Is not your life one long effort to help humanity 
 not la sainte canaille with you but, and hence 
 your inconsistency, the gross canaille, the dull, 
 treacherous, diabolical canaille?" 
 
 "Not to hurt it, rather; and as one is oneself 
 gross, dull, treacherous, and diabolical, that may 
 well engage one's energies. There would be less 
 cant and more comfort in the world if we would 
 merely avoid treading upon our neighbour's corns. 
 Let us cultivate the negative virtues. What do you 
 say, Mary ? You have a right to a strong opinion, 
 since I never saw you hurt anybody." 
 
 Mary, thus unexpectedly appealed to, started, grew 
 red, and laughed an embarrassed and apprehensive 
 laugh. Camelia cast a glance upon the long strip 
 of rather foolish embroidery lengthening under her 
 cousin's fingers. 
 
 " My philosophy ! " she declared. " People who 
 make a row about things are such bores." 
 
 Lady Paton, still smiling, quite at sea, but conscious 
 of a pleasant atmosphere, bent her eyes upon an 
 intricate turn in the futile garment upon which she 
 was engaged.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 41 
 
 " Do you avoid your neighbour's corns, my young 
 lady ? " Perior inquired. 
 
 " I never think of such unpleasantnesses," Camelia 
 replied lightly. "As I haven't any corns myself, 
 I proceed upon the supposition that other people 
 enjoy my immunity. If they don't, why, that is 
 their own fault let them cut them and give up 
 tight boots." 
 
 Perior, looking on the floor, his elbows on his 
 knees, his hands clasped, laughed again. 
 
 " Little pagan ! " he said. 
 
 " Frank, healthy paganism, an excellent thing. I 
 don't own to it, mind ; but is not the soul in our 
 modern sense a disease of the body ? " 
 
 " Oh, Camelia ! " said Lady Paton, looking up 
 with eyes rounded. Camelia's smile reassured her 
 somewhat, and she glanced for its confirmation at 
 Perior. 
 
 Mary Fairleigh, in her distant seat, carefully drew 
 her silk about the contour of an alarming flower. 
 
 " Never mind, Lady Paton, she doesn't shock me 
 at all," said Perior. 
 
 " I am glad of that, Michael ; she will make her 
 self misunderstood. Camelia dear, it is one o'clock. 
 The others must be in the drawing-room. Shall we 
 go there ? " 
 
 " Willingly, Mamma. I'm very hungry. Did you 
 order a good lunch, Mary ? " 
 
 " I hope you will like it." Mary paused in 
 the act of neatly rolling up her work. " Fowls, 
 asparagus " 
 
 " Don't" Camelia interposed in mock horror; 
 " the nicest part of a meal is unexpectedness ! "
 
 42 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 She laughed at her cousin ; but Mary, securing 
 her work with a pin, murmured solemnly, " I am 
 so sorry." 
 
 " Mary, you are as silly as your own fowls ! " 
 cried Camelia; she gave her cousin's flaxen head 
 a pat, and then, as Lady Paton had taken Perior's 
 arm and led the way, she drew herself up in a 
 mimicry of their stately progress, and followed them 
 demurely.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MICHAEL PERIOR was an unfortunate man ; unfor 
 tunate in his temperament, which was enthusiastic, 
 sensitive, and idealistic ; unfortunate in the circum 
 stances with which that temperament found itself 
 called upon to do battle. To a man who had 
 expected less of life the circumstances might have 
 been more amenable and far more endurable, but 
 Perior had the ill-luck to be born with an un 
 manageable instinct for the best, with an untame- 
 able scorn for the second-best. It is not necessary 
 to go into the details of a life which had not spared 
 these qualities, nor improved while disillusionising 
 him. Two blinding buffets met him at its threshold. 
 His father was ruined in a law-suit, which by every 
 ethical standard he should have won, and Perior 
 was in consequence jilted by the girl whom he 
 had enshrined in his heart as the perfect star of 
 his existence. At twenty-three he found himself 
 under a starless sky, with a heart stupefied at its 
 own emptiness, and in a world of thieves and mur 
 derers for his father died under the shock of 
 disaster, and Perior did not pick his phrases. 
 
 The abject common-sense of his ex-fanc/e could 
 be borne with perhaps more philosophy. He ac 
 cepted the starlessness as in the nature of things, 
 and his own brief belief in stars as typifying the
 
 44 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 ignorance of youth ; but his father's death the 
 crushing out of life rather than its departure was 
 tragedy, and it was with the sense of inevitable and 
 irretrievable tragedy that he began life. He had 
 been thought clever at Oxford, and had considered 
 himself destined for Parliament. With a huge load 
 of debts upon his back, and an unresigned mother 
 to support, all thoughts of the career for which he 
 had fitted himself were out of the question. He 
 turned to its only equivalent, and took up journalism. 
 He was much in earnest ; he believed in a right and 
 in a wrong, and was intolerant of expediency. In a 
 world of interested motives he bore himself with un 
 flinching disapproval. He would limit his freedom 
 by no party partiality, and in the laxity of public 
 life his keen individuality made itself felt like a knife 
 cutting through cheese. At the end of years of very 
 bitter struggle he found himself in a position of 
 some eminence, editor of a courteous, caustic re 
 view, whose chief characteristics were a stubborn 
 isolation and a telling of truths that made both 
 friends and foes blink. No half-measures, no half- 
 truths. Conformity with the faintest taint upon it 
 was intolerable to him. His idealism had not eva 
 porated in the storm and stress, it had condensed, 
 rather, into a steely resistance to ugly reality. In 
 sincerity, injustice, meanness, hurt him as badly in 
 middle-age as they had at twenty-five, but he now 
 expected them, and by a stoical presage braced 
 himself against disappointment. The stoicism was 
 only a rather brittle crust, hastily improvised by 
 Nature's kindly adaptation ; he was soured, but his 
 heart was still soft; he expected nothing, and yet
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 45 
 
 he was hurt by everything. It was now some time 
 since he had promised himself that Camelia should 
 never hurt him. Camelia had occupied his thoughts 
 for a good many years. The pretty child, with her 
 face of subdued saint-like curves, and her smile of 
 frank unsaintliness, had seemed to claim him from 
 the very first home-coming. By a final irony of 
 fate poor Mrs. Perior died only a few months before 
 the Grange was freed from its last encumbrances. 
 She had not made life easier for her son. She had 
 always refused to believe in the necessity for letting 
 the Grange, had always resented the lodgings in 
 South Kensington, had always considered herself 
 injured, and had not been chary in demonstrations 
 of injury. Perior had looked forward with pride to 
 the time when he should reinstate her in her own 
 home, and her death made a mockery of his own 
 home-coming. 
 
 It was in Camelia's early girlhood that ill-health, 
 over-work, and a violent row with the powers of 
 political darkness, made this home-coming definite. 
 The battered idealist sought rather sulkily a retreat 
 from the intolerable contemplation of a wider world's 
 misdeeds. Young Camelia, so different from her 
 dully worthy ancestors, so different even from her 
 dashing but not intellectual papa> charmed him as 
 the woods and flowers of spring charm eyes weary 
 with city winter. She was too young to be taken 
 seriously; that was a lifted weight, in the first 
 place. The joyous receptivity of her mind afforded 
 to his scholarly instincts just the foothold he re 
 quired to excuse to himself an indulgent and 
 thoughtless affection. As friend and adviser of
 
 46 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Lady Paton, he drifted easily into a paternal attitude 
 towards the fatherless Camelia ; he was over twenty 
 years her senior, and her eagerness for knowledge 
 appealed to him. As she had said, he taught her 
 nearly everything she knew ; she rebelled against 
 other methods, and Perior himself would have felt 
 robbed had governess or tutor supplanted him. 
 During those quiet and pleasant years he felt 
 that on a melancholy walk he had picked a 
 handful of primroses their pale young gold irra 
 diated his solitude. He did not say to himself that 
 Camelia would never disappoint him, nor own that 
 the handful of primroses meant much in his life, 
 but hopefulness seemed to emanate from her, and 
 insensibly he lived in the sunny impression. Her 
 very defects were charming, the mere superfluity 
 of exuberant vitality, and with this conviction he 
 observed her happy, youthful selfishness as one 
 observes a kitten's antics, and treated her claims 
 for dominion with gentle ridicule. Camelia laughed 
 with him at herself, and this gave them an irre 
 sistible sense of companionship ; consoling too, 
 since no defect so humorously recognised could be 
 deep ; his primroses still kept their dew. But as 
 she grew older, Perior began to realise uncom 
 fortably that Camelia could laugh at the deepest 
 defect, recognise it, analyse it, and stick to it a 
 deft combination. This faculty for firm sticking 
 despite obstacles gave the paternal Perior food for 
 reflection, and, as he reflected, he felt with a sudden 
 little turn of terror that he was in a fair way to take 
 Camelia seriously after all. His terror struck him 
 as very cowardly, a shrinking from responsibilities
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 47 
 
 his, of a truth, to a certain extent. That lightly 
 assumed guardianship meant much in her life. Had 
 he failed in some essential ? Was she not the pro 
 duct of her training ? He owned with a sigh that 
 the note of true authority it had not been his right 
 to emphasise; yet in defending himself from the 
 probable pain of a deep affection, had he not 
 weakened his claim to a moral influence ? And 
 had he defended himself? Perior turned from the 
 question. Camelia respected him, he knew that ; 
 and yet his very frankness with her he, too, had 
 laughed at himself for her benefit had given her 
 a power over him. He was not at all afraid of 
 seeming priggish, but he was shy before certain 
 contingencies ; he knew that he should blunder if 
 he preached, and that Camelia would force him to 
 smile at the blunder and to blur the sermon. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he caught her more than 
 once managing, manipulating the plastic elements 
 about her with a skill approaching deceit. The 
 very absence of a necessity for deceit alarmed him ; 
 she had so few temptations, there was no way of 
 testing her, yet, that once or twice, when circum 
 stances by a little twist or turn opposed her, he had 
 caught her too dexterous. Perior had not con 
 trolled himself, nor taken the advantage he might 
 have seized. He had immediately lost his balance, 
 exaggerated what Camelia regarded as a quite per 
 missible and pretty compromise into a fault worthy 
 of biting denunciation, and in so doing had given 
 her a point of vantage from which she laughed 
 not even angrily. Perior for many years had 
 thought most goodness negative, and preferred to
 
 48 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 see it tested before admiring, but he had forgotten 
 to apply his philosophy in this case. He lost his 
 temper, and Camelia kept hers, kept hers to the 
 extent of soothing him by a smiling confession of 
 her misdoing, an affectionate declaration that she 
 was wrong and he quite right " But don't be cross, 
 dear Mr. Perior." What was he to do? She did 
 not care if she were wrong. Perior thought he 
 would be wiser in the future; he would give 
 Camelia no further opportunity for facile confes 
 sion; but though the first sting of unexpected 
 disappointment was over, many unmerited aches 
 were still reserved to him all the more painful 
 from the fact that he had never intended to ache 
 for Camelia. Mary Fairleigh had come to the 
 Patons when Camelia was sixteen, and Camelia's 
 treatment of her cousin was another and more 
 constant cause for growing discontent. Perior 
 could not define the discomfort with which he 
 watched Camelia's indifferent kindness, or, worse 
 still, an unkindness as unintentional. He assumed 
 by degrees an attitude of compensatory gentleness 
 towards poor Mary; it held, however, no sting for 
 Camelia; she seemed to watch his doing of the 
 things she left undone very complacently. It was 
 by degrees that his dismay took refuge in a manner 
 of unshocked indifference which he hoped would 
 prove salutary. It did seem to irk and perplex 
 her somewhat, and he had the consolation of think 
 ing that many of her perversities might be inten 
 tionally engineered for his benefit. Perior, too, 
 had learned to smile, and Camelia was baffled. 
 He would not scold her. After all, he counted
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 49 
 
 for very little, so Camelia assured herself as she 
 entered upon her London life, and he should see 
 that she could be indifferent with far more effective 
 ness. Perior saw little of her during those years. 
 The little he saw on his rare visits to London 
 confirmed his grim conviction. She was a pretty, 
 clever, foolish, worthless creature ; her frankness 
 threw no dust into his eyes. She might own herself 
 a self-seeking world! ng, and she did not overshoot 
 the mark. Many were the corns she danced over 
 in her quest of power and happiness. Her sincerity 
 was insincere it adapted itself too cleverly. Perior 
 had seen her flatter, when only he and she knew 
 that she was flattering; had seen her make her 
 effect by pliancy or by resistance; had watched 
 her smile light for those who could serve her, or 
 stiffen to a sweet blankness for the incompetent. 
 He recognised in her his own scorn for the world 
 without his ideal, which would not permit him to 
 stoop and use it; but, so Perior thought, Camelia 
 knew no ideals ; reality did not hurt her she met 
 it with its own weapons. One did not conquer 
 an immoral world by moral methods; and if one 
 lived in it, not to conquer it would be intolerable. 
 The scorn no doubt excused her to herself, but it 
 hedged her round with a sort of stupidity from 
 which Perior's quick recognition of moral beauty 
 preserved him. Ethical worth had come to be 
 everything to him. Camelia simply did not see 
 it. He himself had armed her with that scientific 
 impartiality before which he felt himself rather 
 helpless, before which good and bad resolved them 
 selves into very evasive elements. She told him 
 
 D
 
 50 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 that her science was more logical than his, it had 
 made her charitable to the whole world, herself 
 included, whereas he was hard on the world and 
 hard on himself. His very kindness lacked grace, 
 while her unkindness wore a flower-like colour. 
 He was sorry for people, not fond of them but 
 Camelia was neither fond nor sorry. They were 
 shadows woven into the web of her experience, 
 her business was to make that experience pleasant, 
 to see it beautifully. It was this love of beauty 
 beauty in the pagan sense that baffled him in her. 
 She had put appreciation and an exquisite good taste 
 in the place of morality. Life to her was a game, 
 to him a tragic, insistent conundrum. These, at 
 least, were Perior's reluctant conclusions. 
 
 When he walked away from Enthorpe Lodge 
 his mind was to a certain extent already reverting 
 to the daily preoccupations of cottages, perverse 
 protoplasm, and his weekly article for the Friday 
 Review ; but also dwelling with the dual peculiarity 
 observable in our meditations, upon the people he 
 had just left, Lady Paton, Mary, Camelia's guests, 
 and Camelia herself. It seemed really unnecessary 
 to remind himself of that promise he had made 
 himself some time ago; Camelia could not dis 
 appoint him; he knew just what to expect from 
 her; she could not hurt him. Yet the promise 
 had been made at a time when she was hurting 
 him very badly, and even now, while he recalled 
 it with some vehemence, he was feeling a most 
 illogical smart. 
 
 The country road wound among dusty hedges 
 and through the little village. About half a mile
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 51 
 
 beyond it lay a remnant of the Perior estate, once 
 large, second only in importance to the Havershams', 
 now sadly shrunken and dislocated. By degrees, 
 and during years of only meagre competence, he 
 had built upon this pretty bit of land a cluster of 
 cottages, his playthings ; to make them unneces 
 sarily delightful was his perverse pleasure. 
 
 Perior was by no means a paternal landlord; 
 the lucky occupants of the cottages were never 
 reminded of the propriety of gratitude. Indeed 
 Perior had enraged neighbouring landowners by 
 remarking that the cottages were none too good 
 for the rent a saying big with implications, and 
 perhaps intentionally spiteful. Indeed intentional 
 spite was attributed to many of his actions. It was 
 a great fox-hunting country ; and one of the finest 
 coverts, rich in foxes lovingly preserved by Perior's 
 forefathers, lay on his estate. Now it was currently 
 reported that Perior had had all the foxes shot ! 
 A murder would have made him less unpopular. 
 Malicious insanity seemed the only explanation. 
 
 He did not scruple to proclaim his blasphemous 
 heresies on the sacred sport. He grew angry, said 
 he abominated it, would do all in his power to 
 stamp it out, and at least would see that no animal 
 should be " tortured " on his property. The foxes 
 had certainly disappeared from Mandelly Woods, 
 and good, honest sportsmen could hardly trust 
 themselves to mention the criminal fanatic's name. 
 It must be owned that Perior's love of animals 
 approached the grotesque. He entertained at the 
 Manor a retinue of battered cats and outcast dogs, 
 many garnered from London streets. He could
 
 52 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 hardly bear to have surplus kittens drowned, and 
 only by the firmness of the housekeeper was the 
 necessary severity accomplished. He was exag 
 gerated, peculiar, unpractical ; the kindest said 
 it of him. He had sent two clever village boys 
 to the University, one the son of the village 
 poacher and ne'er-do-weel, a handsome lad with a 
 Burns-like streak of genius, who had distinguished 
 himself at Oxford, and disappointed many pessi 
 mistic prophecies by turning out more than credit 
 ably. At the present moment the son of one of 
 Perior's field-labourers came every day to the 
 Grange for a coaching in the humanities. Perior 
 was a fine master, and Camelia was none too well 
 pleased when she heard of her successor. These 
 experiments in sociology aroused only less hostile 
 comment than the black affair of the foxes. 
 
 Our misanthropic gentleman paused at an angle 
 of the road to survey his cottages, each set in its 
 own happy acres, stretching flower-beds and young 
 orchards into the sunny country. His tenants all 
 had a pleasant look of successful adaptation. One 
 was a cobbler, and made most of Perior's boots ; a 
 fact rather apparent. 
 
 It was evening by the time he reached the tall 
 gates through which the roadway led up to the 
 Grange, a high-standing, unpretentious, grey stone 
 house, rather bleakly situated on its height, but 
 backed by a further rise of wood, and, despite its 
 vineless severity of outline, gravely cheerful in 
 aspect. An immaculately-kept lawn stretched in a 
 gradual slope before it, shaded by two yew trees, 
 and the light grace of beeches. Under the windows
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAM ELI A 53 
 
 of the ground floor were beds of white and purple 
 pansies, and at one side, near the shrubberies, were 
 long rows of irises, also purple and white. From 
 the other side of the house the ground descended 
 very abruptly, giving one the realisation of height, 
 and a long view over woods, hills, and valleys to 
 the distant sunset. 
 
 The house within carried out consistently the 
 first impression of pleasant bareness. The wains- 
 cotted walls were reflected in the gleaming floors. 
 No tenderness of draperies, no futile ornament. In 
 the drawing-room three old portraits of three dead 
 Mrs. Periors looked quietly from the walls; some 
 good porcelain was on shelves where there was no 
 danger of its breaking; the faded brocade of the 
 furniture was covered with white chintz sprigged 
 with green. The library, where the light came 
 serenely through high windows, was lined with 
 books; here and there on the peaceful spaces a 
 good engraving or etching; philosophical bronzes 
 above the shelves. The writing-table was spacious ; 
 opposite it was Perior's piano he played well. 
 This was the room he lived in. Now, when he 
 entered, an old setter, glossily well-groomed, looked 
 up with an emotional thudding of the tail, and of 
 two cats curled exquisitely in the easy-chair, one 
 only opened placid eyes, while the other, after 
 arching itself in a yawn, advanced towards him 
 with a soundless mew. 
 
 Perior was devoted to his cats, and adored his 
 dogs. After stooping to pat these animals, he took 
 up a letter from the table. Arthur Henge's writing 
 was familiar, though of late years Perior had rarely
 
 54 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 seen it. The old friendship had borne pretty sharp 
 twinges had survived even Perior's ruthless hand 
 ling of Henge's pet measure some years ago : Henge 
 had believed ardently in the bill, and thought Perior 
 responsible to a certain extent for its failure. That 
 Henge had not been embittered by this political 
 antagonism had deeply touched Perior. He always 
 remembered the fact with a delightful, glowing com 
 fort. His respect and fondness for Henge were a 
 staff to him. The two men were intrinsically sym 
 pathetic, though they had hardly an opinion in 
 common. Arthur Henge was an optimist, and 
 deeply religious, his wide humanism going hand 
 in hand with a fervent churchmanship. He was 
 aided towards a happy view of things by happy 
 circumstances. He was one of the richest men in 
 England, and one of the most powerful ; he held a 
 high place in the present Government. No sword 
 of Damocles in the shape of a peerage hung over 
 his career in the Lower House, and at the same time 
 the baronetcy, hoary with an honourable antiquity, 
 had the consequence and standing of many greater 
 but less significant titles. He was young, hand 
 some, and serious. Above all small cynicisms and 
 hardness, his experience of life seemed only to have 
 taught him a wise, fine trust, and, perhaps in con 
 sequence of this attitude of mind, it was impossible 
 not to trust him. 
 
 This was the man who had fallen in love with 
 Camelia Paton. The fact was town talk, though it 
 was surmised that despite his evident absorption he 
 had not yet given her occasion to accept him. That 
 he was courting her was not yet apparent, but his
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA $$ 
 
 devotion remained gravely steady. Lady Henge 
 was supposed to be the cause of this adjournment 
 of decisive measures. Lady Henge was even more 
 serious than her son, and her influence over him 
 was paramount. 
 
 Now with all her ready qualities Camelia seldom 
 pretended to seriousness. To Perior there was 
 something highly distasteful in the whole matter. 
 That Camelia should be the object of such comment, 
 that her achievement of the " good match " should 
 be canvassed, infuriated him. No blame could 
 attach itself to Arthur's reticence ; if reticence there 
 were it was on the highest grounds. It was the 
 world's base, materialistic chatter that jarred, its 
 weighing of her charm and loveliness against his 
 wealth and prominence merely. Perior weighed 
 Camelia's merits against Arthur's. In his heart of 
 hearts he did not consider Camelia fitted to make a 
 high-minded man happy and some dim foreboding 
 of this fact no doubt chilled her lover's resolution. 
 Perior, however, was not logical. He might not 
 approve of Camelia, but that Lady Henge should 
 disapprove nettled him. Arthur no doubt was a fool 
 in loving Camelia, but Perior wished to be alone in 
 that knowledge. As for the world's gross view of 
 Henge as one of the greatest " catches " in England, 
 of Camelia as lucky if she got him, Perior's blood 
 boiled when he thought of it, and that Camelia, 
 with all her reliance on her own attractions, was 
 quite aware of the world's opinion and was not 
 angered by it. 
 
 She, too, thought Henge a great "catch," no 
 doubt ; a great catch even for Camelia Paton.
 
 56 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Perior read the letter now, standing near the 
 window and frowning very gloomily. It was natural 
 that Henge should write to him in this strain of only 
 thinly-veiled confidence. 
 
 Henge knew of the long paternal intimacy with 
 Camelia, and relied perhaps too much on a paternal 
 sympathy. Henge and his mother were coming 
 down to Clievesbury to spend some weeks at En- 
 thorpe. He avowed no intention, but the whole 
 note, its very restraint, was big with intention. He 
 seemed, too, to emphasise his mother's pleasure in 
 coming, and Perior felt in the emphasis a touch of 
 triumph. He hoped to see a great deal of Perior, 
 there was in the concluding passages of the note 
 quite a prophecy of future relationship, nearer than 
 any they had known. But through it all Perior 
 fancied just the hint of an appeal a quite uncon 
 scious appeal, none the less significant for that 
 
 Camelia was to be put on trial before Lady 
 Henge, and to Arthur the process would be painful. 
 The Henges had stately requirements ; and although 
 Perior imagined that, were these requirements not 
 satisfied, Arthur had almost determined to overlook 
 them, he felt the keenness of the hope that all would 
 be satisfactory, the support that the hope found in 
 Perior's intimacy with Camelia. 
 
 Lady Henge shared her son's respect for Perior, 
 and to her Perior's friendship could interpret many 
 phases in Camelia's charming character perplexing 
 to the anxious mother's unaided vision. 
 
 "I am glad my mother is to know her better; 
 she has seen only the surface as yet," wrote Arthur. 
 Arthur's love was a surety not quite trustworthy,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 57 
 
 but the life-long friendship of a man like Perior 
 must convince grave Lady Henge of many depths. 
 Perior felt that his rigidity was to be made use 
 of. His well-known earnestness was to vouch for 
 Camelia's. His brow was very black as he finished 
 the letter. He was nearly angry with Arthur.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "MRS. JEDSLEY is in the drawing-room," Camelia 
 announced, " so I ran away. I am really afraid of 
 her." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel laughed slightly ; she put down 
 the book with which she was solacing a lazy after 
 noon on the sofa, and, looking at Camelia's cloth 
 dress and sailor hat, asked her if she had been out 
 again. 
 
 " Yes, just back. I only stayed in the drawing- 
 room long enough to show Mrs. Jedsley that she 
 scared me. It's those eyebrows, you know, that 
 lack of eyebrow rather, emphasised by an angry 
 redness in the place where they should be. No, I 
 cannot face her." ^ 
 
 "She is rather tpatante. I suppose you were 
 walking with your brace of suitors." 
 
 " No, I don't know where they are. I was walk 
 ing by myself. I think I must have walked eight 
 miles," Camelia added, stretching out her feet to 
 look at her dusty shoes. 
 
 "You certainly are an unsociable hostess, but 
 those boys are becoming bores. Whom do you 
 expect next week ? You must have something to 
 leaven the lump of pining youthful masculinity." 
 
 "That poet is coming the one who writes the 
 
 virile poems, you know, and whose article of faith is 
 
 58
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 59 
 
 thejote de vivre ; and Lady Tramley, dear creature, 
 Lord Tramley, and would you specify Sir Arthur 
 as leaven ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to imply that he isn't pining ? " 
 
 " I imply nothing so evident." 
 
 " Wriggling, then that you must own." 
 
 Camelia was sitting near the window, opened on 
 its framing magnolia leaves, and said rather coolly 
 as she took off her hat 
 
 " No, / am wriggling. / must decide now." 
 
 This was a masterly assurance. Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 reflecting that nothing succeeds like unruffled self- 
 confidence, and that Camelia's had never shown a 
 ripple of doubt, owned to herself that her slightly 
 stinging question was well answered. 
 
 " Don't wriggle, my dear ; decide," she said, 
 accepting the restatement very placidly, " you could 
 not do better. To speak vulgarly the man is rich 
 beyond the dreams of avarice." 
 
 " Beautifully rich," Camelia assented. 
 
 " Ah indeed he is." 
 
 "And he himself is wise and excellent," Camelia 
 added ; " I like him very much." 
 
 " He is coming alone ? " 
 
 " No, Lady Henge comes too." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel gave her friend a sharp glance. 
 
 " That's very serious, you know, Camelia. I think 
 you must have decided to suit Lady Henge." 
 
 Camelia smiled good-humouredly. " I will suit 
 her and then see if he suits me." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel lay reflecting on the sofa. 
 Camelia accepted frankness to a certain point, 
 beyond that point she repulsed it. It was rather
 
 60 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 sly of her, Mrs. Fox-Darriel thought, to keep up 
 these needless pretences. Camelia must be anxious 
 for the match anxious to a certain degree, and 
 her careful preservation of the false dignity of her 
 position was really rather mean. As for Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel, she desired the match with a really disin 
 terested fervour. She felt a certain personal pride 
 in Camelia's success ; she had resigned supremacy, 
 and only asked Camelia to uphold her own. Camelia 
 as Lad}' Henge would, from a very charming person, 
 have become a very important personage, a truly 
 momentous friend. Her fondness for the child 
 would ensure the child's loyalty. A near friend 
 of the Prime Minister's wife who knew? The 
 thought flitted pleasantly through Mrs. Fox-Darnel's 
 mind, and the thought, too, of all that Camelia, in 
 an even less exalted position, could do for the im 
 pecunious Hon. Charlie, Mrs. Fox-Darnel's husband. 
 There was really no possibility of a doubt in Camelia's 
 mind. Mrs. Fox-Darriel simply did not believe her, 
 and regretted her lack of candour ; but at the same 
 time she felt a little anxiety. There were certain 
 phases in Camelia that had always baffled her in 
 vestigations, an unexpectedness that Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel had encountered more than once. 
 
 " It is really the very best thing you could do," 
 she observed now, " and I wouldn't play with him 
 if I were you. I know that he is the image of 
 fidelity, and yet the Duchess of Amshire is very 
 anxious for him to marry her girl, that ugly Lady 
 Elizabeth, and Lady Henge favours that match, and 
 he really is under his mother's thumb." 
 
 " Decidedly I must waste no time," said Camelia,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 61 
 
 laughing, "and decidedly it would be the best thing 
 I could do, since the Marquis was snapped up by 
 the American girl swarming with millions. I 
 think I should have been a Marchioness, Frances, 
 had not that strange look, between a squint and a 
 goggle, in his eyes made me hesitate." 
 
 " Oh, the Marquis ! You know that this is far 
 better. This man means a lot." 
 
 " He swarms with millions too," said Camelia. 
 " Come, Frances, preach me a nice little worldly 
 sermon on the supreme utility of riches without 
 the gloves now." 
 
 " I usually remove them when I approach the 
 subject," Mrs. Fox-Darriel sighed with much sin 
 cerity. "My poor Charlie! How we keep our 
 heads above water I really don't know, and, as it 
 is, the sharks are nibbling at our toes ! Supreme ! 
 Money, my dear, is the only thing ! Once you've 
 that foundation you may begin to erect your senti 
 ments, your moralities." 
 
 " And how few people are honest enough to say 
 so. You and I are honest, Frances ; it buys every 
 thing, of course." 
 
 " Well, almost everything. One must thank Nature 
 for beauty and cleverness." 
 
 " Beauty and cleverness in rags have a sorry time 
 of it in this world. But money, of course, especially 
 if not too new, buys friends, power, good taste, 
 morality. Poverty makes people base and cring 
 ing makes criminals. One is jumped on in this 
 world, scrunched into the earth, into the dirt, if one 
 hasn't money, and yet the hypocrites talk of com 
 pensation ! Of all the sloppy, canting optimism
 
 62 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 with which people try to make themselves comfort 
 able that is the sorriest ! And while they talk they 
 go on scrambling and scrunching for all they are 
 worth ; nasty beasts ! They kick a man on the 
 head, and say 'the stupor compensates for the 
 pain.' That is the current theory about the lower 
 classes." 
 
 " Yet you enjoy the world, Camdia." 
 
 " I am not jumped on." 
 
 " You jump on other people, then ? " 
 
 " Not in a sordid manner ; I don't have to soil 
 my feet. Why shouldn't I enjoy it ? " 
 
 " And you think that Sir Arthur's millions would 
 emphasise the enjoyment ? " 
 
 "Widen it, certainly. But don't be gross, Frances. 
 A great deal depends on him. I am not offering 
 myself for sale, you know." 
 
 " No, I don't think you would. You have no 
 need to." 
 
 " He would really be glaringly golden, wouldn't 
 he, were he not draped with the mossy antiquity of 
 his name ? " said Camelia, drawing a white magnolia 
 flower within the window frame, and bending her 
 head to the scented cup. 
 
 "An ideal husband, from every point of view," 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel resumed ; " clever, very clever, and 
 very good rather overpoweringly good, Camelia." 
 
 " I think goodness a most charming phenomenon. 
 I shouldn't mind studying it in a husband." 
 
 "Mrs. Jedsley is good. Why don't you study 
 her?" 
 
 "There is nothing phenomenal in her goodness, 
 it is a product of circumstance only. There is
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 63 
 
 Mary," Camelia added, tipping her chair a little 
 towards the window for a clearer view of the lawn 
 below. " Mary in a Liberty silk, of yellow-green, 
 and smocked. Why, Mary, why wear a Liberty 
 gown, especially smocked ? " 
 
 " I have sometimes suspected that your colour 
 less little cousin is here to play the part of a 
 discord that resolves into and heightens your 
 harmony," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel ; " or is it the 
 post of whipping-boy that she fills ? " 
 
 Camelia continued to look from the window 
 placidly, only raising her eyebrows a little. 
 
 " No, Mary never gets a whipping, not even 
 when I deserve one. Mamma is very fond of 
 Mary; so am I," she added. Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 took up her book with a little yawn that Camelia 
 for all her placidity resented. 
 
 " How can you read that garbage ? " she in 
 quired smilingly, glancing at the title. 
 
 " The bete humaine rather interests me." 
 
 " Even interpreted by another ? The man is far 
 more insupportable than Zola, inasmuch as he is 
 clever, and an artist." 
 
 " That's why I read him. You seem to know a 
 good deal about garbage, my dear." 
 
 " I know a good deal about everything, I fancy ! " 
 said Camelia, with her gayest laugh. " I took a 
 course of garbage once, just enough to make up 
 my mind that I did not care for the flavour. We 
 have a right to choose the phases of life we want 
 to see represented." 
 
 " I like garbage," Mrs. Fox-Darriel said stub 
 bornly.
 
 64 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Yes, you are very catholic, I know. I am more 
 limited." Camelia still eyed the lawn, sniffing at 
 the magnolia. Now she rose suddenly and went 
 to the mirror. 
 
 " Mary puts on a sailor hat so," she said gravely, 
 setting hers far back at a ludicrous angle. " Poor 
 Mary ! " She tilted the hat forward again, and 
 briskly put the pin through it. " I am going down 
 to harry Mrs. Jedsley. Good-bye, Frances." 
 
 " Good-bye. I shall be down to tea presently." 
 
 " The bete humaine will spoil your appetite ! " 
 laughed Camelia as she went out. 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel heard her running down the 
 corridor and the light rhythm of her feet on the 
 stairs. 
 
 " Pretty little minx ! " she said good-humouredly ; 
 and her thoughts turned to Sir Arthur. What a 
 lucky girl was Camelia ! It was rather tiresome, 
 perhaps, to sit by and watch her triumphs. Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel found the role of second-fiddle a little 
 dull; still, it was well worth while to play it. 
 She got up and went to the window, where the 
 magnolia still swayed faintly from the suddenness 
 of Camelia's departure. Tapping the sill lightly 
 with her finger-tips, Mrs. Fox-Darriel looked out, 
 yawning once more, at the translucent blue of the 
 sky, the still shining of the little lake beyond the 
 trees, the sun-dappled lawn, and at Mary Fairleigh 
 on the lawn in the funny Liberty dress. Mr. Perior 
 was walking beside her, in riding costume, a whip 
 in his hand. Mrs. Fox-Darriel surveyed them as 
 they walked slowly away from the house. He had 
 evidently just joined Mary ; and as Camelia herself
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 65 
 
 appeared on the lawn her departure took on an 
 amusing aspect. 
 
 Now it really was too bad of Camelia, she could 
 have no use for him herself. The sun flashed from 
 her hair as she bounded gaily across the turf and 
 caught Perior's arm with a schoolgirl familiarity. 
 Mrs. Fox - Darriel drew back sharply, but still 
 observed from the screen of magnolia leaves Mary's 
 slow return to the house, and Camelia's skipping 
 step as she led Mr. Perior towards the garden. 
 He held the whip clasped in his hand behind his 
 back, and, as he walked, switched his calf in its 
 leather gaiter. Mrs. Fox -Darriel fancied some 
 temper in the action.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Fox-Darriel descended to the drawing- 
 room a quarter of an hour later, she found Lady 
 Paton and Mary alone with Mrs. Jedsley, who as 
 yet showed no intention of departing. Mrs. Jedsley 
 was very stout, but of a vigorous bearing. Her 
 firm, wide face was dashed with rather choleric 
 notes of red on cheeks, chin, and eyebrows. Her 
 eyes were witty and humorous. Mrs. Fox-Darriel, 
 very indifferently, felt these quickly travelling eyes 
 taking in every gleam and glitter of her tea-gown. 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel always jingled a little as she 
 walked; she was one of those women who dangle 
 lorgnettes at the ends of swaying neck-chains, and 
 circle their wrists with a multitude of bangles, and 
 now, as she sank into a chair beside Lady Paton, 
 and smiled a languid acceptance of tea, the infinity 
 of pendent jewels and the linked gold that draped 
 her person, chimed out quite a harmonious clatter. 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel always gave Lady Paton a flut 
 tered look, the look of a child shrinking from a 
 too persistently obtrusive rattle, and she handed 
 her the tea and bread and butter with gently scared 
 glances. 
 
 "What delicious tea," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 affably, " and the pouring of tea is an art in its 
 decadence. Really, dear Lady Paton, you have 
 
 66
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 67 
 
 spoiled me for all cups poured by other hands. 
 Your aunt's hands add a distinct charm, do they 
 not ? " she added, looking at Mary, " and her cap." 
 Indeed Lady Paton's caps and hands resembled one 
 another in blanched delicacy. 
 
 " Oh yes," Mary replied hastily ; she was not 
 accustomed to this suave mode of address from 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel. 
 
 " I saw you walking in the garden just now/' 
 pursued that glittering personage; "you made quite 
 a picture in your pretty dress, I assure you." 
 
 " Oh ! do you like it ? " Mary's face was trans 
 fused by a blush of surprised pleasure. 
 
 " It is really charming," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 unblinkingly, while Mrs. Jedsley's eyes travelled 
 up and down poor Mary's ungainliness. 
 
 "Against the deeper shades of green, you know, 
 and with your golden hair, you looked quite quite 
 like an Albert Moore. Has your friend, Mr. Perior, 
 gone ? I saw him with you." There was a subtly 
 delightful intimation in this question that filled 
 Mary with a half painful, half delicious embarrass 
 ment. 
 
 " Mr. Perior is with Camelia,'' she said, the 
 crude fact hardly jarring on the dulcet echo of Mrs. 
 Fox-Darnel's question. He was her friend, Mary 
 knew, felt it with a wave of gratitude that quieted 
 many aches, but was it then so evident so 
 noticeable ? 
 
 " Ah yes ! Camelia is rather fond of teasing him, 
 I am afraid," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, observing 
 Mary's flush, and noting as an unkindness of 
 nature that her hair, the only grace she possessed,
 
 68 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 should grow so thickly at the back and with such 
 unbecoming scantiness around the high brow. 
 Mary's whole being had been quivering with the 
 pain of her dispossession, but a grateful warmth 
 now stole through the chill of bereavement. 
 
 Her flush had not died when Camelia came in, 
 Perior following her. Camelia's face was imperturb- 
 ably gay, but from a certain severity and tension in 
 Perior's expression, Mrs. Fox-Darriel surmised that 
 the pastoral promenade had not been altogether 
 peaceful. 
 
 It was hardly possible, of course, that the in 
 difference of this stiff provincial should pique 
 Camelia into an attitude that might compromise 
 real interests; no, hardly possible; yet Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel, with some acuteness, determined that all 
 her efforts should tend to make such an absurdity 
 impossible indeed. 
 
 Ugly Mary was evidently in love with the un 
 attractive Diogenes ; but Camelia need not know 
 that. Mrs. Fox-Darriel almost laughed at herself 
 while she meditated ; Camelia could hardly intend 
 more than the purposeless capturing of Diogenes; 
 Camelia's head was perfectly sound when it came 
 to decisive extremes. Only well women, all 
 women, were such fools sometimes. That bound 
 ing, pursuing step across the lawn had given Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel a new impression of Camelia. 
 
 " Look, Mamma, is not this beautiful ? Look, 
 Frances." Camelia held out a branch of white roses, 
 buds and leaves climbing on lovely curves to a 
 heavy, swaying flower ; " it is such a perfect spray 
 that I am going to attempt a Japanese arrangement
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 69 
 
 with this bit of pine. Mary, will you fetch me that 
 bronze vase out of the morning room with its little 
 stand, you know and have it filled with water; and, 
 Mary," Mary was departing obediently " a pair 
 of scissors don't forget. If there is anything I dis 
 like," Camelia went on, hers was always a temperate 
 manner of speech, " it is a heavy mass of flowers 
 bunched together with all the individuality, all the 
 form and vitality, of line quite lost." 
 
 She smiled at Mrs. Jedsley as she spoke, skim 
 ming caressing finger-tips over her rose branch, 
 and adding, "You may see me at your place to 
 morrow, Mrs. Jedsley. Mr. Perior has been giving me 
 a dreadful scolding on my neighbourly deficiencies. 
 To-morrow I make a conscientious round of calls 
 and pour balm into all the wounded bosoms." Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel glanced quickly at Perior to see how 
 he relished this offensive obedience ; Perior, as he 
 stood before the fireplace, was looking at his boots. 
 Mrs. Jedsley's eyebrows grew very red. 
 
 " I won't be at home to-morrow," she said de 
 cidedly, "and if I were conscious of wounds I'd 
 keep at a good distance from you, Camelia." Lady 
 Paton looked from her daughter to Perior, an alarmed 
 appeal, but he did not raise his eyes nor seem to 
 notice Camelia's graceful promises. 
 
 " Mrs. Jedsley, why are you always so unkind to 
 me ? " Camelia asked, laughing. " I assure you 
 that you may trust my balms. Mrs. Jedsley, I will 
 wager you do you ever bet ? that by to-morrow 
 night the whole county-side will be singing my 
 praises. I like people to sing my praises I like to 
 feel affection and sympathy about me ; now Mr.
 
 70 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Perior has been telling me that there is a distinct 
 absence of these elements in my atmosphere. I 
 begin to feel the vacuum myself. Won't you help 
 me to fill it help my regeneration ? No, Mary, 
 that is the wrong vase how could I arrange flowers 
 in that ? On the stand, was it ? The house 
 maid's stupidity, then ; and I bought together the 
 stand and the proper vase to go with it. No; 
 don't take the stand back with you, you goosie ! 
 put it here. Now, Mrs. Jedsley," she added, when 
 Mary had once more departed, Perior having re 
 lieved her of the stand and carried it, not at all 
 graciously, to Camelia, " tell me how I can best 
 please every one most ? You know them all so 
 well their pet pursuits, their pet hobbies. Mrs. 
 Harley has orchids, of course ; I shall immediately 
 ask her to take me to the conservatory. And Mrs. 
 Grier that pensive little woman with the long, long 
 nose has she not a son at Oxford, a boy she dotes 
 on ? Isn't she very fond of music ? " 
 
 Mrs. Jedsley was stirring her third cup of tea 
 with an entirely recovered composure. " Yes, Mrs. 
 Grier plays the violin, and has a son she dotes on ; 
 if you flatter her nicely enough, she will certainly 
 join in the ' Hallelujah.' " 
 
 "Well, that is nice to know." Mary had now 
 brought the correct Japanese vase, and Camelia 
 neatly trimmed from her branch while she spoke a 
 few superfluous leaves and twigs. 
 
 " Is not Mrs. Grier a dear friend of Lady 
 Henge's ? " Mrs. Fox-Darriel asked in an aside to 
 Lady Paton to the latter a very welcome aside, 
 as in murmured acquiescence she found a momen-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 71 
 
 tary refuge from the bewildered sensations her 
 daughter's projects gave her. 
 
 Yes, Lady Henge and Mrs. Grier were great 
 friends, both musical, both deeply interested in 
 charitable work. Mrs. Grier, a sweet woman, 
 "and you know," said Lady Paton, bending gentry 
 towards her guest, " her nose is not so long. That 
 is only Camelia's droll way of putting things, you 
 know." 
 
 " Oh yes " Mrs. Fox-Darriel's smile was very 
 reassuring "you and I understand Camelia, Lady 
 Paton. It doesn't do to take her au grand strieux." 
 Indeed, Mrs. Fox-Darriel smiled inwardly, feeling 
 that all disquiet on Camelia's account was very un 
 necessary, and convinced that she knew her very 
 thoroughly. 
 
 "You won't be at home to-morrow, then?" 
 asked Camelia, looking around from her vase as 
 Mrs. Jedsley rose to go. 
 
 " No, my dear ; and I'm afraid you won't find me 
 of use at any time. I haven't any particular foibles. 
 You won't discover a handle about me by which to 
 wind me up to the required musical pitch." 
 
 " You traduce yourself, Mrs. Jedsley ; with your 
 charitable heart, do you mean to tell me that, were 
 I to wrap Clievesbury in red flannel, fill it with 
 buns and broth, you wouldn't think me charming, 
 and make sweet music in my ears ? " 
 
 " I never denied that you were charming, bale- 
 fully charming, you naughty girl," said Mrs. Jedsley 
 with a good humour that implied no submission. 
 
 " Here is a rose for you. May it give you kind 
 thoughts of me." Camelia fastened one of the re-
 
 72 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 jected buds in the lady's portly bosom, and when 
 she was gone, Lady Paton leaving the room with 
 her, she added, " Mary, is the piano tuned ? " 
 
 Mary went to the Steinway. "Lady Henge is a 
 composer, as you know." She turned a face spark 
 ling with mischief to Perior, who maintained his 
 silence beside the mantelpiece. 
 
 " You have heard her ? Yes ? Well, you shall 
 hear her again. That's enough, Mary," she added 
 lightly; "we hear that the piano needs tuning." 
 
 Now Mary had a certain little pride in the neat 
 execution of Beethoven's Sonatas, that many hours 
 of faithful practice had seemed to justify, and while 
 Camelia stood back to admire her flower arrange 
 ment, both Perior and Mrs. Fox - Darriel noticed 
 the flush that swept over Mary's face.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BY the time Sir Arthur and Lady Henge arrived, 
 Camelia had fulfilled her prophecy and become a 
 popular person. Under the blighting indifference 
 of her first appearance Clievesbury had naturally 
 retaliated with severity, but that the first impression 
 had been erroneous the most severe owned after 
 Camelia had called on them. Camelia found the 
 process of winning the whole neighbourhood great 
 fun, and its success gave her a delicious sense of 
 efficiency. She cared nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 for her neighbours, but once she determined to 
 be cared for by them she found the facility of the 
 task highly flattering to self-esteem. 
 
 She drove from place to place, sweet, modest, 
 adaptable. She dispensed pretty compliments with 
 a grace that disarmed the grimmest suspicion. She 
 showed a pretty interest in every one. Indeed why 
 should they not like her ? Camelia thought she 
 really deserved liking ; and though she laughed at 
 herself a little for the complimentary conclusion, her 
 kindness struck her as rather nice. It was motive 
 less, was it not ? almost motiveless, a game that it 
 pleased her to play. Certainly she did not care to 
 appear before Lady Henge on a background of un 
 popularity; the background must harmonise, be 
 come her ; she would see to that. At the bottom of
 
 74 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 her heart Camelia cared very little for Lady Henge's 
 approval or disapproval ; Lady Henge was part of 
 the game; but Camelia had determined that the 
 game required Lady Henge, like everybody else, 
 to find her charming ; the game required Arthur 
 Henge to propose then she might accept him ; 
 but she must make quite secure the possibility of 
 refusing him. So Camelia aimed steadily at one 
 result, and was not at all sure of her own decision 
 once the result was reached, and this indecision 
 gave her a happy sense of freedom. 
 
 She must capture Sir Arthur; this visit was 
 definite, the last test ; but once captured, Camelia 
 wondered if she would care to keep. Theoretically 
 she owned to a hard common-sense ambition that 
 would make rejection doubtful ; but when the 
 moment for decision finally arrived, Camelia felt 
 that this trait in her character might fail her; she 
 did not really believe in it, though she paraded it, 
 flaunted it. Every one might think her a hard- 
 headed,; hard-hearted little worldling as far as 
 practice went they were right, no doubt, in all 
 honesty she must own that she gave them no 
 occasion to think anything else ; but she reserved 
 a warm corner of unrevealed ideals ideals she 
 never herself looked at, where a purring self- 
 content sat cosily. 
 
 Lady Henge and her son arrived on a Monday. 
 Lady Henge was nervous, though her massive 
 personality concealed the tremor, and unhappy 
 for she felt Arthur's fate to be a foregone con 
 clusion. She was not a clever, but an immensely 
 conscientious woman. She lived up to all her
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 75 
 
 principles, and she took only the highest view of 
 everything. Her son's love for the pretty Miss 
 Paton, who meddled frivolously with politics (Lady 
 Henge meddled ponderously), and made collec 
 tions of Japanese pictures, had thrown her into a 
 dismal perturbation. She could not like Miss 
 Paton; her cleverness was not disinterested; her 
 sense of duty was less than dubious, she lived for 
 pleasure, for admiration ; she was no fit wife for 
 a Henge. 
 
 The most imperative of the Henges' stately re 
 quirements was that solemn sense of duty which 
 Lady Henge embodied so conclusively. 
 
 She felt the tremor quieted, the unhappiness 
 soothed, however, on seeing Camelia in her home. 
 Indeed, Camelia's background was masterly. By 
 the end of the first day Lady Henge was owning 
 to herself that the glare of London had perhaps 
 been responsible for her former unfavourable im 
 pression. Camelia's manner was perfect ; she was 
 quiet and gentle; her wish to please was frank but 
 very dignified. Lady Henge felt that in no way 
 was her favour being courted, and she was quite 
 clever enough to appreciate that. Lady Paton was 
 left to take all the initiatives, and behind her mother 
 Camelia smiled with an air of happy obscurity. 
 
 The following days emphasised the initial approval. 
 The image of the excellent Lady Elizabeth faded by 
 degrees from Lady Henge's mind, and the ache of 
 disappointment with it. She wonderingly expanded 
 into confidence under Camelia's gentle influence. 
 
 She was a shy woman ; she had been afraid 
 of Camelia ; but with tender touches the shyness
 
 76 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 and the fear seemed to be pressed away. There 
 was nothing to be afraid of. Was it possible ? 
 She doubted sometimes, when alone and deeply 
 thoughtful ; but with Camelia quiet satisfaction was 
 irresistible. 
 
 Perior watched the little comedy, convinced of its 
 artificiality. That doubt of her final choice which 
 preserved for Camelia her sense of independent 
 pride free from all tarnish of self-interested schem 
 ing, he could not have believed in. Her motives 
 were, he thought, very clear to him as they must 
 be to everybody else. He could not credit her with 
 love ; a girl so dexterously managing her hand was 
 held by no compulsory force of real feeling. She 
 was going to marry Arthur Henge, because he was 
 a good match, not because she loved him ; any girl 
 might have loved him certainly, but Camelia was 
 capable of loving no one. He was very sore, very 
 angry, very moody. Lady Henge's transparent bids 
 to him for sympathy in irritating his scorn for 
 Camelia irritated him, too, against her, against 
 Arthur even. Why couldn't they let him alone ? 
 They should get neither yea or nay from him, for, 
 after all, Perior was inconsistent ; the scorn did not 
 shake his rather negative loyalty to his pupil, and 
 beneath that there lay another and a deeper feeling, 
 the feeling that made it possible for Camelia to 
 hurt him. 
 
 "I was talking to her to Miss Paton about 
 Woman's Suffrage to-day," so Lady Henge would 
 start a conversation. " She seems to have thought 
 rather deeply on the subject of a widened life for 
 women the development of character by respon-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 77 
 
 sibility the democratic ideal, is it not ? " Lady 
 Henge combined staunch conservatism with a 
 devout belief in Humanity. 
 
 Perior answered "Yes, I suppose so," to the 
 question. 
 
 " She has, I see, a great deal of influence down 
 here in the country more than I could have ex 
 pected in such a gay, young creature. Mrs. Grier 
 spoke to me of her good-heartedness, her generous 
 help in charitable matters. Mrs. Grier, as you 
 know, is deeply interested in the improvement of 
 the condition of the labouring classes. I shall 
 count upon Miss Paton next year; her aid would 
 be very effective ; she could help me with some 
 of my clubs a pretty face, a witty tongue, popu 
 larise one; she has promised to address the Shirt 
 Makers' Union. She takes so much interest in all 
 these absorbing social problems, interest so un 
 assuming, so free from all self-reference." 
 
 They were in the drawing-room after dinner. 
 Perior seemed, in watching Camelia fulfil herself, 
 to find a searing fascination, for he was often at 
 Enthorpe Lodge of late. The faint flavour of 
 inquiry in Lady Henge's assertions only elicited, 
 "I'm sure she'd be popular." No; he would not 
 be held responsible for Camelia ; and again he 
 determined that Lady Henge should on the subject 
 of Camelia's full fitness get from him neither a yea 
 nor a nay. 
 
 Lady Henge's clear brown eyes had turned con 
 templatively upon her son and Camelia, who were 
 sitting on an isolated sofa in a frank tete-a-tete. 
 
 Perior's glance followed hers, and while she read
 
 78 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 in Arthur's absorbed attitude and expression the 
 wisdom of submissive partisanship the utter futility 
 of further resistance, Perior studied the half grave, 
 half playful smile with which Camelia received her 
 lover's utterances. She seemed to feel Perior's 
 scrutiny, for her eyes swerved suddenly and met 
 his, and the smile hardened a little as she looked 
 at him. 
 
 " She is very lovely," Lady Henge said with an 
 irrepressible sigh. " It is a very unusual type of 
 loveliness," at which Perior looked away from 
 Camelia and back at his companion. " He is very 
 fond of her," Lady Henge added a little tearfully, 
 Perior suspected. 
 
 " He has taken, it seriously for quite a while, I 
 believe." 
 
 "Oh yes, yes indeed." Lady Henge, conscious 
 of having herself made the only barrier to an earlier 
 declaration, spoke a little vaguely. " Arthur's wife 
 will have many responsibilities," she went on ; "I 
 think that if she accepts Arthur Miss Paton will 
 prove equal to them." The "if she accepts Arthur" 
 Perior thought rather noble. "And her gaiety 
 will be good for him he needs such sunshine ; I 
 must not be so selfish as to think that / could give 
 it him. And then with all her gaiety," here a 
 recrudescence of the vein of urgency crept once 
 more into Lady Henge's voice, "she has depths, 
 Mr. Perior great depths, has she not ? Neither 
 Arthur nor I take life lightly, you know," and 
 Lady Henge held him with a waiting pause of 
 silence. 
 
 " Yes, I know you don't," he said; and then found
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 79 
 
 himself forced to add, "There are many possibili 
 ties in Camelia." 
 
 At all events, he might have said much more. 
 Again he looked across at Camelia as he spoke, and 
 again her eyes met his. She rose abruptly, and 
 crossed the room. 
 
 " Lady Henge," she said, standing before her 
 guest in an attitude of delicate request, " won't you 
 play for us ? We all want to hear you and not 
 as mere interpreter, you know one of your own 
 compositions, please." 
 
 If there were a vulnerable spot in Lady Henge's 
 indisputable array of virtues it was a touching 
 egotism in regard to her musical capabilities. She 
 fancied herself the pioneer of a new school, and 
 hoped, for a rather shallow smattering of form and 
 polyphony, to more than atone by an immense 
 amount of feeling. She smiled now, drawing off 
 her gloves immediately, even while saying, with 
 the diffidence of a master 
 
 " I am afraid my poemes symphoniques are not 
 quite on the after-dinner level, my dear. You know 
 I can't promise a comfortable accompaniment to 
 conversation." 
 
 "Don't degrade us by the implication," smiled 
 Camelia ; " we are at least appreciative." 
 
 " My music is emotionally exhaustive," said Lady 
 Henge, shaking her head and rising massively. 
 " In my humbler way I have tried to do for the 
 abstract what Wagner did for the concrete. I do 
 not depict the sea, but the psychological sensations 
 the sea arouses in us." Lady Henge was moving 
 towards the piano, her very back, with its serene,
 
 8o THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 brocaded breadth, imposing by its air of large self- 
 confidence a hush upon the babble of drawing-room 
 flippancy. 
 
 " Oh, good gracious ! " Gwendolen Holt ejacu 
 lated in an alarmed whisper to her neighbour 
 Mr. Merriman. 
 
 " Poor dear Lady Henge," murmured Lady 
 Tramley, leaning back in her delicate thinness, 
 and fixing sad eyes upon her musical friend. 
 
 " Awfully bad, is it ? " Mr. Merriman inquired. 
 
 "Awfully," said Gwendolen. 
 
 " Well, it's all one to me," said Mr. Merriman 
 jocosely. 
 
 " I paint the soul of man, as influenced by the 
 forces of nature," still delivering explanatory com 
 ments, Lady Henge had seated herself at the piano. 
 " My symphonic poem ' Thalassa,' shall I give you 
 that ? " and from a careful adjustment of the piano- 
 stool, she looked up at Camelia, who had followed 
 her. 
 
 Sir Arthur, on his solitary sofa, showed some 
 dismay at the imminence of his mother's perform 
 ance. Perior, who had heard Lady Henge play, 
 fixed enduring eyes on the cornice. Camelia 
 dropped into the vacant seat beside him. 
 
 " Hold your breath, Alceste," she murmured, her 
 smiling eyes still gently observant of Lady Henge, 
 who, after a majestic turn up and down the key 
 board, had paused in a menacing attitude, one hand 
 lifted in a heavily pouncing position. 
 
 " She'll have our heads under water in a minute. 
 Ah ! here comes the splash ! " The very walls 
 quivered as that fierce hand fell. A volcanic, inco-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 81 
 
 herent volume of sound hurtled forth upon the still 
 ness. From thenceforward they might have been 
 sitting amidst the clamorous concussions of a 
 thunder-storm, Lady Henge, high priestess of ter 
 rified humanity, making valiant warfare with the 
 angry gods. The wind, or rather the effect of the 
 wind upon the shrinking mind of man, shrieked in 
 long sweeps down the key-board Lady Henge's 
 execution with the flat of her hand being boldly im 
 pressionistic ; the waves beat out their stormy 
 rhythm in crashing chords of very feeble construc 
 tion, but in noisiness immensely effective, leaping, 
 bounding, shouldering, swallowing one another with 
 a splendid inconsequence as to time or key. A 
 chaos of stammering phrases cried out fitfully above 
 the steady bellowing of the bass. 
 
 Physically the composition was most certainly ex 
 hausting. Lady Henge's fine, flushed profile, bent 
 with brooding intensity above the key-board, evinced 
 a panting effort to cope with the mighty requirements 
 of her creation. 
 
 " It sounds as if she were being tossed in her 
 cabin, doesn't it ? " Camelia's soft voice murmured 
 under the safe cover of the tumult, her face keeping 
 the expression of grave attention, " and horribly sea 
 sick. One hears the bottles breaking, and the basins 
 clashing, and the boots being hurled from side to 
 side. Anything but abstract. Intimately descriptive 
 rather don't you think ? " A side glint of her eye 
 evidently twinkled for sympathy ; but Perior 
 solemnly stared at the ceiling. 
 
 "The construction too," Camelia said more soberly, 
 " she plunged us into the free fantasia and perhaps 
 
 F
 
 82 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 at the end she may fish us out with the dominant 
 phrase but I haven't caught it yet ; ah, this thud 
 ding finale announces the journey's end." And she 
 jumped up as Lady Henge, with a fine, tense look 
 of soul-experience, rose from the piano. The dazed 
 and wilted listeners chimed out the polite chorus 
 usual on such occasions. Camelia led Lady Henge 
 to her chair. "Thank you so much," she said. 
 Lady Henge smiled dimly, her eyes fixed on 
 vacancy. 
 
 " It was like a glorious wind blowing about one. 
 It made me think of Wordsworth's sonnets of the 
 soul in nature," said Camelia. Perior still looked 
 stolidly at the ceiling, and she felt his silence to be 
 ominous. 
 
 " Such music," she added, " gives one courage for 
 life." She was angry with Perior. Lady Henge 
 pressed her hand. 
 
 " Thanks, my dear. Yes you felt. One must 
 hear, of course, a composition many times before 
 entering into the sanctuary of the artist's mean 
 ing." Camelia's mouth retained its sympathetic 
 gravity. Perior said nothing; and faint, relieved 
 little groups of talk twittered like birds after a 
 storm. 
 
 " And you, Mr. Perior," Lady Henge fanning her 
 self largely turned to this silent critic. " You, too, 
 are a musician, as I know, a musician at least in 
 appreciation. What do you think of my 'Tha- 
 lassa ' ? Frankly now as one artist to another." 
 Perior moved his eyes slowly from the ceiling, 
 and dropped them to Camelia's face. He grew 
 very red.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 83 
 
 " Frankly now," Lady Henge reiterated with 
 genial urgency. 
 
 " I think it is very bad," said Perior. The sen 
 tence fell with a thud, like a stone. 
 
 Lady Henge flushed, and her fan fluttered to 
 stillness ; Camelia, her eyebrows lightly lifted, met 
 Perior's square look. 
 
 " Bad," Lady Henge repeated, with a pathetic 
 mingling of deprecating pride and pain, " really 
 bad, Mr. Perior ? " 
 
 " Very bad," said Perior. 
 
 The unmitigated sentence reduced her to feeble 
 plaintiveness. 
 
 "But why ? This is really savage, you know." 
 
 " Excuse me, I know I seem rude," he looked at 
 her now with something of an effort. " You see I 
 tell you the uncompromising truth. Your piece is 
 weak, and crude, and incoherent ! " 
 
 Now that she met his eyes, Lady Henge saw that 
 it gave him pain to speak so. Camelia standing 
 over them smiled unruffled. 
 
 " It is a case of Berlioz and the Conservatoire, 
 Schumann and the Philistines, Lady Henge. Mr. 
 Perior is an old classicist understands nothing 
 outside strictest adherence to form. Your more 
 modern march of the Davidsbiindler could say 
 nothing to him." Perior did not look at her. 
 
 " If you will allow me, Lady Henge, I will come 
 some day and go over a lot of Schumann with you. 
 I think you will recognise the difference. His power 
 and genuineness are apparent. And Schumann has 
 a great deal to say." 
 
 He smiled at her as she spoke, a very sweet 
 I
 
 84 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 smile asking tolerance for the friend in spite of 
 the critic's unwilling arrogance. Lady Henge was 
 soothed, though decidedly shaken. 
 
 "You are severe, you know." 
 
 " But you prefer severity to silly fibs." 
 
 " I may be silly," Camelia here put in with a touch 
 of coldness, " if so, I stand convicted with you, Lady 
 Henge, for I found your ' Thalassa ' neither crude, 
 nor weak, nor incoherent ; but I can't be accused of 
 fibbing. You will play your symphonic poem to me 
 again, won't you ? and we will leave Mr. Perior to 
 the pleasures of iconoclastic conservatism." After 
 so speaking, Camelia went back to her seat beside 
 Sir Arthur. 
 
 He had a book in his hand, and was turning the 
 leaves vaguely ; he put it down as he looked up at 
 her. For a man well over thirty, Sir Arthur had 
 certain boyish traits, as a frank nervousness of 
 glance now revealed. 
 
 "Well?" Camelia smiled, feeling a something 
 in the silence. 
 
 " It was bad, wasn't it ? " said Sir Arthur. 
 
 "Bad?" 
 
 "Yes, poor mother." 
 
 " I don't think it bad." 
 
 Sir Arthur surveyed her with pained hesita 
 tion. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " he demanded, with an 
 abruptness of wounded tenderness that put Camelia 
 alertly on her guard. 
 
 "Why do you say that?" she asked, rounding 
 innocent eyes at him. 
 
 " I saw you laughing at it, with Perior not that
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 85 
 
 he laughed. I heard what he said too. I prefer 
 that, you know." 
 
 Camelia herself was feeling wounded, was smart 
 ing under a sense of angry humiliation. This 
 added and unexpected blow brought the blood 
 vividly to her face, and the sincerity of her dis 
 comfort seemed even to herself to warrant the 
 sincerity of her quick question. 
 
 " You suspect me of lying ? " 
 
 Camelia hardly thought that she had lied ; neither 
 the flush nor the tone of voice was acted. 
 
 Sir Arthur looked away. " I saw you laughing," 
 he repeated. 
 
 " I was laughing," Camelia declared. " Not at 
 Lady Henge," she added. 
 
 Sir Arthur kept a silence in which doubt and a 
 longing to believe evidently struggled. 
 
 " I said to Mr.^ Perior that the rocking passage 
 with the chord accompaniment made me feel sea 
 sick from its realism ; that touch of levity doesn't 
 imply insincerity in my admiration I always smile 
 at the birds in the 'Pastoral.' Why should I be 
 insincere ? If I had not liked it, I would have 
 said so." 
 
 Sir Arthur's long breath escaped with the relief 
 of recovered joy. 
 
 " Don't be insincere ; dearest," he added, looking 
 at her; and seeing the surprise with which she 
 received the grave, impulsive word, he went on 
 quickly, yet gently. 
 
 " You know you often want to please people to 
 make every one like you ; even I have fancied it 
 forgive me, won't you, at the price of a little
 
 86 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 falseness. When one feels as I do, the least flaw 
 cuts into one like a knife." With Camelia's triumph 
 there now mingled a bitter distaste ; she could 
 hardly bring herself to look into his honest, adoring 
 eyes ; the quickness of her breath and wavering of 
 her glance were, again, quite spontaneous, and that 
 she knew them to be effective, deepened her humi 
 liation. 
 
 "To see you laugh at mother and then praise 
 her I thought it; and I can't tell you how it 
 pained me. You forgive me ? " 
 
 Her self-disgust now seemed to lend her a certain 
 sense of atoning self-respect. " How good you 
 are ! " she said, looking at him very gravely, and 
 this recognition of his goodness restoring still more 
 fully that sick self-respect, she was able to smile at 
 him, to think that she must not exaggerate the little 
 contretemps, and to ask herself whether she might 
 not fall in love with Sir Arthur simply and natu 
 rally. Dear man ! The words were almost on her 
 lips her eyes at least caressed him with the im 
 plication. 
 
 He looked embarrassed, but very happy. " No 
 no ! Please don't say that ! How divinely kind you 
 are. I have been insufferable. It is noble of you 
 to understand . Can't we get away from all these 
 people if only for a moment. Let us go into the 
 garden it is very warm." She would rather not 
 have gone into the garden, but she could not refuse 
 him, she felt that to some extent she would like to 
 justify his faith in her, and to shake from her that 
 snake-like imputation of baseness. She glanced at 
 Perior as she went out ; he was talking most affably
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 87 
 
 with Lady Henge, and did not look at her. His 
 lack of faith stung perhaps more than Sir Arthur's 
 faith. It was unmerited too, more unmerited than 
 Sir Arthur's trust, so she told herself, stepping 
 down from the terrace on to the gravel-path, and 
 the sense of unmerited scorn sharpened that wish 
 to justify herself as far as might be to the kinder 
 judge. 
 
 " No, Sir Arthur, you are good," she went on, 
 pausing before him, her hands clasped behind her 
 after a little-girl fashion habitual with her ; " and I 
 am horrid it's quite true but not as horrid as you 
 thought me. I do like to please people. I am often 
 pettily, impulsively false ; it's quite, quite true. I 
 do like your mother's piece, but probably not as 
 much as I implied to her by my praise not as 
 much as greater things : and Mr. Perior's silence 
 made me angry too ; but I probably was a little in 
 sincere, and that every one is the same is no excuse 
 for me. I don't want to be like every one, and you 
 don't want me to be, do you ? But if I had not 
 liked it, you would not have wished me to express 
 myself with the bludgeon-like directness of our 
 rugged friend, would you ? " Camelia asked the 
 question with real anxiety, conscious though she 
 was that she had thought the composition quite as 
 ridiculous as Perior had declared it. After all, his 
 ugly sincerity justified her kindly fibbing; and as 
 for the laughing, she was sorry she had laughed, 
 since Sir Arthur had seen her. His erectness of 
 moral vision would so distort that unintentional 
 meanness that she could not be asked to confess 
 it ; but her partial confession, all the same, left her
 
 88 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 confused by the stinging of small, uncomfortable 
 compunctions. These, however, did not show them 
 selves in her eyes, nor in the pure lines of her face. 
 Her silvered garments and exquisite whiteness gave 
 her in the moonlight an angelic look that might 
 well humble modest manhood before her. Sir 
 Arthur had never felt himself so near to the girl he 
 loved, nor his love so well justified. 
 
 " No, I don't think it's necessary to give a person 
 the truth like a box on the ear," he said, and he 
 would have taken her hands, but Camelia again put 
 them behind her back, and stood smiling at him. 
 
 "Poor old Perior," he added, and they walked 
 slowly for a little way down the path. " You can 
 understand it, though, can't you ? He thought 
 you were fibbing, and that made him give mother 
 the ruthless coup de dent' 1 
 
 This was very true, and so Camelia knew, know 
 ing, too, that she had been fibbing. "But that 
 didn't justify the coup de dent" she declared, "and 
 why should he think I was fibbing ? " The bit of 
 audacity was so inevitable that she hardly felt a 
 qualm over its enunciation. On Perior's loyalty she 
 relied as she relied on the ground beneath her feet. 
 
 " Well, he knows that you are clever, and that 
 your taste has not been distorted as mother's has 
 by fancied talent." Sir Arthur was all candid 
 confidence. 
 
 " He was very nasty," said Camelia, " and I shall 
 tell him so. And now that I have made my little 
 confession, and that you have absolved me for I 
 am absolved, am I not ? shall we go in? " Camelia 
 drew back from the proposal she saw looming in
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 89 
 
 the moonlight ; there was time, ample time, for 
 that, now that she was sure of him, quite sure. A 
 warm little thrill of pleasure went over her at the 
 thought that it was she who was not ready, was not 
 sure, though she had never liked him more. 
 
 " Must we go in ? " Sir Arthur looked up at her 
 as she stood on the step above him. He was very 
 handsome, Camelia thought with some complacency. 
 
 " I think we must," she said prettily, adding, " I 
 promised to do my skirt dancing for them, you 
 know. You must tell me it is delightful when I 
 have done, even if you laugh at me while I am 
 dancing." Sir Arthur had held out his hand, and 
 she put hers in it. 
 
 " You absolve me, don't you ? " he said. " You 
 forgive me ? You are not angry ? " 
 
 " Angry ? Have I seemed angry ? " 
 
 "You had the right to be." 
 
 "Not with you," said Camelia, and at that he 
 kissed her hand, and they went back into the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Camelia as she undressed that night decided that 
 Perior was responsible for her still smarting irrita 
 tion. It was too tiresome. Of course, apparently 
 she had not behaved nicely ; but, in neatly analys 
 ing the whole affair, she could find herself guilty 
 of nothing worse than a little humorous gaiety 
 that took an old friend's sympathy for granted 
 (could one not think things one did not say ? she 
 had only thought aloud to him), and a little kindly 
 hypocrisy practised every day by models of upright 
 ness. Perior's rudeness set a standard by which
 
 90 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 social conventions were guilty of black falseness. 
 It was too bad of him, and her anger put him aside 
 with a sense of relief. The only really serious part 
 was the stinging sequel. How closely Arthur 
 Henge must have watched her to catch that irre 
 pressible glint of the eye. He had caught it, 
 though, and she had lied about it well, yes lied, 
 deliberately lied to a man she respected. 
 
 Of course it made her feel uncomfortable of 
 course it did. " I am not the vain puppet he thinks 
 me," she said, leaning on her dressing-table, and 
 looking gravely at her illuminated reflection the 
 he being Perior "the very fact of my worrying 
 over such a trifling incident proves that I am not. 
 It is his fault that I should feel so." She paused 
 for a further turn of silent meditation before adding, 
 " My only fault was in having trusted to his sense 
 of fun, in having been amused. The rest followed 
 inevitably. I could not have told Arthur Henge 
 that I found his mother ridiculous, now could I, 
 you foolish creature ? " and irrepressibly Camelia 
 smiled at her lenient accuser in the glass. At this 
 point of the colloquy a gentle tap at the door 
 ushered in Mary. Mary, in a dressing-gown of just 
 the wrong shade, was not an interesting object, and 
 Camelia glanced over her reflection in the mirror 
 without turning. She continued her own train of 
 thought, hardly listening to Mary, though vaguely 
 conscious that the awkward inquiries after her 
 comfort were rather pointless. 
 
 " I thought you might want something, Camelia. 
 I thought you looked rather pale," said Mary, 
 drawing near with some timidity.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 91 
 
 " No, thanks. I should have asked Grant, you 
 know," replied Camelia, her elbows still on the 
 dressing-table. She absently watched Mary lift her 
 discarded gown from the floor, fold it, and lay it 
 neatly over the back of a chair. " Don't mind 
 about picking up those things, Mary," she added, 
 yawning a little, and wishing rather that Mary 
 would go. " Grant can do all that." 
 
 " I like to tidy up after you." Mary's smile was 
 slightly forced. "See, Camelia, you need me to 
 look after you your pearl necklace under a chair." 
 
 " It must have caught in my bodice," said Camelia, 
 glancing at the necklace as Mary laid it on the 
 dressing-table. " That certainly was stupid of me. 
 Thanks, dear." Mary still lingered. 
 
 " You don't want anything, you are sure ? You 
 feel quite well and happy, Camelia ? " The ques 
 tion was so odd that Camelia turned her head and 
 looked up, surprised, at Mary's rather embarrassed 
 countenance. 
 
 " Happy ? " she repeated. 
 
 " Yes ; I fancied you might have something to 
 tell me." This initiative was certainly amazing in 
 the reserved Mary, and Camelia stared. 
 
 " Something to tell you ? " Then her deliberate 
 departure for the moonlit tete-a-tete with Sir Arthur 
 coming luminously to her mind, she began to laugh. 
 " Why, Mary, did you come in a congratulatory 
 mood ? " 
 
 Mary's badly mastered nervousness melted some 
 what. " Oh, Camelia may I ? " her face lighted 
 to an almost charming eagerness a charm that our 
 aesthetic heroine was quick to recognise. " May I ? "
 
 92 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " May you ? No, you little goose," Camelia said 
 good-humouredly. " Upon my word, Mary, you 
 should have had your portrait painted at that 
 moment ; you never looked so significant. Are 
 you so anxious to get rid of me then ? " The 
 charming look had crumbled into inextricable con 
 fusion. 
 
 " Oh, Camelia, how can you ? how could you 
 think ? " 
 
 " Now, Mary, imaginative efforts are bad for you ; 
 don't indulge them." 
 
 " I hoped I only wanted " 
 
 " Yes, of course, you want me to be happy; and 
 very nice it is of you too. Be patient, Mary; you 
 shall congratulate me some day. I haven't decided 
 when that shall be. I haven't really quite decided 
 how I shall be happy there are so many ways the 
 choice of a superlative is perplexing. When I choose 
 you need not come to me, I promise you." Camelia 
 rose, stretching her arms above her head, and 
 smiling very kindly at her cousin. 
 
 Her own words made her feel comfortable. Still 
 smiling, she put her arm around Mary's neck and 
 kissed her. " I shall tell you immediately. Now 
 run to bed, dear, for you look pale." When Mary 
 was gone, Camelia finished undressing, and got 
 into bed in a frame of mind much reassured as to 
 her own intrinsic merit.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE little moonlit episode had very thoroughly 
 mended the rift within the lute. Camelia's seeming 
 frankness of confessional confidence more than 
 atoned for every doubting qualm. Sir Arthur evi 
 dently put doubts and distresses behind him. He 
 allowed himself to be wholly in love. He wondered 
 resentfully at himself for the mixed impulses he 
 had known, since all were now merged in one fixed 
 determination. 
 
 The country influences of green trees and summer 
 sky seemed to have breathed a heretofore unrealised 
 gentleness into his fair one. Her playful sallies, 
 her little audacities, delighted him now unre 
 servedly, for under the tantalising shifting and 
 shimmering of surface moods, the translucent 
 depths of a loyal and lovely nature were at last 
 fully revealed to him. 
 
 Camelia felt the resultant ardour hovering during 
 all their constant companionship, but she evaded 
 it. The conquest had been so easy, was so com 
 plete, that fitness seemed to require a compensatory 
 dallying. The atmosphere of adoration, submissive 
 in its certainty of ultimate success, felt as flatter 
 ingly around her as the warm sweetness of a 
 summer breeze. Conquest was delightful, so was 
 dallying, so was her own indecision ; that was the 
 
 93
 
 94 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 most delightful part of all. She felt, too, in the 
 loving warmth that encompassed her, a consola 
 tion, a refuge from cold and rugged depreciation. 
 
 Perior had not reappeared since the musical 
 metie, and, while enjoying the sunny harbour where 
 she rocked so peacefully, Camelia was conscious 
 that thoughts about that rough, that unsympathetic 
 sea outside preoccupied her amidst the kinder 
 waters. Her gaiety was therefore a little forced, 
 absent-minded, in a sense a mask ; her gentler 
 mood was the result of inner cogitations, so in 
 volved at times as to give to her manner a dreamy 
 sweetness. Her moral snubbing, though she re 
 jected it as undeserved, subdued her. 
 
 Lady Henge's vanity was of no petty or immov 
 able order. Far from antagonising, Perior's judg 
 ment had aroused in her an anxious self-doubt, 
 an anxious respect for her candid critic. Despite 
 Camelia's sympathy for Camelia stuck to her 
 colours, entrenched herself behind a staunch fidelity 
 to a false position, listened with absorption to 
 frequent renderings of the " Thalassa," thoughtfully 
 discussed its iconoclastic merits, the high value of 
 its full flavoured modernity, and felt a certain 
 ethical elevation from these painful sacrifices to 
 the only constancy permitted her despite this 
 steady sympathy, Lady Henge perversely longed 
 for a further expression of unsympathetic opinion 
 from the ruthless Perior. And one morning she 
 told Camelia that she had written to him, had 
 asked him to fulfil his promise, to bring some music 
 of his choosing that might, with his aid, be useful 
 to her.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 95 
 
 " I had hoped to see him every day," she owned, 
 and Camelia realised .the power of a negative 
 attitude how flat beside it, how feeble, was her 
 exaggeratedly affirmative one. All her pretty con 
 ciliations were as nothing to Lady Henge beside 
 the stinging interest of Perior's dislike. 
 
 " I think he may help me about so many things, 
 I so often feel a helplessness in self-expression; 
 the idea is there but the form ! the form ! ah, my 
 dear, art, after all, is form." (This piece of infor 
 mation was certainly bitter to our martyrised 
 heroine.) 
 
 " As you said, his severity may, to a certain ex 
 tent, be conservatism, academic narrowness, but I 
 have always heard of him as widely appreciative." 
 
 Camelia could answer for the width of apprecia 
 tion that her resentment had falsified on the un 
 lucky night of the first performance ; she remembered 
 now, with a little flush, that her saddling of him 
 with tastes not his own must have seemed to him 
 the culmination of spiteful pettiness. And then 
 he had not rejoined had not defended himself, 
 even against that intimation of academics opposed 
 to his dearly loved Schumann. Camelia could 
 soothe herself with a " I don't care ! He deserved 
 it. He was horrid ; " but all the same the memory 
 brought a hotness to her cheeks. She felt very 
 angry, too, with Lady Henge, and, while smiling 
 pleasantly, found some satisfaction in various 
 cynical mental comments on the weighty intricacy 
 of her cap, and the vast stupidity of her self- 
 absorption. 
 
 " Do you know, my dear, that phrase," and Lady
 
 96 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Henge struck it out demonstratively from the piano 
 near which she stood ; " that phrase does sound a 
 little weak." Weak ! Camelia could have capped 
 the criticism very pungently. With a good deal of 
 disgust at a situation which had so neatly turned 
 the tables upon her, she said, " Mr. Perior may tell 
 you so ; I really can't." Her fate evidently was 
 to support Lady Henge by a fraternity in inferior 
 taste; and to be branded with inferior taste, even 
 in Lady Henge's eyes, was certainly rather galling. 
 She had not bargained for it at all, nor dreamed 
 that Lady Henge's complacency would go down 
 like a ninepin before Perior's brutal missile. Her 
 little perjury had not been in the least worth 
 while. 
 
 Perior, having the grace to look somewhat em 
 barrassed, arrived next morning with an impres 
 sive roll of music, and Camelia laughed, with some 
 acidity it must be confessed, as she heard in the 
 drawing-room the convincing energy of his demon 
 strations. Fragments of the poor poeme sympho- 
 nique, panting from their cruel dissection, reached 
 her ears while she strolled about the lawns with 
 Sir Arthur. 
 
 She foresaw that Lady Henge would prove a 
 humble convert, and that she herself, if not to be 
 convicted of gross insincerity, must remain gibbetted 
 in a stubborn unconversion. 
 
 " Your mother is very patient," she said, as, from 
 the distant piano, the dogged repetition of a phrase 
 emphasised its feeble absurdity. " Mr. Perior as 
 mentor is in his element." 
 
 Sir Arthur laughed with a good-humoured recol-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 97 
 
 lection of his own political rebuff at Perior's 
 hands. 
 
 "He is uncompromisingly honest. If you ask 
 for his advice he'll give it to you." 
 
 " Give it to you unasked sometimes," said Camelia. 
 
 Sir Arthur had told her all about that lost cause, 
 and all about his plans for the future. There was 
 a very delightful plan for the very near future ; the 
 next session would decide the fate of the Factory 
 Bill that went by her lover's name, and Camelia, 
 under her attentive quietness, felt a heaving sigh 
 of ambition gather. Sir Arthur's grave eagerness 
 showed that after his winning of herself, his political 
 campaign filled the chief place in his hopes and 
 thoughts. Her interest delighted him, and the 
 intelligence of her comments. 
 
 He had himself an almost reverent belief in the 
 bill, and Camelia's sympathetic affirmatives seemed 
 to chime deliciously with his own deep, active pity 
 for the dim, toiling masses the bill was to reach and 
 succour. Such a common object was a sanctifica- 
 tion ; he could hardly, he felt, have loved a woman 
 who did not feel his own deep pity. They talked 
 now of the coming struggle, of the rather dubious 
 success of the second reading that might yet be 
 enhanced for the third. 
 
 "And do you know," he said, " Perior, positively 
 Perior, approves ; he is buckling on his armour for 
 the final fray. An individuality like that counts, 
 you know. A few leaders in the Friday would 
 rally many waverers." 
 
 Camelia flushed suddenly when he said this; it 
 delighted her sense of proprietorship in Perior to 
 
 G
 
 98 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 hear his praise to hear that for others, too, he 
 counted. And yet a touch of pain came with the 
 delight, reminding her that under present conditions 
 the delight was very generous, and proprietorship 
 very unassured. 
 
 How he evaded it ! Yes, he certainly was horrid ; 
 but her breath came quickly, and with a deft per 
 sistence she kept Sir Arthur still talking of him, 
 finding in his answers to her questions on his youth 
 glimpses of Perior's. 
 
 "Always generous, always intolerant, always 
 tripping into ditches while star-gazing," said Sir 
 Arthur ; " he has an exaggerated strain in him ; it 
 must be that Irish ancestress. He feels everything 
 more acutely than thicker-skinned mortals, sees 
 everything, the good and the bad, magnified a 
 trifle grotesquely. But it is a noble nature ; " and 
 he went on, as they walked back and forth over the 
 lawn, Perior's pianoforte exposition, firmly insistent, 
 coming to their ears at broken intervals : " Perior is 
 staunch on individualism, as you know ; believes in 
 the hygienic value to the race of the combat a 
 savage creed, I tell him ; but he has amended it ; he 
 is not one jot afraid of seeming inconsistent; he 
 owns to the scientific logic of our attitude. I was 
 afraid he would accuse us of socialistic methods, 
 tyrannical kindness, State intervention," and so 
 from Perior Sir Arthur went back to the all- 
 absorbing topic of the bill ; he could allow the bill 
 to absorb him. For all Camelia's evasions and 
 smiling warnings to patience, he was deliciously 
 sure of the ultimate end of all. He could afford 
 to be patient with the luminous sympathy of her
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 99 
 
 eyes upon him, afford to talk of the unfortunate 
 women-workers whose long hours the kind tyranny 
 of the bill would restrict, while this woman listened 
 with such a sweet chiming of pity. 
 
 " If you could only count on a fair following 
 among the Liberals/' Camelia said, phrasing his 
 keenest anxiety. " Horrid egotists ! They all have 
 factories, I suppose. Mr. Rodrigg may wrest your 
 dubious majority from you ; he is the lion in your 
 path, isn't he? and he has a whole town of fac 
 tories. What chance has a moral conviction against 
 a town of factories ? And he is such a bull 
 dog; I did wrong to dignify him by the leonine 
 simile." 
 
 "Such a clever chap, too," said Sir Arthur; 
 " bull-dog cleverness I mean." 
 
 " And bull-dogs are so dear," Camelia said, as a 
 small brindled member of the race, his head haloed 
 by a ferociously bristling collar, came bounding to 
 them over the lawn. " Dear, precious beastie," she 
 put her hand on the dog's head as he stood on his 
 hind-legs to greet her, "we must indeed find another 
 epithet for Mr. Rodrigg, not that I dislike him, 
 you know. He shares some of your opinions," she 
 added rather roguishly. 
 
 " Not one, I fear." 
 
 " Yes, one," she insisted. Sir Arthur's eyes 
 dwelt on her charming look; it carried him into 
 vagueness as he asked 
 
 "What one? " not caring at all for Mr. Rodrigg's 
 community of taste, and smiling at her loveliness. 
 
 " I think he is rather fond of me," Camelia owned. 
 Sir Arthur could afford a generous laugh.
 
 ioo THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Poor old Rodrigg ! He has then a vulnerable 
 point in his armour ? " 
 
 "Yes, indeed, yes. I don't know that it amounts 
 to a weakness. I fear I couldn't wheedle him. But, 
 you might convince him, and I might help, and, 
 he is coming down next week." She laughed out 
 at his look of surprise. "That is news, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 In her very heart of hearts Camelia was rather 
 complacently convinced that Mr. Rodrigg's fondness 
 did amount to a weakness. Mr. Rodrigg's devotion 
 was in our young lady's fastidious opinion his one 
 redeeming quality. She had kindly, but thoroughly, 
 she thought, nipped in the bud certain too aspiring 
 attempts ; but the man was all the more her 
 friend. 
 
 His devotion was built upon a fine hopelessness 
 that really dignified him. 
 
 She was an Egeria who hovered above him, 
 gently smiling at his earthiness. Yes, she was 
 kind; for Mr. Rodrigg was a most important 
 person emphatically, personally important just 
 now, it seemed; and though Camelia's thoughts 
 of him were merely humorously tolerant, she felt 
 quite sure of a wealth of unreturned friendship, 
 ready to transmute itself into golden action at her 
 bidding. She could but pride herself a little upon 
 her intellectual influence over her unpresumptuous 
 Numa, and thought that she could, through that 
 dignified influence alone, by all means wheedle him, 
 if wheedling became necessary. Sir Arthur would 
 hardly approve of these personal methods, and 
 therefore he need not know of the little game that
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 101 
 
 might win his cause; a perfectly innocent game, 
 she assured herself, since it hurt no one and 
 helped Sir Arthur; and if Mr. Rodrigg were to 
 be convinced, Sir Arthur must fancy himself sole 
 winner. 
 
 He did not seem to recognise the possibility, for 
 after his pause of surprise he laughed again, saying, 
 " Is he coming on my account ? " 
 
 " Not on his, I am sure ! " 
 
 "You know, it won't do any good," he smiled 
 fondly at her, as one smiles at the folly of a loved 
 woman; "Rodrigg is too deeply pledged, has his 
 whole party behind him. I could no more convince 
 him, even in these enchanted premises, than in the 
 dry precincts of the House. Political conversions 
 are very rare." 
 
 " But you may convert him," Camelia urged. " I 
 will give you every opportunity." 
 
 "And it is rather unfair, you know." Sir Arthur 
 paused in their strolling to look at her face, half 
 shadowed in the sunlight by the brim of her white 
 hat. " He perhaps imagines that he is coming for 
 purposes far removed from the political." 
 
 "Oh no, no, no. I tell you, dear Sir Arthur, 
 that well since you must have it I refused him. 
 He hasn't a hope; I pinched the last pangs out 
 of him a long time ago. In fact, I let him see that 
 I found his audacity rather funny than piteous. I 
 have laughed him into most submissive platonics. 
 He will come, because he really is my friend, and 
 really likes me ; and I want him to come, because 
 he must like you." 
 
 " Camelia ! " Sir Arthur had used her name
 
 102 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 more than once of late, and she let it pass with a 
 half-merry, half-menacing little glance. 
 
 "You dear little schemer," he added. Though 
 spoken in tenderest teasing, Camelia was just 
 enough conscious of a certain applicability to say 
 with some quickness 
 
 "Not really. You know I'm not. I only want 
 to help you legitimately. I would not lift my little 
 finger to win your cause if you did not want me to." 
 
 " Really, I know you're not ! " Sir Arthur's 
 voice retained the teasing quality, but the tender 
 ness had deepened ; Camelia was listening all the 
 while to those dogged passages from the piano. 
 They ceased now, and a certain gravity and deter 
 mination of look that had succeeded Sir Arthur's 
 last words quite justified a sudden retreat. 
 
 " I must go and make Mr. Perior stop to lunch. 
 One only gets him out of his lair by force and 
 wheedling ! I wheedle him ! " She left Sir Arthur 
 rather disconsolately cut short, and ran off to the 
 house, her own words ringing reassuringly in her 
 ears. Yes, she could wheedle him. Despite un 
 reason, stupid unreason, despite rebellious crossness 
 and pretended indifference, she had the mastery. 
 He cared so much ; that was the fundamental fact 
 that upheld Camelia's assurance; he cared enough 
 to be very angry. He would try to hide his anger 
 of course. Her heart had beaten rather quickly 
 when Sir Arthur's face took on that look of resolve 
 she was not ready, not quite sure, not yet, but 
 flight from his purpose had been only a secondary 
 impulse. She must see Perior. She ran through 
 the morning-room and met him coming down the
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 103 
 
 stairs, and panting a little, laughing a little, she 
 leaned against the banisters and opposed his 
 passage. 
 
 "Well, have you taught her how bad it is ?" 
 
 " I think I have," said Perior, looking over 
 Camelia's head at the open doorway. She stood 
 aside to let him join her. 
 
 "What have you to teach me this morning 
 caballero de la triste figura ? " she said as he .came 
 down the stairs and stood beside her. 
 
 " I don't propose to teach you anything. I am 
 not responsible for you." 
 
 Camelia had not analysed his probable mood 
 incorrectly; he was angry, and he was trying to 
 hide his anger, fearing for his self-control. But 
 more than that though this the acute Camelia had 
 never quite divined he was feeling very unhappy. 
 That he was angry she saw, however, with a little 
 thrill of triumph running through her veins. Smil 
 ing an even smile she said, slipping her hand 
 through his arm 
 
 " Ah ! but you are responsible. Come into the 
 morning-room." 
 
 " Is Lady Paton there ? " Perior asked gloomily. 
 
 "Yes." Camelia had seen her mother and Mary 
 walking safely away into the garden with Gwendolen 
 Holt and Lady Tramley. She threw open the door 
 and ushered him in.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PERIOR surveyed the emptiness ; it hardly surprised 
 him, and well understanding her determination to 
 wheedle him, he felt an added strength of deter 
 mination not to be wheedled. 
 
 " What have you got to say, now that you've got 
 me here ? " he asked, putting down his music and 
 looking at her. 
 
 "You bandersnatch!" Camelia still held his arm. 
 " I am sure you look like a bandersnatch ; a biting, 
 snarling creature. You have a truly snatching way 
 of speaking." 
 
 "What have you got to say, Camelia?" Perior 
 repeated, withdrawing his arm from the circling 
 clasp upon it. 
 
 " I have got to say that you must stay to lunch." 
 "Well, I can't do that" 
 
 "Then you may sit down and talk to me a little 
 scold me if you like; do you feel like scolding 
 me?" 
 
 " I have never scolded you, Camelia," said Perior, 
 knowing that before her lightness his solemnity 
 showed to disadvantage ; but he would be nothing 
 but solemn, ludicrously solemn if necessary. 
 
 " You were never sure I deserved it, then," said 
 Camelia, stooping to gather up her dog for a swift 
 kiss, and laughing over his round head at Perior's
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 105 
 
 stiffness; "else you would have done your duty, I 
 am sure you never forget your duty." 
 
 "Thanks; your recognition is flattering." 
 
 "There, my pet, go poor Sir Arthur is lonely, 
 go to him," said Camelia, opening the window 
 for Siegfried's exit. "You know your sarcasm 
 doesn't impress me one bit not one bit," she 
 added. 
 
 " I don't fancy that anything I could say would 
 impress } r ou," Perior replied, eyeing her little 
 manoeuvres, " and since I have seen Siegfried receive 
 his kiss, I really must go," and at this Perior took 
 up his music with decision; to see him assuming 
 indifference so badly was delightful to Camelia. 
 
 " Why were you so rude to poor Lady Henge 
 the other evening ? " she demanded, couching her 
 lance and preparing for the shock of encounter. 
 " You were hideously rude, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know." Perior still eyed her, his depar 
 ture effectually checked. 
 
 " Then, why were you ? " 
 
 " Because you lied." 
 
 " Oh, what an ugly word ! " cried Camelia lightly, 
 though with a little chill, for the unpleasant sincerity 
 of Perior's look she felt to be more than she had 
 bargained for. "What a big, ungainly word to 
 fling at poor little me ! You should eschew such 
 gross elementary forms of speech, Alceste; really, 
 they are not becoming." 
 
 " I hate lies," said Perior tersely, thinking, as he 
 spoke, that by the logic of the words he should 
 hate Camelia too for what was she but unmiti 
 gated falseness personified ? He had lost his
 
 lo6 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 nervousness, now that the moment for plain speak 
 ing had arrived. 
 
 " And you call that a lie ? " 
 
 " I call it a lie." She considered him gravely. 
 
 " I tried to give pleasure, you tried to give pain." 
 
 " I tried to restore the balance." 
 
 " I cannot think it wrong to slight the truth a 
 little from mere kindness." 
 
 "And I think it wrong to lie. And," Perior 
 added, his voice taking on an added depth of in 
 dignant scorn, " you lied to Arthur ; I saw you." 
 
 "You saw!" Camelia could not repress a little 
 gasp. 
 
 " I saw that he caught your humorous and 
 hospitable comments on his mother's performance, 
 and I saw your cajolery afterwards. I am sure I 
 can't imagine how you hoodwinked him. It was 
 neatly done, Camelia." 
 
 Camelia felt herself growing pale, losing the 
 victor's smiling calm. Here he was brutally 
 voicing the very scruples she had laid to rest 
 after moments of most generous self-doubt aton 
 ing moments, as she felt. The playful game in 
 which she would tease him into comprehension 
 absolution, had been turned into an ugly punish 
 ment. The wrinkled rose leaves of self-accusation 
 that had disturbed her serenity had actually in 
 his hands grown into thorny branches, and he 
 was whipping her with them. She had never felt 
 so at a loss, for she could not laugh. 
 
 "You would have had me pain him too!" she 
 cried, her anger vindictively seeking a retaliatory 
 lash. " Well, you are a prig ! an insufferable prig !
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 107 
 
 I did nothing wrong! except mistake your sense 
 of humour." 
 
 This was certainly on her side a less dignified 
 colloquy than the one with the looking-glass; she 
 fancied that Perior looked with some curiosity at 
 her anger. 
 
 " Was it wrong to smile at you, then ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Yes, it was wrong." Perior had all the advan 
 tage of calm, and she was helplessly aware that her 
 excitement fortified his self-control. 
 
 "I thought the piece funny. Was I to tell her 
 so?" 
 
 "You should have kept still about it. You 
 mocked your guest behind her back and flattered 
 her to her face. That is mean, despicable," said 
 Perior, planting his slashes very effectively. 
 
 " To laugh with you was like laughing to myself," 
 said Camelia, steadying her lips, and wondering 
 vaguely if victory might not yet be wrested from 
 this humiliation; his inflexible cruelty forced from 
 her that half appeal. " It was merely thinking 
 aloud, and to tell a few kindly little fibs as 
 every woman does, a hundred times a day is 
 not flattery." 
 
 "To gain a person's liking on false pretences 
 is base ; and I don't care how many women do it 
 nor how often they do it. I shan't argue with 
 you, Camelia. We don't see things alike. Follow 
 your own path, by all means; it will lead you to 
 success no doubt, and for a nature like yours there 
 will be no bitterness in such success." 
 
 He looked away from her now, as if, despite
 
 io8 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 her immunity from it, he felt that bitterness. He 
 felt it, though she did not. He looked away in 
 the depth of his disgust and pain, conscious, though, 
 of the golden blur of her hair, the indistinct oval 
 of her face, the cool vague grey of her linen dress, 
 as she stood still, not far from hiir,. Camelia felt 
 herself trembling. She beat off his cruel injustice 
 but it was hurting her it was making her 
 helpless. 
 
 " For what success do you imply that I am 
 scheming ? " she asked, and even while she spoke 
 angry tears rushed to her eyes. To be misjudged 
 was a new sensation; a hot self-pity smarted 
 within her. 
 
 Perior did not see the tears, for he still looked 
 away, saying in a voice that showed how clearly 
 cut, how definitely perceived was the conviction : 
 " The success of marrying a man you love little 
 enough to lie to. Henge could not forgive you 
 if he knew that you had lied to him and to his 
 mother, yet he adores you you have that on false 
 pretences too. There is the truth for you, Camelia ; 
 and, upon my soul, I am sorry for Arthur. I pity 
 him from the bottom of my heart." 
 
 " How dare you ! how dare you ! " cried Camelia, 
 bursting into tears. " It is false false false ! " 
 
 Taken aback, Perior stared blankly at her. It was 
 the first time that he had reduced her to weeping. 
 " Oh, Camelia ! " he stood still he would not ap 
 proach her; he felt that since she could cry her 
 helplessness was fully armed, and he quite helpless ; 
 his supremacy robbed of all value. 
 
 " Every word you say is false ! " she said, return-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 109 
 
 ing his stare defiantly, while the tears rolled down 
 her cheeks. " I am not scheming to marry him ! 
 I have not let him propose to me yet ! I am not 
 sure that I shall ; I am not sure that I shall accept 
 him, and if I do, it will be because I love him ! " 
 
 Perior hardly believed her, and yet he was much 
 confused, especially as with a fresh access of sobs 
 her face quivered in the pathetic grimace of loveli 
 ness distorted ; before that the real issue of the 
 situation seemed slipping away; her repudiation 
 of the greater dishonesty effaced, for the moment, 
 the smaller; he had nothing to say she probably 
 believed in herself; and those helpless sobs were 
 so touching to him that, notwithstanding his unap- 
 peased anger against her, he could have gone to 
 her and taken her in his arms to comfort her, 
 at any cost even at the cost of seeming to ask 
 pardon. He did not do this, however, but said, 
 " Don't cry, don't cry, Camelia ; you mustn't cry. 
 I'm glad you feel it in that way; I am glad you 
 can cry over it." He did not go to her, but his 
 very attitude of nervous hesitation told Camelia 
 that he was worsted at least worsted enough for 
 the practical purposes of the moment. 
 
 She got out her handkerchief and dried her 
 eyes, still feeling very sore-hearted, very much 
 injured; but when the tears were gone she came 
 up to him saying, while she looked at him with 
 all the victorious pathos of wet lashes and trembling 
 lips, "You are not kind to me, Alceste." 
 
 He moved away from her a little, but took her 
 hands. " Because you are naughty, Ce'limene." 
 
 " I will be good. I won't tell fibs."
 
 no THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 "A very commendable resolution." 
 "You mock me. You won't believe a liar." 
 " Don't, please don't speak of it again, Camelia." 
 " Say you are sorry for having said it." 
 " Oh, you little rogue ! " Taking her face between 
 his hands he studied it with a sad curiosity. " I am 
 sorry for having had to say it." 
 
 " Oh, prig, prig, prig." She smiled at him now 
 from the narrow frame, her own delicious smile. 
 
 "And bandersnatch if you will," said Perior, shak 
 ing her gently by the shoulders, and putting her 
 away with a certain resignation. 
 
 " My good old bandersnatch ! Dear old bander- 
 snatch ! After all, I need a bandersnatch, don't I, 
 to keep me straight ? Yes, I forgive you. I must 
 put up with you, and you must put up with me, 
 fibs and all fibs, do you hear, not lies. Oh, ugly 
 word ! " She clasped her hands on his arm, poor 
 Perior ! " And you will stay to lunch ? " 
 
 " No, I won't stay to lunch," said Perior, smiling 
 despite himself. 
 "Why!" 
 " I am busy." 
 
 " You are a prig, you know," said Camelia, as if 
 that summed up the situation conclusively.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHETHER Camelia were decided on accepting Sir 
 Arthur or not, every one else, under a waiting 
 silence, considered the engagement an accomplished 
 fact. Poor Mr. Merriman departed disconsolately 
 when the reality of his utter ruin forced itself upon 
 his unwilling understanding. Sir Harry contem 
 plated the hopeless situation more compliantly, 
 oscillated for a few days between feeble despair 
 and jocular resignation, and then finding it im 
 possible to utterly tear himself away from his 
 charmer's magnetic presence, he settled down to 
 a melancholy flirtation with Mrs. Fox-Darriel that 
 masked his inability to retreat. Lord and Lady 
 Tramley went on to another visit, and the poet 
 who wrote the virile poems and believed in the joy 
 of life, finding Miss Paton less sympathetic than 
 usual, penned a laconic, psychological verselet for 
 her benefit, and departed. 
 
 Camelia seemed rather vague in the furtherance 
 of hospitable projects, and the merest trickle of 
 visitors went through the house, affecting very 
 slightly the really placid routine. 
 
 Lady Paton's whole personality expanded in 
 prettiest contentment ; the calm so far surpassed 
 her expectations, and Camelia seemed very happy. 
 Lady Paton could but take for granted her happiness.
 
 112 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Camelia was living the most poetical moment of 
 life; she made no confidences; but Lady Paton's 
 trust walked in a sadly sweet dream where her 
 daughter's courtship mingled with tearful memories 
 of her own. Charles Paton's smile ; the first flutter 
 ing consciousness that the smile came oftenest for 
 her; she still blushed as she remembered the 
 moment when he had murmured to her as they 
 danced that she had the prettiest throat in England ; 
 it had seemed so daring to little Miss Fairleigh, 
 who had read her first novel only six months before ; 
 the very memory still had the glamour of daring. 
 And Camelia was feeling all those tremulous de 
 lights, with their deep undercurrent of sacred 
 solemnity. 
 
 Camelia was not demonstrative, Lady Paton had 
 sighed over the accepted fact, but she could trace 
 all such natural emotions on Sir Arthur's face when 
 he watched or spoke to her daughter. She already 
 felt a maternal tenderness for him, and his exquisite 
 courtesy, that already implied rights, was nothing 
 less than filial. 
 
 Lady Henge's dignified intellectuality she found 
 indeed rather awesome, but she hoped by careful 
 listening to expand her powers of comprehension, 
 and Lady Henge delivered her expositions of social 
 ethics with a pleasant faith in their tonic effect 
 upon the suppressed mind of her hostess. 
 
 "Suppressed, repressed, Arthur, not shallow," 
 she said to her son, " and you could not ask a 
 daintier, truer gentlewoman for your wife's mother, 
 dear." Lady Henge sighed just a little though 
 quite resigned to the future for the Duchess of
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 113 
 
 Amshire's mind was neither suppressed nor shallow, 
 but as expansive and capable an organ as her own, 
 and infinitely sympathetic. Lady Elizabeth, too ! 
 Lady Elizabeth, who had worked at shirt-making 
 in the slums for two weeks, and had caught typhoid 
 fever at it- even Camelia's sunny charm could not 
 efface the thought of Lady Elizabeth's almost pro 
 vidential fitness. But in spite of inevitable regrets 
 Lady Henge was resigned, and the two mothers 
 got on together very pleasantly, since moulding 
 capability can hardly carp at a gentle, clay-like 
 receptivity. 
 
 Mr. Rodrigg seemed the only new guest intended 
 for any permanence of stay. He duly arrived at 
 the given date and hour, a punctual man, very much 
 aware of his own importance, and of the importance 
 to him, and to others, of every moment. 
 
 And Mr. Rodrigg was really a very important 
 personage and his moments weighty with signifi 
 cance. And this iron-grey, middle-aged man had 
 not at all foolishly fallen in love with the brilliant 
 Miss Paton. A wife so beautiful, so capable, so 
 charming, would be the finishing touch to his 
 influence ; matter-of-fact motives may well have 
 underlain Mr. Rodrigg's amorous determination, 
 which Camelia thought so effectually snuffed out. 
 But indeed Mr. Rodrigg's determination was far too 
 strong to credit hers. His self-confidence smiled 
 kindly upon a pretty coquetry. The exquisite grace 
 of Camelia's rebuff she had almost thought it 
 worthy of publicity, so felicitous had been its delicate 
 sweep round a corner dangerous to friendship had 
 merely impressed Mr. Rodrigg's unappreciative. 
 
 H
 
 H4 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 bluntness with a reassuring conviction of trifling 
 and postponement. 
 
 The lightness of touch, the deft cleverness upon 
 which our poor Titania so prided herself, were 
 surveyed in this instance by an ass's head ; the 
 effect she thought so prettily made was quite missed, 
 and she herself its only spectator. 
 
 The portentousness of Arthur Henge's presence 
 at Enthorpe did not in the least weigh with Mr. 
 Rodrigg against the final choice he considered as 
 expressed in Lady Paton's invitation. Miss Paton 
 had put him off but she had not let him go; so 
 Mr. Rodrigg interpreted the Egeria attitude ; she 
 demanded patience and she should have it. She 
 was too clever a girl to tolerate whining common 
 places ; she would appreciate his whimsical calm ; 
 he would not whine he would wait and humour 
 her. 
 
 She liked to have important people about her, 
 and Mr. Rodrigg explained Sir Arthur very much 
 as Camelia had explained Mr. Rodrigg. It was 
 platonic friendliness quite hopeless. He realised 
 that Camelia might dally with his own hopes, that 
 skill might be necessary to win her finally, and he 
 intended to be very skilful, to show no jealousy or 
 carping that might indispose her towards his future 
 marital authority. And Mr. Rodrigg hardly felt the 
 fitness of jealousy. He was, he thought, a cleverer 
 man than Henge, a man of more intrinsic weight. 
 Henge had a light and pretty talent, spoke with 
 conviction, but was not the man to sway the world 
 with socialism rewarmed in Tory saucepans; whereas 
 Europe trembled at Mr. Rodrigg's nod, at least
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 115 
 
 so Mr. Rodrigg, not unreasonably, was convinced. 
 The "good match" theory in explanation of Camelia's 
 motives only fortified his own quiet consciousness of 
 supremacy. He quite gave Camelia credit for an 
 undazzled directness of vision that would surely 
 apprise her of the side on which her bread was 
 most thickly buttered. So Mr. Rodrigg arrived in 
 an atmosphere of blue-books and business un 
 avoidable, though with a minor effect of a great 
 mind unbending to lighter mundanities. His face 
 was typically British ; ruddy, with broad features 
 clearly hewn; keen eyes, a tight mouth, and an 
 expression of sagacious toleration of things in 
 general. 
 
 , Camelia met him with her prettiest air of mutual 
 understanding that would warrant the neatest epi 
 grams. Her penetration of Mr. Rodrigg's character 
 had never quite realised his tenacious conceit. 
 
 He had been anxious, he had been hurt ; but he 
 had never imagined that Camelia thought him hope 
 less. Her complacent conviction of intellectual 
 conquest was far indeed from his suppositions ; the 
 results of her Italian reading had been adroitly 
 thrown into his speech as a piece of pretty flattery, 
 that a great man might harmlessly permit himself 
 towards a wilful, easily flattered woman. So the 
 two stupidities met quite unconscious one of the 
 other. 
 
 Mr. Rodrigg was to stop for a fortnight at least, 
 and as Sir Arthur had to absent himself at intervals 
 during the period, Camelia was all the more content. 
 She feared that Sir Arthur's attitude of indepen 
 dence and non-expectancy might antagonise Mr.
 
 Ii6 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Rodrigg. She relied upon her own arguments, her 
 own flattering influence. She sat up late at night 
 cramming the pamphlets, reports, and books with 
 which Sir Arthur supplied her The resultant 
 pallor at breakfast deepened the effect of an intel 
 lectual atmosphere in which she wrapped herself 
 serenely. Mr. Rodrigg smiled, paternally almost, 
 and with his most tolerant calm, upon these efforts. 
 He cut her a large slice of cold beef at the side 
 board and advised her to take a glass of port. 
 "You mustn't tire yourself, you know, my dear 
 young lady." 
 
 He rather resented Henge's evident influence 
 when he saw how deeply Camelia was determined 
 on the bill, but not really troubled by it. Camelia's 
 fervour of sympathy seemed really personal ; girlish 
 emotionalism, a futile but pretty pity quite inter 
 preted her tenacity. He was rather pleased that 
 she should be on the side of the factory women, 
 though anxious to explain to her that the logic 
 of his own position need not exclude that par 
 tiality. 
 
 He thought it safer, however, to argue as little 
 as possible, and listened attentively and pleasantly, 
 quite willing to go this far in humouring. Mean 
 while Camelia's delay in announcing an engagement 
 imposed a general silence; no one spoke of Sir 
 Arthur as an accepted lover, and Mr. Rodrigg 
 might perhaps be pardoned if no such instinctive 
 intimation penetrated his thick self-confidence. Sir 
 Arthur coming down for a Saturday and Sunday 
 in Mr. Rodrigg's visit, and going off again on a 
 Monday, rather avoided an encounter.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 117 
 
 Mr. Rodrigg himself good-humouredly introduced 
 the subject of the bill one evening in the smoking- 
 room, and they talked of it amicably and imperson 
 ally for a little while. But after this talk Sir Arthur 
 said to Camelia 
 
 " I see very plainly where he stands. He will 
 be firmly against me ; his reticence doesn't conceal 
 that." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " asked Camelia. She herself 
 was not at all sure. In a walk with Mr. Rodrigg 
 that morning she had certainly observed promising 
 leaf-blades break the stiff soil of his non-committal 
 attitude. Camelia did not imagine that her own 
 beaming smile might well allure those vernal 
 symptoms. 
 
 "Quite sure," said Sir Arthur, who was really 
 getting rather tired of Mr. Rodrigg and his utility, 
 "and now that I won't see you again until next 
 Thursday won't you talk of something as far re 
 moved from the bill as possible." 
 
 " That would be a very uninteresting something," 
 said Camelia. " No, I can think of nothing but 
 politics just now. Whose fault is that, pray ? Did 
 you see the report Mr. Dobson sent me this morning ? 
 You don't want to see it ! Fie, you lukewarm 
 reformer. Now pray be patient we will talk of 
 something else on Thursday, perhaps." So she 
 warded him off, conscious always of that trembling 
 retreat when the momentous question approached 
 her. She was almost glad when Sir Arthur was 
 gone again. At all events, she would make a good 
 fight for his cause whether or no she accepted him. 
 
 " And you are on our side too, are you not ? "
 
 n8 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 she said to Perior, for Perior, more silent than 
 ever, and revolving inner cogitations on his own 
 laxity, still made an almost daily visit. 
 
 He owned that he was on " their side." 
 
 "And you will support us in the Friday" 
 
 " I am going to do my best." 
 
 " But not because I ask you ! " laughed Camelia, 
 who still felt a little soreness since that uncomfor 
 table interview where she had so much surprised 
 herself. She was still rather resentful, and sorry 
 that her tears might have implied confession. She 
 was conscious now of a touch of defiance behind 
 the light smiling of her eyes as he owned that 
 her asking formed no compulsory element in his 
 decision. 
 
 "Don't you think that Mr. Rodrigg may be 
 malleable?" Camelia pursued. "Sir Arthur is to 
 convert him, you know." 
 
 " You or Sir Arthur ? " 
 
 She laughed at this. "Would it be terribly wicked 
 if I tried my hand at it ? " 
 
 " It would be terribly useless," Perior remarked ; 
 but Camelia looked placidly unconvinced. 
 
 " I am justified in trying, am I not ? " 
 
 " That depends." Perior was decidedly cautious. 
 
 " Since I believe thoroughly in the bill ; since 
 only intellectual forces will be brought to bear on 
 our stodgy friend, there is nothing of the lobbyist 
 in it." 
 
 " I am sure that Henge wouldn't like it," said 
 Perior, with the certain coolness he always evinced 
 in speaking to her of Sir Arthur. 
 
 " Why not ? "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELlA 11$ 
 
 " It would put him in a false position towards 
 Rodrigg. Rodrigg will imagine that you are bribing 
 him." 
 
 " Bribing him ! " Camelia straightened herself. 
 
 " Yes ; that the price paid for his apostasy will be 
 your hand," and this indeed was exactly what Mr. 
 Rodrigg, with some alarm, was beginning to think. 
 
 " Apostasy ! If the creature won't be sincerely 
 convinced we don't want him ! " cried Camelia. 
 
 "Very well, you have my opinion of the matter." 
 Perior's whole manner had of late been particularly 
 irksome to Camelia. 
 
 Lady Henge meanwhile, seeing her son's foe 
 within the gates, most seriously and conscientiously, 
 and openly, made good her opportunity. She took 
 her mental mastery far more gravely than Camelia 
 took hers, and poor Mr. Rodrigg began to think 
 that he was asked to pay a heavy price for his 
 hymeneal visit when Lady Henge cornered him in 
 the drawing-room and stupefyingly admonished him. 
 Lady Henge's arguments were all based on superbly 
 moral grounds, and levelled with severity at the 
 iniquity of individualistic theories, which she demon 
 strated to be scientifically and ethically unsound. 
 He at times found it very difficult to keep his temper. 
 But under the exquisite warmth of Camelia's urgency 
 his hopes were high. He could regard with humour 
 ing half compliances this pretty whim of his pretty 
 Camelia. Camelia would have raged could she have 
 known Mr. Rodrigg's real impressions impressions 
 accompanied by the fatherly tolerance of that 
 " pretty Camelia."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SIR ARTHUR was back again on Thursday, alertly 
 conscious of a half promise, and he intended to put 
 it to the test while he and Camelia rode together 
 in the afternoon. The party was made up : Mrs. 
 Fox - Darriel, Gwendolen Holt, Sir Harry, and 
 another young man but Camelia did not go. The 
 horses were already before the door, and she, fully 
 equipped in riding costume, engaged before her 
 mirror on the final details of veil and gloves, when 
 Perior rode up ; Camelia saw him through the 
 window, and heard him decline to join their party, 
 as he had come for Mary. Mary was not a good 
 rider, nor could she be urged beyond the dullest 
 trot, and Perior's refusal was no doubt on her 
 account. Poor Alceste ! Condemned to Mary for 
 a whole afternoon ! In a rapid change of project 
 Camelia dashed out of her habit and into her 
 prettiest white dress, sent down a note to Sir 
 Arthur pleading sudden headache, and command 
 ing him to go without her, saw the five depart 
 obediently, and placidly descended to capture Perior. 
 Mary was getting ready; Camelia, as she passed 
 her room, saw her sewing a button on a glove, her 
 habit laid in readiness on the bed. Camelia would 
 have liked her ride ; it was only from the impulsive 
 wish for ten or fifteen minutes with Perior that she
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 121 
 
 had sacrificed it, and she saw with satisfaction that 
 Mary would take quite that time. 
 
 " Well, how do you do ? " she said, finding him 
 as usual in the morning-room. " I think we have 
 got him," she added, picking up the threads of their 
 last conversation. 
 
 "That is Rodrigg, of course," said Perior, looking 
 with a pleasure he could not conceal at her charming 
 appearance. He felt for a moment like telling her 
 that in that dress she was bewitchingly pretty, but 
 checked the impulse with some surprise at it. 
 
 " Yes, I argued out the whole third clause with 
 him yesterday," said Camelia, smiling her happiest 
 smile, for she was quite conscious of those unspoken 
 words. 
 
 " Dear me ! " 
 
 " He seemed impressed though you are not. 
 Sit down." 
 
 " He seemed what he was not, no doubt I 
 haven't the faculty." Perior spoke quite good- 
 temperedly. Indeed, Camelia's political manoeuvres 
 did not displease him consoled him in a sense. 
 There was a pretty folly about them quite touching, 
 and her earnestness seemed to vouch for some real 
 feeling. 
 
 " Why should you imagine that he pretends ? " 
 she asked, taking the place beside him on the sofa 
 and leaning forward, her arms on her knees. 
 
 " The man wants to please you," said Perior, 
 looking at her white hands hanging idly together. 
 He wondered again whether egotism or a real fond 
 ness for Arthur moved her. 
 
 The long delay of the engagement excited and
 
 122 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 made him nervous. It had usually been so easy 
 to see through Camelia, and he did not like the 
 perplexity. Still, the thought that she hesitated 
 pleased him ; she would accept Arthur, doubtlessly, 
 but at least she would imagine that she cared for 
 him. Camelia had gained some moral value in his 
 eyes from that pause. 
 
 "Why should you imagine that he pretends?" 
 she asked, feeling delightedly that the atmosphere 
 was much less chilling than usual. 
 
 " The man wants to please you." 
 
 "Well, and what then ?" 
 
 " He expects to marry you." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " she said with a laugh of truest 
 sincerity. 
 
 "Tell him that you are engaged to Arthur, and 
 see." Perior's curiosity made that little probe, and 
 the eyes of both showed a mutual self-conscious 
 ness ; both thought of the last scene in the morning- 
 room. 
 
 " I can't make the experiment yet, even to please 
 you," said Camelia, satisfied that her cheeks showed 
 no rising colour. " Mr. Rodrigg is really attached 
 to me. He would do a great deal for me." 
 
 "Your smile for all reward." 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " You are a goose, Camelia." 
 
 But she was pleasing him ; her conceit amused 
 him almost tenderly, and he laughed. 
 
 " You think me fatuous, no doubt," said Camelia, 
 laughing too. 
 
 " Yes, rather fatuous. Not as clear-sighted as 
 usual."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 123 
 
 " Mr. Rodrigg knows that I could never marry 
 him," said Camelia more gravely; "he can only 
 hope for my smile, and, if he helps me through, 
 I shall always smile." 
 
 " I don't credit Mr. Rodrigg with the faintest 
 flavour of such humility." 
 
 Camelia's smile, confidently unconvinced, now 
 shifted to a humorous little grimace. " He never 
 really hoped. As though I could have married a 
 man with a nose like that ! " 
 
 " I maintain that he does so hope despite his 
 nose ; an excellently honest nose it is too." 
 
 " So broad at the tip ! as though he had flattened 
 it against adverse forces all his life. It is a plebeian 
 trait, an inheritance from money-getting ancestors 
 who held theirs conscientiously to the grindstone." 
 
 " Mine should show the peculiarity," and Perior 
 rubbed it, " it has been ground persistently." 
 
 "Ah almerely acquired tendency; besides, you 
 are not going to ask me to marry you so you may 
 carry your nose fearlessly." Camelia's eye, despite 
 the light audacity of her tone, fixed him with a 
 certain alert hardness. 
 
 Perior bowed, his hand on his heart. "Thanks 
 for the intimation. I shall carry it quite fearlessly, 
 I assure you." 
 
 Camelia laughed. " But I like your nose," said 
 she, leaning towards him ; and, very much as a 
 kitten gives a roguish paw-tap, she drew a finger 
 briskly down the feature in question. 
 
 Perior grew a little red, and drew back rather 
 sharply. 
 
 "What a staid person you are," said Camelia,
 
 124 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 quite unabashed; "you don't take a compliment 
 gracefully, Alceste; not that it was a compliment, 
 exactly, since your nose is not at all handsome ; a 
 poor thing but to my taste. I like its dominant 
 ruggedness, and that nice lift in the bridge." 
 
 "Well, Camelia, I came to take Mary out riding, 
 you know," said Perior, who still showed signs of 
 uneasiness under her scrutiny. 
 
 "Yes, I know; you are so good to Mary. She 
 is getting ready." 
 
 Camelia contemplated Perior's paternal relation 
 towards Mary most unsuspectingly, yet she really 
 did not like it. She could not like anything that 
 withdrew a very important tributary from the river- 
 like receptivity of her existence. Mary's narrow 
 channel was quite unmeet for such a complimentary 
 contribution, and Camelia was sincerely convinced 
 of the mere charitableness of Perior's attitude. 
 Then, above all, Perior was her own especial pro 
 perty ; Mary might profit by him when she did not 
 feel the want of him, and this afternoon she wanted 
 him very much, as it now struck her. To have 
 sacrificed her ride for this bare ten minutes had 
 been hardly worth while. She had not looked 
 beyond the impulse of the moment, and the lonely 
 hours stretched in long inconsistency before her. 
 She thought of them now with some surprised 
 dismay, and her eyes, still contemplating Perior's 
 nose, grew vague with conjecture. Perior certainly, 
 despite his latter severity, would rather spend his 
 afternoon with her than with Mary. He could not 
 own to it, of course, nor would she force him to 
 such an issue ; but it might be managed pleasantly
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 125 
 
 for every one, for all three. Camelia's life, so wide 
 in its all embracing objectivity, had little time for 
 self-analysis, little time therefore for putting herself 
 in other people's places. Her lack of sympathy 
 was grounded on a lack of all self-knowledge. 
 Therefore her mind turned the matter quickly in 
 the direction that best suited the desire of the 
 moment, good and bad being to Camelia external 
 facts that either pleased or displeased herself, and 
 she said without one inner compunction, "Shall I 
 hurry her up ? And I must see that she puts her 
 hat on properly. Mary has an unerring instinct 
 for the unbecoming." 
 
 " Has she ? " said Perior, in the tone that Camelia 
 well understood as being altogether unencouraging 
 and perhaps disgusted. " Don't hurry her. I can 
 wait." 
 
 " See how unkindly I dress my best impulses," 
 said Camelia, smiling. " I really want to help her, 
 and to make her smart and tidy. A few touches 
 of my fingers about Mary's unfurnished forehead, 
 and her face assumes a certain grace and prettiness. 
 Alceste, you must not take my flippancy au grand 
 serieux you are in danger of becoming ridiculous, 
 Alceste, I warn you of it." She had certainly 
 succeeded in making "Alceste" smile, and with a 
 reassured and reassuring wave of the hand she left 
 him, delighted with her own ability for forcing him 
 to swallow her naughtinesses for swallow them he 
 must ; she would feign nothing for him ; she would 
 exaggerate even the defects he saw so solemnly. 
 She was quite sure now that she must not be left 
 alone, and that Perior must spend the afternoon
 
 126 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 with her. She ran upstairs quickly, conscious of 
 how prettily she sprang from stair to stair, of how 
 charmingly with its silk and muslin rustle her white 
 dress swayed about her, conscious even of the 
 distinguished elegance of her white hand gliding 
 up the hand rail ; for Camelia had always time for 
 these aesthetic notes, and her grace, her dress, and 
 her hand were so many reasons for keeping Perior 
 to admire them. Mary was quite ready, and looking 
 really nice ; a pretty colour, and the dull fairness of 
 her hair smoothed neatly beneath her hat. 
 
 Camelia did not think of Mary as an obstacle to 
 be callously pushed aside ; but as an insignificance 
 rather, quite as well satisfied with the barrel-organ 
 equivalent she would offer, as with the orchestra 
 that Camelia intended to keep for herself, since she 
 had the supreme right of appreciation. 
 
 Indeed she hardly thought of Mary at all, as she 
 acted surprise on the threshold. 
 
 " Were you going with them ? They are gone, 
 dear!" 
 
 Mary turned from the mirror, her habit skirt 
 falling from her arm ; on her face a dismal astonish 
 ment, that Camelia, absorbed in the mental comple 
 tion of her arrangement, hardly noticed. 
 
 "Sir Arthur, Gwendolen, the others you were 
 going out with them." She scarcely knew why 
 she hedged her position with this pretence of ignor 
 ance. But Mary's face brightened happily. 
 
 " Oh no, Mr. Perior is going with me. You 
 haven't seen him, then. He came for me." 
 
 Camelia had the barrel-organ all in readiness, and 
 prepared to roll it forward without delay.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 127 
 
 " Oh ! did he ? Well, Mary, I have another plan 
 for you this afternoon, you will like it just as well, 
 I know. I promised Mrs. Grier to make that 
 charitable round of visits to her poor people with 
 her this afternoon. We were to go to the alms- 
 houses, and I have a basket of sweets for the children 
 in Copley, and now I must give up going because of 
 this dreadful headache, and knowing that nothing 
 would please you more " 
 
 It was quite true that Camelia had made the 
 appointment with Mrs. Grier, but on agreeing to go 
 out riding with Sir Arthur, she had intended to ride 
 to Mrs. Grier's house and make charming apologies 
 of which Sir Arthur's tyrannous monopoly would 
 bear the brunt. By her present plan both Mary 
 and Mrs. Grier would be pleased. She congratulated 
 herself on her thoughtful dexterity. Mary liked 
 Mrs. Grier so much, liked almshouses and poor 
 children, and especially liked the distributing of 
 goodies among them ; Mary gained everything by 
 the little shuffle, and she was not at all prepared 
 for a certain stiffening and hardening in her 
 cousin's expression. " It is a lovely basket, and 
 tea and curates galore," she added, turning on 
 the final roulade of the barrel-organ, rather wonder 
 ing, for the coldness of Mary's look was apparent, 
 though Camelia did not divine the underlying con 
 fusion. 
 
 Mary was well trained in self-abnegation, but 
 she turned her eyes away without replying for a 
 moment. "Could you not send word to Mrs. Grier?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Camelia felt quite a shock of surprise at the tone,
 
 128 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 and a sense of injury that hardened her in advance 
 against possible opposition. 
 
 "Oh, it is too late, my dear she would be 
 terribly disappointed ; and the children and the 
 tea prepared for me the people invited. Why, 
 Mary, don't you want to go ? " 
 
 " I wanted the ride," said Mary in a low voice ; 
 and growing very red she added, " I am afraid Mr. 
 Perior will think me rude." 
 
 " Oh, I will make your excuses ! " Camelia, in 
 all the impetus of her desire, was much vexed by 
 this ungrateful doggedness. 
 
 " Mr. Perior and I could ride over and explain," 
 Mary added. 
 
 Camelia had never met in her cousin such oppo 
 sition, and a certain dryness mingled with the real 
 grievance in her voice as she said 
 
 " Is your heart so set on this ride, Mary ? Mr. 
 Perior will take you out again, and you know that 
 the pleasure is always rather one-sided, since he 
 particularly likes a good gallop across country. It 
 isn't quite like you, I think, to disappoint a friend 
 like Mrs. Grier you are so fond of Mrs. Grier, I 
 thought." 
 
 During this speech Mary's face grew crimson. 
 Setting her lips, she began quickly to draw off her 
 gloves; Camelia felt suddenly a sense of discomfort. 
 
 " You will enjoy it, I am sure, Mary." 
 
 Mary made no reply, and silently unbuttoned 
 her coat. 
 
 " I beg of you, Mary, not to go if you are going 
 to feel aggrieved about it. I do not see what I am 
 to do. I thought it would be quite a treat for you."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 129 
 
 "Thanks, Camelia." 
 
 " You will go, then ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, Camelia." 
 
 Camelia felt more and more uncomfortable; her 
 object was gained and she could hardly relinquish 
 it, but she wanted to hurry away from the unpleas- 
 ing contemplation of this badly-tempered instru 
 ment. She lingered, however. 
 
 " You are right to keep on that straw hat it is 
 very becoming to you. Here, let me draw your 
 hair forward a little. Now you will make conquests, 
 Mary ! The basket is in my dressing-room on the 
 little table. Shall I order the dog-cart for you ? " 
 
 " Thanks very much, Camelia." 
 
 " Mary, you make me feel horridly ! " Camelia 
 could not check that impulse. " Do you mind ? 
 You see that I can't get out of it ; you see that it 
 wouldn't do don't you ? I hope you don't really 
 mind." 
 
 " Oh no ; I was a little disappointed, it was very 
 thoughtless very ungrateful." The conventional 
 humility rasped Camelia's discontent. " And you 
 will tell Mr. Perior ? you will explain ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, dear." 
 
 Mary was now so completely divested of riding 
 attire that Camelia left her with the assurance of 
 having effected her purpose most thoroughly. But 
 alas ! it had rather lost its savour. As she slowly 
 descended the stairs she realised that the game, 
 though worth the candle, perhaps, had been de 
 cidedly spoiled by the candle's unmanageable smok 
 ing and guttering. Mary's decided sullenness had 
 been quite an unlooked-for feature in the little 
 
 I
 
 130 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 scheme ; it had involved her in a web of petty 
 falsities for which Perior would have scorned her. 
 
 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,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 131 
 
 and afterwards tea and curates galore " Camelia 
 realised 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, wish 
 ing 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. 
 
 "Sacrificing herself! Conceited man! Do you 
 weigh yourself against half-a-dozen curates rein 
 forced by tea and sandwiches ? " 
 
 " Mary likes our rides immensely and I never 
 saw any signs of a fondness for curates." 
 
 " No, but a fondness for Mrs. Grier, almshouses, 
 tea, curates, and the Lady Bountiful atmosphere 
 combined." 
 
 Perior looked absently out of the window ; pre 
 sently he said, " I don't think she is looking over 
 well you know her father died of consumption." 
 
 "Don't; he was my uncle!" Camelia exclaimed. 
 " Still, my chest is as sound as a drum." She gave 
 it a reassuring thump. 
 
 " That must be very comforting to you, personally, 
 but is Mary's ? " 
 
 She looked at him candidly. 
 
 " You foolish, fussy old person ! Mary is solidly,
 
 132 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 stolidly well; who could associate the lilies and 
 languors of illness with Mary ? You are trying to 
 poetise Mary's prose to worry me, but you can't 
 rhyme it, I assure you." 
 
 " I don't know about that ! " Perior was again, 
 for a moment, silent. " I don't think Mary has a 
 very gay time of it," he said, speaking with a half 
 nervous resolution, as though he had often wished 
 to speak and kept back the words. " She doesn't go 
 out much with you in London, does she ? " 
 
 Camelia did not like his tone, but she replied 
 with lightness, " Not much; Mary is a home-keeping 
 body. She is not exactly fitted for worldly gaieties, 
 and she understands it perfectly." 
 
 " How trying for Mary " the nervousness was 
 quite gone now once he had broached a delicate 
 subject Perior could handle it with little compunction. 
 
 " Mary is very happy, if you please. She adores 
 me, and is devoted to Mamma. Mamma is certainly 
 nicer to her than I am that is an affair of tempera 
 ment, for Mary does bore me tremendously I think 
 she knows that she does, but she adores me, since 
 I don't deserve it the way of the world a horrid 
 place I don't deny it." 
 
 " Happy Mary ! allowed to adore your effulgence 
 but at a distance since she bores you, and knows 
 she does ! " And over his collar Camelia could 
 observe that Perior's neck had grown red. She 
 joined him at the window, and said, looking up at 
 his face 
 
 "Why do you force me to such speeches ? I 
 am not responsible for the inequalities of nature 
 though I recognise them so cold-bloodedly. The
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 133 
 
 contrast does not hurt her, for she is a good, con 
 tented little soul, and then for nature does give 
 compensations she has no keen susceptibilities ; " 
 she locked her hands on his shoulder, and smiling 
 at him, " Come, you know that I am fond of Mary. 
 You should have seen how prettily I arranged her 
 hair to-day it would have softened your heart 
 towards me. Come, we are not going to quarrel 
 again." 
 
 Perior's eye turned on her, certainly softened in 
 expression. " By no means, I hope," and he smiled 
 a little; "especially as I must be off since I have 
 missed my ride." 
 
 Camelia's face at this unlooked-for consummation 
 took on an expression of sincerest dismay. 
 
 " Going ! you will leave me all alone ! They 
 have all gone ! " 
 
 Perior laughed, looking at her now with the same 
 touch of irrepressible pleasure she could usually 
 count on arousing. 
 
 " Poor little baby ! and it has a headache, too ? " 
 
 " Yes, it has ; please stay with it." 
 
 She was quite sure that he wanted to stay ; 
 indeed, Camelia's certainty of Perior's fundamental 
 fondness for her was an article of faith untouched 
 by doubt. 
 
 "Very well, you want to show off your dress, I 
 see." Perior's smile in its humouring coyness was 
 charming; Camelia felt that she quite adored him 
 when he so smiled at her. " A very pretty dress it 
 is; I have been taking it in." 
 
 "And we will have tea in the garden," said 
 Camelia, in tones of happy satisfaction, "and you
 
 134 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 will see how good I am when you are good to me. 
 And I'll tell you all about the people who are 
 coming for I must have more of them droves of 
 them ; in batches, artistic batches, ' smart ' batches, 
 intellectual batches, political batches. You and I 
 will look at them." 
 
 " Thanks ; you don't limit me to a batch then ? " 
 
 They were still standing near the window, and 
 she kept a hand on his shoulder, and looked at him 
 now with the gravity that made her face so strange. 
 
 " No, dear Alceste, you know I don't." 
 
 He returned her look, smiling with a little con 
 straint. 
 
 "We must be more together," Camelia went on, 
 " we must take up our studying. No, Mr. Rodrigg, 
 I can't walk with you this morning, I am reading 
 the Agamemnon with Mr. Perior." Camelia's eyes, 
 mouth, the delicately long lines of her cheek, 
 quivered with the half malicious, half tender smile 
 that tilted every curve and every shadow from calm 
 to roguery. 
 
 " How Mr. Rodrigg will hate me, to be sure," 
 said Perior, who at that moment felt that he would 
 like to kiss his bunch of primroses an illusion of 
 dewiness possessed him. 
 
 "And now for tea under the copper-beech. And 
 I will read to you. What shall I read ? It will 
 be quite like old days ! " 
 
 "When we were young together," said Perior, 
 smiling at her so fondly that she felt deliciously 
 reassured as to everything. 
 
 The gods always helped a young lady who helped 
 herself. Such had been Camelia's experience in
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 135 
 
 life, even when she helped herself to other people's 
 belongings. 
 
 At all events, with hardly a qualm of conscience, 
 Camelia enjoyed the afternoon she had wrested 
 from poor Mary. 
 
 The tea-table was duly installed under the wide 
 shade of the copper-beech. Perior carried out an 
 armful of books and reviews from which to choose. 
 They drank their tea and ate their bread and butter, 
 and Camelia read aloud from the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes. And it cannot be denied that Perior, 
 sitting in the cool green shadow, listening to the 
 perfect French accent, looking at the white figure 
 sprinkled with the pale shifting gold that filtered 
 through the leaves above them, enjoyed himself a 
 great deal more than he would have done with 
 Mary. Truly at times the way of transgressors is 
 very easy.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BUT retribution followed Camelia's manoeuvre. On 
 the advent of Mr. Rodrigg, very red and hot after a 
 long country walk with Lord Haversham (who also 
 had axes to grind), Perior said good-bye, remounted 
 his horse, and rode off. It was six o'clock, a 
 warmly rosy evening. The hot gold was gone, but 
 in the sunset influences there was a certain oppres 
 sion. Perior yawned and rode slowly along the 
 strip of turf that bordered the dusty road. But 
 though he felt physically very indolent, his mind 
 was delightfully alert, weaving busily, with a sense 
 of freedom and joyousness, a web of hopeful 
 imaginings, swinging the illusive, intangible fila 
 ments from point to point of the afternoon's experi 
 ence. Nothing, in his estimation, could raise Camelia 
 much above the level to which that cluster of 
 frivolous lies had sunk her; his very heart ached 
 when he thought of them : especially of the lie 
 to Arthur; but the tears of last week, though his 
 reason denied their influence, had in reality touched, 
 surprised, and softened him, and made him hopeful. 
 And now came the smiles, the sincerity, the sweet 
 ness of this afternoon ; he could not distrust them. 
 The idealist impulse the master mood of his 
 nature, though reined in so often by bitter experi 
 ence, began to evolve an ell from the supposititious 
 
 136
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 137 
 
 inch of excellence. The possibility of moral worth ; 
 the implication of some real rectitude of soul, that 
 her truth to him seemed to justify; the formative 
 power of a real affection for Arthur : so Perior wove 
 his spider web, working as the spider does, from the 
 merest foothold, and bridging chasms with a shining 
 thread of trust. 
 
 Yet alas ! for Camelia that afternoon had cer 
 tainly been a bungling piece of mismanagement, a 
 covetous snatching at the present, a foolhardy for 
 getting of the future. 
 
 Perior met Mary returning in the dog-cart. He 
 had not forgotten Mary, nor his suspicions of self- 
 sacrifice. He turned his horse's head again and 
 proposed to ride back with her. Yes, he had 
 plenty of time ; and in assuring her of it he smiled 
 his kindest smile, and the pony and the horse fell 
 into a walk. The hours under the copper-beech, 
 with Camelia's white dress and Camelia's shining 
 head to look at, had seemed delightfully cool and 
 pleasant, yet the autumn afternoon had been a hot 
 one, and Mary's face was flushed, tired, and to her 
 own knowledge, even a little tremulous. 
 
 " Did you have a nice afternoon ? " he asked her. 
 
 " Oh, very thanks ; " the habit of submissive 
 gratitude was too strong to be mastered at the first 
 moment, though she added, " Camelia told you how 
 sorry I was ? " 
 
 "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 humour with 
 Mary, for even he could interpret as alarmed and
 
 138 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 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 resent 
 ment, of dismay at herself that she should wish to 
 display that resentment should wish to retaliate 
 for humiliations too deep for display, getting al 
 together 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 con 
 fusion. " 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 beauti 
 ful, 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
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 139 
 
 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. 
 
 " How considerate of Camelia ! " Perior's anger 
 made any careful analysis of Camelia's motives 
 impossible. She had shirked an irksome duty, and 
 kept him to entertain her laziness. The latter fact 
 did not in the least mollify him ; it was of a piece 
 with her grasping selfishness, Mary's pleasure not 
 weighing a feather's weight against the momentary 
 wish. She had gone to " hurry " Mary, and on her 
 return from the cousinly little errand, had given 
 him the impression of Mary's uninfluenced change 
 of plan even implying curates as its cause ! Liar ! 
 The word almost choked him as he kept it down, 
 for he did not want Mary to know her a liar. 
 
 " She went to your room to ask you to go ? " he 
 pursued, choosing a safe question. 
 
 But his persistence aroused in Mary a certain 
 dim suspicion. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "she was surprised to see me 
 dressed. She did not know I was going with you." 
 The very force of her inner resentment a hating
 
 :.: THE COXFOUXDIXG OF CAMEOA 
 
 resentment, as she fcftt witth terror made her gasp 
 at an at least outward loyalty. Bat By bad 
 
 ___ _..-. ._. _ _ _ _ _ 
 
 SI9C SDUmuCU UBC WVI5 
 
 tmgfing with probability, if aped upon her. She 
 loohco qmdcty at IVnor. He was winttc to the 
 
 JIDSL JLliBS ^evebuioo f-jmt f v ^rtfnfyH bflRu m*c ipvt 
 his horse to the trot, and the dug-CMl, haafcai^i; its 
 
 ____ ___ - 1, -.7.1- 1, T , , 
 
 - 
 *^ -* 
 
 Mary could hardly have spoken. Her nind was 
 in a wliiil of biuka^ distracted thoogfats^ that only 
 cxdr to c^MffTTrtc^ vrfacn the wsxtfifcc ^* l ^TM'^*^ffi 
 of Camefia's Man robbery brake <ma- her. 
 
 Perioir's seaming rage meanwhile honied forward 
 
 to ^weak itsett ^^^ C^aHieba r "^ vras OQDSCSOOS GKUV 
 
 ~ mm j 
 
 oi its scofcfamg. 
 
 Tnfj reached the paik gales in sflenoe; then 
 
 Mary was able to say, "Are yoa coming in?" 
 "Yes, I wiD come in for a moment." 
 "You yon wont say anything about my 
 
 "My dear Mary, I must apeak to Camefia; but 
 you have act used her of nothing, nor shall she 
 tiiinlr yon have. I wfll come far you to-morrow, 
 he added as he helped her down from the dog-cart 
 at the door; "we wffl have our ride. Don't be 
 persuaded out of it either. Let other people do 
 their own charities. It won't harm them." 
 
 Ladr Paloa was in the hall, a cool, gentle em- 
 bodinient of the evening. "Mary brought you 
 back? Yon are going to dine, Mkhad?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "No; I only want to see Camefia for a moment" 
 
 "I have just come from her. She is with Mr.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 141 
 
 Rodrigg, talking politics," and Lady Paton's smile 
 implied the softest pride in Camelia's prowess in 
 that pursuit. " She says you have had an old-time 
 afternoon, reading together. You must take up 
 your reading again, Michael for the time that she 
 is left to us." 
 
 Mary, going slowly up the stairs, bent her head 
 as she heard, " Yes ; he had stayed with Camelia 
 all the afternoon." He did not care to ride with 
 her no, for all his kindness, the pleasure of the 
 rides was poisoned for ever. That was the thought 
 that, at the sight of him, had cut her to the quick, 
 bringing the tears to her eyes. More than Camelia's 
 lie, Camelia's cruelty in dealing her that humiliation, 
 burned. When she thought of it the blackness of 
 her own heart terrified her. She felt that she 
 hated Camelia, and when she reached her room, 
 she bolted the door and fell on her bed in an agony 
 of weeping. 
 
 Camelia perhaps counted a little too confidently 
 upon Mary's " adoration " for her. To Mary, 
 Camelia had always seemed the bright personifica 
 tion of beauty, cleverness, joy. She had wondered 
 at her, rather than admired her. Her attitude of 
 mind had been as that of a child staring at the 
 unattainable moon, shining silvery-gold, and sailing 
 far above in a wide clear sky. 
 
 She had seldom been conscious in the past of 
 any slight or injury. Her most constant feeling 
 was one of quiet duty. Camelia's little kindnesses 
 surprised her; her unkindnesses she took as a 
 matter of course. But now, in this dreadful clash 
 of ill-matched interests, her life against Camelia's
 
 142 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 game, all the sense of duty, of gratitude, of admira 
 tion, went down in black shipwreck. She found 
 that they had been flimsy things, after all, that 
 under their peaceful surface there had been for 
 many weeks a lava -like heaving of resentment. 
 And the worst terror was to see her life bereft of 
 all supports to see it unblessed, all hatred and 
 despair. For even at the moment she could judge 
 herself, measure how much she had lost in losing 
 her blind humility that at least gave calm and a 
 certain self-respect could accuse herself of in 
 justice. Camelia had lied ; but then Camelia could 
 never have divined the rash folly of Mary's secret 
 must never divine it ; and the cruel humiliation of 
 that one blighting intimation of Perior's charity 
 hurt more than the lie, and Camelia's ignorance 
 of the hurt she had inflicted only made it ache the 
 more.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MEANWHILE Perior marched off to the garden. 
 He passed through the morning-room where Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel was writing. 
 
 " So you didn't get your ride either ? " said Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel, who had her own reasons and not at 
 all complex ones for disliking Mr. Perior. " It 
 was rather hot." 
 
 Perior in his indifference did not even divine the 
 suspicion that saw in his arrival, and Camelia's 
 defection and amusing headache, a portentousness 
 threatening to the object she had set her heart 
 upon. 
 
 Perior replied shortly, and it was with very little 
 love that she watched him walk over the lawn. 
 Camelia really was a fool, and who knew how far 
 her folly might not go. 
 
 Camelia was still under the copper-beech, and 
 still talking to Mr. Rodrigg. Perior perforce acknow 
 ledged her innocence of flirtatious methods. Her 
 earnest pose elbows on the arm of her chair, hands 
 clasped, head gravely intent denoted the serious 
 ness with which she took her role. 
 
 Mr. Rodrigg's smile might have warned her. He 
 balanced a teaspoon neatly on his cup, and looked 
 from it to her, vastly unimpressed as to the real 
 purport of the conversation.
 
 144 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Perior's mood was too miserable, too savage, to 
 allow him more than a mere dart of cynical amuse 
 ment at her folly. Camelia turned her head, sur 
 prised at seeing him. Smiling a complacent little 
 smile she patted the chair beside her. 
 
 " So you came back after all." 
 
 " Yes." The nipped monosyllable, like a sudden 
 douche of icy water, told her that since he had left 
 her their relations had changed, and changed very 
 much for the worse. Her conjectures sprang imme 
 diately to Mary. Bother Mary ! what had she said ? 
 But at the thought of what she might have said 
 Camelia knew that her heart was shaking. Her 
 look, on a first impulse, would have been entreating, 
 but in the presence of a third person it grew cold 
 in answer to his, and she turned again to Mr. 
 Rodrigg. 
 
 " Go on, please ; I want your answer. I have 
 still that one fallacy to demolish, you know." 
 
 Mr. Rodrigg observed Perior affably ; he was a 
 really important opponent. " Miss Paton wishes, I 
 believe, to institute a sort of eighteenth century role 
 for women in politics," he said, " the rdle that 
 obtained in France during that ominous century. 
 She expects to rule England through her cau- 
 series" 
 
 " Indeed, I fancy that England would be very 
 prettily ruled ! " said Camelia, laughing. 
 
 Perior switched the dust on his boots and made 
 no reply. 
 
 "You have been reading, I hear," Mr. Rodrigg 
 continued, seizing gratefully the chance of escaping 
 from the bill, " a very interesting number of the
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 145 
 
 Revue des Deux Mondes. I looked at it a day or 
 two since : the serial romance is quite a new depar 
 ture in style. There is certainly new leaven work 
 ing in French literature. The revolt from naturalism 
 is very significant, very interesting, though some 
 of the extremes of opposition, such as symbolism, 
 tend to become as unhealthy." 
 
 " Symbolism, mysticism, in the modern natural 
 istic French writer, is merely the final form of 
 decadence," Camelia observed with some senten- 
 tiousness, feeling Perior's silent presence as an 
 impulsion towards artificiality in tone and manner, 
 " the irridescent stage of decay pardon me for 
 being nasty but they are so nasty! I have had 
 quite enough of the Revue des Deux Mondes so to 
 business, Mr. Rodrigg." But though Camelia was 
 quite willing to ignore the new-comer, Mr. Rodrigg 
 insisted on dragging him into the running, until at 
 last, perceiving a most unencouraging unwillingness, 
 he rose and left him to the tete-a-tete for which he 
 had evidently returned, going off to the house very 
 good-humouredly. Perior's position was altogether 
 unique, and not one of Camelia's lovers gave his 
 intimacy a thought. 
 
 As Mr. Rodrigg's wide back disappeared through 
 the morning-room windows Camelia turned her head 
 to Perior. 
 
 " Well," she said, leaning back in her chair and 
 putting her finger-tips together with a pleasantly 
 judicial air, "what have you to say? You look 
 very glum." 
 
 " I met Mary, Camelia." 
 
 " Ah ! Did she have a good afternoon ? "
 
 146 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " No ; I fancy it was as dull to her as it would 
 have been to you." 
 
 " Impossible. Mary loves such things ; besides, 
 I do not find them dull." 
 
 Perior looked at her. 
 
 "What a liar you are," he said. If hate and 
 scorn could wither, Camelia felt they would then 
 have withered her; she quite recognised them in 
 his tone. 
 
 But she was able to say with apparent calm 
 not crediting the endurance of those unkind senti 
 ments towards her, " Indeed ; you have called me 
 that before." 
 
 "Will you deny," said Perior, looking at her with 
 his most icy steadiness Camelia keeping her eyes 
 on his, and feeling that for the moment the best 
 thing she could do was to hold firmly to their calm 
 and luminous directness of expression "will you 
 deny that you went up to ask Mary to take your 
 place? that you found her ready to go with me? 
 that you pretended not to know that I had come for 
 her? she let that out in excusing you from my 
 disgust ! didn't suspect you ! that to me you pre 
 tended she had gone to Mrs. Grier's of her own 
 accord ? " 
 
 The withering had begun to operate. Camelia 
 felt his outward and her inner press of feeling 
 vanquishing the mild inquiry of her look. She 
 dropped her eyes. "Will you tell me why you 
 take the trouble to debase yourself for such a 
 trifle?" 
 
 Camelia gazed at the grass. She had cried when 
 he accused her unjustly; but now that her own
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 147 
 
 hurrying, searching thoughts could find no loop 
 hole for denial she felt no wish to cry. She was 
 not touched, but silenced, quelled. The enormity 
 of her misdeeds made her thoughtful, now that 
 they were put so plainly before her. She felt 
 herself contemplating the sum of lies with an al 
 most impersonal curiosity. 
 
 " Camelia ! " The odd pitch of his voice, sharp 
 with a sudden, uncontrollable emotion, made her 
 look up. 
 
 He rose, paused, looking back at her. "You 
 are breaking my heart," he said. He had not 
 intended to say it, nor known the truth that now 
 came imperatively to his lips. How she had hurt 
 him, after all ! He felt that he was almost appeal 
 ing to her, that indignation, scorn, hatred of her 
 baseness, were as nothing compared with that 
 appeal not to hurt him ; and he grew very white. 
 An answering pang shot through Camelia's heart 
 whether pain, pity, or triumph she could not have 
 told ; but she said quickly, her eyes rounded in 
 unfamiliar solemnity, still on his 
 
 " Breaking your heart ? " 
 
 "I care for you," said Perior; "I only ask for a 
 mere cranny, where a friendly tenderness might 
 find foothold one ray of sincerity, of honour 
 to make me feel that my fondness for you is not 
 a a contemptible, a weakening folly. It's as if 
 you dashed me down on the rocks just as I 
 fancy I've found something to hold on by ! " he 
 spoke brokenly, clutching and unclutching his 
 hands on his riding cane. "And I have to watch 
 you dragging yourself through the dustiest mean-
 
 148 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 nesses ; would I care if it was another woman ! 
 no let her be contemptible, ugly, puny, I could 
 give it a laugh one can only laugh ; but you ! 
 to be fond of you ! to watch you growing more 
 and more greedy, soulless ; a liar, a flatterer ! Oh, 
 it makes me sick ! " 
 
 Camelia had again lowered her eyelids, but her 
 eyes stared, startled at the grass. A creeping cold 
 ness went through the roots of her hair ; she knew 
 that her face was pale. For quite a long time there 
 was perfect silence. 
 
 "To rob that poor child of her little pleasure," 
 Perior said at last, " to lie to her to me ; and for 
 what ? What use had you for me ? Were you so 
 anxious to read me the Revue des Deux Mondes? 
 Why did you lie ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Camelia feebly. 
 
 " You dorit know ? " he repeated. 
 
 "No I thought Mary would not mind. I 
 thought she would like to go." 
 
 " And you left me intending to ask her ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Telling me you were going to hurry her ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Pretending to her that you did not know I had 
 come for her ? " 
 
 "Yes." There was an impulse struggling in 
 Camelia's heart frightening her but worse than 
 fright, the thought of not freeing it. " One ray of 
 sincerity." Mary had been noble enough not to tell 
 him she must be noble enough to tell. 
 
 " More than that " she added, feeling her very 
 breath leave her.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 149 
 
 " More ! " 
 
 " Yes ; I let Mary think you would rather stay 
 with me ; that you didn't care to ride with her " 
 
 " Camelia ! " They were in full view of the 
 house, but his hand fell heavily upon her shoulder ; 
 and so he stood for a long moment, too much stupe 
 fied by the confession to find another word. 
 
 But Camelia took a long breath of recovery ; 
 sighed with it, and felt the blood come back grate 
 fully to her heart. 
 
 " But why ? why ? why ? " Perior said at last, 
 in a voice from which anger seemed to have ebbed 
 despairingly away, leaving only an immense and 
 wondering sadness. " Why, Camelia ? " 
 
 A faint, appealing little sparkle lit her face as she 
 glanced up at him ; that weight gone, all the buoy 
 ancy of her nature rose, ready to win smiles and 
 rewarding looks of caressing encouragement. 
 
 " I ^wanted to read you the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes" 
 
 He stared at her, baffled and miserable. 
 
 "And though I was a viper it was true, wasn't 
 it ? you would rather stay with me." 
 
 " Yes, no doubt I would," said Perior with a 
 gloom half dazed. 
 
 " And you see I did want you so much ! Mary 
 could not have wanted you nearly so much ! Why, 
 I gave up my ride to stay with you ! I had no 
 headache ! " she announced the fact quite joyously ; 
 " I simply thought suddenly how nice it would be to 
 spend the afternoon with you like old days when 
 we were young together ! I really thought Mary 
 would prefer Mrs. Grier really I did ! And once
 
 ISO THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 embarked on a fib for I did not want her to think 
 that I cared so much to have you I had to go on 
 they all came one after the other," said Camelia, 
 dismally now, " and even when I saw how disap 
 pointed she was I hardened my heart in its selfish 
 ness a perfect devil, of course; yes, I see quite 
 well that I was a devil. So there is the truth for 
 you. Really the truth. More than one ray of sin 
 cerity, is it not? And I need not have told you, 
 since good old Mary was such a trump. There ! 
 I have lain down under your feet and you may 
 scrub your boots on me if you want to ! " 
 
 " Alas, Camelia ! " said Perior. He sat down 
 again. Her confession had indeed forced upon him 
 a certain resignation. For some moments he did 
 not speak. " I believe I am the only person in the 
 world to whom you would humble yourself like 
 this," he said at last. " I am a convenient father- 
 confessor for you. You find yourself more com 
 fortable after dumping your load of sins on me. 
 It's a corner in your psychology I've never quite 
 understood another little twist of egotism my mind 
 is too blunt to penetrate. I am not worth while 
 deceiving is that it ? " and as her eyes rested on 
 his in mute, but unmistakable pain, he added, the 
 note of resignation deepened, " You do not repent, 
 that is evident. You confess ; but it is very 
 much as if I particularly hated dirty finger-nails, 
 and to please my fastidiousness you washed 
 yours." 
 
 " I might have hidden them," Camelia murmured, 
 glancing down at the translucent pink and white of 
 those objets d'art.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELlA 151 
 
 " Yes, you might ; that is your advantage. The 
 speck of dirt worried you, knowing ray taste. 
 The matter to you is just about on that level of 
 seriousness. You are not sorry for Mary ; you are 
 merely preening yourself for me. It is that ; your 
 heartlessness, your selfishness, your hard indif 
 ference to other people's feelings that makes me 
 despair of you. For I do despair of you." 
 
 " Am I so heartless, so selfish, so hard ? " 
 
 " I am afraid you are." 
 
 " And it breaks your heart ? " 
 
 Perior laughed shortly. 
 
 " Ah, you find compensation in that ! I shall 
 survive, Camelia. I have managed to survive a 
 great many disagreeable experiences." 
 
 "And I am one. Don't you feel a little more 
 kindly towards me ? Are you not a little flattered 
 by the realisation that my misdeeds arose entirely 
 from my affection for you ? " Camelia smiled sadly, 
 adding, " It's quite true." 
 
 " You want to monopolise me, as you monopolise 
 everything, Camelia. If there was a cat that did 
 not devote itself exclusively to you, you would woo 
 the cat. In this case I am the cat." 
 
 " Dear cat ! " she stretched out her hand and put 
 it on his arm. " May I stroke you, cat ? " 
 
 "No, thanks. You shall not enthral me." He 
 rose as he spoke. " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye ? Will you not stay to dine ? " 
 
 " No ; I am in no dining humour." 
 
 " Haven't you forgiven me absolved me one 
 little bit?" 
 
 " Not one little bit, Camelia."
 
 152 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 His farewell look she felt to be steeled against 
 her in its resoluteness, though weak in its long 
 dwelling. She knew that when he was gone the 
 resoluteness would remain with him ; the weakness 
 would leave him with his departure from her 
 presence. She enthralled him by the mere fact of 
 being before him, baffling and exquisite; therefore 
 he was leaving her. There was an air of finality in 
 his very way of turning from her in silence. She 
 watched him walk away over the lawn, and sat on 
 in the dusk. She was a little dazed, and an evening 
 dreaminess veiled from her the poignancy of her 
 own fear. She evaded it, too, by the thought : he 
 cares so much, so much. Then, too, what difference 
 did it make ? She could always wrap herself, in 
 case of a shivering emergency, in that cloak of 
 carelessness; but the fact of his caring so very 
 much kept her now from shivering. When she 
 went into the house at last she found Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel still alone in the morning-room. 
 
 "My dear Camelia," she said, looking round at 
 her young friend, " when next you submit to being 
 shaken by Mr. Perior, I really would choose a more 
 secluded spot. The whole house might have been 
 staring at you; and I can assure you that the 
 spectacle you offered was highly ludicrous. A 
 rabbit in an eagle's claws." 
 
 "And, really, if I choose to be whipped up and 
 down the drive by Mr. Perior, I shall do it, Frances, 
 notwithstanding your disapproval." Camelia was in 
 no temper for smarting advice. 
 
 " The man is insufferable," said Mrs. Fox-Darriel, 
 "ilporte sa t$te comme un saint sacrement; provincial
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 153 
 
 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 blank- 
 ness, 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 realised. 
 
 The last act of the drama had left her with no 
 spite at all against Mary its chief but insignifi 
 cant 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.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 155 
 
 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 revenge- 
 fulness 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. Rodriggwas 
 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,
 
 156 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 future mamma) ; but she did not intend to brighten 
 them by the announcement of that fact uutil her 
 own good time. Lady Henge's gloom and Arthur's 
 patience touched only the outer rings of her con 
 sciousness. For Perior did not come. At the end 
 of the first week her patience was outworn; the 
 detachment of mere contemplation became im 
 possible. She essayed a flag of truce. Let it be 
 peace, or, at all events, more close, more keenly 
 realised 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. 
 
 The note gave her a mingled thrill, anger and 
 pleasure. That he should not come showed more 
 than the priggish intent to punish; that pedagogic 
 mask did not hide his fear; and that he should 
 fear meant much. He wanted to punish her, yes ; 
 and that he could succeed was very intolerable; 
 but that was his only strength, held to amidst a 
 weakness he would give her no chance to exploit. 
 His cowardice was complimentary, but since she 
 was helpless against it Camelia was angry with 
 her cat. Strength, after all, is largely a matter 
 of situation, and to stand in the street vainly 
 cajoling one's pet on the house-top gives one all
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 157 
 
 the emotions of acknowledged inferiority. To 
 turn her back and walk away was the natural 
 impulse of Camelia's exasperated helplessness ; she 
 hoped that the cat would watch her, and feel 
 badly as she turned the corner, for she determined 
 to delay no longer decisions of far more importance, 
 as she assured herself, than the ridiculous dwelling 
 on such a trifling matter as a recalcitrant cat. The 
 acceptance of Arthur Henge could be no longer 
 evaded after this fortnight of evasions, each turn 
 and twist leading her more inevitably to the centre 
 of the labyrinth. Sir Arthur could hardly have 
 a doubt of the final answer, though its postpone 
 ment and her son's attitude of smiling patience 
 might bring the gloom to Lady Henge's forehead. 
 
 " I do not like to see you played with, Arthur," 
 she confessed ; and her look said as much to 
 Camelia, who, in her absolute security, only frolicked 
 the more in her leafy circles. 
 
 " I enjoy it, mother," Sir Arthur assured her, 
 " it's a pretty game ; she enjoys it and so do I. 
 She is cutting up a surprise cake, and I am sure 
 of her giving me the slice with the ring in it." 
 
 " A rather undignified game, Arthur," said 
 Lady Henge in a deep tone of aggrievement, and 
 Sir Arthur was sorry that Camelia, for the moment, 
 had effaced that first good impression; but he 
 would not see that he was aggrieved. He knew 
 that he sat in the heart of the dear labyrinth, and 
 Camelia's peeps at him through the hedges, her 
 slow advances and swift retreats, were all charm 
 ing, and not too bewildering when one was trained 
 to them.
 
 158 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel, however, was both aggrieved 
 and impatient. Her long visit bored her badly, 
 and Camelia's smiling impenetrability irritated her. 
 Her impatience almost descended to grossness. 
 
 "What a hostess you will make, Camelia, at 
 Laversley Castle. I see you on that background 
 of Grinling Gibbons and Titian. To be almost 
 the richest, probably the cleverest, certainly the 
 prettiest woman in England. What a future ! An 
 unending golden vista widening. And for a base 
 of operations, Laversley. Such tapestries, my dear, 
 such porcelains, such a library and park. All in 
 the hollow of your hand." 
 
 Camelia stretched it out. " Yes," she said, sur 
 veying its capabilities, " I have only to close it." 
 
 " You will close it, of course." 
 
 "No doubt," said Camelia bandly, a blandness 
 that snubbed and did not satisfy her friend's 
 grossness. 
 
 But under the blandness something struggled. 
 Must she close the hand ? Would no power outside 
 her hold open and unstained by greed that pretty 
 palm ? The absurdity of the accusation gave her 
 the melancholy comfort of an only half reassuring 
 smile. Sir Arthur's excellence, not his millions, 
 had turned the scale; yet the accusation, for all 
 its folly, cut. And Perior did not come. He too 
 joined forces with fate, made the closing of the hand 
 inevitable. She defied him with the sustaining 
 thought, "Sir Arthur is best, best in all. I close 
 my hand on his heart because no better heart 
 could be offered me."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A WEEK had passed since Perior had received the 
 first pleading note from Enthorpe, and one after 
 noon, when he was busy in his laboratory, another 
 arrived, more a command than a supplication. 
 
 "Come at once. I must see you. I am very 
 unhappy." 
 
 Camelia indeed was very unhappy. She could 
 hardly recognise or define the unusualness of the 
 unfamiliar sensation, and her ignorance helped to 
 hurt her, make her more bewildered under it. She 
 had accepted Sir Arthur that morning, hurried by 
 no impulse, but conscious as she walked with him 
 in the garden of an ill-tempered recklessness, of a 
 fate more easily accepted than evaded uselessly. 
 If he would have it if every one would have it, 
 including herself, of course, let it be so. She said 
 yes with almost a sigh of exhausted energy, smiled 
 with lifted brows over Sir Arthur's ensuing rapture, 
 and then wondered that under the lightness with 
 which she braved the decisive moment a sudden 
 sickness of fear, of sorrow, should seize her. 
 Reality this, then. No more choice. No more 
 playing. The game ended. She was not being 
 led into the Garden of Eden, but out of it, and a 
 new world, a world bleak, leaden, a sunless im 
 mensity of dreariness stretched before her. She 
 
 159
 
 160 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 was frightened, and the lesser feelings of the next 
 hour were dazed by her effort to dismiss this fear. 
 She knew that her mother's tearful, speechless joy, 
 Lady Henge's elevated approbation, Mary's gasp 
 ing efforts after fitting phrases, Frances' cool, 
 close-lipped little smile of satisfaction, and the 
 background of congratulatory faces were all very 
 irritating, and that she herself was unreasonably 
 angry with them all. 
 
 She was glad to find herself alone in the library 
 with Sir Arthur, even though strangely helpless 
 before his joyous possessorship. His arm was 
 about her, and she could hear Lady Henge thunder 
 ing on the piano in the drawing-room. 
 
 " The dear mater is improvising an epithalamium," 
 said Arthur, with a laugh. To Camelia it seemed 
 cynically in keeping with her jarred and jangled 
 mood that her marriage should be interpreted by 
 this pretentious music. It symbolised so much. 
 Her own flimsiness and falseness, the immense 
 distance from anything like perfect union. She 
 turned her thought to the attainable pleasures of 
 the future, tried to shut her soul on the lamenting 
 ideal that Lady Henge's music mocked, and her 
 mind rested for a moment on the reassuring cer 
 tainty of her own app sciation of Sir Arthur's 
 excellence. Strangely enough, though his possessor- 
 ship frightened, his arm about her waist consoled 
 her; a warm sense of his kindness and stability 
 held her from inner terrors ; she was glad to have 
 him there; she foresaw in solitude an on-coming 
 and chilly stupor. She felt it well to sit beside him, 
 protected from her own fear by his devoted nearness.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 161 
 
 " There now, you are smiling," said Sir Arthur ; 
 "you seemed sad, as though you were conscious 
 of responsibility and didn't like it." When he 
 spoke of responsibility Camelia felt more keenly 
 that she had received an injury from fate. The 
 "Yes" that had been spoken only a few hours 
 before had belonged to the game, was it quite fair 
 that this solemnity should result ? Yet why not 
 take it gaily ? Force it into a dancing ring of 
 happy lightness ? 
 
 "Responsibility? Oh no, you can't saddle me 
 with that ! " she said, returning his look, and smiling 
 still more easily as she felt how much his hand 
 some face pleased her; its very expression, an 
 unaccented, humorous gaiety, worn for her sake, 
 was a homage, a warrant of most chivalrous com 
 prehension. "You alone are responsible" and 
 following her mental picture of the game of hide- 
 and-seek in a Watteau landscape "You caught 
 me that was all ! " 
 
 " That was all ! '' he repeated ; " and you were 
 difficult to catch. Now that you are caught I shall 
 keep you." 
 
 " No, I am not sad," Camelia pursued, " I only 
 feel as if I had grown up suddenly." 
 
 "No, don't grow up. I must keep you always 
 my laughing child." 
 
 "Lady Henge wouldn't approve of that!" said 
 Camelia, yielding to a closer enfolding, but facili 
 tating it by no gracious droopings. 
 
 "Ah, mother loves you," said Sir Arthur, with a 
 touch of added pride in his capture. 
 
 " Does she ? " Camelia's brows lifted a little ; 
 
 L
 
 162 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 the enfolding continuing she was conscious enough 
 of a dart of irritation to wish to add, " I don't 
 love her ! " but after a kiss he released her and 
 she checked the naughty impulse, merely adding, 
 with some perversity, keeping him now at arm's 
 length, though she abandoned her hand for the 
 purpose, "Would you have dared to love me had 
 she not ? " 
 
 " Camelia, you know that I did." The perversity 
 had grieved him a little. His clear brown eyes, that 
 always reminded her of a dog's in their widely 
 opened sincerity, dwelt on her, questioning her 
 intention. "She did not know you, that was 
 all." 
 
 "Nor did you, quite." Camilia laughed at 
 him gently, and put her hand on his shoulder, half 
 as a reward for the pang, half to still keep him 
 away. 
 
 " No, not quite," Sir Arthur confessed, " though 
 even my ignorance loved you. But you let me know 
 you at last." 
 
 " But what do you know ? " Camilia persisted. 
 
 " I know my laughing child." 
 
 " Her faults the faults of a child ? " 
 
 " Has she faults ? " 
 
 " Oh, blinded man ! " 
 
 " The faults of a child, then," he assented. 
 
 When he had left her, for he was to spend the 
 day in London, there was a lull after the stress of 
 change. Camelia found herself in a solitude wherein 
 she might sit and meditate. Every one seemed to 
 fall away from her, and when she was left alone she 
 was sorry for it, though it was she who had with-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 163 
 
 drawn, not they. Lady Henge had talked to her for 
 half-an-hour, her arm affectionately, but heavily 
 lying about her shoulders, seeming in the massive 
 embrace to claim her with a kindness that knew 
 itself as wiser than mere maternal emotionalism. 
 The low tones of her voice were impressive, and 
 Camelia would have submitted to the newly assumed 
 manner of guardianship, of confidential admonition, 
 with a very ill grace, had not Lady Henge been now 
 so truly indifferent to her. 
 
 Mary had been very tiresome, following her 
 at a distance, wanting to kiss her and cry. Mrs. 
 Fox- Darnel's silent complacency was unendurable. 
 Camelia knew that in the new epoch her friend saw 
 only a tightly-closed fist, and this symbol affected 
 her own imagination until she could have shaken 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel for having suggested it. 
 
 Then her mother had fallen upon her breast and 
 wept. Camelia was ashamed of herself for seeing in 
 the great lovingness a Scriptural exaggeration ; and 
 being ashamed of herself she was only the more 
 anxious to get rid of the maternal clinging. She 
 ended by locking herself in her own room, only to 
 find that she had locked herself in with a melancholy 
 that had been stepping silently beside her since the 
 morning. She would not look this companion in the 
 face, however. She was alone with it at last ; but 
 she feverishly avoided its fixed eyes, and eagerly 
 busied herself with trivialities, a dramatic sense of 
 courage animating all her actions. She emptied 
 and re-arranged her wardrobes and boxes, folded 
 ribbons with intensest exactitude, introduced a new 
 plan in the bestowal of her gloves and handkerchiefs,
 
 164 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 and even found herself unpicking a summer hat with 
 a fictitious eagerness that implied an imperative 
 want of that particular hat in a new trimming. 
 When the hat was quite demolished she put it away, 
 and polished her finger-nails, and, lastly, spent a 
 fatiguing half-hour before the looking-glass in essays 
 at new ways of hair-dressing. None were satisfac 
 tory, and with arms aching from their long uplifting, 
 she at last swept the shining tresses into their ac 
 customed lines, unlocked the door, and emerged 
 deliberately, but with a sense of flight. 
 
 Every one had gone. The guests to golf at the 
 Havershams; Mary, Lady Paton, and Lady Henge 
 for a long drive. They had all respected the sen 
 sitive requirements of her new position. She was 
 to be left alone, and as Camelia walked from room 
 to room, the big house was desolate. 
 
 She nourished a sense of resentment, of injury, 
 for it seemed to thrust away the chilly stupor of 
 fear, fear of that new presence walking with her, 
 waiting for her recognition. The loneliness, the 
 melancholy, to which she could only feign blindness, 
 were almost unendurable. The tears rose to her 
 eyes more than once, and her thoughts circled 
 nearer and nearer to Perior's great unkindness. It 
 was when the melancholy seemed suddenly to lay 
 an imperative hand upon her that she flew to the 
 writing-table and wrote the note. She looked at 
 the clock as she heard the groom departing on 
 horseback. Perior might easily arrive at six, and 
 at the thought her spirits rose with a great soaring 
 bound, and laughed down at the cold enemy. 
 When he arrived she would see what would
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 165 
 
 happen. She reined back her imagination from any 
 plan. 
 
 According to his manner, she would tell im 
 mediately, or delay telling until a favourable mo 
 ment. Perhaps when he knew he would say that 
 his heart was completely broken, but the thought 
 of his unhappiness only seemed to send her spirits 
 into a higher ecstasy of joyousness. She felt them 
 bubble-like, floating in illusion, but the relief of the 
 unthinking hour she seemed to live in it only, to 
 breathe only its expectancy buoyed her above the 
 clouds. In the long drawing-room, where the fire 
 light made the autumnal landscape outside, its 
 distant hills purpling with chilly evening, a mere 
 picture, framed for the contrast in her rosy mood, 
 she danced, trying over new steps. She had always 
 loved her dancing, loved to feel herself so lovely, 
 her loveliness set to such musical motion, the words 
 of the song. She hummed the sad, dead beauty 
 of a pavane, pacing it with stately pleasure ; the 
 gracious pathos of an old gavotte; and, feeling 
 herself a brook, her steps slid into the flowing ripple 
 of the courante. Perior had always loved these 
 exquisite old dances. She would dance for him, of 
 course. That thought had been growing, and the 
 gavotte, the courante, the pavane becoming re 
 hearsals. Yes, she would dance for him at first. 
 Flushed, panting a little from the long preparation, 
 she ran upstairs to put on a white dress, a new one 
 made for dancing, with sleeves looped over bare 
 arms, flowing sash, and skirt like a flower- bell. 
 She lingered on each detail. She must be beautiful 
 for Alceste ; dear Alceste, poor, poor Alceste ; how
 
 166 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 unhappy he would be when he knew. And 
 suppose he should not come. The thought went 
 through her like a dagger as she held a row of 
 pearls against her throat. Over them she looked 
 with terror-stricken eyes at the whiteness of her 
 beauty useless beauty ? Ah, she could not believe 
 it, and she clasped the pearls on a breast that 
 heaved with the great sigh of her negation. She 
 could not believe it. He must come. And when 
 she re-entered the drawing-room the sound of a 
 horse's hoofs outside set the time to the full throb 
 of an ecstasied affirmation. 
 
 A delicious flood of contentment went through 
 her. She stood smiling in the dark yet luminous 
 room, where only the firelight shone along the 
 polished oak of floor and wainscoting, half uncon 
 sciously emphasising her sense of the moment's 
 drama by pressing her hands on her heart. Of 
 course he had come. How could he not come if 
 she really wanted him ? Dear Alceste. In a 
 moment he had entered. The firelight, as she stood 
 before him, seemed to shine through her pearly 
 glimmering. She looked sprite-like, a transparent 
 fairy. Her dress, her attitude, her eyes, the hover 
 ing expectancy. Perior, too, was immediately con 
 scious of drama, and felt as immediately an impulse 
 to flight ; but he came forward, a quick look of calm 
 arming his sturdy opposition to the atmosphere of 
 exaggerated meanings. 
 
 " Well, here I am," he said, in a manner intended 
 by its commonplace to rebuff the significance, what 
 ever it might be, of eyes, dress, and attitude. 
 Camelia took his hand, joyously entering once more
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 167 
 
 into the dear, enchanted fairyland the old sense of 
 a game, only a more delightful, a more exciting 
 game than ever. She could almost have whirled 
 him into the circle a mad dancing whirl round and 
 round the room. How astonished he would have 
 been ! Solemn, staid old Alceste ! 
 
 "Yes, here you are. At last," she said. "How 
 shamefully you have punished me this time ! " 
 
 She laughed, but Perior sighed. 
 
 " I haven't been punishing you," he said, walking 
 away to the fireplace. Camelia followed him and 
 watched him hold out his hand to the warmth. 
 
 " Is it so cold ? " she asked. 
 
 " Very chilly ; the wind catches one on that mile 
 along the common. My hands are half-numbed." 
 Prettily, as she leaned in her illumined whiteness 
 beside him, she took his hands between her own 
 and rubbed them briskly. 
 
 " You wrote that you were unhappy," said Perior, 
 looking down at the daintily imprisoned hands ; 
 " what is the matter ? " 
 
 "The telling will keep. I am happier now." 
 
 " Did you get me here on false pretences ? " He 
 smiled as he now looked at her, and the smile for 
 gave her in advance. 
 
 " No, no. I needed you very much ; really I did. 
 I am growing melancholy ; and I was all alone. I 
 hate being alone." 
 
 " There, that will do. They are quite warm now ; 
 thanks very much. Where are the others ? " 
 
 " The others ? They are away," said Camelia 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Rodrigg ? "
 
 168 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " He comes back to-night, I think." 
 
 "And Henge?" Perior asked it with a little 
 hesitation. Of late he had wondered much about 
 Arthur and Camelia. There was an effort in the 
 unconscious aloofness of his voice. 
 
 " In London too." Camelia looked clearly at him. 
 No, she would not tell him now. The happy half- 
 hour she must guard for them both. Her oblivion, 
 his ignorance, would make a fairy-land. Let him 
 think even that she had sent Arthur away finally. 
 Arthur had no place in fairy-land. 
 
 " All the others are out," she repeated, " golfing, 
 calling, driving. But are you not glad to see me, 
 even if I seem happier than strict consistency 
 requires ? " 
 
 "Yes, I am glad to see you." Perior's eyes 
 showed the half-yielding, half-defiance of his per 
 plexity. " But tell me, what is the matter ? Don't 
 be so mysterious." 
 
 " But tell me," she returned, stepping backward, 
 her skirt held out for displayal, " is not my dress 
 pretty ? " 
 
 " Very pretty." Perior leaned back against the 
 mantelpiece with an air of resignation. " Very 
 exquisite." 
 
 " Shall I dance for you ? " 
 
 " By all means ; since the dress was put on for 
 that, I summoned for that. Isn't it so ? " 
 
 She made no reply, her smile lingering as she 
 turned from him, and showing in its fixedness a 
 certain gravity. He was satisfied that conjecture as 
 to her meaning, her plan in all this, only wearied 
 him, yet sorry that he had come. Under the weari-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 169 
 
 ness he was resentfully aware of excitement. And 
 what of Arthur? Camelia's whole manner subtly 
 suggested that Arthur no longer counted. The 
 note might be explained as an after-throb of doubt, 
 or at least of dreariness, in a world momentarily 
 without big issues. If she had refused Arthur 
 definitely ? The thought, as his eyes followed 
 Camelia's exquisite steps and slides, shook some 
 careful balancing of self-control. He felt stripped 
 of a shield, unpleasantly exposed to a dangerous 
 moment. Camelia was dancing quite silently, yet 
 the air, to Perior's musical brain, seemed full of 
 melody, and she the soundless embodiment of music 
 made visible so lovely, so dear to him ; so dear in 
 spite of everything. She was like a white flower, 
 tilting, bending in the wind. She skimmed like a 
 swallow, ran with rippled steps like a brook, flitted 
 with light, languid balancings, a butterfly hovering 
 on extended wings. Her slender body, like a 
 fountain, rose and fell in a continuity of chang 
 ing loveliness. Her golden head shone in the 
 dusk. 
 
 Perior watched her, half-dreaming, half-dazzled. 
 The long moments of acute, delicious contemplation 
 drifted by as peacefully, as stilly as falling rose- 
 petals, muffling all outer jars and murmurs, blur 
 ring the past, the future, making the present 
 enchanted. 
 
 When she was far off his heart beat for her 
 return, and when the swaying, hovering whiteness 
 came near he shrank from the nearness. The 
 unexpected sweeping turn that caught her away 
 suddenly into the half-visionary distance stabbed
 
 170 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 him through with a pang of relief and disappoint 
 ment. 
 
 He was entranced, half-mesmerised, conscious 
 only of his delight in her, when her circling at 
 last grew slower, the musical beat of the recovering 
 tilt faltered. She came on a sliding, wavering step, 
 and sank like the softest sigh before him, folded 
 together in her wing-like whiteness. 
 
 " You enchanting creature," Perior murmured. 
 He bent over her he would have lifted her 
 taking her hands, but Camelia herself rose between 
 his arms, and inevitably they closed about her. It 
 was so natural, so fitting in all its strangeness, that 
 to Camelia the slow circling of the dance seemed 
 still to carry her round and round, unbroken by the 
 crash of a great revelation. She closed her eyes, 
 hardly wondering at her perfect happiness, and 
 from the last revolving mists the reality dawned 
 sweetly upon her the only reality. She had 
 danced out of the game; it lay far behind her. 
 Through it she had blundered on a mistake, but 
 her mind put that swiftly aside. The mistake 
 mattered nothing, the last act merely of the game 
 a reckless, angered act. She thought now that the 
 game would hardly have been begun if only Perior 
 had put his arms around her, claimed and reclaimed 
 her foolishness, long ago. Of course she loved him. 
 It needed but that to let her know. 
 
 But to Perior the moment, after its irresistible 
 impulse, was merely one of shame and self-disgust. 
 He held her, for she was enchanting, and she had 
 enchanted him. Disloyalty to his friend did not 
 forbid that satisfaction. That she meant to marry
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 171 
 
 Arthur was now impossible. She had tossed him 
 aside, dissatisfied ; he could not pity Arthur for his 
 escape, nor credit Camelia with disinterestedness. 
 She was bored, disappointed, reckless in a wish 
 for excitement. He analysed her present mood 
 brutally the mood of a vain child, made audacious 
 by childhood intimacy, her appetite for conquest 
 whetted by his apparent indifference; he had not 
 known that she would pay such a price for con 
 quest. It was an ugly revelation of Camelia, but 
 the revelation of himself was uglier. He at least 
 pretended to self-respect. The folly of her coquetry 
 hardly surprised him ; his own yielding to it did ; 
 yet in the very midst of his self-disgust he fulfilled 
 it to the uttermost by stooping his head to her 
 upturned face, blind to its intrinsic innocence, and 
 kissing her lips. As he kissed her he knew that 
 for angry weeks and months he had longed to kiss 
 her, the unrecognised longing wrestling with his 
 pride, with his finer fondness for her the firm, 
 grave fondness of years, with even his loyalty to 
 Henge. That barrier gone, the longing rushed 
 over the others. Among the wrecks his humilia 
 tion overwhelmed him ; a girl he loved, but a girl 
 he would not woo, had wooing been of avail ! in it 
 he was able to be generous. 
 
 The moment had not been long. He released 
 her. Feeling most ungentle, he yet put her away 
 gently by the whole thrust of his arm. Leaning on 
 the mantel-shelf, his face averted from hers, he 
 said: "Too enchanting, Camelia. I have forgotten 
 myself," and he added, " Forgive me." 
 
 " But / did it ! " Camelia's tone was one of most
 
 172 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 dauntless joyousness. She was necessarily as sure 
 of his love as of her own, surer of its long-enduring 
 priority. But his love feared that was natural ; 
 dared not hope for hers too natural. She could 
 not bear to have him put her away in even a 
 momentary doubt of her sincerity. Clasping both 
 arms about his neck she said quite childishly, in her 
 great unconsciousness of his thoughts about her 
 
 "Why would you never say you were fond of 
 me ? Why would you never say you loved me ? 
 Say it now say that you love me." 
 
 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 per 
 plexity. 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 fatuous 
 ness 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 play 
 thing, 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 lower 
 ing 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;
 
 174 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 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 card 
 board 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
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 175 
 
 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. 
 
 Perior at her side gave a short laugh, a cruel 
 laugh. The moment was horrid ; let it be hurried 
 on, and Mr. Rodrigg, tool of the avenging gods, 
 hurried out. 
 
 " Have you anything to say, Mr. Rodrigg ? " she 
 asked, conscious of hating Mr. Rodrigg, and, even 
 at that moment, of a shoot of emphasised irritation 
 with his nose, which caught the firelight bluntly. 
 
 " May I ask you, Miss Paton, if during these past 
 weeks, you have always had that intention ? " he 
 inquired, speaking with some thickness of utterance. 
 
 "No, Mr. Rodrigg, you may not ask me that," 
 she returned. 
 
 The revelation of the man's hopes was no longer 
 to be evaded; she drank down the bitter draught 
 perforce, her eyes on that squarely luminous nose- 
 tip. 
 
 During the pause that followed Mr. Rodrigg's 
 eyes travelled up and down her with mingled scorn, 
 wrath, and humiliation.
 
 176 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 "Allow me to congratulate you," he said at last, 
 most venomously, " and to take my leave of you, 
 Miss Paton. I have not understood, I perceive, the 
 part I was supposed to play here." 
 
 And Camelia was left alone with Perior. With 
 an impression as of strong boxings on the ears 
 she could only cry out " Odious vulgarian ! " She 
 tingled all over with a sense of insult. 
 
 " I, too, will bid you good evening, Camelia," 
 said Perior. He could have taken her by the throat, 
 but in the necessary restraint of that desire his 
 glance, only, seized her as if it would throttle her. 
 
 " No ! no ! " she caught his arm, all thought of 
 Mr. Rodrigg and his slaps burnt from her. " Listen 
 to me you don't understand ! Wait ! I can explain 
 everything ! everything so that you must forgive 
 me!" 
 
 " I do understand," said Perior, who stood still, 
 scorning, as she felt, to touch and cast her off. 
 " You are engaged to Arthur. You are disgraced 
 and I am disgraced." 
 
 " Through me, then ! You were ignorant ! But 
 wait only listen I am engaged to him ; but I love 
 you don't be too angry for really I love you 
 only you Oh ! you must believe me ! " 
 
 He retreated before her clasped imploring hands, 
 she almost crying, following, indifferent to the 
 indignity of her protesting supplication. " Indeed, 
 I love you!" she reiterated, her chin quivering a 
 little as the cruelty of his withdrawal brought the 
 tears to her eyes. 
 
 Perior took the clasped hands by the wrists and 
 held her off. "You love me? and you love him
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 177 
 
 too ? " she shook her head helplessly. " No ; you 
 have accepted him, not loving him, and you dared " 
 the cruelty was now physical, as his clench 
 tightened on her wrists "you dared turn to me, 
 to debase me with yourself, you false, you miserable 
 creature ! " 
 
 Under the double hurt she closed her eyes. 
 " But why but why did I turn ? " she almost 
 sobbed. 
 
 " You ask me why ? Can I tell what folly, what 
 vanity prompted you ? Those are mild words." 
 
 " Oh ! how you hurt me ! " she breathed ; the 
 feminine sensitiveness was a refuge a reproach. 
 He released her wrists. " Because I love you," she 
 said, and standing still before him she looked at 
 him through tears. "You may be angry, despise 
 me, but I only want to tell you everything. You 
 are so brutal. It was a mistake I did not know 
 not till this evening. I accepted him because you 
 would not prevent me because you didn't come 
 nor seem to care, and yes, because I was bad 
 ambitious vain like other women and I did 
 like him respect him. But now ! " the appealing 
 monotone, broken by little gasps, wailed up at the 
 inflexibility of his face "it isn't folly, it isn't 
 vanity or why should I sacrifice everything for 
 you, as I do Oh ! as I do ! " 
 
 " Sacrifice everything for me ? Go away ! " 
 
 "Oh! how can you!" She broke into sobs. 
 " How can you be so cruel to me when you 
 love me ! " 
 
 " Love you ! " 
 
 " You cannot deny it ! You know that you love 
 
 M
 
 178 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 me dearest Alceste ! " her arms encircled his 
 neck. 
 
 Perior plucked them off. " Love you ? " he 
 repeated, looking her in the face. " By Heaven 
 I don't ! " 
 
 And with the negative he cast her away and 
 left her.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 But he did love her. That was the worst of it, as 
 he told himself through the night that followed. 
 His love and his disgrace pursued him. Disgraced, 
 though cruel enough to clearly see her as the 
 temptress, disgraced by the weakness of his yielding 
 to a moment of enchantment, disgraced by having 
 given her the right to reproach him the woman he 
 loved, but the woman only fit to kiss. He was 
 innocent of real disloyalty, and her perfidy might 
 well exonerate his ignorance; but even Camelia's 
 perfidy could not excuse that kiss. He met the 
 morning jaded, from torturing hours. When the 
 first passion of his rage against her had died away 
 the thought of her astounding declaration, her re 
 iterated devotion, chilled him with the new fear of 
 final yielding. Camelia, imagining herself in love 
 with him, became an ominously alluring figure. 
 She could claim him only through his weakness, 
 but his dishonour gave her power. He accepted 
 the morbid accusation, scourged himself with it, and 
 the thought of her power urged him to escape. She 
 was only fit to kiss, that was the final verdict. To 
 marry such a woman meant a permanent disable 
 ment of all that was best in life. The kiss could 
 not bind him to that atonement. It was she, 
 rather, who owed him an infinity of reparation.
 
 i8o THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 He determined to treat himself to a trip through 
 Italy, and, alone with the beauty of the past, to 
 shake his soul free from the choking entanglement 
 of the present. He felt sick, battered, bereft of 
 all security ; and through everything throbbed the 
 worst hurt of all that Camelia should have proved 
 herself worthless so utterly. 
 
 Early in the afternoon of a day spent in hurried 
 preparations for departure, he heard a horse's hoofs 
 outside, and looking from the library window he 
 saw Arthur Henge dismounting. 
 
 Perior felt the blood rush to his head. The first 
 impulse of his thought was to see in Arthur the 
 righteously angered friend come to heap upon him 
 the shame of his discovered betrayal. He would of 
 course bear the responsibility as the chiefly false 
 and traitorous. The woman would shield herself; 
 it was the right of her weakness, and his deep, un 
 reasonable loyalty to Camelia, a loyalty paternal in 
 its force and helplessness, accepted the vicarious 
 position, rushed over and confused every self- 
 asserting instinct. It was with almost the illusion 
 of guilt that he stood upright, waiting. Then, this 
 last straw he snatched at, despising it, as he heard 
 Arthur's step in the hall : was it possible that he 
 had discovered nothing ? possible that he had 
 come to announce his engagement ? possible that 
 Camelia, in the bewilderment of her rejection, had 
 returned to a doubly false, a dastardly allegiance ? 
 The irony of such a supposition did not make it by 
 any means impossible. But one look at Arthur's 
 face dismissed the tragic-comic surmise. 
 
 It was a face of stiffened gloom, a face difficult
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 181 
 
 for the moment to interpret. Camelia had told the 
 truth, then. Told more than the truth ? But 
 tressed her falseness with his act of folly ? 
 
 Perior expected nothing less than this craven 
 insincerity. To shield her he must bare his breast 
 for Arthur's shafts. Arthur might as well know 
 that he loved her, but Camelia should never know 
 it, so Perior grimly promised himself as he met his 
 friend's look with some of the sternness necessitated 
 by his pitch of unpleasant resolution. 
 
 But Henge's first words proved that Camelia, at 
 all events, had not been cowardly. 
 
 " Perior she has broken our engagement ! She 
 accepted me yesterday and to-day she has broken 
 our engagement ! " and the quick change of expres 
 sion on Perior's face moving him too much, he 
 dropped into a chair, and leaning his arms on the 
 table, bowed his head upon his hands. 
 
 Perior's first feeling was a crumbling sense of 
 baseness. The lie between him and his unfortunate 
 friend scorched him, and his recognition of Camelia's 
 courage was swept away by the realisation of her 
 cruelty, by the avenging consciousness that owing 
 to her he feared to meet his friend's eyes. 
 
 He kept silence, studying the surrendered reti 
 cence of the bent head. 
 
 " She accepted me yesterday, Perior." Henge 
 repeated it helplessly. 
 
 Perior put his hand on his shoulder. " My dear 
 Henge," he said. 
 
 Arthur looked up. " I don't know why I should 
 come to you with it. I am broken. I could cry 
 like a baby. I love that child, Perior ! You saw
 
 i8z THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 her yesterday; yes, that is why I came. She 
 accepted me yesterday, you know. Did she say 
 anything to you about it ? when you saw her ? 
 You see " he smiled miserably " I want you to 
 turn the knife in my wound." 
 
 " I heard it," said Perior, feeling that a rigid 
 adherence to perhaps deceptive truth was all that 
 was left to him. 
 
 " But she gave you no reason to think that she 
 had changed her mind ? " 
 
 "What has Camelia said to you, Arthur? One 
 may interpret it differently," said Perior, detesting 
 himself. 
 
 Sir Arthur's face resumed the blankness of its 
 helpless wonder. 
 
 " I got back this morning and she sent for me. 
 I found her white, woeful, resolute. She said, ' I 
 made a mistake. I can't marry you. I am un 
 worthy of you.' That to me, Perior ! to me ! and 
 only yesterday ! Oh ! I could have sworn she 
 cared for me ! I don't blame her ; don't think it. 
 It was all pity a fancied tenderness; the shock 
 of realisation showed her the difference. She 
 can't love me. She unworthy ! The courage 
 the cruelty even, were worthy; but she repeated 
 that again and again." 
 
 " Was that all she said ? " Perior asked pre 
 sently. 
 
 "All? Oh no, that was only the beginning. I 
 tortured her for an hour with pleadings and pro 
 testations. With her it was mere repetition. She 
 did not love me ; she felt it as soon as she had 
 accepted me. She told me that she sent for you
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 183 
 
 not for counsel, but to see if her misery was 
 not mere morbid fancy; she said that Rodrigg 
 the brute ! rushed in upon her with implied accu 
 sations; to me she confessed dearest creature 
 that she had been foolishly hopeful, foolishly con 
 fident in her eagerness for my cause. She heaped 
 blame upon herself. She called herself mean, and 
 weak, and shallow Ah ! as if I did not under 
 stand the added nobility ! I have not one hard 
 thought of her, not a touch of the jilted lover's 
 bitterness. It is my misfortune to see too well 
 the worthiness of the woman I have lost." 
 
 " It is the best thing that could happen to you, 
 Arthur." Perior, standing silently beside his friend, 
 absorbed in the contemplation of this pitifully noble 
 idealisation, could now defy his own pain, shake 
 from himself the clogging sense of shame, and speak 
 from the fulness of his deep conviction. 
 
 "You mean better than marrying an unloving 
 woman," said Sir Arthur; but he had flushed with 
 the effort to misunderstand. Some lack in Perior's 
 feeling for Camelia he had always felt. He shrank 
 now from confronting it. 
 
 "Yes, I mean that and more," Perior went on, 
 feeling it good to speak good for him and good 
 for Arthur good to shape the hard truth in hard 
 words, yet with an inconsistency in his resolution, 
 since he wished Arthur to recognise her unworthi- 
 ness, yet would have given his life to keep from 
 him the one supremely blasting instance which he 
 and Camelia alone knew. 
 
 " She is not worthy of you. I hope that in 
 saying it she felt its truth, for truth it is."
 
 184 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Don't, Perior " Sir Arthur had risen. " You 
 pain me." 
 
 " But you must listen, my dear boy and it has 
 pained me. I have been fond of Camelia I am 
 fond of her, but I am never with her that she does 
 not pain me. She pains every one who is unlucky 
 enough to care about her; that is her destiny 
 and theirs." 
 
 Sir Arthur's face through a dawning bewilder 
 ment now caught a flashing supposition that 
 whitened it, and kept him silent. 
 
 " From the first, Arthur, I regretted your depth 
 of feeling for her," said Perior, after the slight 
 involuntary pause with which he recognised in his 
 friend's face his own unconscious revelation. They 
 now stood on as truthful a ground as he could 
 ever hope for. Arthur had guessed what Camelia 
 should never know. He could speak from a certain 
 equality of misfortune for had not Camelia hurt 
 them both ? " In accepting you she did you one 
 wrong, she would have done you a greater had 
 she married you. She is not fit to be your wife. 
 You wouldn't have held her up. Most men don't 
 mind ethical shortcomings in their wives lying, 
 and meannesses, and the exploiting of other people 
 they forgive very ugly faults in a pretty woman ; 
 but you would mind. It isn't as a pretty woman 
 that you love Camelia, nor even as a clever one, 
 so you would mind badly. Don't look white ; 
 there is nothing gross, vulgar, in Camelia's wrong- 
 ness. As your wife she would have been faithful, 
 useful, kind, no doubt ; there would be no stu 
 pidities to complain of. She is a charming creature
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 185 
 
 don't I know it ! But, Arthur, she is false, 
 voraciously selfish, hard as a stone." 
 
 Sir Arthur had the look of a man who sees 
 a nightmare, long forgotten as darkest delusion, 
 assuming before his eyes the shape and hue of 
 reality ; he retreated before the obsession. " Don't, 
 Perior I cannot listen. I love her. You are em 
 bittered harsh. Your rigorous conscience is 
 distorting. You misjudge her." 
 
 " No, no, Arthur. I judge her." 
 
 " Ah ! not before me, then ! I love her," Sir 
 Arthur repeated. " Good-bye, Perior. I came to 
 say good-bye. We are going, you know." 
 
 "Yes. So am I." 
 
 Sir Arthur's eyes dwelt upon him for a com 
 passionate, a magnanimous moment. " You are ? 
 Ah ! I understand." 
 
 "More or less?" said Perior, with a spiritless 
 smile. 
 
 "Oh, more more than you can say." 
 
 Perior let him go on that supposition. Arthur 
 understood that Camelia had hurt him. That, after 
 all, was sufficient ; left his friend's mind without 
 rancour for his galling truth-telling. And, as 
 Perior walked back into the library, he heaved a 
 long sigh of relief. The Rubicon was crossed. In 
 so speaking to Arthur he had fortified himself. 
 The truth, so spoken, was an eternal barrier 
 between him and Camelia. The barrier was a 
 plain necessity; for Perior was conscious that a 
 possible thrill lurked for him in the contemplation 
 of Camelia's last move. Its reckless disregard of 
 consequences proclaimed a sincerity to which he
 
 186 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 had done injustice yesterday. She believed she 
 loved him; she gave up all for his subjection. 
 Yes, the thrill required suppression. He must 
 abide in the firm reality of the words spoken to 
 Arthur " hard, false, voraciously selfish " ; yes, 
 she might love him, but her love could be no 
 more than a perplexing combination of these 
 ineradicable qualities. 
 
 The short autumn day drew to a close. From 
 the library window the evening greyness dimmed 
 the nearest group of larches, golden through all 
 their erect delicacy. The sad sunset made a mere 
 whiteness in the west. Perior had been at his 
 writing-table for over an hour, diligently strangling 
 harassing thoughts, a pipe between his teeth, a 
 consolatory cat at his elbow, when, in a tone of 
 commonplace that rang oddly in his ears, " Miss 
 Paton, sir," was announced by the solemn old 
 retainer. 
 
 Perior wheeled round, and stumbled to his feet ; 
 the papers he held fell in a sprawling heap upon 
 the floor, and the dozing cat jumped down and 
 took nervous refuge under a chair. 
 
 Camelia, following old Lane with dexterous 
 determination, saw the astonished commotion and 
 found it encouraging. She was determined but 
 not desperate. Even without encouragement she 
 fancied that she could have held her own, sus 
 tained as she was by her inner conviction, and 
 while Lane went out and closed the door, she was 
 even able to cast a reassuring smile at the cat, 
 whose widened eyes shone at her from under the 
 chair edge.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 187 
 
 The door safely shut, she turned a steady look 
 upon Periods rough head, silhouetted in monotone 
 on the pale landscape outside. She herself faced 
 the light. She had walked, and her face showed 
 an exquisite freshness, an imperative youth and 
 energy. In the austere room the sudden rose and 
 white of cheeks and lips and brow, the lustre of 
 her eyes, the pale gold of her hair, dazzled. 
 
 Fixing Perior with this steady look, she said : 
 " He has been here." 
 
 " Henge ? yes," said Perior. Even in the shock 
 of his dismayed confusion he felt with thankfulness 
 a strong throb of an unswerving energy quite fit 
 to match hers. He could look at her, dazzled, 
 but not wavering, and, stooping from the successful 
 encounter of eyes, he picked up the fallen papers, 
 pushed them into shape, and laid them on the 
 table coolly enough. 
 
 "You have heard what has happened, then?" 
 Camelia was in nowise disconcerted by these super 
 ficialities. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did you tell him why I broke my engage 
 ment ? " 
 
 Perior looked again, and very firmly, at the rose 
 and white and gold. 
 
 " He gave me the reason you had given him. 
 That was sufficient, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Sufficient for him, yes. I gave him only half 
 the truth I should not have minded, you know, 
 had you given him the whole." 
 
 " I should have minded." 
 
 " You ? Why should you mind ? It was my
 
 i88 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 fault the whole truth could tell him nothing less 
 than that," said Camelia quickly. 
 
 " I appreciate your generosity " Perior laughed 
 a little "that really is generous." It really was. 
 He put another mark against himself; but a 
 perception of his own past injustice did not 
 weaken him. 
 
 "You know why," she said, and her eyes were 
 now solemn; "you know that I don't care about 
 myself any longer so long as you care. That is all 
 that makes any difference now. So you might 
 have told him had you wished." 
 
 " I didn't want to." Perior leaned back against 
 the writing-table, feeling a certain shrinking. 
 Camelia's power took on new attributes. He could 
 but recognise a baleful nobility in her self-immola 
 tion. After all, the falseness of yesterday had 
 held a great sincerity though the sincerity might 
 only be a morbid folly. He had hardly the excuse 
 of blindness. With a renewed pang of self-disgust 
 he saw that his more subtle falseness to her was 
 a weapon in her hand. She had not turned it 
 against him. Perhaps she did not realise her need. 
 He was glad, by lowering himself, to lift her. 
 
 She had come forward into the fuller light, and 
 her face, more clearly revealed, showed the stress 
 that Arthur had seen as a resolute woe. In a 
 pause at a little distance from him, in the very 
 tension of her face, Perior saw that she stooped 
 to no weak appeal ; it was an intelligent demand, 
 rather, that he should recognise and do her justice. 
 
 " I know how angry you are with me," she said, 
 after the slight pause in which they studied one
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 189 
 
 another. "You believe that I have acted badly; 
 and so I have. I see it too. I entrapped you, 
 made you feel false to him, made you feel that you 
 betrayed him. But if you understood. You have 
 never really understood. You have taken the shell 
 of me the merely external silliness so seriously." 
 
 Perior could wonder at his own firmness before 
 her. He was filled with compunction for the 
 pitiful certainty of success once his stubborn 
 disbelief were convinced that spoke through her 
 gravity. He loved her, and knew that he loved 
 her, against his reason, against his will, against 
 his heart even, yet heard himself saying, sure of 
 the kindness of his cruelty for any prolongation 
 of her security was cruel 
 
 " I hope never to take a merely external silliness 
 seriously, Camelia. Let me think of this as one. 
 You should not have come, it can only hurt you, 
 and me. We had best not see each other again 
 until you have outgrown, shall we say, your present 
 shell ? " Yes, he could rely on the decisive clear 
 sightedness that had made him speak the truth, 
 once for all, to Arthur and to himself. He felt 
 secure in his moral antagonism ; the ascetic ad 
 monishment of his voice gratified even a sense of 
 humour, quite at his own expense, which he per 
 ceived in the rigour of his righteousness. But 
 Camelia made no retreat before that rigour, though 
 the colour left her face, as if he had struck her ; 
 her eyes betrayed no confusion, but a keenness, a 
 steadiness, almost scornful. 
 
 " You think it that ? " Perior was not sorry to 
 tell her and himself what he did think.
 
 190 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " I think it just that. A phase of your varied 
 existence ; a curious experience to sound. You 
 have set your heart on being in love with me 
 since that was an experience most amusingly im 
 probable. I am another toy to grasp since the 
 last disappointed." 
 
 "You are dull," said Camelia. She looked down, 
 clasping her hands behind her. " You are not 
 sincere. It pleases you to blind yourself with 
 your preconceived idea of me. Your self-righteous 
 ness would not like to own itself mistaken in be 
 lieving anything but the worst of me." 
 
 " Ah ! hasn't it for years been struggling to see 
 only the best of you ! " cried Perior ; " I don't de 
 serve that, Camelia." 
 
 " You see the best now ; why won't you believe 
 in it ? " 
 
 "I don't say I see the worst by no means; 
 even there is something that surprises me, that 
 makes me confess, gladly, that I have misjudged 
 you ; but I can only believe that yesterday, in the 
 impulsive reaction against your false position you 
 did not love Arthur the fact frightened you; I 
 am glad of that, too ; but in the melting illusion 
 you thought of me as something solid to cling to, 
 and now you are determined to keep on clinging, 
 deceiving yourself with an impossible mirage of 
 fidelity, devotion, and self-forgetting, which you'll 
 never reach, Camelia never, never." Camelia con 
 templated him. 
 
 " Yes, you believed that, or something even less 
 pathetic ; that accounts for your cruelty the cruelty 
 of your last words yesterday so false as I knew
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 191 
 
 them ; but I understood them, saw all you thought, 
 though your wrath, your injury, your impatience 
 to punish how fond you are of punishing! 
 wouldn't let me explain. You did not believe that 
 I loved you loved you. You do not believe it now. 
 You can't believe that I, who could have anybody, 
 should choose you. It looks to you like an aber 
 ration. You are afraid of being hurt by believing, 
 afraid I'll treat you as I treated him, afraid that 
 you will be another toy that was what cut yester 
 day. You were being played with I saw you 
 thought it. But I do love you ; you will have to 
 believe it. I do choose you." Her head raised, 
 she was looking at him with the clear command 
 of this inflexible choice. The sublimity of con 
 fidence was touching. Perior, grimly conscious of 
 its illusory foothold over chasms, could afford a 
 certain chivalry, could at least restrain the bru 
 tality of a push into the void. He didn't like the 
 idea of Camelia, his smiling Camelia, really scared, 
 tumbling from her pinnacles into the abyss where 
 rocky facts awaited her. 
 
 "I am sensible to the compliment" the mild 
 irony of his tone was a warning of insecurity 
 " though you will own that it is, in some senses, 
 a dubious one; but it's very kind in you, who 
 could have anybody, to stoop to a nobody. My ob 
 scurity is gilded by the preference ; it will console, 
 illuminate my solitude." 
 
 She flushed, interrupting him with a quick, sharp 
 " I didn't intend that ! You know it ! You are 
 cruel, yes, and mean; for only my sincerity gives 
 you the power to wound me. You are a somebody ;
 
 192 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 though the whole world were blind, I can see ; 
 that is why I love you. Do you believe me when 
 I tell you that I love you ? " Camelia did not come 
 closer as she asked it, but her poised expectancy 
 of look seemed to claim him. 
 
 Perior folded his arms and stared at her. " I 
 would rather not," he said. 
 
 "Why?" her voice at last showed a tremor. 
 " You debase me by your incredulity. If I do not 
 love you what did yesterday mean ? what does 
 this mean ? It is my only excuse." 
 
 " Excuse ? " in this nearing antagonism his 
 voice flamed up at the sudden outlet " Excuse ? 
 There was no excuse for yesterday." Saved from 
 the direct brutality of refusing her love, the memory 
 of Arthur's betrayed trust rose hot within him. 
 Arthur's sincerity shone in its noble unconscious 
 ness of the falseness of friend and sweetheart, one 
 falseness forced, one willing and frivolous ; his grief 
 was mocked by her indifference. 
 
 "Nothing can excuse that," he said. "What 
 right had you to accept him ? What right had 
 you to keep me in ignorance ? Why did you not 
 break with him before turning to me? By Heaven, 
 Camelia ! even knowing you as I do, I cannot 
 understand how you did it ! I could hardly look 
 him in the face when he was here, the thought of 
 it sickened me so." 
 
 "Yes, that was horrible," said Camelia. 
 
 " Horrible ? " Perior repeated. Her judicial tone 
 exasperated him. He walked away to the window 
 repeating, " Horrible ! " as though exclaiming at 
 inadequacy.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 193 
 
 " But have I not atoned ? " Camelia asked. 
 
 "Atoned ?" he stared round at her. 
 
 " I have set him free. I have owned myself 
 unworthy. I did not know you cared for me when 
 I accepted him, or, at least, I did not know I cared 
 for you so much." 
 
 Perior continued to look at her for a silent 
 moment, contemplating the monstrousness, yet 
 strangely intuitive truth of her amendment. He 
 let it pass, feeling rather helpless before it. 
 
 " So that is the way you pave the way to peni 
 tence ? You atone to the broken toys by walking 
 over them ? No, Camelia, no, nothing atones, 
 either to him or to me, for that unspoken lie." He 
 came back to her, feeling the need to face her for 
 the solemn moment of the contest. 
 
 Camelia was speaking hurriedly at last, losing a 
 little her sustaining calm "And had I told you? 
 Had I said at once that I was engaged to him ? 
 Would that have helped us ? Could you have 
 said, then, that you loved me ? You would have 
 been too angry for his sake to say it, when 
 I had told you that in one day I had accepted 
 and meant to reject him " the questions came 
 eagerly. 
 
 He looked at her face, strong with its still un 
 shaken certainty, white, delicate, insistent. Loving 
 it and her, his eyes held hers intently, and he 
 asked, " Did I say I loved you ? " 
 
 A serene dignity rose to meet his look. " You 
 did not say it, perhaps. You said you did not love 
 me," she added, with a little smile. 
 
 " I was base and I spoke basely. I said that I 
 
 N
 
 194 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 loved you enough to kiss you. You may scorn me 
 for it." 
 
 " Ah ! " she said quickly, " that was because you 
 did not believe that I loved you ! You are ex 
 onerated." 
 
 " Not even then. But if you do love me choose 
 me, as you say ; if I do love'you which I have not 
 said and will not say, will not say even to excul 
 pate my folly of last night even then, Camelia ! 
 I would not marry a woman whom I despise." 
 
 " Despise ? " she repeated. Her voice was a 
 toneless echo of his. She weighed the word, and 
 found it heavy, as he saw. Her eyes dwelt on his 
 mutely, and there dawned slowly in them the 
 terror of the eternal negative that rose between her 
 and him. 
 
 "You are not good enough for me, Camelia," 
 said Perior. 
 
 " Because of yesterday ! " she gasped. " You 
 can't forgive that ! " 
 
 " Not only that, Camelia I do not love you." 
 
 She stood silent, gazing. His heart bled for her. 
 To tell the saving lie, he had faced a jibing self- 
 scorn ; yet he continued to face it inflexibly. 
 
 " I could not live with you. I think you would 
 kill me. I said to poor Arthur this afternoon what 
 I believe of you that you are selfish, and false, 
 and hard as a stone. I could not love a woman of 
 whom I could think of whom I had been forced to 
 say that." 
 
 Compunctions rained upon him sharp arrows. 
 Her mute, white face appealed if only to the long 
 devotion, the long tenderness of years.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 195 
 
 The crucial moment was past, and the upwelling 
 tenderness, devotion, called to him to hurry her 
 away from it, and support her under his own most 
 necessary cruelty. 
 
 His voice broke in a stammer as he said, taking 
 her hands " How can I tell you how I hate my 
 self for saying this ? it is hideous it is mean 
 to say." 
 
 And Camelia said nothing, seemed merely to 
 await, in a frozen stupor, another blow. He could 
 not see in her now the lying jilt of yesterday. 
 
 " Don't think of me again as I've been this after 
 noon. Forget it, won't you ? " he urged. " I am 
 going away to-morrow and you will get over it, 
 be able to see me again some day, as the good old 
 friend who never wanted to be cruel no, I swear it, 
 Camelia. You must go now ; you will let me order 
 the trap ? You will let me drive you home ? " 
 
 She had drawn her hands away; in the dim 
 room her eyes met his bereft, astonished. 
 
 " You will let me drive you ? " Perior repeated, 
 with some confusion. 
 
 " No, I will walk," she said, hardly audibly. 
 
 " The five miles back ? It is too far too late." 
 He looked away from her, too much touched by 
 those astonished eyes. 
 
 "No I will walk." Then, as he stood still, 
 rather at a loss 
 
 " You are going to-morrow ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Because of me ? " 
 
 " Ah that pleases you ! " he said, with a smile a 
 little forced.
 
 196 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Pleases me ! " The sharpness of her voice cut 
 him, made him feel gross in his unkindness. 
 
 " It does not please me, but it is the best thing 
 under the circumstances. Now, Camelia, you must 
 go. I will walk with you. We won't speak of this 
 at all will pretend it never happened. You must 
 forgive my folly of last night, and get over this 
 touching folly of yours. Come, we won't talk of it 
 any more," he repeated, drawing her hand through 
 his arm, holding it with a clasp consolatory and 
 entreating. 
 
 She did not follow him. " No ! no ! " she said, 
 half-choked, drawing away the hand. Then, sud 
 denly, with a great sob, turning to him, she flung 
 herself upon his breast, clung to him, her hands 
 clutching his shoulders 
 
 " Oh ! don't leave me ! Don't leave me ! I can't 
 bear it ! " she cried, shuddering. " I will be good ! 
 Oh, I will be good ! Give me time, just wait and 
 see " The words were half lost, as with hidden 
 face she wept. "You are so cruel, so unjust give 
 me time and see how I will please you how you 
 will love me. You must love me you must you 
 must ! " 
 
 " Camelia ! Camelia ! " Perior was shocked, 
 shaken as well. The deep note of his own voice 
 warned him in its pity, and amazement, and distress, 
 of the dangerous emotion that seized him. To yield 
 again to an emotion, even though a higher one than 
 last night's to yield with those thoughts of her 
 those spoken thoughts never, never. 
 
 He tried to hold her off; her sobs made her 
 helpless, but with arms outstretched blindly, as
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 197 
 
 he remembered to have seen a crying, stumbling 
 child, she turned to him it was too pitiful as she 
 might have turned to her mother. How repulse 
 the broken creature ? He could but take the out 
 stretched hands, let her come to him again ; she did 
 not put her arms around him ; there was no claim ; 
 only a clinging, her face hidden, as she sobbed, 
 " Don't leave me ! Don't ! I love you ! I adore 
 
 you 
 
 t " 
 
 " My poor child ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, your poor child ! Be sorry for me, 
 be kind only a child. I did not mean to deserve 
 that torture, you despising ! I never meant any 
 thing so wrong. Only a silly, a selfish, a frivolous 
 child won't you see it ? never caring for the toys 
 I played with never caring for anything but you, 
 really. Can't you see it now, as I do ? I have 
 grown up, I have put away those things. Can't 
 you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes. Great heavens ! I am not such a prig, 
 such a fool ! I have always hoped " 
 
 "That you could allow yourself to love me ! Ah, 
 say it ! say it ! " She looked up, lifting her face 
 to his. 
 
 "To be fond of you, Camelia," said Perior. " I 
 can't say more than that ! " 
 
 " Because you won't believe in me ! Can't believe 
 in me ! And I can't live without you to help me ! 
 Haven't you seen, all along, that you were the only 
 one I cared about ? Half my little naughtinesses 
 were only to provoke you, to make you angry, to 
 see that you cared enough to be angry. All the 
 rest the worldliness the using of people yes,
 
 198 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 yes, I own to it ! but no one was better than I ! 
 Why should I have been good when no one else is ? 
 When all are playing the same game, and most 
 people only fit to play with ? Why should I have 
 been better than they ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Camelia, but my wife would 
 have to be." 
 
 " She will be." 
 
 " Don't make me hurt you don't be so cruel to 
 yourself." 
 
 "She will be," Camelia repeated. 
 
 " I beg of you I implore you, Camelia." He 
 hardened his face to meet her look, searching, eager, 
 pitiful. 
 
 " How could I say this unless I believed you 
 loved me had always loved me ? Don't speak ; 
 don't say no ; don't send me away. You are angry. 
 You have the right to be ; but, ah ! if you only 
 knew what I feel for you." 
 
 " Don't tell me, Camelia." 
 
 "But I must. I love everything about you I 
 always have. When you were near me I saw 
 every gesture you made, heard every word you 
 spoke, knew every thought you had about me. I 
 love your little ways I know them all : that wag 
 of your foot when you are angry, the look of your 
 teeth when you smile, your hands, your face, your 
 dear rough hair " 
 
 Perior had turned from red to white, and still 
 looking at him, shaking her head a little, she 
 finished very simply on a long sigh 
 
 " I can't live without you. I cant" 
 
 " Camelia, I can't marry you," he said ; and then,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 199 
 
 taking breath in the ensuing silence, " You are 
 mistaken. I don't love you. I have your welfare 
 at my heart; I wish you all happiness, all good. 
 I am sorry, terribly sorry for you ; but I do not 
 love you. You must believe me. I do not love 
 you. I will not marry you." " God forgive me for 
 the lie," he said to himself; "but no, no, no, I can- 
 not marry her, poor impulsive, wilful, half noble, 
 half pitiful child, a thousand times no." The strong 
 rebellion of his very soul steadied him. He could 
 yield without a tremor to his pity, could take her 
 hands and hold them in a clasp convincingly paternal 
 and pitying. 
 
 Camelia closed her eyes, drawing in a long breath, 
 too sharp in its accepted bitterness for the break 
 of a sob. Her face, with this tragedy of still woe 
 upon it, was almost unrecognisable. Until now it 
 had been a face of triumph. Defeat and that at 
 last she recognised defeat he saw changed its 
 very lines; the iron entered her soul, and some 
 thing left her face for ever. For a long time she 
 did not speak,' and her voice seemed dimmed, as 
 though spoken from a great distance, when she 
 said, her eyes still closed, "Then you never 
 loved me ! " 
 
 " Never," said Perior, who, encompassed by the 
 saving lie, could freely breathe in the tonic atmos 
 phere of his resolute pain. 
 
 " But you are fond of me ? " said Camelia ; and 
 as she spoke, from under the solemn pressure of 
 her eyelids, pressed down as on a dead hope, great 
 tears came slowly. 
 
 " Great Heaven ! Fond of you ? Fond of you ?
 
 200 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Yes yes, my dear Camelia." He leaned forward 
 and kissed her forehead above the closed eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! " she murmured, " I was so sure you 
 loved me ! " More than its rigid misery, the 
 humble bewilderment on her face, as of a creature 
 stricken helpless, and not comprehending its pain, 
 hurt him, warned him that every moment made 
 it more difficult to keep down the fluttering of a 
 longing he would not, must never satisfy. He 
 seemed to crush a harsh hand on its delicate 
 wings as he said 
 
 "And now you will go. You will let me walk 
 home with you ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " No, no." 
 
 She went towards the door, her hand still in 
 his. 
 
 'You should not go alone. I beg of you, dear, 
 to let me come." 
 
 " I would rather go alone." 
 
 They were in the hall, and she had not looked 
 at him again. She put her hand out to the door 
 and then she paused. Perior had also paused. 
 
 " Will you kiss me good-bye ? " she said. 
 
 "Will I? O Camelia!" At that moment he 
 felt himself to be more false than he had been 
 during all the scene with her, for as he kissed her 
 the fluttering wings beat upward with the exultant 
 throb of a released desire. And she did not know. 
 She believed him. All her hope was stricken in 
 the dust. And yet they clung together lovers ; 
 he ashamed of his knowledge ; she pathetic, tragic, 
 in her chastened, her humiliated, trust and ignor 
 ance.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MRS. Fox-DARRlEL was walking across the hall 
 on her way to the staircase when Camelia entered. 
 She had not seen Camelia since the morning's 
 catastrophe, a catastrophe as yet unannounced, but 
 plainly discernible in the departure of the Henges 
 in Lady Paton's retirement, Camelia's disappear 
 ance, and Mary's heavy silence. Mary herself 
 hardly knew as yet, could only suspect, with a 
 sickening droop of disappointment following a 
 hope, unreasonable perhaps, but delicious while it 
 so briefly lasted. 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel plied her with profitless ques 
 tions during tea-time; she only knew that Sir 
 Arthur had ridden away, that Lady Henge had 
 followed with the boxes, that Aunt Angelica was 
 in her room, and that Camelia had gone out. Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel was not disposed to let Camelia off 
 easily; and now, undeterred by the almost vacant 
 stare her young hostess bent upon her, she rushed 
 at her imperatively. 
 
 " You look quite half mad, Camelia ! What is 
 the matter ? The Henges are gone, she as gloomy 
 as a hearse. I have not seen your mother since 
 breakfast. Has a thunderbolt struck the house ? 
 You accepted Arthur Henge yesterday, and to-day 
 you give him his congJ. Is it possible ? "
 
 202 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Camelia's hand waved her aside. What did 
 this chattering, rattling creature want of her ? 
 She belonged to a dim primeval age, the age of 
 yesterday, before the cataclysm had changed every 
 thing. 
 
 " No ; you are not going to get rid of me like 
 that ! " Mrs. Fox-Darriel followed her swiftly up 
 the stairs. "That would be a little too bad, to 
 leave me, all curiosity, frying in my own ignorance. 
 Now, Camelia, let me have the whole truth of it. 
 What has happened ? " She confronted her in her 
 room. 
 
 " Yes, I have broken my engagement." 
 
 " Why ? great heavens, why ? 
 
 " I don't love him. Please go, Frances." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel crossed her arms and surveyed 
 her friend in an exasperated silence. 
 
 " Was that so necessary ? " she asked presently, 
 while Camelia, sitting in a low chair half turned 
 from her, unbuttoned her muddy boots and gaiters. 
 
 " Yes, it was. I wish you would go away." 
 
 "You know what every one will think you know 
 what I think ! that you accepted him to prove 
 you could throw him over. You try him on to 
 show that you can fit him, and then kick him away, 
 precisely as you kick away that muddy boot. It is 
 an unheard-of thing. It is distinctly nasty." 
 
 Camelia leaned back with closed eyes, hardly 
 hearing, certainly not caring for the words, though 
 their sound was an importunate jangling at her 
 ears, wearisome, irritating. 
 
 " As for the egregious folly of it ! well, my dear, 
 you may have plans into which I am not initiated,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 203 
 
 but the day will come, I think, in which you will 
 own that you have behaved like a horrid little 
 fool." Mrs. Fox-Darriel moved towards the door, 
 not caring to outstay her climax, yet urged to an 
 addenda by the exasperating, almost slumbering 
 indifference of Camelia's face. " I will go. You 
 want to finish your cry. Have you been walking 
 about the lanes crying ? I am off to the Dormers 
 to-morrow ; I only stayed on here because of you ; 
 my occupation now is decidedly gone." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Camelia. 
 
 When she was alone she rose and bolted the 
 door. Her ten miles had tired her physically, and 
 she sank back into her chair, her stockinged feet 
 stretched out, her muddy skirts clinging damply 
 about her ankles. 
 
 Yes, let the whole truth surge over her, and find 
 her unresisting. 
 
 He did not love her ; had never loved her. He 
 despised her. The remembrance of his scorn crept 
 over her like a gnawing flame. The shame of last 
 night's dancing, of his reluctant embrace, that she 
 had courted, came upon her in an awful revelation ; 
 and the wilful, desperate passion of to-day, sure of 
 the hidden treasure he withheld from her in punish 
 ment only a child pounding at a locked door. 
 And the room was empty; there had been no 
 treasure. She had forced him to open to her the 
 dreadful vacancy. His sad friendship, smarting 
 still from its momentary debasement, had sheltered 
 her from the keenest pang; it was as if he had 
 held her hand as, together, they went into that 
 vacant room ; now, alone, the realisation of her
 
 204 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 own abasement stunned her. But she loved him. 
 It had not been for her love that he had scorned 
 her, though misinterpreting it so cruelly. She had 
 made it impossible that she should ever retrieve 
 herself, or that he should ever see the truth; her 
 falseness had blinded him to her only worth, yet 
 even now the consciousness of that worth held her 
 from utter loss of self-respect, the consciousness of 
 the intrinsic nobility of her devotion, rejected alas ! 
 seen with darkest disfigurements, but standing up 
 right and unashamed at the centre of her life. 
 This great love was like an over-soul, a nobler self 
 looking with sad eyes at the prostrate, the utterly 
 confounded Camelia. 
 
 Then came throbs of loneliness and terror. He 
 was going away ! She sprang up under the knife- 
 like thrust of the thought. Oh ! if at least he had 
 believed her ! If at least he had seen tragedy, not a 
 poor, silly farce, the only noble thing in her life dis 
 torted to a wretched folly. Only outwardly had she 
 been a child screaming for an unattainable toy. She 
 walked up and down the room, her hands wrung 
 together, until a quivering weakness of fatigue came 
 over her, and she flung herself face downwards on 
 the bed. 
 
 Sobs came with the despairing posture. Her 
 whole body shook with them. 
 
 A tiny, timid knock at the door broke in on the 
 miserable satisfaction of woe expressed. 
 
 Camelia held back her weeping and listened 
 silently. 
 
 " Camelia," said her mother's voice, a voice tremu 
 lous with tears, " may I not see you, my darling ? "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 205 
 
 In her agonising self-absorption Camelia heard 
 the words with a resentment made fierce by sympathy 
 crushed down. 
 
 " No," she said, steadying her voice, for her mother 
 must not think her weeping in regret over her act of 
 repudiation, "you can't." 
 
 " Please, my child " Lady Paton evidently began 
 to sob, and Camelia, wrapping herself in a sense of 
 necessary and therefore justified brutality, again 
 buried her head in the pillow. Yes, she was a brute, 
 of course, but how silly of her mother to stand 
 there crying ! How tactless, at least ; for Camelia 
 at once hated herself for the other word. What 
 did she expect ? She seemed nearly as remote as 
 Frances not quite, for she could see Frances and 
 repulse her with complete indifference, and she could 
 not meet her mother indifferently. There would be 
 the pain, the irritation of feigning. 
 
 " Don't be cruel, dear." The words reached her 
 dimly through the pillow. Cruel ! Camelia smiled 
 bitterly. She did not know. The apparent cause 
 for grief was slight indeed ; the real one was locked 
 for ever in her heart, so let them think her cruel. 
 
 The hopeless little click of the door-knob showed 
 that her mother's hand had been appealingly laid 
 upon it. Her slow footstep passed along the hall. 
 Camelia lay in her damp, hot pillow, her eyes closed. 
 "Yes, I am a brute," she said to herself; and then, 
 thinking of Perior, her tears flowed again.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 MRS. JEDSLEY'S visit of curiosity and condolence 
 was of a surprisingly consolatory nature. As an 
 old friend, Mrs. Jedsley permitted herself the curio 
 sity ; but even from an old friend Lady Paton had 
 not expected a true-ringing generosity of judg 
 ment. 
 
 " I came, my dear yes, because I wanted to 
 know. My ears are buzzing with the talk of it 
 true or false, who can tell ? Not even you, I 
 fancy; but I have my own opinion," said Mrs. 
 Jedsley. " I understand Camelia pretty well ; but 
 vulgarly, schemingly cruel rubbish ! rubbish ! 
 so I say ! " 
 
 That the saying had been at all necessary made 
 poor Lady Paton more white, yet Mrs. Jedsley's 
 denunciation was so sincere that she took her 
 hands, saying, " How can they ! It was a mistake. 
 She found she did not love him. He understands." 
 Sir Arthur's parting words had haloed her daughter 
 for her during these difficult days. 
 
 " Yes, yes, he is a very fine fellow, and idealises 
 her tremendously," said Mrs. Jedsley, with strict 
 justice. " It was, of course, a great shame for her not 
 
 to have made up her mind long ago a great shame 
 
 206
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 207 
 
 to have accepted him " Mrs. Jedsley shore off 
 Camelia's beams relentlessly " and a great pity, 
 my dear, that the engagement should have been 
 announced, since a few hours of silence might have 
 shifted the matter, and no one the wiser. But 
 of course we were all as ready as dry kindling 
 for the match it spread like wildfire a fine 
 crackling ! and then, in a day, a fine cackling ! 
 Lady Haversham came running down to me post 
 haste to say it was off to wonder, to exult. Of 
 course she is an adherent of the Duchess's, and 
 Lady Elizabeth has her chance again. But yes, 
 yes, I know the child a vain child, a selfish 
 child; ah! it pains you; one must face that 
 truth to see beyond it to others ; but not vul 
 garly cruel. She would not play with the man 
 for months to give herself the feline fun of crunch 
 ing him at the end of it all. She was playing with 
 herself rather, only half in earnest. The engage 
 ment brought her to her senses held her still; 
 she couldn't dance, so she thought. Indeed, it's 
 the first time I've respected Camelia. I do respect 
 a person who has the courage to retrieve a false 
 step. It is quite a good enough match to turn a 
 girl into a schemer. At least she has proved she's 
 not that." 
 
 " No ! no ! My daughter ! " 
 
 " Quite true ; your daughter ; that does count, 
 after all. No, she can't be accused of husband- 
 hunting." Mrs. Jedsley laughed dryly. " Now, 
 the question of course remains, who is she in love 
 with ? " and she fixed on her friend a gaze so
 
 208 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 keenly interrogative that it certainly suggested 
 tinder ready to flash alight of itself. " Not 
 our Parliamentary big-wig, Mr. Rodrigg? Oh 
 no! " 
 
 " No, indeed." Lady Paton's head-shake might 
 have damped the most arduous conjecture. " He 
 went away, you know very angrily, it seems, 
 and most discourteously, for I did not even see 
 him. He behaved very badly, Michael told me. 
 Michael himself is gone ; you knew that too ? 
 He just stopped to see me on his way to the 
 station." 
 
 " Mr. Perior yes." Mrs. Jedsley looked rumi 
 native ; even to her quickly jumping mind that 
 long leap of inference did not suggest itself except 
 in one connection. 
 
 Poor Mr. Perior ! Had Camelia been giving the 
 mitten right and left ? Buffeting back into hope 
 lessness each suitor who advanced, encouraged by 
 another's failure? Had Mr. Perior really been 
 foolish enough to run his head into that trap ? 
 
 " Now that the comedy is over, the chief con 
 fidant packs up he quite filled that role, didn't 
 he?" she said. "And our fine jingling lady, Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel ? Has she, too, folded her tents and 
 stolen away? not silently, I'll be bound. She 
 had staked something on the match." 
 
 " She is gone. She spoke unkindly to me of 
 Camelia. I do not like her. I could say nothing, 
 it was so " 
 
 " So neatly done. She implied, merely ; you 
 would have accepted inferences by recognising 
 them. I can hear her ! "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 209 
 
 " She felt for me. Camelia had gone too far it 
 didn't look well; a girl must not overstep certain 
 limits ; one could make too much of a reputation 
 for audacity ; Camelia's charm had been to be 
 audacious, without seeming so. And the sad affair 
 of Mr. Rodrigg Camelia should not have stooped, 
 and to no purpose ; people turned on one so hor 
 ridly. Poor Sir Arthur would lose his bill as well 
 as his sweetheart, now that Camelia had meddled 
 so disastrously. Oh ! she was most unkind." Lady 
 Paton evidently remembered the unkindness her 
 voice was a curious echo. 
 
 Mrs. Jedsley ruminated energetically all the way 
 back to the village, as, her skirts raised in either 
 hand, she marched with heavy-booted splashes 
 through the mud. Near the village she overtook 
 Mary, bending as she walked, an umbrella uncom 
 fortably wedged under one arm, several parcels 
 encumbering her. 
 
 " My dear, why walk in this weather ? " Mrs. 
 Jedsley herself walked in all weathers, but for 
 Mary, with a pleasant equine background, the 
 necessity was not obvious; she joined her with 
 the ejaculation. 
 
 " Oh ! I like walking, Mrs. Jedsley," said Mary. 
 " Aunt Angelica always tells me to have the pony- 
 cart, but it seems hardly worth while for this little 
 distance." 
 
 " A good mile. Where are you bound for ? " 
 
 " I want to see Mrs. Brown ; Kitty was rather 
 troublesome in Sunday-school last Sunday." 
 
 "And how nicely you manage that class. It is 
 a credit to you. Camelia now laughs at it." Mary 
 

 
 2io THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 said nothing to this, and Mrs. Jedsley added, " Not 
 that she has much heart for laughing at anything 
 just now from what I hear. That is the very 
 encouraging feature of the whole case. It is 
 ridiculous to speak of her as setting feathers in 
 her cap with a light heart. She really feels this 
 sad affair." 
 
 "Yes," said Mary, looking ahead with a rather 
 rigid settling of her features. 
 
 "One might perhaps say affairs," Mrs. Jedsley 
 added, for she could not keep those restless con 
 jectures to herself; out they galloped. "It has 
 been a general dtbAcle. Mr. Rodrigg gone in a 
 fury breathing flame ; Sir Arthur flung from his 
 triumph and, poor Mr. Perior. Now I really did 
 not expect it of Mr. Perior; I thought he knew 
 her so well yet, for eyes that can see it's very 
 evident, isn't it ? " 
 
 Mary looked down, making no reply. 
 
 " Evidently she has a charm the most metallic 
 male heart can't withstand ; a case of molten iron 
 with Mr. Perior in that condition I can imagine 
 him irresistible to some women. But such a 
 reasonable man ; well-seasoned, and her friend for 
 years. Oh ! it's a great pity that he let her melt 
 him; no one knows now what shape his despair 
 will cool to ! " 
 
 Mary, her head bent persistently downward, 
 stared at the muddy road. 
 
 "That she was very fond of him there is no 
 denying," Mrs. Jedsley pursued, " but I should 
 have seen that as the most hopeless part of the 
 matter. A girl like Camelia doesn't marry the
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 211 
 
 middle-aged mentor of her youth. But fond of 
 him she is. I have watched her. Her eyes were 
 always sliding round to him. He made a standard 
 to her; she might jibe at it, but she liked to see 
 it standing there and to hang a wreath on it 
 now and then. Upon my word, Mary!" and 
 Mrs. Jedsley, stopping short in a mud-puddle, 
 turned triumphant eyes on Mary's impassive face, 
 " I shouldn't be surprised if that were the real 
 matter with her. She is really fond of him ; his 
 tumble hurts her more than the other's. She 
 misses her sign-post pointing steadily at friend 
 ship. She is sorry to lose her friend." 
 
 Mary after a little pause said, " Yes." 
 
 " Yes ! You think so too ! " cried Mrs. Jedsley de 
 lightedly. " You have opportunities, of course " 
 
 " Oh no ! no, indeed, Mrs. Jedsley I only think, 
 only imagine " 
 
 "You have thought and imagined what I have. 
 And that we are right I don't doubt. The double 
 catastrophe accounts very fully for her low spirits 
 and I really respect her for them, though that 
 the catastrophe should have occurred makes it 
 only just that she should suffer. But Mr. Perior 
 was foolish. Ah yes! in her defence I must say 
 that ! " 
 
 Mary was saying nothing, standing mutely at 
 the parting of the roads until her companion should 
 have done. She was well prepared for Mrs. Jed- 
 sley's unconscious darts. 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darnel's parting look and parting 
 words still rankled in her heavy heart; the look, 
 one of pity ; the words : " She has refused the
 
 212 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 other too ! And him she would have liked to keep 
 dangling ! She enjoys an interminable sense of 
 drama when he is by; her life is bereft without 
 it. But the man was mad to think that she would 
 take him," and the look had added that the man 
 was a fool not to see and be contented with the 
 minor fact Mary would have been so willing to 
 supply. Mary had felt withered; her nerves 
 scorched to apathy, since that look. 
 
 "You must come in and have tea with me, my 
 dear," said Mrs. Jedsley, " it will put strength 
 into you for your talk with Mrs. Brown. Come 
 and have a cup with me and you know my hot 
 scones ; we will talk this over. Your aunt doesn't 
 suspect it, poor dear ! " 
 
 "No, Mrs. Jedsley, thanks I can't come, and 
 no, aunt does not know must not know ; it would 
 make her feel very unhappy ! she is so fond of 
 Mr. Perior; she doesn't suspect it," Mary spoke 
 with sudden insistence " and then, it may be pure 
 imagination on my part," she added, flushing before 
 Mrs. Jedsley's smiling and complacent head-shake. 
 " It would be unfair to them would it not ? to 
 Camelia I mean and " 
 
 " And Mr. Perior ; quite true, my dear. We must 
 be as quiet as mice about it. Unfair, as you say. 
 We must not hang out his heart for the daws to 
 peck at. Poor man ! You won't come in to 
 tea?" 
 
 "Thanks, no. I must be home early." Mary 
 hurried away. She bit her lips hard, staring before 
 her at the wet browns and greys of the lane, dingy, 
 drab, like her life; narrow, dull, chill with on-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 213 
 
 coming winter, and leading the lane led to the 
 churchyard. Mary's thoughts followed it to that 
 destination, and suddenly the hot tears rolled down 
 her cheeks, and hard sobs shook her as she 
 walked.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THESE days were very lonely for Lady Paton. 
 The house was empty, and one could not call 
 companionship Camelia's mute, white presence. 
 
 Camelia read all day in the library, where only 
 Siegfried was made welcome, or rode for hours 
 about the wintry country. To all timid questions, 
 as to future plans, she only answered by a coldly 
 decisive, " I don't know." When her mother put 
 her arms around her, Camelia stood impassive in 
 their circling love, locked in her own frozen mood 
 of despairing humiliation. 
 
 One day when in her room she had broken down 
 her outward endurance by an impulsive cry of woe, 
 and stood sobbing, her face in her hands, her mother 
 came in, made courageous by pity. 
 
 "My dearest child, tell me what is it? You 
 are breaking your heart and mine. Do you love 
 him ? Tell me, darling. Is it some hidden scruple ? 
 some fancy? Let me send for him." Poor Lady 
 Paton's thoughts dwelt longingly on amorous 
 remedies. 
 
 " Love him ? Sir Arthur ? Are you mad, 
 mother?" Camelia lifted a stern face. "He 
 doesn't enter my mind. He is nothing to me 
 simply nothing." 
 
 " But, Camelia you are miserable "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELiA 215 
 
 " Ah ! I have a right to that dreary liberty." 
 
 "And oh, don't be angry, dearest is there no 
 one else ? " 
 
 " No one else ? " Camelia repeated it angrily 
 indeed; that her mother should give this stupid 
 wrench to her heart was intolerable. " Of course 
 there is no one else ! How can you be so tiresome, 
 mother ! There don't cry. I am simply sick of 
 everything myself included, that is all that is the 
 matter with me. Please don't cry!" for sympa 
 thetic tears were coming into her own eyes, and 
 above all things she dreaded a breaking down of 
 reserves, a weakened dignity that might bring her 
 to a sobbing, maudlin confession, that would burn 
 her afterwards, and follow her everywhere in the 
 larger pity of her mother's eyes. 
 
 Lady Paton, her handkerchief at her lips, pressed 
 back her grief, saying in a broken entreaty, "But, 
 Camelia why ? How long will it last ? You were 
 always such a happy creature." 
 
 " How can I tell ? " Camelia gave a little laugh 
 that carried her over the vanquished sob to a cer 
 tain calmness ; leaning back against the mantelpiece 
 she added, smiling drearily, " Don't worry, mother ; 
 don't you be miserable." 
 
 Lady Paton looked at her with eyes in which 
 Camelia felt the unconscious dignity of an inarticu 
 late reproof. 
 
 "Oh, my child!" she said, "my child! Am I 
 not your mother? Is not your happiness my 
 only happiness ? your sorrow my last and 
 greatest sorrow? You forget me, dear, in your 
 own grief. You shut me out because you don't
 
 216 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 love me as I love you ; it is that that hurts 
 the most." 
 
 Camelia stood looking at her. Her artistic sensi 
 bility was decidedly impressed by this unexpected 
 revelation of character. How well her mother's 
 white hair and cap looked on the pale greens of the 
 room ; the exquisite face, and the more exquisite 
 soul looking from it. How well she had spoken ; 
 how truly too. Yes, her own worthlessness clung 
 to her; she, so far inferior in moral worth, made 
 this sweet, fragile creature unhappy; she was 
 everything to her mother, the light that shone 
 through and sustained the white petals of her 
 flower-like being ; and her mother was to her only 
 a pretty detail. Camelia analysed it all very com 
 pletely, and resting on an achieved self-disgust she 
 said, gravely contemplating her, " It is a great 
 shame, mother. That is the way of this wretched 
 world. The good people are always making beauty 
 for the bad ones. You shouldn't let that lovely, 
 but most irrational maternal instinct dominate you ; 
 see me as I am, a horrid creature." She paused, and 
 all thoughts of artistic effects, all poetical and scien 
 tific appreciations, were blotted out in a flame-like 
 leap of memory " False, selfish, hard as a stone," 
 she said. 
 
 " Don't say it, dear you could not say it if it 
 were so." 
 
 " Oh yes ! one can, if one has a devilish clear 
 ness of perception about everything. I am horrid 
 and I know that I am horrid. And you are very 
 lovely. There." And kissing her, Camelia pushed 
 her gently to the door.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 217 
 
 Perhaps, however, more than artistic sensibilities 
 had been touched. Camelia shrank as quickly as 
 before from any demonstration that seemed to look 
 too closely at her heart, but she herself would make 
 advances. She was only gentle, now, towards her 
 mother ; she never failed to kiss or caress her when 
 they met. A cheerful coldness seemed at once her 
 surest refuge and most becoming medium for an 
 affection that could allow itself no warmer and more 
 dangerous avowals. It was a colourless, still 
 affection, held, as it were, from development, only 
 felt by Lady Paton as a more careful kindness, 
 and by Camelia as a new necessity for incurring 
 no further self-reproach. 
 
 Poor Lady Paton, devouring her heart in sorrow 
 ful conjecture and helpless sympathy, had no thought 
 but of her child ; but by her side, Mary, the silent 
 witness of her grief and anxiety, might have claimed, 
 from disengaged eyes, a foreboding attention. Since 
 the day of her stolen ride Mary had effaced herself 
 in a shadowy taciturnity. She watched Camelia, 
 and avoided her. Her absorption in every house 
 hold duty became minutely forced. She slipped 
 early to bed after a day of self-imposed labour. 
 Work and its ensuing weariness were the only 
 sedatives for intolerable pain ; she deadened herself 
 with the drug. The weather was bad, and Lady 
 Paton too depressed to rouse herself to her usual 
 benignant activity. Mary took upon herself her 
 Aunt's abandoned occupations. She went every 
 day to read to the paralysed girl at the Manor Farm. 
 She made the weekly round of visits through the 
 wet village streets ; consulted with the well- worked
 
 218 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 rector; kept an eye upon the school and alms- 
 houses. Mary was not particularly popular in 
 the village. Her kindness was rather flat and 
 flavourless ; Jane Hicks at the farm complained 
 to her mother that Miss Fairleigh's reading was 
 "so dull like; one didn't seem to get anything 
 from it." 
 
 Jane never forgot the one visit Miss Paton made 
 her, nor how Camelia had sat beside her and kept 
 her laughing the whole hour. Camelia, seeing the 
 effect she made, had promised to return some day, 
 but events had interfered ; she now was in no mood 
 for laughing, and Jane was always eager to question 
 Mary about Camelia's doings, and to sigh with the 
 pleasant reminiscence of her "pretty ways." Mary's 
 virtues were all peculiarly unremunerative ; they 
 sought, and obtained, no reward. 
 
 Towards the beginning of December Camelia's 
 despair threw itself into action. The rankling sense 
 of Perior's scorn at first stupefied, and at last roused 
 her. Before him she had felt her powerlessness. 
 His rocky negative had broken her. He would not 
 change not a thought of his changing stirred her 
 deep hopelessness ; but she herself might change 
 merit at least a friendship unflawed cast off crueller 
 accusations. 
 
 She must be good, she must struggle from the 
 shell; she must realise, however feebly, his ideal. 
 He would never love her that delusion of her 
 vanity he had killed for ever ; but he might be fond 
 of her without a compunction. 
 
 Towards this comparatively humble attainment 
 Camelia strove. How to be good was the question.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 219 
 
 Of course she would never tell lies any more 
 unless necessary lies of self-defence, in protection 
 of her dear, her dreadful secret Camelia could 
 address it by both names; the love that sustained 
 and must lift her life, even he should never see 
 again. After all, it was easy enough to tell the 
 truth when one cared no more for any of the things 
 gained by falseness. That was hardly a step up 
 ward. Some other mode of development must be 
 found ; Camelia pondered this necessity, and one 
 day during a walk past Perior's model cottages the 
 thought came. She, too, would build cottages, 
 beautiful cottages, more beautiful than his ! She 
 almost laughed at the delicious, teasing, old friendli 
 ness of that addenda. 
 
 The Patons' estate boasted only very common 
 place residences for its labourers, and delightful 
 visions of co-operative farming, of idealised labour 
 ing conditions flashed joyously through Camelia's 
 mind. Vast fields of study opened alluringly, and, 
 immediately in the foreground, these idyllic cottages. 
 They bloomed with trellised flowers on the grey 
 December landscape as she walked. The wall 
 papers were chosen by the time she reached home. 
 She burst upon her mother in the firelit drawing- 
 room at tea-time with an enthusiasm that made 
 Lady Paton's heart jump. 
 
 " Mother ! Such an idea ! I am going to 
 build." 
 
 Mary, who was toasting a muffin to hotter crisp- 
 ness before the fire, turned a thin, flushed face at 
 the announcement. 
 
 " Build what, dear ? " asked Lady Paton ; while
 
 220 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Mary, certain in one moment of what Camelia was 
 going to build, and why, silently put the ameliorated 
 muffin on the little plate by her aunt's side. 
 
 "Cottages. Model cottages. Beautiful cottages 
 really beautiful, you know Elizabethan ; beams, 
 white plaster, latticed windows, deep window- 
 seats, and the latest modernity in drains and 
 bath-tubs." 
 
 " Like Michael's, you mean," said Lady Paton, 
 a little bewildered ; " his are not Elizabethan, 
 but the drains and bath-tubs are very good, I 
 believe." 
 
 Camelia's face changed when her mother spoke 
 of " Michael " ; and Mary, watching as usual, com 
 pressed her lips tightly. The cottages were to be 
 built for him with him ! Ah ! he would come 
 back. Camelia would keep him for building 
 cottages, for adoring her; while she, Mary, would 
 be thrust further and further away. 
 
 " Yes, like his, only better than his. My tenants 
 shall be the best housed of the county." Camelia 
 threw herself into an easy-chair, and fixed her eyes 
 thoughtfully on the fire. 
 
 " It will be very expensive, dear." 
 
 " Never mind ; we'll economise." 
 
 Camelia had not so looked or spoken for weeks, 
 and Lady Paton smiled a happy acquiescence. 
 
 Camelia took the cup of tea her cousin offered 
 her without looking away from the fire, where she 
 saw the cottages charmingly pictured, and she and 
 Perior looking at them friends. 
 
 " Your boots are wet, dear, are they not ? " asked 
 Lady Paton; "it has been raining."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 221 
 
 "They are wet, I think. Mary, just ring, will 
 you ? Grant must take them off down here. I am 
 too tired, too comfortable, to go upstairs." 
 
 Camelia sighed as though the fundamental heavi 
 ness of her mood rose through the seeming light- 
 heartedness of tone ; sighed, and yet the relief of 
 getting outside herself was filling her with an 
 exhilarating energy. 
 
 As she drank her tea, ate a muffin, Mary brown 
 ing it nicely for her " How cosy to have tea by 
 ourselves," said Camelia, " and toast our own 
 muffins ! " she talked as she had not talked for 
 a long time. Her mind ran quickly, escaping its 
 miserable thraldom, from point to point of the 
 project. 
 
 She pushed aside the tea-things to make with 
 spoons and saucers a plan of the new scheme. 
 
 " That high bit of land, you know, with the beech 
 woods behind it : I'll have six of the cottages, with 
 big gardens ; and what a view from the front win 
 dows. I will furnish them, too. I must see an 
 architect at once : I'll go up to town for that, and 
 talk it over with Lady Tramley. Where is her last 
 letter, I wonder? I remember her asking me for 
 some date; but that doesn't matter. She wanted 
 me to go out, and of course I won't." Camelia 
 sprang up to rumple over the leaves of the blotter, 
 the drawers of the writing-desk. "Where is the 
 letter ? In the library, I wonder ? " 
 
 " There is a whole pile, dear, in the small cabinet. 
 You did not care to look at them. I think they had 
 better be gone over." 
 
 " No ; here is hers. I don't care about the others.
 
 222 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 I don't want to hear anything about any one," 
 Camelia added with some bitterness, as she dropped 
 into her chair again and held out her foot to Grant, 
 who had come in with the shoes. " Yes ; she asks 
 me for next week." 
 
 " If you won't go out, dear, it may be rather 
 annoying for her." 
 
 " Oh ! she can get out of things herself while I 
 am with her," said Camelia easily, as her eyes 
 skimmed over the letter. 
 
 The new impulse was too strong to be thwarted 
 by the slightest delay. That evening Camelia sent 
 off a bulky letter to Lady Tramley, much astonish 
 ing that good friend by her absolute ignoring of 
 important facts in recent history. Sir Arthur was 
 not so much as hinted at. The whole letter bristled 
 with cottages, and Camelia's earnestness panted on 
 every page. 
 
 " She is going in for philanthropy, I suppose," 
 Lady Tramley conjectured, shaking her head with 
 a patient smile over the small, flowing hand 
 writing Camelia hated untidy scrawls. "Let us 
 help her. Camelia is sure to do something in 
 teresting in the way of cottages. She'll carry them 
 through like a London season." 
 
 Lady Tramley, as may be gathered from these 
 remarks, was one of Camelia's admirers, though 
 not a blind or bigoted one. She shook her 
 head on many occasions, but Camelia's defects 
 were not serious matters to her gay philosophy, 
 and Camelia's qualities in this frivolous world, 
 where nothing should be peered at too closely, 
 were attractively sparkling. As a successful
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 223 
 
 hostess Lady Tramley prized the charming Miss 
 Paton. 
 
 "Now mind," Camelia said on arriving at her 
 friend's house, " I am not going to be shown to 
 any one. I am in a monastic frame of mind, and 
 must be kept unspotted from the world. No dances 
 or dinners, if you please," and she fixed her with 
 eyes really grave. 
 
 "Very well." Lady Tramley acquiesced as to a 
 humorous and pretty whim. " My doors are closed 
 while you are here as on a retreat. But when 
 will the season of penance be over? We are all 
 expiating with you, remember." 
 
 " Do I imply penance ? Is that the habit my 
 retirement wears ? " 
 
 " People give you credit for all sorts of niceties 
 of feeling." Lady Tramley smiled her significant 
 little smile, a smile not lavished on the nothings 
 of intercourse, and Camelia, taking her by the 
 shoulders, shook her softly. 
 
 " No ; sly as you are you get nothing out 
 of me, and give me credit for nothing, please, 
 not even for curiosity as to what people do say 
 of me." 
 
 " You know, dear, he is to meet, I fear, a second 
 disaster as unmerited " 
 
 Camelia had sat down to the tea-tray brought to 
 refresh her after her journey. She looked up from 
 the filling of her cup to meet in a glance the delicate 
 directness of Lady Tramley's look. 
 
 " Jack knows the ropes, of course, and I thought 
 you ought to know too and be sorry." In her 
 heart Lady Tramley hoped for an expansion of
 
 224 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 sorrow that would carry Camelia past her moment 
 of inexplicable folly. 
 
 " I am sorry. The bill, you mean." Camelia 
 folded a slice of bread and butter, adding "Idiots." 
 
 " Idiots indeed. It won't be carried, I am afraid. 
 There is a split in the Government, and Mr. Rod- 
 rigg has developed a really spiteful acrimony. I 
 always hated that man." 
 
 "Ah ! I loathe him ! " said Camelia. She thought 
 with a pang of self-reproach of an unopened letter 
 among the rejected pile a letter from Mr. Rodrigg. 
 She had not cared to read his shuffling excuses. 
 His vanity, bulwarked by the strangely apt events 
 succeeding his discomfiture, might well renew hope. 
 He might imagine these events the result of re 
 morse, and that, brought to a timely realisation of 
 her folly, his fair one would consent to bury the 
 hatchet and allow his firm hand to tame her finally. 
 All this Camelia had conjectured very rightly on 
 looking at the fat envelope. She had restrained 
 the direct rebuff of returning the unopened letter, 
 but she had neither answered nor cared to read it, 
 and could well imagine that Mr. Rodrigg's cumu 
 lative humiliation would urge him to his only pos 
 sible vengeance. The " I loathe him " was spoken 
 with a most feeling intensity of tone. 
 
 " Yes." Lady Tramley's affirmative was meaning, 
 and Camelia looked up alertly. "Lady Henge 
 told me." 
 
 "You know everything, I believe," cried Camelia. 
 " Well, I am in good hands." 
 
 " I understand your idea in it. But how un 
 wise. How you mistook the man."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 225 
 
 " Rather ! Ass that I am ! " 
 
 " You looked for superlative chivalry, if you come 
 to think of it." 
 
 "No, for sincerity; common honesty. I thought 
 I could convince him. I didn't want chivalry with 
 out conviction. What did Lady Henge say of 
 me ? " Camelia added bluntly. 
 
 Lady Tramley replied very frankly, " She said 
 you were a shallow jilt. I quite agreed with her 
 inwardly though I shamelessly defended you." 
 
 " If I say that I agree with you both it will only 
 savour of ostentatious humility so I refrain. But, 
 Lady Tramley, it was not the breaking of our 
 engagement that was shallow that I will say. 
 And so the bill is doomed. Can we do nothing? 
 Shear no Samson in the lobbies ? Mr. Rodrigg, 
 of course, offers no hirsute possibilities." 
 
 " Not a hair. Your Mr. Perior will be dis 
 appointed. He came back from the Continent, you 
 know, and put his shoulder to the wheel." 
 
 Camelia stirred her tea evenly. Her nerves, as 
 she felt with pride, were very reliable. 
 
 " Our Mr. Perior then, is he not ? " she asked, 
 while her thoughts flew past Sir Arthur to nestle 
 pityingly to Perior. His useless valiancy em 
 bittered her against the world of unconvinced 
 opponents. Idiots indeed ! But she could not see 
 him yet; even her nerves were not yet tempered 
 to a meeting. She had no comfortable background 
 against which to present herself; when she did, 
 the background must be so unfamiliar that for 
 neither of them could there be the confusion of a 
 hinted memory. 
 
 P
 
 226 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Ours, by all means," said Lady Tramley. " I 
 only effaced myself before the paramount claim. 
 Not quite doomed. There is still the final fight, 
 and it is to be heralded by a thunderous article in 
 the Friday. Mr. Perior only goes down sword in 
 hand."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 So he was in London. Camelia, sitting at home 
 in the library, could think of the nearness with a 
 new calm. She was preparing herself to meet its 
 closer approach. She was not leaving herself 
 defenceless. She plunged into her reading archi 
 tecture, agriculture, decoration, and sociology. The 
 books came down from London in heavy boxes, and 
 she sat encompassed by the encouraging perfume of 
 freshly-cut leaves. 
 
 "Are you happy, dear?" her mother asked her. 
 She would come in with her usual air of depre 
 catory gentleness, and bend over the absorbed 
 golden head that did not turn at her entrance. 
 On this day the absorption wore a look of eager 
 interest that seemed to justify the question. 
 
 Camelia finished her sentence, smiling, however, 
 as she put her hand on her mother's, without look 
 ing up. Her mind, indeed, was soothed, compara 
 tively comfortable. 
 
 " No rude questions, mamma ! " 
 
 " You understand all these solemn books ? " 
 Over her daughter's shoulder, where she leaned, 
 Lady Paton looked respectfully at the heavy 
 volume. 
 
 " I am beginning to understand that whatever
 
 228 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 one does in philanthropy is wrong from the point 
 of view of some authority ! " Camelia said, stretch 
 ing herself on a long yawn, and then gently 
 pinching her mother's chin, while the smile dwelt 
 upon her appreciatively. "As usual I find that the 
 only thing to do in this world is to do just as one 
 likes." 
 
 " If one can," said Lady Paton, with a half sad 
 playfulness. 
 
 " If one can." The words woke in Camelia a 
 painfully personal affirmative, and with the wave of 
 self-pity that swept through her mingled a sense 
 of her mother's unconscious pathos. Still holding 
 her chin she looked up at her. " It has often been 
 can't with you, hasn't it ? " 
 
 Lady Paton's glance fluttered to a shy alarm 
 and surprise at this application. 
 
 "With me, dear?" 
 
 "Yes you have had to give up lots of things, 
 haven't you ? to put up with any amount of dis 
 agreeable inevitables." 
 
 " I have had many blessings." 
 
 " Oh ! of course ! You would say that over 
 your last crust ! But it has been can't with you, 
 decidedly. I wonder if it was because you weren't 
 strong enough to have your own way." 
 
 " That would be a bad way, surely." 
 
 " Ah ! not yours ! " 
 
 "And perhaps I have no way at all," Lady 
 Paton added, and Camelia was obliged to laugh 
 at the subtle simplicity. 
 
 " That is being too submissive. Yet it is com-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 229 
 
 fortable, no doubt. Absolute non-resistance isn't a 
 bad idea. And yet, why shouldn't one make one's 
 struggle ? survive if one is fittest ? Why is not 
 having one's own way as good as submitting to 
 somebody else's ? Oh dear ! " she cried. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Nothing, nothing ; I am unfittest, that is all ! " 
 Camelia stared out of the window. 
 
 " What do you mean, dear ? " 
 
 " I mean that I can't have my own way I, too, 
 can't. And it wasn't a bad way either. There is 
 the cruelty of it, the irony, the jeer! All the bad 
 ways are given to me, and when I turn from them, 
 don't want them, and try for the best I don't get 
 it ! Isn't it intolerable ? " 
 
 To Lady Paton this was wild, bewildering, pitiful, 
 yet she grasped enough to say, "That would be 
 the punishment, would it not, dear, for the bad 
 ways ? " 
 
 "Yes, the punishment. Like damnation. One 
 has made one's self too ugly the best can't recog 
 nise one at all." 
 
 That evening the last number of the Friday 
 Review lay on the drawing-room table. Perior 
 had not written in it for some time, but with the 
 quiver of the heart any association with him now 
 gave her, Camelia picked up the paper and carried 
 it to the fireside. Mary, sewing in the lamp's soft 
 circle of light, looked up quickly, and her hand 
 paused with an outstretched thread as she saw 
 Camelia's literary fare. 
 
 Camelia turned the pages in a half fretful search
 
 230 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 for what she felt sure of not finding ; then, abruptly, 
 the rustling leaves came to a standstill. There was 
 the article, at last ! a long one, on the Factory 
 Bill Impossible to question the concise, laconic 
 style ; no one else wrote with such absolute direct 
 ness, such exquisite choice, free from all hint of 
 phrasing. 
 
 Camelia's grey eyes kindled as she read, and 
 her lips parted involuntarily ; she drew quick, 
 shallow little breaths. Oh ! through it all went that 
 fervour, that cold, bracing fervour she knew and 
 loved. 
 
 Perior's strong feeling was at times like a clear, 
 indignant wind, sweeping before it cowering little 
 nesses. Her mind half forgot him as she read, con 
 scious as was her heart. For the first time the 
 intrinsic right of the bill was borne in upon her. 
 She had glibly dressed its merits, laughing at her 
 own theatrical dexterity. She had never really 
 cared for any bill. Now it became the greatest, 
 the only bill in the world. Her ardour rushed past 
 the unfortunate initiator, to fall at the propagator's 
 feet. Ah ! if she could but help now, and for his 
 sake ! Poor Sir Arthur ! 
 
 Mary, who from her seat could just see, beyond 
 the sharply held review, the lovely line of Camelia's 
 cheek, the little ear, set in its delicate closeness 
 against the shining hair, Mary, intent on the rising 
 colour in this bit of cheek, had quite stopped sewing. 
 Her pale eyes widened in a devouring significance, 
 her lips set tightly on repressed pain. Mary, too, 
 had read the article.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 231 
 
 Coming to the end of it, Camelia slanted the 
 paper downwards, and vaguely, over the top of it, 
 looked at the fire. Then suddenly her eyes met 
 Mary's. A violent shock of self-consciousness shook 
 her through and through. She felt herself snatch 
 back her secret from a precipice edge of revela 
 tion revelation to dull Mary, of all people. Mary, 
 against whom, in regard to Perior, she had long 
 felt not knowing that she felt it a strong, reason 
 less antagonism. She could not shake and slap her 
 secret, as a frightened mother slaps and shakes her 
 rescued child ; but she could turn the terrified anger 
 on its cause, and, in a strangely pitched voice she 
 said, " What are you staring at ? You look like 
 a spy ! " 
 
 Mary gave a great start. If indeed she had been 
 slapped outright her guilty amazement could not 
 have been more cruel. 
 
 She stammered at a repetition of " staring " ; but 
 no words came. Her face was scarlet. Camelia 
 was immediately sorry, but not one whit less angry, 
 more so, perhaps, since pity is often an irritating 
 ingredient ; and, too, she felt that to any one less 
 stupid her very outburst might have betrayed her. 
 She was angry with herself as well as with Mary. 
 Mary's very helplessness was repulsive, and she 
 hated to see her light blue eyes set in that scarlet 
 confusion. 
 
 " Yes, staring ; " she helped the stammering. 
 " Is there anything you want to find out ? Do 
 ask, then. Don't let your eyes skulk about in 
 that sneaking fashion. It makes me quite sick 
 to see you,"
 
 232 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Mary stood up, looking from side to side in a 
 half-dazed way that Camelia observed with a pitying 
 disgust that indeed sickened her. It reminded her 
 of the gestures of an ugly animal wounded by a 
 stone flung by some cruel boy. The simile came in 
 a flash that did not at the moment give her time to 
 complete it and see herself as stone-thrower. She 
 felt relief, as well as an added dismay, when Mary 
 broke suddenly into sobs, and stumbled out of the 
 room, her sewing, caught in her skirt, following her 
 with ungainly leaps. Only then Camelia realised 
 that it was her own cruelty that sickened her ; her 
 irrational terror, breaking in upon a tender, thrilling 
 absorption, had urged her to it, almost irresistibly ; 
 but now, the terror past, its foundationless folly 
 apparent, she really felt quite sick as she still sat 
 looking at the fire. 
 
 The Friday Review sliding suddenly from her 
 knees gave her a nervous pang that tingled to 
 her finger-tips, and when she stooped to pick it 
 up Perior's personality seemed to confront her. 
 She cowered before it. The hot blood beat in 
 her head. Only by degrees, as her mind faltered 
 over extenuations, did she quiet herself. Her 
 hidden unhappiness her love, it had been like a 
 blundering hand thrust among her heart-strings ; 
 how could she have helped the sharp anger in 
 which her naked anguish clothed itself? Lastly, 
 but with a kind of shame, Mary's displeasing per 
 sonality made a subtle condonation ; her inarticu 
 late stupidity was almost infuriating. Not for 
 one moment did her secret suspect Mary's. Her 
 own pain seemed already an expiation, and, in
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 233 
 
 analysing it, she could put Mary aside, promising 
 herself that she would atone by a " Forgive me, 
 Mary, I did not mean it," the next time they met. 
 She would even add, "I was a devil." Her sigh 
 of decision left her only half comforted.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 SHE did not see Mary again until the next morn 
 ing, and then Camelia gave herself the satisfaction 
 of fulfilling an uncompulsory duty. Mary's mask- 
 like look of endurance met her apology with a 
 dumb confusion that Camelia must assume as 
 accepting it, since she could not imagine Mary as 
 unforgiving. 
 
 Holding Mary's hand she repeated with some 
 insistence, " I was devilish, indeed I was. I don't 
 know what evil spirit entered me." 
 
 Mary was acute enough to see the apology as a 
 mere poultice on Camelia's bruised conscience, but 
 she did not divine the stir of real pity that had 
 prompted it, nor the embarrassment that concealed 
 itself, half ashamed, under Camelia's bright smile, 
 a smile like the flourishing finality at the end of a 
 conventional letter. 
 
 Mary only shrank more coweringly from the 
 circling advance of pain. In her solitude Camelia's 
 whip-like words and Camelia's smile blended to 
 the same scorching ; words, Mary thought, so true, 
 that no apology, no smile, could efface them. 
 That Camelia had felt them true was a nightmare 
 suspicion ; the instinct for the truth had at least 
 been there, and, like the wounded animal, Mary
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 235 
 
 quaked in her warren, conscious of insecurity. 
 Camelia soon forgot both cruelty and apology. 
 
 The news of the defeat of the bill brought 
 her no shock, when it came late in January. She 
 had regretted keenly her own interference for a 
 long time, and found herself prepared to meet the 
 blow with the quiet of exhausted feeling. Camelia 
 was not given in these days to finding excuses 
 for her faults, but she could see that this one had 
 been venial, and escape an unjust self-reproach. 
 It was certainly irritating to have Mrs. Jedsley rub 
 in the undeserved sting. 
 
 Coming from the library one afternoon Camelia 
 found this lady ensconced before the drawing- 
 room fire, her muddy boots outstretched to the 
 blaze Mrs. Jedsley's boots were chronically muddy 
 a muffin in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, 
 her expression divided among the triple pleasure 
 of warmth, tea, and interesting news. 
 
 " Well, my dear, you've all had your brushes cut 
 off, it seems," was her consolatory greeting. 
 
 Camelia sank into a chair, languidly detesting 
 Mrs. Jedsley's bad taste. 
 
 "You did so much for the cause, too, didn't 
 you ? " said Mrs. Jedsley, deterred by no delicate 
 scruples. " Come, Camelia, confess that it has 
 been a tumble for you all ! " 
 
 " Too evident a tumble, I think, to require con 
 fession." 
 
 " And Mr. Rodrigg here for such a time ! You 
 are less clever than I thought you don't be 
 offended I mean it in a complimentary sense. 
 Then, after all, it isn't a brush you need mind
 
 236 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 losing. I never thought much of the bill my 
 self." 
 
 Camelia sat coldly unresponsive, and Lady 
 Paton tried to smile at Mrs. Jedsley's remarks 
 and to believe them purely humorous. 
 
 " I am sorry for poor Michael," she said ; " I fear 
 he has taken it to heart." This unconscious open 
 ing was only too gratefully seized upon by Mrs. 
 Jedsley, who, after a meaning glance at Mary, 
 fixed, over her tea-cup, sharp eyes on Camelia. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, " he is a man cut out for 
 misfortunes they all fit him. He is bound to 
 fail in everything he undertakes." 
 
 " I can't agree with you there," Camelia spoke 
 acidly. " I think he succeeds at a great many 
 things." 
 
 "Things he doesn't care about, then, you may 
 be sure of that. Fortune follows such men like a 
 stray dog they have no use for, while they are 
 looking for their own lost pet." 
 
 Camelia drank her tea in silence, priding herself 
 somewhat on her forbearance, pondering, too, on 
 the pathos of Mrs. Jedsley's simile, in which she 
 could only see a purely personal applicability. 
 It was not him the stray dog followed ; but any 
 number followed her and it was she who had 
 lost her all. 
 
 But would he not come back ? Might she not 
 see him again ? To be with him brave, self- 
 controlled, and reticent, how well worth the fuller 
 pain! Pain was so far preferable to these drag 
 ging mists where she waited. She might be she 
 must be developing, but she must measure her-
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 237 
 
 self beside him to know just how much she had 
 grown. It pleased her to see herself smiling sadly 
 upon his unwitting kindness for since he had 
 thought it a folly he should think it now a folly 
 outgrown. It pleased her to think that now ex 
 terior things mattered less to her than to him ; he, 
 for all his self-defence of calm, still winced under 
 the whips of material circumstance; no doubt he 
 was now tearing his heart out over the defeat of 
 the bill, and trying to persuade himself that he 
 had always expected it ! She saw all material 
 circumstance with Buddhistic indifference. This 
 thought dwelt pleasantly while she drank her tea. 
 Looking from the window she saw the winter 
 afternoon not yet grey, and her contemplative mood 
 impatient of the chiming sharp and mild which 
 her mother and Mrs. Jedsley made, she left them 
 to go out. First, though, she bent over her mother 
 and kissed her. It gave her content to find tender 
 demonstration becoming more and more an un 
 forced habit. 
 
 " Nice, pretty little mamma," she whispered. 
 
 In her long coat, Siegfried trotting in front of 
 her, Camelia breasted the tonic January wind. 
 There was just a crispness of snow on the ground; 
 in the lanes thin patches of ice made walking 
 wary. She emerged from the shelter of the hedges 
 on to the fine billowy stretch of common, where 
 the wind sang, and the sunset in the west made 
 a wide red bar. Siegfried's adventurous spirit soon 
 warmed him to an energetic gallop through the 
 dead fern and heather, and Camelia followed his 
 lead, intending to cut across to the highroad, and
 
 238 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 by its long curve return home. It was in lifting 
 her eyes to this road that she saw suddenly a 
 distant figure walking along it at a quick pace 
 that would bring them together at the very point 
 she aimed for. It needed only the very first brush 
 of a glance to tell her that it was Perior. For 
 a moment joy and fear, courage and cowardice, 
 pride and shame, struggled within her. Her step 
 faltered, stopped even, and Siegfried stopping too, 
 looked round at her, interrogation in the prick of 
 his ears. 
 
 Camelia walked on slowly. Perior had seen and 
 recognised her that was evident. Whatever might 
 be his own press of feeling he did not hesitate. He 
 took off his cap and hailed her gaily, and Camelia 
 felt that her answering hand-wave helped to pre 
 pare the way for a meeting most creditable to 
 them both. 
 
 He did not fear the meeting, or would not show 
 he did, for he advanced over the heather at a pace 
 resolutely unembarrassed. In another moment they 
 were face to face, and then she could see that his 
 repressed a tremor, and was conscious that her own 
 was, with the same attempt, a i little rigid in its 
 smile. Partly to recover from this shock of seeing 
 her again, partly to give her time to recover from 
 her own emotion, Perior raised her outstretched 
 hand to his lips. He was so determined in his 
 entrenched resistance to the lover he knew himself 
 to be (the lover whose complaints had brought 
 him rebelliously back again, his coming a sop 
 angrily thrown at the uncontrollable gentleman 
 on condition, that satisfied so far, he would keep
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 239 
 
 still), so sure was Perior. the friend, of the bargain, 
 that the kiss was most successfully friendly. It 
 sealed delicately the bond he insisted on recog 
 nising between himself and Camelia. His relief 
 was great, in looking at her again, to see that she, 
 too, fully recognised it, and that perhaps her 
 courage was helped by the fact that the mood the 
 astonishing mood had passed. It would much 
 simplify matters if it had. He longed to be with 
 her again, a longing her tacit acquiescence in the 
 old friendship could alone justify him in satisfying. 
 That his coming had not been indelicately ill-judged 
 the directness of her eyes seemed to assure him ; 
 but however much the friend might rejoice in 
 believing that he alone had anything to conceal, 
 the repressed lover, most inconsistently, felt a 
 pang. Perior only consented to recognise his own 
 contentment with the safe footing upon which he 
 found himself. 
 
 Camelia smiled at him, and he smiled at her, 
 smiles that might have been children kissing and 
 "making up"; frank, and bravely light. 
 
 " I thought you were in London," said Camelia. 
 " No ; come back, Siegfried, we are going no farther ; 
 for you were coming to us, I suppose, Alceste ? " 
 She could look at him quite directly. She was 
 not ashamed, no, mercifully she was not ashamed, 
 that was her jubilant thought. After the pang of 
 the first moment she felt the strong conviction, 
 borne in upon her by her own calmness, that her 
 love for him could never shame her, nor her con 
 fession of it. The warm power of his friendship 
 kept her from petty terrors. She felt, in a moment,
 
 240 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 that on her courage depended their future relation 
 ship. To ignore the past, to make him ignore it, 
 would be to regain, to keep her friend. 
 
 " Yes, I was going to you of course," said 
 Perior, smiling, as they went towards the road 
 together. "I have been to Italy, you know, but 
 I came back some time ago. I thought I might 
 be of use." 
 
 " Ah ! I should have liked to have been of use ! 
 but I had been too badly bitten to dare put out a 
 finger ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't put out fingers, if I were you ; it 
 isn't safe when they are so pretty." The inti 
 macy was almost caressing ; she leaned against it 
 thankfully. Proud to show him that of the crying 
 child there was not a trace, she determined on a 
 swift glance at the past that would put him quite at 
 ease. 
 
 " And you are coming back ? Since this dreary 
 business of the worsted right is over you won't 
 exile yourself any longer and rob us ? All your 
 friends will be glad to have you again ! " 
 
 "Will they indeed?" his eyes sought hers for 
 a moment, seemed to see in them the past's 
 triumphant mausoleum, presented for inspection 
 quite magnificently. "Thanks, Camelia." The bold 
 ness delighted him, delighted all of him except 
 that grumbling prisoner who, in his dungeon, felt 
 foolishly aggrieved. "Yes, I am coming back 
 since I am welcome," he said, adding while they 
 went along the road, " As for the worsted right, the 
 right usually is worsted, in the first place. One 
 must try to keep one's faith in eventual winning."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 241 
 
 "Tell me," said Camelia, feeling foundations quite 
 secure, since each had helped the other, " Mr. 
 Rodrigg's opposition, that last speech of his the 
 satanic eloquence of it ! you don't think ah ! say 
 you don't think me altogether responsible ? " 
 
 "Would it please you a little to think you 
 were ? " The old rallying smile pained her. 
 
 "Ah, don't ! That has been knocked out of me 
 really ! Don't imply such a monstrous perversion 
 of vanity." 
 
 " I retract. No, Camelia, I don't think you alto 
 gether responsible. The eloquence would always 
 have been against us ; its satanic quality was, I fear, 
 your doing." 
 
 "Yet, I meant for the best indeed I did. Say 
 you believe that." 
 
 " Indeed, I do believe it, Camelia." 
 
 They were nearing home when he said, "You 
 were in London I heard from Lady Tramley." 
 
 " Yes, I went up on business." 
 
 " Did you ? How are Lady Paton and Mary ? " 
 
 " Very well. You don't ask about my business," 
 Camelia smiled round at him. 
 
 "Very blunt in me. What was the business, 
 Camelia ? " His answering smile made amends. 
 
 Camelia placed herself against her background. 
 
 " I am building- model cottages ! You should see 
 how economical we have become ! Your glory is 
 diminished ! " 
 
 "With all my heart ! " cried Perior, with a laugh 
 of real surprise and pleasure. " Lady Tramley did 
 not tell me. Good for you, Celimene ! " 
 
 
 
 It was delightful to bring him into the drawing- 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 room that she had left only an hour before. Camelia 
 almost fancied herself perfectly happy as she flung 
 open the door with the announcement 
 
 " Here is Alceste, Mamma ! " No nervousness 
 was possible before her mother and Mary ; it re 
 quired no effort to act for them since she had 
 so successfully performed her part to him. Mrs. 
 Jedsley was gone, but Mary and Lady Paton sat 
 before the fire, Mary reading aloud. She dropped 
 the book ; Camelia's voice, in her ears, sounded 
 with a brazen clang of victory, and Perior seemed 
 to her conquered, brought captive in an old bondage. 
 She could hardly speak, hardly welcome him; his 
 return crushed every hope of his liberation, the joy 
 of seeing him was a mere desolation. With a 
 settled dulness she listened to them all three talk 
 ing and exclaiming. 
 
 Perior had taken her hand, had shaken it warmly, 
 looking at her with kindest eyes; but now he 
 listened to Lady Paton, and Lady Paton, of course, 
 after the first flood of rejoicing, condolences, and 
 questionings, was talking of Camelia. 
 
 The resentment that had smouldered in Mary 
 for many months seemed now to leap, and lick her 
 heart with little flames of hatred. How she hated 
 Camelia ; she turned the black thought quite calmly 
 in her mind it was not unfamiliar. 
 
 Lady Paton was telling Perior about the cottages ; 
 she was rather proud of Camelia's beneficent schemes, 
 though gently teasing her about some of their 
 phases : " And, Michael, she is going to make them 
 into veritable palaces of art. Specially designed 
 furniture and Japanese prints on the walls ! Now 
 they won't care about prints, will they ? "
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 243 
 
 " They ought to, Camelia thinks," laughed Perior, 
 looking at Camelia, who, hat and coat thrown aside, 
 leaned forward in the lamplight, smiling and 
 radiant, the pathos that her thinner face had gained 
 emphasising its enchanting loveliness. 
 
 Mary looked at her too, at the curves of the figure 
 in the perfect black dress, at the narrow white 
 hands, one lying on her knee, like a flower, with 
 the almost exaggerated length and delicacy of the 
 fingers ; at the profile, the frank upraised eyes, the 
 smiling mouth, the flashing white and gold that rose 
 from the nun-like white and black of the dress, and 
 the wide cambric collar falling about her shoulders 
 and clasping her throat. Beautiful ! Mary felt the 
 beauty with a sort of sickening. Of course he 
 looked at her, had no eyes but for her. Of course 
 he had come back. 
 
 " They must like them," said Camelia. " I don't 
 see why such people should not grow into good 
 taste; and taste is often such a negative thing 
 a mere leaving out of all ugliness. I have a lot of 
 these prints ; I picked them up in Paris the arcade 
 of the Odion, Alceste cheap things, but excellent 
 in their way; then a few good photographs. The 
 rooms are to be very bare. I should ask for all 
 decoration a vase of flowers on the table I think 
 I shall offer prizes to my cottagers for the best 
 arrangement of flowers." 
 
 "A very civilising system ! " Perior still laughed, 
 for he found the prints and the flower-arrangements 
 highly amusing, and he still looked at Camelia. 
 
 So that first meeting was over. It had passed 
 so easily, with an inevitable ease, based on long
 
 244 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 years that would not be disowned. Yet when he 
 had gone, Camelia was conscious of a sinking of 
 the heart. The exhilarating moment could not last. 
 Her friend had come back, fond, gently mocking, 
 tender, yet unimpressed, blind to the change in 
 herself she passionately clung to as consummated. 
 As her love was noble, she thought that she had 
 grown to match it. Her self-complacency, though 
 on a higher plane, circled her more completely, and 
 as the days went on, his blindness gave her a new 
 sense of defeat. The ease remained, a tacit agree 
 ment to shut their eyes on a certain incident ; it 
 was done most successfully; they were quite pre 
 pared to meet tete-a-tete, and the inner wonder of 
 each as to the other's unconsciousness betrayed 
 itself only in a certain gentle formality that grew 
 between them. That he should come and so often 
 fulfilled the only hope left her, and yet her heart 
 was darkened at moments by the thought that in 
 these visits there was an effort. She missed some 
 thing of the old intimacy; it was not quite the 
 same how could it be ? that, after all, would have 
 been too big a feat of forgetfulness. He did not 
 laugh at her, nor grow angry and rage at her, as 
 he had used to do, yet she could not feel that he 
 approved of her the more. He was fond of her 
 that was evident, even though he might find this 
 rebuilding difficult, and undertake it from a sense 
 of duty ; but the fondness was graver than before, 
 at least, it made no pretence of hiding its gravity.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 MARY came for Camelia one morning while Perior 
 was with her, to tell her that Jane Hicks was 
 dying and asking for her. Mary saw that Camelia's 
 promptitude, where compunction blushed, gratified 
 Perior, as did Jane's devotion ; she knew that he 
 supposed the devotion based upon some new blos 
 soming of thoughtful kindness in Camelia, and the 
 ironic bitterness of this reflection was in no way 
 made easier to Mary as she heard Camelia, while 
 they all three walked to the farm, confess de 
 jectedly to the one visit. 
 
 " I should have gone again ! " Camelia repeated 
 with sincerest self-reproach, and Mary could see 
 that though he assented to the reproach her con 
 trition lifted her in his estimation. Perior waited 
 below while Camelia and Mary went up together. 
 Camelia came down weeping; Ma^'s face was 
 quite impassive. 
 
 The poor girl had died with her hand in 
 Camelia's, her eyes fixed on the lovely Madonna 
 head that bent over her with a beautiful piteous- 
 ness, like a vision at the gates of heaven. Jane 
 closed her eyes on that vision. She had not had 
 one look for Mary, though her perfunctory thanks 
 the winding up of the trifling duties remaining 
 to her on earth had been feebly breathed out 
 
 245
 
 246 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 to her some hours before. Mary saw that she 
 had been very unnecessary to Jane, and that the 
 unknown Camelia, Camelia's one smile, the one 
 golden hour Camelia's beauty had given her, made 
 the brightness, the poetry, the symbolised radi 
 ance of things unseen and hoped for that had 
 remained with the dying girl during the last 
 months of her life. Mary was very still in walk 
 ing back with the others. Camelia sobbed, and 
 -stumbled in the heavy road, so that Perior gave her 
 his arm and held her, looking pityingly, more than 
 pityingly, at the bent head and shaking shoulders. 
 Mary felt her own lack of emotion to be unbecom 
 ing, but, indeed, she had none, was conscious 
 instead of a dislike for poor, dead Jane. 
 
 For Mary was a most unhappy creature. Out 
 side the inner circle, where Perior and Camelia 
 wondered about, and evaded, one another, the very 
 closeness of constant intercourse making blindness 
 easy, Mary saw the truth, that Camelia did not 
 see, very clearly. With her preconceived and half- 
 mistaken ideas as to that truth, it remained one 
 sided. Perior loved Camelia ; loved, and had 
 weakly crawled back to her, craving at least the 
 crumbs of friendship and that she was lavish with 
 her crumbs who could deny ? since all else had 
 been refused to him. Mary spent her days in a 
 quivering contemplation of this fact. The bitter, 
 sweet consolation of the whole truth never entered 
 her mind. Camelia loving, and Camelia repulsed, 
 was an imagining too monstrous for vaguest em 
 bodiment. Camelia's own nai've vanity would not 
 have surpassed in stupefaction Mary's sensations,
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 247 
 
 had such a possibility been suggested to her. 
 Camelia, who could have anybody, love Mr. Perior ? 
 She would have voiced her astonishment even more 
 baldly. Not that Mary thought Mr. Perior nobody. 
 To her he was everybody; but that knowledge 
 was her painful joy, a perception lifting her above 
 Camelia. Camelia judged by the world's gross 
 standards, and, by those standards, she must stoop 
 in loving Perior. 
 
 That Camelia should stoop in the world's eyes, 
 that Camelia should do anything but soar, were 
 unimaginable things. So her ignorance made her 
 knowledge more bitter. The man she loved, adored 
 her bleached, starved nature spreading every flower, 
 stretching every tendril, her ideal and her rapture 
 towards him that man did not see her, even. She 
 was no one ; a dusty little moth beating dying 
 wings near the ground, and his eyes were fixed on 
 the exquisite butterfly tilting its white loveliness in 
 the sunshine. Under her stolid silence Mary was 
 burning, panting. His misery, her doom, and 
 Camelia's indifference, at the thought of all these 
 a madness of helpless rebellion swam about her; 
 and with a growing sense of weakness came a 
 growing terror of self-betrayal. For she was dying, 
 that was Mary's second secret; there was even a 
 savage pleasure in the thought of absolute and 
 consummated wretchedness hidden so carefully. 
 Hysterical sobs rose in her throat when she 
 thought of it, and of their blindness. The sobs 
 were nearly choking her one day as she sat alone 
 in the morning-room casting up accounts. 
 
 Perior had been with Camelia in the library for
 
 248 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 two hours, and he had not come into the morning- 
 room, though over two hours ago poor Mary had 
 stationed herself there in the sorry hope of seeing 
 him. The little touch of abandonment stabbed 
 more deeply than ever on this morning, when her 
 head was so heavy, her chest so hollow, breathing 
 so difficult, all her sick self so in need of pitying 
 gentleness and sympathy ; and though no tears fell, 
 that rising, strangling sob was in her throat. There 
 was shame, too ; her very rectitude was crumbling 
 in her weakness and wretchedness ; the wretched 
 ness had seemed to exonerate her when, exasperated 
 by envy and long waiting, she had gone to the 
 library door and put her ear to the key-hole, like 
 a base thing, to listen. 
 
 Since everything had abandoned her she might 
 as well abandon herself, so she told herself reck 
 lessly; but she had only heard Camelia's clear, 
 sweet voice ; and Camelia was reading Greek ! 
 Mary could only feel the irony as cruel, and on 
 regaining her place at the writing-table she found 
 herself shaking, and overwhelmed with self-disgust 
 and a sort of desperation. 
 
 When Perior came in very shortly afterwards 
 she could almost have risen to meet him with 
 a scream of reproach. The mere imagining of 
 such a strange revelation made her dizzy as he 
 approached her. 
 
 " I had not seen you. I am just off. How 
 are you, Mary ? " he asked. In spite of the mad 
 imaginings Mary's mask was on in one moment, 
 the white, stolid mask, as she turned her face 
 to him.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 249 
 
 " Very well, thanks." 
 
 " You don't look very well." 
 
 " Oh, I am, thanks." Mary averted her eyes. 
 
 Perior's brow had an added look of gloom this 
 morning. His eyes followed hers. The drizzling 
 rain half blotted out the first faint purpling of 
 the trees. " What a dreary day ! " he ejaculated, 
 with a long involuntary sigh. He was not think 
 ing of Mary ; she saw that very plainly, though her 
 eyes were fixed on the blurred tree-tops. 
 
 "Very dreary," she echoed. He looked down 
 at her again, this time with a certain pain and 
 interest that Mary did not see. On his own 
 thoughts, the perplexing juggling of " If she still 
 loves me, as I love her, why resist ? " the ensuing 
 fear of yielding, and yielding for no better reason 
 than that he could not resist, broke the thought of 
 Mary. It could not be a very big thought. Mary 
 was a quiet uneventful little person, spending a 
 contented existence under her aunt's wings, useful 
 often as a whip wherewith to lash Camelia, but piti 
 ful mainly from his sense of the contrast of which 
 he really believed Mary quite unconscious. Some 
 thing, now, in her still face, in the lax weariness 
 of her thin hand, lying on the account book, 
 roused in him a groping instinct. He looked 
 at the hand with a certain surprise. Its thinness 
 was remarkable. 
 
 "You do look badly, Mary," he said. "Tell 
 me, are you dreary, too ? Can I do anything for 
 you ? We must have some rides when it grows 
 finer." His thoughts as usual gave Camelia an 
 accusing blow.
 
 250 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 "You are bored, tired, unhappy like the rest of 
 us, Mary. Is that any consolation ? " He smiled 
 at her. She felt the smile in his voice, but did 
 not dare to meet it, bending her head over the 
 account books. 
 
 " Don't do those stupid sums ! " 
 
 " Oh, I like them ! " Indeed the scrupulous 
 duties were her one frail barrier against the black 
 sea of engulfing thought. And then, her heart 
 just rising in the false but delicious joy of his 
 kind presence, came a call, a call not dreary like 
 the day, but fatally sweet and clear, the sound 
 of it as if a flower had suddenly flung open rosy 
 petals on the greyness. 
 
 " Alceste ! come here. I want you." 
 
 "Our imperious Camelia," said Perior with a 
 slight laugh. "Well, good-bye, Mary. Don't do 
 any more sums, and don't look at the rain. Get 
 a nice cheerful book and sit down at the fire. 
 Amuse yourself, won't you ? " He clasped her 
 hand and was gone. 
 
 Mary sat quite still, moving her pen in slow 
 curves, waves, meaningless figures, over the paper. 
 The arrested sob seemed frozen, and no tears 
 came. She looked dully at the black zigzags on 
 the paper while she listened to the distant sound 
 of voices in the hall, Camelia's laugh, a lower tone 
 from Perior, Camelia's cheerful good-bye. 
 
 A sudden fit of coughing seized her, and while 
 she shook with it Camelia came in. Mary's cough 
 ing irritated Camelia, but she did not want to hurt 
 her feelings by departing before it after getting the 
 newspaper she had come for, so, walking to the
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 251 
 
 table she said, taking up and opening the Times 
 with a large rustling 
 
 "All alone, Mary?" 
 
 "Yes," Mary replied. The coughing left her, 
 and she clenched her handkerchief in her hand. 
 The madness rose again, lit by a keener sense of 
 horror. 
 
 " But Mr. Perior came in, did he not ? " Camelia 
 scanned the columns, her back to the light. 
 
 "Yes," Mary repeated. 
 
 " Well, what did he have to say ? " Camelia felt 
 her tone to be satisfactorily detached. She wanted 
 to know. That sense of something lacking, some 
 thing even awkward, had become almost acute this 
 morning; only her quiet gaiety had bridged it 
 over. Mary was again looking out of the window. 
 An inner compulsion made her say in a tone as 
 dull as her look 
 
 " He said he was dreary." 
 
 The Times rustled with a somewhat aggressive 
 effect of absorption, and then Camelia laid it down. 
 Something in Mary's voice angered her; it implied 
 a sympathy from which she was to be shut out ; 
 he had not said to her that he was dreary. But 
 she still kept her tone very light as she walked to 
 the fire. 
 
 "Well, he is always that is he not?" she com 
 mented, holding out a foot to the blaze; "a very 
 glum person indeed is my good Alceste." 
 
 Mary did not reply, and Camelia, with a quick 
 turn of conjecture that seemed to cut her, wondered 
 if there had been further confidences. She paused 
 for a moment, swallowed on a rising tremor of
 
 252 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 apprehension, before saying, as she turned her 
 back to the fire and faced the figure at the table 
 the figure's heavy uncouthness of attitude making 
 her a little angrier "What further moans did my 
 melancholy friend pour into your sympathetic bosom, 
 Mary ? " Mary, looking steadily out of the window, 
 felt the flame rising. 
 
 "He said that he was bored, tired, unhappy." 
 
 After a morning spent with her ! Camelia clasped 
 her hands behind her back, and tried to still her 
 quick breathing. She eyed Mary, but she did not 
 think much of Mary. 
 
 " Really ! " she said. 
 
 "Yes. Really." Suddenly Mary rose from her 
 chair; she clutched the chair-back. "Oh, you 
 cruel creature ! you bad creature ! " she cried 
 hoarsely. 
 
 Camelia stared, open-mouthed. 
 
 " Oh you bad creature ! " Mary repeated. Camelia 
 never forgot the look of her the ghastly white, 
 stricken out of sharp shadows, the splash of garish 
 colour on either cheek, the pale intensity of her 
 eyes. She noticed, too, the sharp prominence of 
 Mary's knuckles as she clutched the chair-back, 
 and in her amazement stirred a certain, quite diffe 
 rent discomfort. She could find no words, and 
 stared speechlessly at the apparition. 
 
 " You are cruel to every one," said Mary. " You 
 don't care about any one. You don't care about 
 your mother or about him, though you like to 
 have him there loving you ; you don't care about 
 me you never did nor thought of me. Well, 
 listen, Camelia. I am dying; in a month I will be
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 253 
 
 dead ; and / love him. There. Now do you see 
 what you have done ? " 
 
 A fierce joy filled her as she spoke the words out. 
 To tear the bleeding tragedy from its hiding-place, 
 and make Camelia shudder, scream at it it brought 
 relief, lightness ; she breathed deeply, with a sense 
 of bodily dissolution ; and Camelia's look was better 
 than screams or shudders. Let the truths go like 
 knives to the heart that deserved them. As she 
 spoke Mary felt her wrongs gather around her like 
 an army. She had no fear. She straightened 
 herself to send to her cousin a solemn look of 
 power. 
 
 "You did not know I was dying; of course you 
 would not know it for you think of nothing but 
 yourself. There, do you see that handkerchief? I 
 have been coughing blood for a long time. Nothing 
 can be done for me. You know how my father 
 died. And when I am dead, Camelia, you may say 
 to yourself, ' I helped to make the last year of her 
 life black and terrible quite hideous and awful.' 
 Yes ; say it. Perhaps it will make you feel a little 
 badly." With the words all the anguish of those 
 baffled, suffering months came upon her. The sobs 
 rose, panting; the tears gushed forth. Staggering, 
 she came round the chair and dropped into it, and 
 her sobs filled the silence. 
 
 Camelia stood rooted in terror. She expected to 
 see the sudden horror fulfil itself, to see Mary die 
 before her eyes, Mary's curse upon her, and all her 
 misdeeds one vague, menacing blackness. To clutch 
 at any doubt was impossible. From the first moment 
 of her uprising Mary's body had been like a shattered
 
 254 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 casket from which streamed a relentless light. 
 Camelia's eyes were unsealed ; she saw that the 
 casket was shattered the light convicted her. 
 
 " What have I done ? " she gasped. " Tell me, 
 Mary, what is it ? " 
 
 She found a difficulty in speaking. She did not 
 dare approach her cousin. 
 
 " I will tell you what you have done," said Mary, 
 raising her head, and again Camelia felt the hoarse 
 intentness of her voice, like a steady aiming of 
 daggers. " You have taken from me the one thing 
 the only thing I had. I love him ! He is 
 nothing to you ; and you took him from me." 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! Took him from you ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; you did not know. He did not 
 know. / saw it all. He might have loved me 
 had you not come back. He must have loved me, 
 when I loved him so much ! oh, so much ! " and, 
 sobbing again, she pressed to her eyes the blood 
 stained handkerchief, careless now of its revela 
 tions. 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! " cried Camelia, shuddering. 
 
 " I was so happy last winter. He would come 
 and read, and ride. He was so kind. Auntie, and 
 he, and I it was the happiest time of my life. But 
 you came, and he never looked at me again ! Oh, 
 how horrible ! how unjust ! Why should you have 
 everything ? I nothing ! nothing ! I suppose you 
 thought me contented, since I was ugly, and poor, 
 and stupid. And you, because you are beautiful, 
 and rich, and clever, you have everything ! That 
 is all that counts ! I am not selfish and cruel ; at 
 least, I used not to be. I have thought about other
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 255 
 
 people always ! I have tried to do right, and what 
 have I got for it ? My life has been a cheat ! and I 
 hate it ! And I am glad to die, because I see that 
 you, who are bad, get all the love, and that I will 
 never have anything ! And I see that I am bad 
 that I have been made bad through having had 
 nothing ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! forgive me ! oh, forgive me ! " 
 Camelia found her knees failing beneath her. She 
 stretched her clasped hands towards her cousin. 
 " I did not know ; indeed, I did not ! Indeed, I 
 love you, Mary ! oh, I do love you ! We all love 
 you ! " She felt herself struggling, with weak, 
 desperate hands, against Mary's awful fate and her 
 own guilt. " How can you say that, when we all 
 love you ? know how good you are ! how sweet 
 and good love you for it ! " She buried her face 
 in her hands, sobbing. Mary, who herself no longer 
 sobbed, observed her. 
 
 " Oh, you are a little sorry now," she said, in a 
 voice of cold impassiveness that froze Camelia's 
 sobs to instant silence. " I make you uncomfort 
 able a little more uncomfortable than when I 
 cough. It is strange that when I never did you 
 any harm always tried to please you you should 
 have found pleasure in hurting me. Do you re 
 member all the little jeers at me before him ? You 
 mocked my dulness, my ugliness. He did not 
 laugh. It made him sad, because he did not like to 
 see you unbeautiful in anything ; but he must have 
 seen me more stupid, more ugly than before. And 
 when he was with me for one moment you would 
 take him away. And you lied to keep him to your-
 
 256 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 self, like that day we were to have ridden together ; 
 and if you had known that I loved him you would 
 have been all the more anxious to have him to 
 hurt me." 
 
 " No, no, Mary ! " Camelia's helpless sobs burst 
 out again. 
 
 "Yes; why can I speak to you like this? because 
 I am dying, you see that I am dying that gives me 
 my only advantage ; I can tell you what I think of 
 you, and you don't dare reply. You would not dare 
 say to me now that I am a spy that I have sneak 
 ing eyes. I hate you, Camelia ! I hate you ! Oh ! 
 oh ! " She rose to her feet suddenly, and at the 
 change of tone the wail Camelia uncovered her 
 eyes. 
 
 " I am going to die ! I am going to die ! And I 
 love him, and he does not care." Mary groped 
 blindly to a sofa, fell upon it, buried her head in 
 the cushions. 
 
 Camelia rose to her feet, for she had been kneeling, 
 and stood listening to the dreadful sobs. 
 
 Her life had never known a comparable terror. 
 The blackness of Mary's point of view encompassed 
 her. She felt like a murderer in the night. She 
 crept towards the sofa. " Oh, forgive me, say a 
 word to me." 
 
 " Leave me ; go away. I hate you." 
 
 " Won't you forgive me ? " The tears streamed 
 down Camelia's cheeks. 
 
 " Go away. I hate you," Mary repeated. There 
 was a compulsion in the voice Camelia could not 
 disobey. Trembling and weeping she went out of 
 the room.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 257 
 
 Mary lay there sobbing. She had never so 
 realised to the full the extent and depth of her 
 woe, yet there was relief in the realisation, relief 
 in the flinging off of secrecy and shame. That 
 Camelia should suffer, however slightly, restored a 
 little the balance of justice, satisfied a little the 
 outraged sense of solitary suffering, atoned a very 
 little for fate's shameful unfairness. To poor Mary, 
 sobbing over her one triumph, the morality of the 
 universe seemed a little vindicated now that she 
 had taken into her own hand the long-delayed lash 
 of vengeance. Her weakened religious formalities 
 and conventionalities withered under this devour 
 ing, pagan flame. It was good to hate, and to re 
 venge one's self, good to see the smooth and smiling 
 favourite of the cruel gods, weeping and helpless. 
 She was tired of Tightness tired of swallowing her 
 tears. 
 
 The best thing in her life had been turned against 
 her; everything was at war with her. Well, she 
 would crouch no longer, she would die fighting, 
 giving blow for blow. She threw her hands up 
 wildly in thinking of it all beat them down into 
 the cushions. To have had nothing, nothing, and 
 Camelia to have everything! Oh, monstrous 
 iniquity ! Camelia, who had done no good, happy ; 
 she, who had done no wrong, unutterably miser 
 able. 
 
 For a long time she lay sobbing, still beating her 
 hands into the cushion, a mechanical symbolising of 
 her rebellion and wretchedness. So lying, all the 
 blackness of the past and future surging over her, 
 engulfing her, she heard outside the sound of a 
 
 R
 
 258 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 horse's hoofs on the wet gravel. A moment after 
 wards running footsteps came down the stairs and 
 crossed the hall. Mary pulled herself up from the 
 sofa, and, with the outer curiosity of utter indiffer 
 ence, walked to the window. Camelia's horse stood 
 before the door, a groom at his head. The drizzling 
 mist shut out all but the nearest trees, flat, pale 
 silhouettes on the white background, against which 
 the horse's coat gleamed, a warm, beautiful chest 
 nut. Mary's indifference grew wondering. Her 
 sobs ceased as she gazed. The gaze became a 
 stare, hard, fixed, as Camelia, in a flash, sprang to 
 the saddle. Mary saw her profile, bent impatiently, 
 the underlip caught between her teeth, the brows 
 frowning, while the groom adjusted her skirt. In 
 a moment she was off at a quick trot, and soon a 
 sound of galloping died down the avenue. 
 
 Mary stood rigidly looking after the sound. A 
 supposition, too horrible, too hideous, had come to 
 her, too hideous, too horrible not to be true. Its 
 truth knocked, fiercely insistent, at her heart. Her 
 knowledge of Camelia, acute yet narrow, and con 
 fused by this latter suffering, sprang at a bound to 
 the logical deduction. 
 
 Camelia could not bear suffering, revolted against 
 it, snatched at any shield. She had gone now to 
 Perior, that he might lift from her this dreadful 
 load of responsibility, cast upon her so cruelly by 
 Mary. He must tell her that he had never thought 
 of Mary, and that the idea of robbery was a wild 
 figment of Mary's sick brain. Mary's brain, though 
 sick, was clear, clear with the feverish lucidity that 
 sees all with a distinctness glaring and magnified.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 259 
 
 She saw all now. The meanness, the cowardice 
 of Camelia's proceeding only gave a deepened 
 certainty. 
 
 Then indeed shame came upon Mary. She saw 
 herself gibbeted between them, knew too well what 
 he would think. He would himself hang her up, 
 since truth demanded it, and since Camelia must 
 be comforted. The glaring lucidity dazzled Mary 
 a little at times, and now the awful justice of 
 Perior's character assumed in her eyes a Jove-like 
 cruelty, that more than matched Camelia's dastard- 
 liness. The past hour seemed painless in com 
 parison with the present moment; its blackness, 
 in looking back at it, was grey. To be debased, 
 utterly debased, in his eyes that was to drink 
 the very dregs of her cup of agony. Her hatred 
 of Camelia was her only guide in the night. She 
 went into the hall and took down her hat and 
 cloak. She could not wait for Camelia's return. 
 She must herself see the actuality of her betrayal. 
 Camelia might lie unless she could hold the truth 
 before her face ; might say that she had not ridden 
 to Perior's. Mary would see for herself, and then 
 oh then ! confronting Camelia, she would find 
 words, if she died in speaking them. 
 
 She ran down the avenue and turned off into 
 the woods by a short cut that led more directly 
 than the curving high road to the Grange. Her 
 weakness was braced by the fierceness of her pur 
 pose. She felt herself a flame, hastening relent 
 lessly through the smoke-like mist. 
 
 The woods were cold and wet. She pushed past 
 dripping branches, splashed through muddy pools ;
 
 260 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 the inner fire ignored its panting frame. When 
 she arrived at the foot of the hill on which stood 
 the Grange, she knew that Camelia must have 
 been with him there for an hour or more. She 
 could not see the house through the heavy atmos 
 phere, but, hidden by the trees and fog, she could 
 see the road and be herself unseen. On the edge 
 of the wood was a little stile; she shuddered with 
 wet and cold as she sat down on it to wait. She 
 would wait for Camelia to pass, and then, by the 
 same hidden path, she could go home and confront 
 her. Beyond that crash Mary did not look. It 
 seemed final.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 BUT Mary was quite mistaken as absolute logic 
 is apt to be when dealing with human beings. 
 Camelia, indeed, had gone to Perior, but on a very 
 different errand from the one Mary's imagination 
 painted for her. Camelia was not thinking of her 
 self, nor of throwing off the iron chains of that 
 responsibility with which she felt herself manacled 
 for life. Mary's story had crushed every thought 
 of self, beyond that consciousness of riveted guilt. 
 It was of Mary alone she thought as she galloped 
 through the mist. With terror and pity infinite she 
 looked upon Mary's love and the approaching death 
 that was to end it; their tragedy filled everything, 
 and at the feet of the majestic presences her own 
 personality only felt itself as a cowering criminal. 
 It was as though the ocean of another's suffering 
 had flooded the complacent rivers of her life. 
 They overflowed their narrow channels ; they were 
 engulfed, effaced in the mighty desolation ; never 
 again could they find their flowering banks, their 
 sunny horizons. 
 
 This moan of a suffering universe, heard before 
 only in vaguest whispers, the minor key of the 
 happy melody that she had known, making the 
 
 melody all the sweeter for its half-realised web of 
 261
 
 262 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 sadness this moan was now like the tumult of 
 great waters above her head, and a loud outcrying 
 of her awakened soul answered it. She was guilty 
 yes, as guilty as Mary knew her to be, for all 
 the mistaken deductions of Mary's ignorance. She 
 loved Perior, and he did not love her; but those 
 facts in no way touched the other unalterable facts 
 a cruelty, a selfishness, a blindness, hideous 
 beyond words. 
 
 Yet now she did not think of this guilt, irrevoc 
 able as it was. 
 
 Mary Mary Mary. The horse's hoofs seemed 
 to beat out the cry ! Mary and her fate. Camelia 
 stood with Mary against that fate; but her attitude 
 of rebellion was even fiercer, more determined than 
 poor Mary's flickering life could have sustained. 
 Mary good with nothing. Virtue not its own 
 reward. Suffering, crushing, unmerited suffering, 
 eating away the poor empty life. She herself bad, 
 and the world at her feet. Camelia felt herself 
 capable of taking the immoral universe by the 
 throat and shaking it to death herself along 
 with it. 
 
 She was galloping for help, yes, to Perior. He 
 must help her, he alone could help her, to clutch 
 the malignant cruelty, tear it off Mary, and then, 
 give her some gleam of happiness before she died. 
 Camelia straightened herself in the saddle at the 
 thought " She shall not die," clenched her teeth 
 on the determination. She might be saved. Who 
 could tell ? One heard of wonderful cures. And at 
 least, at least, she should not die unhappy. Camelia 
 would wrench happiness for her out of despair
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 263 
 
 itself. She would fight the injustice of the gods 
 until her last breath left her. 
 
 All the pitiful humanity in Camelia clung to the 
 human hope of retribution and reward. Her mind 
 fixed in this desperate hope, she could take no 
 thought of the coming interview ; that would have 
 implied a retrospective glance at her last visit to 
 the Grange, and Camelia could not think of herself, 
 nor even of Perior. 
 
 The Grange was desolate on its background of 
 leafless trees. Camelia, as she dismounted at the 
 door, looked down at the whiteness which brimmed 
 the valley ; the tree-tops emerged from it as from a 
 flood ; but where she stood there was no mist a 
 clear, sad air, and a few faint patches of blue in the 
 colourless sky above. She rang, holding the horse's 
 reins over her arm. Her habit was heavy with the 
 wet, and her loosened hair clung damply about her 
 throat and forehead. Old Lane, when he appeared, 
 showed some alarm. She could infer from his 
 expression what her own must be. 
 
 "Mr. Perior? Yes, Miss; in the laboratory with 
 Job Masters. Just go up, Miss, and I'll take the 
 horse round to the stables." 
 
 The laboratory was at the top of the house. 
 Camelia found herself panting from the swiftness 
 of her ascension when she reached the door. En 
 tering, she faced the white light from the wide 
 expanse of window, which overlooked on bright 
 days miles of wooded, rolling country, to-day the 
 sea of mist. Perior's back was to her, and he was 
 bending with an intent interest over a microscope ; 
 a collection of glass jars was on the table, and Job
 
 264 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Masters, his elementary features lit by the intelli 
 gent gravity of close attention, was standing beside 
 him. Perior was saying 
 
 "Now, Job, take a look at it." His grey head 
 did not turn. 
 
 " It's Miss Paton, sir," Job volunteered. At that 
 Perior rose hastily, and Camelia advancing, looked 
 vaguely at Job, at the microscope, at the jars of 
 infusoria. 
 
 A thought of the last visit had shot painfully 
 through Perior on hearing her name, but, after one 
 stare at her white face, his fear, freed from any 
 selfish terror, took on a sympathetic acuteness. 
 
 " I must speak to you," she said. 
 
 "Very well. You may go, Job," and as Job's 
 heavy footsteps passed beyond the door, "What 
 is it, Camelia ? " he asked, holding her hands, his 
 anxiety questioning her eyes. 
 
 For a moment, the press of all that must be said 
 crowding upon her, of all that must be said with 
 a self-control that must not waver or misinterpret 
 through weakness, Camelia could not speak. She 
 looked at him with a certain helplessness. 
 
 "Sit down, you are faint," said Perior, greatly 
 alarmed ; but, shaking her head, she only put her 
 hand on the back of the chair he brought forward. 
 
 "I have something terrible to tell you, Michael." 
 That she should use his name impressed him even 
 more than her announcement, emphasised the gravity 
 of the situation in which he was to find himself 
 with her. In the ensuing pause their eyes met 
 with a preparatory solemnity. 
 
 "Michael, Mary is dying." He saw then that
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 265 
 
 her eyes seized him with a deep severity of demand. 
 The shock, though not unexpected, found him un 
 prepared. 
 
 " She knows it ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, she knows it. Listen. She told me 
 everything. It was more horrible than you can 
 imagine. She told me how cruel I had been to 
 her how I had neglected her how I had cut 
 again and again into her very soul. She hates 
 me, she hates her life, but she is afraid of death. 
 She is not going to die happily, hopefully, as one 
 would have thought Mary would die. She is dying 
 desperately and miserably, for she sees that being 
 good means merely being trodden on by the bad. 
 She has had nothing, and she regrets everything." 
 Perior dropped again into the chair by the table. 
 He covered his eyes with his hands. 
 
 " Poor child ! Unhappy child ! " he said. 
 
 The shuddering horror of the morning came over 
 Camelia. She clasped her hands, pressing them 
 against her lips. It seemed to her suddenly that 
 she must scream. 
 
 " What does it mean ? What does a life like 
 that mean ? " Her eyes, in all their helpless 
 guilt and terror, met his look of non-absolving 
 pity. 
 
 " It means that if one is good one is often 
 trodden upon. We must accept the resposibility 
 for Mary's unhappiness. My poor Camelia," 
 Perior added, in tones of saddest comprehension, 
 and he stretched out his hand to her. But Camelia 
 stood still. 
 
 " Accept it ! " she cried, and her voice was sharp
 
 266 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 with the repressed scream. " Do you think I am 
 trying to shirk it ? Do you think that I do not see 
 that it is I 7, who trod upon her ? Don't say 
 ' We ' ; say ' You,' as you think it. You need have 
 no compunctions. I could have made her happy 
 happier, at least, and I have made her miserable. 
 I have done said looked the cruellest things 
 confiding in her stupid insensibility. I have crushed 
 her year after year. I am worse than a murderer. 
 Don't talk of me even to accuse me ; don't think 
 of me, but think of her. Oh, Michael ! let us think 
 of her ! Help me to mend a little the end of it 
 all!" 
 
 " Mend it ? " He looked at her, taken aback 
 by her words, the strange insistence of her eyes. 
 " One can't, Camelia one can't atone for those 
 things." 
 
 " Then you mean to say that life is the horror 
 she sees it to be ? She sees it ! There is the pity 
 the awful pity of it ! Not even a merciful 
 blindness, not even the indifference of weakness ! 
 Morality is a gibe then ? Goodness goes for 
 nothing is trampled in the mud by the herd of 
 apes snatching for themselves ! That is the world, 
 then ! " The fierce scorn of her voice claimed him 
 as umpire. Perior put his hand to his head with 
 a gesture of discouragement. 
 
 " That is the world as far as we can see it." 
 " And there is no hope ? no redemption ? " 
 " Not unless we make it ourselves not unless 
 the ape loses his characteristics." He paused, and 
 a deepened pity entered his voice as he added, 
 " You have lost them, Camelia."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 267 
 
 " Yes ; I can hear the canting moralist now, 
 with his noisome explanation of vice and misery. 
 Mary has been sacrificed to save my soul, forsooth ! 
 My soul ! " 
 
 " Yes." Perior's monosyllable held neither assent 
 nor repudiation. 
 
 " Yes ? And what does my miserable soul count 
 for against her starved and broken life ? " 
 
 " I don't know. That is for you to say." 
 
 " I say that if virtue is to give a reward to vice, 
 life is a nightmare." Perior again put his hands 
 over his eyes. The thought of poor Mary, con 
 scious of injustice, the sight of Camelia writhing 
 in retributory flames, made him feel shattered. 
 
 " But I didn't come to talk about my proble 
 matic soul," said Camelia in an altered voice ; " I 
 came to tell you about Mary." She approached 
 him, and stood over him as she spoke, so that he 
 looked up quickly. 
 
 " She will probably be dead in a month. She 
 knows it; and, Michael, she loves you." Perior 
 flushed a deep red, but Camelia whitened to the 
 lips. He would have risen; she put her hand on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Impossible ! " he said. 
 
 " No, listen. She told me. She lashed me with 
 it this morning that hopeless love for she thinks 
 that you love me thinks that I am playing with you. 
 She loves you. She has loved you for years." 
 
 "Don't say it, Camelia!" Perior cried brokenly. 
 " Mary's disease explains hysteria melancholia 
 a pitiful fancy that will pass that should never 
 have been told to me."
 
 268 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 " Ah, don't shirk it ! " her hand pressed heavily 
 on his shoulder. " Her disease made her tell me, 
 I grant you, but you could not have doubted had 
 you heard her ! as I did ! You understand that 
 she must never know that I have told you." 
 
 " I understand that, necessarily, and I must ask 
 you from what motive you think your revelation 
 justified ; it must be a strong one, for I confess 
 that the revelation seems to me unjustifiable 
 cruelly so." 
 
 "I have a strong motive." 
 
 "You did not come to pour out to me the full 
 extent of poor Mary's misfortune for the selfish 
 sake of relieving, by confession, your self-reproach ? 
 And, indeed, in this matter I cannot see that you 
 are responsible. It is a cruelty of fate, not 
 yours." 
 
 Camelia looked away from him for a moment, 
 looked at the microscope. A swift flicker of shame 
 went through her, one thought of self, then, reso 
 lutely raising her eyes, she said, "Am I not at 
 all responsible ? Are you sure of that ? " 
 
 " Responsible for Mary loving me ? " Perior 
 stared, losing for a moment, in amazement, his 
 deep and painful confusion. 
 
 " No ; that is fate, if you will. But had I not 
 come back last summer, had I not claimed you, 
 monopolised you, absorbed you ah ! you are 
 flushing, don't be ashamed for me ! I swear to 
 you, Michael, that I am not giving myself a thought 
 had I not set myself to work to make love to 
 you there is the fact don't look away, I can 
 bear it can you tell me that Mary might not
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 269 
 
 have had the chance she so deserved, of slipping 
 sweetly and naturally into your heart becoming 
 your wife ? " 
 
 " Camelia ! " Perior turned white. " I never 
 loved Mary, never could have loved her. Does 
 that relieve you ? " He keenly eyed her. 
 
 "Don't accuse me of seeking relief! that is a 
 cruelty I don't deserve. If you never could have 
 loved Mary it is even more dreadful for me for 
 it is still crueller for Mary. That she should love 
 you. That you should not care ! could never have 
 cared ! " 
 
 At this Perior rose and walked up and down 
 the room. " Don't ! " he repeated several times. 
 His wonder at Camelia interfused intolerably his 
 sorrow for Mary. 
 
 Camelia followed him with steady eyes. The 
 eagerness of decisive appeal seemed to burn her 
 lips as she said slowly 
 
 "Ah, had you seen her! Had you heard her 
 crying out that she was dying that she loved 
 you that you did not care ! " 
 
 "You must not say that." Perior stopped and 
 looked at her sternly. " I am not near enough. It 
 is a desecration." 
 
 "Ah ! but how can I help her if I don't ? How 
 can you help her? For it is you, Michael, you. 
 Can't you see it ? You are noble enough. Michael 
 you will marry Mary ! Oh ! " at his start, his 
 white look of stupefaction, she flew to him, grasped 
 his hands "Oh, you must you must. You can 
 make her happy you only ! And you will say 
 you will. You cannot let her die in this misery !
 
 270 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Say you cannot, Michael oh, say it ! " And, sud 
 denly breathless, panting, her look flashed out the 
 full significance of her demand. In all its stupe 
 faction Perior's face still retained something of its 
 sternness, but he drew her hands to his breast. 
 " Camelia, you are mad," he said. 
 
 " Mad ? " she repeated. Her eyes scorned him ; 
 then, rapidly resuming their appealing dignity, 
 "You can't hesitate before such a chance for 
 making your whole life worth while." 
 
 " Quite mad, Camelia," he repeated with em 
 phasis. " I could not act such a lie," he added. 
 
 "A lie! To love, cherish that dying child! A 
 better lie than most truths, then ! You are not a 
 coward surely. You will not let her die so." 
 
 " Indeed I must. Any pretence would be an 
 insult. As it is, if Mary could see you here, she 
 would want to kill us both." 
 
 " Not if she understood," said Camelia, curbing 
 the vehemence of her terrified supplication, the 
 very terror warning her to calm. " And what more 
 would there be in it to hurt her ? " 
 
 " That / should know and should refuse. Good 
 God ! " 
 
 " Where is the disgrace ? " Camelia's eyes gazed 
 at him fixedly. "Then we are both disgraced 
 Mary and I." Her smile, bitterly impersonal, offered 
 itself to no interpretations, yet before it he steadied 
 his face with an effort. He could not silence her 
 by the truth that he loved her, her alone; loved 
 now her high, frowning look, her passionate 
 espousal of another's cause. Mary's tragic presence 
 sealed his lips. He said nothing, and Camelia's
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 271 
 
 eyes, as they searched this chilling silence, in 
 credulous of its cruel resolve, filled suddenly and 
 piteously with tears. 
 
 "Oh, Michael," she faltered. Scorn and defiance 
 dropped from her face ; he saw only the human 
 soul trembling with pity and hope. He did not 
 dare trust himself to speak he could not answer 
 her. Holding her hands against his breast, he 
 looked at her very sorrowfully. 
 
 " Listen to me, Michael. I mustn't expect you 
 to feel it, yet, as I do must I ? That would be 
 impossible. I only ask you to think. You see the 
 pathos, the beauty of Mary's love for you ! for 
 years growing in her narrow life. Think how a 
 smile from you must have warmed her heart a 
 look, a little kindness. She adores you. And this 
 consciousness of death, this nearing parting from 
 you you who do not care leaving even the dear 
 sight of you. Think of her going out alone, un 
 loved, into the darkness the everlasting darkness 
 and silence with never one word, one touch, one 
 smile, to hold in her heart as hers, meant for her, 
 with love. Oh, I see it hurts you ! you are sorry ; 
 oh, blessed tears ! You cannot bear it, can you ? 
 Michael, you will not let her go uncomforted ? She 
 is not strong, or brave, or confident. She is sick, 
 weak, terrified; a. screaming, shuddering child 
 carried away in the night. Michael ! " it was a 
 cry; she clasped his hands in hers "you will 
 walk beside her ! You will kiss her, love her, and 
 she will die happy with her hand in yours ! " 
 Her eyes sought his wildly. He had never loved 
 her as he loved her now, and though his tears were
 
 272 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 for Mary, the power, the freedom of his love for 
 Camelia was a joy to him even in the midst of a 
 great sadness. He could not have kissed her, or 
 put his arms around her ; the dignity of her abase 
 ment was part of the new, the sacred loveliness, 
 and it was more in pity than in love that he took 
 the poor, distraught, beautiful face between his 
 hands and looked at her a negation, pitiful and 
 inarticulate. She closed her eyes. He saw that 
 she would not accept the bitterness. 
 
 " I will do all I can," he then said ; " but, dear 
 Camelia, dearest Camelia, I cannot marry her." 
 
 It was a strange echo. Camelia drew away from 
 him. 
 
 "What can you do? She knows you are her 
 friend ; that only hurts." 
 
 " Does it ? " He saw now, through the uncon 
 scious revelation, the greatness of her love for him, 
 and saw that in the past he had not understood. 
 She loved him so much that there was left her not 
 a thought of self. Her whole nature was merged 
 in the passionate wish that he should fulfil her 
 highest ideal of him. He saw that she would have 
 laid down her life for him or for Mary, as she 
 stood there, and, for Mary, she expected an equal 
 willingness on his side. 
 
 " It would only be an agony to her," Camelia 
 said ; " she would fear every moment that she 
 would betray herself to you, as she betrayed her 
 self to me. Can't you see that? Understand 
 that ? " Desperately she reiterated : " You must 
 pretend ! You must lie ! You must tell her that 
 you love her! You must marry her, take her
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 273 
 
 away to some beautiful country there are places 
 where they live for years ; make a paradise about 
 her. You must" She looked sternly at him. 
 
 " No, Camelia, no." 
 
 "You mean that basest no?" She was trem 
 bling, holding herself erect as she confronted him ; 
 her white face, narrowly framed by the curves of 
 loosened hair, tragic with its look of reprobation. 
 
 " I mean it. I will not. You will see that I am 
 right. It would be a cruel folly, a dastardly kind 
 ness, a final insult from fate. And I do not think 
 only of Mary I think of myself; I could not lie 
 like that." 
 
 Her silent woe and scorn, frozen now to a bleak 
 despair, dwelt on him for a long moment, then, 
 without another word, she turned from him and left 
 him, making, by the majesty of her defeated wrong, 
 his victorious right look ugly.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 CAMELIA galloped home furiously. The tragedy 
 was then to be consummated. He would not put 
 out a finger to avert it. Mary would go down into 
 the pit of nothingness, and her love, her agony, 
 her strivings after good, would be as though they 
 had never been. 
 
 "And / live," thought Camelia, as she galloped, 
 and her thoughts seemed to gallop beside her; 
 they were like phantom shapes pressing on her 
 from without, for she did not want to think. " 7, 
 thick-skinned, dull-souled I. Yes, materialism wins 
 the day. Morality is a lie, evolved for the carpet 
 ing of lives like mine, for the preservation of the 
 fittest ! / being fittest ! To those that have shall 
 be given, and from those who have not shall be 
 taken away the law of evolution. Oh ! hideous, 
 hideous ! Oh, horror ! not even the ethical straw 
 of development to grasp at; Mary's suffering has 
 warped her, lowered her. She has been tortured 
 into rebellion against her own sweet rectitude; 
 she, who only asked to love hates; she, who 
 lived in a peaceful renunciation, now struggles, 
 thinks only of herself." 
 
 It was this last thought that seemed to lean 
 
 beside her, look into her eyes with the most in- 
 
 274
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 275 
 
 tolerable look. Mary inevitably lowered. The 
 blackness shuddered through her. Camelia on that 
 ride tasted the very dregs of doubt and despair, 
 and knew the helplessness of man before them. 
 She could have killed herself, had not a sullen 
 spark, the last smouldering from the fire of resolu 
 tion that had burned in her as she rode to Perior, 
 still lit one path through the darkness. She must 
 throw herself at Mary's feet, seek and give comfort 
 through her own extreme abasement. She must 
 cling to Mary, supplicating her to believe in her 
 infinite love and pity. Could not that love, when 
 all errors were explained, reach and hold her? 
 Camelia felt her defiance of eternity clasp Man' 
 for ever. But when she reached home Mary was 
 not there. Camelia panted as she ran from room 
 to room ; her desire, thrown back, rose stiflingly. 
 She was afraid of seeing her mother, for at a look, 
 a. question, she felt that her suspense of hard self- 
 control would break down ; she might scream and 
 rave. She sent a few words to Lady Paton by a 
 servant ; she was tired and was going to rest 
 must not be disturbed then she locked herself into 
 her own room. 
 
 Some hours passed before she heard Mary's 
 voice outside demanding entrance, hours that 
 Camelia was to look back on as the blackest of 
 her life, so black that all in them, every thought 
 and impulse, made an indistinguishable chaos, 
 where only her suffering, a trembling leaf tossing 
 on deepest waters, knew itself. In looking back, 
 she remembered that she had not once moved 
 until the knock came, and that, on going to open
 
 276 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 the door, her hand had so shaken that it fumbled 
 for some moments with the key. 
 
 Mary stood on the threshold. She was splashed 
 with mud. Beside the whiteness of her face, 
 Camelia's was passive in its pain. Mary closed 
 the door, and, as Camelia retreated a little before 
 her, leaned back against it. Her eyes went at 
 once over Camelia's wet habit and dishevelled hair ; 
 she had expected a careful effacement of all signs 
 of the guilty errand ; Camelia could not now deny 
 the ride. The thought of a brazen avowal made 
 Mary close her eyes for a moment. She had to 
 struggle with a sick faintness, as she leaned against 
 the door, before she could put that monstrous 
 thought aside and say, returning to her first im 
 pulse, and opening her eyes as she spoke 
 
 " I know where you have been." 
 
 Camelia stood still. This unexpected blow con 
 fused the direct vision of appeal and abasement that 
 upheld her. She must face an unlooked-for contin 
 gency, and her mind seemed to reel a little as she 
 faced it. 
 
 " You followed me, Mary ? " she asked, with a 
 gentleness bewildered. 
 
 " Yes, I followed you." 
 
 Camelia was now becoming conscious of the de- 
 finiteness of Mary's heavy stare. It was like a stone, 
 and under the weight of it she groped, staggering, 
 in a wilderness of formless conjectures. Mary 
 could not know why she had gone. A pang of terror 
 shot through her. Mary's next words riveted the 
 terror. 
 
 " I saw you. I know why you went. I know
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 277 
 
 everything," said Mary. Camelia's horror kept 
 silence, though the room seemed to whirl round 
 with her. Had Mary by some unknown means 
 reached the Grange before she did ? Had she been 
 hidden near the laboratory ? Had she heard ? 
 Were all merciful lies impossible ? She felt her 
 very lips freeze in a rigid powerlessness. 
 
 " You went to tell him that I loved him ? " Mary's 
 eyes opened widely as she spoke, and she walked 
 up to her cousin, close to her. 
 
 "You told him that I loved him," she repeated, 
 and Camelia in her nightmare horror felt the hatred 
 of the pale eyes. 
 
 "You don't dare deny that you told him." No, 
 Camelia did not dare deny. She looked down 
 spell-bound at Mary. She was afraid of her, 
 horribly afraid of her. It was like the approach of 
 a nightmare animal, its familiar seeming making its 
 strangeness the more awful. She did not dare 
 deny. She could not move away from her; she 
 was paralysed in her dread Mary looked at her as 
 though conscious of her own power. 
 
 "You told him, so that he might comfort you, 
 tell you he had never loved me, never could have 
 loved me. You betrayed me to save yourself from 
 that reproach of robbing me." It was like awaken 
 ing with a gasp that Camelia now cried 
 
 " No, no, Mary ! Oh no." 
 
 She could speak. She could clasp her hands. 
 " No, no, no," she repeated almost with joy. 
 
 " You lie. You are lying. What is the good of 
 lying to me now ? It is easy for you to lie. You 
 went to ask him the truth, and he gave it to you.
 
 278 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 For he would never have loved me, whatever I may 
 have hoped even believed at moments." 
 
 "No, Mary; no, no!" Mary's dreadful supposi 
 tion made Camelia feel the reality as a peace, a 
 refuge. That world of black cruelty where Mary 
 wandered, that at least was untrue, an illusion. Not 
 hatred, not deceit surrounded her, but love, and 
 pity, and tenderness. 
 
 " I did not go for that, Mary," she cried. " Listen, 
 Mary, you are wrong; thank God, you are wrong. 
 I did not go because I was sorry for myself; I did 
 not go basely. I was so sorry for you," said Camelia, 
 sobbing and speaking brokenly, while Mary looked 
 at her in a stern tearless silence. " I knew he would 
 be sorry. I knew we both loved you, and I wanted 
 him to marry you, Mary." 
 
 " What!" Mary's voice was terrible; yet 
 Camelia clung to the courage of her love, confident 
 that the truth alone could now reveal it all the 
 truth. 
 
 " Yes, dearest Mary, yes. There was no hatred, 
 only a longing to make you happy to help atone ; 
 only love, not hatred." 
 
 " You are telling me the truth ? " 
 
 They were standing still before each other. 
 Camelia could not interpret the pale eyes. 
 
 " Mary, I swear it before God." 
 
 "And he will not marry me ! " 
 
 " He loves you, as I do." 
 
 " He will not marry me ! " 
 
 " Let me only tell you everything ; it is not you 
 only " 
 
 " You tossed me to him and he refused me !
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 279 
 
 How dare you ! How dare you ! How dare you ! " 
 And Mary, a revelation of rage and detestation flam 
 ing up in her eyes, distorting her face, struck her 
 cousin violently on the cheek. 
 
 Camelia stood dazed. The blow interpreted, too 
 well, Mary's attitude. She could not resent, nor 
 even wonder, could only accept the retribution of 
 cruel misunderstanding and bow her head. She 
 covered her face with her hands and wept. Except 
 for this sound of weeping the room was still. In 
 the darkness of her humiliation shut in behind 
 her hands Camelia felt, at last, the silence. She 
 looked up. Mary was once more leaning against 
 the door. Her eyes were closed. Camelia went to 
 her, took her hand, and Mary made no motion. 
 Raising the hand to her lips Camelia kissed it ; its 
 coldness chilled the smarting of the blow. Master 
 ing her terror Camelia put her arms around her, 
 and, Mary sinking forward into them, she gathered 
 up the piteously light figure and carried it to the 
 bed. 
 
 " Mary Mary Mary," she murmured, staring at 
 the head which lay so still, so solemnly. Was she 
 dead ? Camelia struck aside the thought of a so 
 cruel finality. Strengthened by her rebellion she 
 sprang to open the door, and the house resounded 
 with her cries for help.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE servant, as he showed Perior into the drawing- 
 room, told him that Miss Fairleigh was dying, and 
 the imminence of the tragedy was sorrowfully em 
 phasised by Lady Paton's woe-stricken face, as she 
 came in to him. 
 
 " Yes, Michael, dying," she said before he spoke ; 
 his look had asked the question. He took her 
 hands, and they sat down, finding a comfort in 
 being together, and Perior was in as much need 
 of it as she, felt not one whit stronger before the 
 approaching end. 
 
 " Tell me about it. It has been so sudden." 
 
 Lady Paton sobbed out the sad facts. Her own 
 blindness ; poor Mary's long concealment too suc 
 cessful ; the doctor's fatal verdict. 
 
 " I was blind, too," said Perior, " though I always 
 feared it." 
 
 " Ah ! that is the cruellest part of it ! And her 
 indifference she does not seem to care ; she does 
 not speak to any of us." 
 
 " Not to Camelia ? Is Camelia with her ? " 
 
 Perior's heart must spare some of its aching to 
 his unhappy Camelia. 
 
 " She has not once left her. She is so brave; I 
 can only cry ; but it has made Camelia already dif 
 ferent ; a strength, a gentleness, yet a despair. She
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELlA 281 
 
 feels it terribly, Michael, and the first shock was 
 hers. Mary was out all yesterday afternoon in 
 the wet and cold, and when she came in she fainted 
 in Camelia's room." 
 
 Perior looked at her, pondering this sinister 
 announcement. 
 
 "I should like to see Mary when she is able," 
 he said. 
 
 "Yes. She must have her friends about her, 
 my poor, poor child. Ah, Michael ! I can never 
 forgive myself." 
 
 " Why do you say that ? You gave Mary all 
 her sunshine." 
 
 " Not enough ! not enough ! She must have 
 seen that it was Camelia, only Camelia, in whom 
 my heart was bound up. She must have felt it." 
 
 Perior sighed heavily. He, too, had regrets. 
 Had he but known, guessed what he had been 
 to Mary ! But he said, " Don't exaggerate that ; 
 Mary must have understood ; it was inevitable, 
 quite, and pardonable. Camelia was your 
 daughter." 
 
 " Ah ! Camelia had so much, Mary so little ! " 
 and to this Perior must perforce assent. 
 
 Meanwhile Camelia sat by Mary's side. She 
 divided the vigils with the nurse who came down 
 from London. She found that her eternal self- 
 reproach had strengthened her. She could bear 
 its steady contemplation and soothe her mother's 
 more helpless grief. 
 
 Mary was sinking fast. During the next three 
 days she hardly spoke, though her eyes followed 
 the ministering figures that moved about her bed.
 
 282 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Conscious that she was dying, but wrapped in an 
 emotionless sadness, she watched them all in 
 differently, and slept quietly from time to time. 
 It was going to be much easier than she had 
 thought. Hardly a thread bound her to life ; even 
 her passionate hatred of Camelia was dimmed by 
 the creeping mists; even her love for Perior 
 wailed, it seemed, at a long distance from her; 
 she listened to it as she lay there ; only at moments 
 came a throb of pain for all the happiness she had 
 never had. Camelia meeting the calm eyes would 
 smile tremulously, but Mary gave no answering 
 smile, and her eyes kept all their calm. 
 
 Camelia had to hold firmly to the self-abnegation 
 of perfect self-control to keep down the cry of 
 confession that would give her relief, that would 
 perhaps admit her to Mary's heart ; it was not 
 until the third night, as she sat beside her, that 
 the yearning allowed itself to grow to hope. 
 Mary's eyes, on this night, turned more than once 
 from their vacant gaze and dwelt upon her with 
 a fixity almost insistent. 
 
 Camelia dared, at last, to take in both her own 
 the tragic hand that lay on Mary's chest, and, 
 after a timid pause, she raised it to her lips. It 
 lay resistless ; she held it against her cheek ; 
 through the dimness, Mary felt the tears wet 
 ting it. 
 
 The merciful hardness about her heart seemed 
 to melt. She knew a keener pang, a longer 
 aching, that did not end and give her peace again. 
 It was not calm, after all, not good to die with 
 that unloving frost holding one. She lay in
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 283 
 
 silence, looking, in the faint light, at her cousin's 
 bent head, the ruffled outline of the golden hair. 
 The thought of Camelia's beauty bowed in this 
 desolation touched her sharply, intolerably. She 
 felt her heart beating heavily, and suddenly, 
 " Caraelia, I am sorry," she said. 
 
 Caraelia clasped the imprisoned hand to her 
 breast, and leaned forward. 
 
 " Sorry ! Oh, Mary what have you to be 
 sorry for ? " 
 
 " I was wicked I hated you I struck you." 
 
 " I deserved hatred, dear Mary." 
 
 " I should not hate you. It hurts me." 
 
 " Oh, my darling ! " sobbed her cousin, rising, 
 and bending over her. 
 
 " It hurts me," Mary repeated, but in a voice 
 unmoved. 
 
 " Do you still hate me, Mary ? " 
 
 There was a pause before she answered and 
 then with a certain faltering, " I don't know." 
 
 "Will you can you listen, while I tell you 
 something?" said Camelia, almost in a whisper 
 for Mary's voice was hardly more. " I must tell 
 you, Mary. I deserve everything you said, and 
 yet you misjudged me. Will you hear the 
 truth ? " Camelia clasped the hand more tightly 
 to her breast. " I am not going to defend my 
 self I only want you to know the truth ; perhaps 
 you will be a little sorry for me then and be 
 able to love me a little." 
 
 Mary looked up at her silently, and, when she 
 paused, said nothing; yet her intent look seemed 
 to assent.
 
 284 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELlA 
 
 " It will not give you pain," Camelia said 
 tremblingly, " the pain is all mine here. Mary 
 I love him too." The words came with a sob. 
 She sank into the chair, and dropping Mary's hand 
 she leaned her elbows on the bed and hid her 
 face. 
 
 " I loved him, Mary, and I imagined that he 
 must love me. My vanity was so great that I 
 thought I could choose or reject him. I accepted 
 Sir Arthur from spite partly, and then I was 
 dreadfully frightened. On the very day I accepted 
 Sir Arthur I sent for Mr. Perior. Mary, I made 
 love to him. I did not tell him I was engaged ; 
 I wanted to escape from that blunder unscathed. 
 I could not believe in his embarrassment, nor in 
 the reality of his scorn when he found me out. 
 I broke my engagement as you know. I went 
 to Mr. Perior's house. I entreated him to love 
 me I hung about his neck, cried, implored. He 
 did not love me ; he rejected me. He scorns 
 me he is sorry for me ; he is my friend, but he 
 scorns me. I was not playing with him you see 
 that now. I adore him and he does not love me 
 at all." 
 
 Uncovering her face, Camelia found Mary's eyes 
 fixed upon her. 
 
 "Do you understand now, Mary, why I went 
 to him ? I loved you so was so sorry for you 
 so infinitely sorry for had I not felt it all? I 
 never told him that you thought he might have 
 loved you ; but I thought it myself, I thought 
 that he might love you, indeed, when he knew 
 you knew the sweetness, the sadness of your
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 285 
 
 hidden love. If he refused, Mary, it was because 
 he respected you too highly and himself to act 
 any falsity towards you. It was not like my re 
 jection ; there was no shame, no abasement for 
 you. You have his reverent pity, his deep, loving 
 devotion. Don't regret, dear Mary, that through 
 my well-meant folly he really knows you now." 
 She paused, and Mary still lay silent, slowly clos 
 ing and unclosing her hand on the sheet. 
 
 " Believe me, Mary," said Camelia, the monotony 
 of her recitative yielding to an appealing tremor. 
 " I have told you the truth the very truth. I have 
 not hidden a thought from you." 
 
 " You love him ? " Mary asked, almost musingly. 
 
 "Yes, dear, yes. We are together there." 
 
 " I never saw it; never guessed it." 
 
 "Like you, Mary, I can act." 
 
 "And you wanted him to marry me," Mary 
 added presently, pondering, it seemed. 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! " said Camelia, weeping, " I did. 
 I longed for it, prayed for it I would have given 
 my life to have him marry you. Mary, believe 
 me, when I tell you that to atone in however a 
 little measure for your dreary life, I would die 
 oh gladly, gladly." 
 
 "Would it not have been worse than dying?" 
 Mary asked in a voice that seemed suddenly to 
 subtly smile, though she herself lay unsmiling in 
 the shadowed whiteness of the bed. 
 
 " What worse ? " 
 
 " To see him marry me." Camelia gazed at her. 
 
 " I think, Mary," she said presently, " I could 
 have seen it without one pang for myself; I would
 
 286 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 have been too glad for you to think of that. And 
 then he does not love me. The iron entered my 
 soul long ago. I have long since lost even the 
 bitterness of hope." 
 
 "And he does not love you," Mary repeated 
 quietly, raising her eyes and looking away a little. 
 
 " He does not, indeed." 
 
 Camelia's quivering breaths quieted to a waiting 
 depth. But Mary for a long time said nothing 
 more. Her hand lay across her breast, and above 
 it her face now surely smiled. 
 
 At last she turned her eyes on her cousin. Look 
 ing at her very gently, she said, " But I love you, 
 Camelia."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 CAMELIA was sitting again by Mary's bed when 
 Perior was announced the next morning. 
 
 " You must go and see him to-day," said Mary. 
 
 " Why must I ? " 
 
 " I should like to see him," Mary's voice had now 
 a thread only of breath ; to speak at all she had 
 to speak very slowly, "and you must tell him first, 
 that I know." 
 
 " Mary dear " 
 
 " I do not mind." 
 
 " No, one does not, with him. I will see him, 
 tell him." 
 
 "Talk be nice to him; do not be angry with 
 him because he will not marry me." Her smile 
 hurt Camelia, who bent over her saying 
 
 " If I had not gone ! you would not be here now; 
 we might have kept you well much longer." 
 
 " That would have been a pity wouldn't it ? " 
 said Mary, quite without bitterness. 
 
 "Oh, Mary! Could we not have made you 
 happy ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it is knowing that I can never be well 
 that keeps me now from being sad," Mary answered ; 
 " don't cry, Camelia I am not sad." 
 
 But Camelia cried as she went down the stairs. 
 
 A pale spring sunshine filled the morning-room, 
 287
 
 288 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 where she found Perior. She had hardly noticed 
 the outside world for the last few days, and it 
 gave her now a sweetly poignant shock to see 
 that the trees were all blurred with green, a web 
 of life embroidering the network of black branches ; 
 beyond them a high, pale, spring sky. She saw 
 the green really before seeing Perior, for he was 
 looking at it, his back turned to her as she came 
 in. Then, as he faced her, his ageing struck her 
 more forcibly than the world's renewal of youth. 
 As she looked at him, and despite the memory of 
 their last words together, despite the tears upon 
 her cheeks, she smiled. She had forgiven him. 
 He had been right, she wrong; and then his sad 
 face, surely his hair had whitened ? The love for 
 Mary that overflowed her heart seemed to clasp him 
 in its pity and penitence, but she could only feel it 
 as the overflow. 
 
 "She wants to see you," she said, giving him 
 her hand, and she added, for the joy of last night 
 must find expression, " She knows everything. 
 She followed me that day and half guessed the 
 truth only half; I had to tell her all. And she 
 has forgiven me for everything." Camelia bent 
 her forehead against his shoulder and sobbed 
 " She is dying ! and she loves me ! " 
 
 " My darling Camelia," said Perior, putting his 
 hand on her hair. 
 
 To Camelia the words could only mean that he 
 forgave and loved as Mary did ; but she felt the 
 deep peace of truest union. 
 
 "Then she is dying in the sunshine, isn't she?" 
 he added, " not in that horrible darkness."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 289 
 
 "Yes but such a cold, white sunshine. It is 
 because she feels no longer. It is peace not 
 happiness ; just ' peace out of pain.' " 
 
 "And cannot we two doubters add, 'With God 
 be the rest ? " 
 
 "We must add it. To hope so strongly is 
 almost to believe, isn't it ? Come to her now." 
 
 She left him at Mary's door. 
 
 The nurse, with her face of hardened patience, 
 rose as he entered. 
 
 " I will leave you with Miss Fairleigh, sir. Call 
 me if I am needed." 
 
 Her look was significant. 
 
 Perior felt his heart shake a little as he went 
 round the white curtain. He was afraid. If he 
 should blunder stab the ebbing life with some 
 stupidity ! Something of this tender fear showed 
 in his look at the dying girl, and the fear deepened 
 for a moment to acutest pain at sight of her. Was 
 that the Mary he had last seen sitting over the 
 account-books ? the Mary he had fatuously told 
 to keep cheerful ? Remorse wrung his heart. But 
 as for the fear of hurting her, Mary was very far 
 beyond all little mundane tremors, and they faded 
 away, ashamed for having been, as he clasped her 
 hand, and met her eyes ; their still smile quieted even 
 his pain, and wrapped him in its awe and beauty. 
 
 He sat down beside her, keeping her hand in his. 
 
 " Dear Mary," he said. 
 
 For a long time she did not speak ; indeed 
 Perior thought that she might not wish to employ 
 the coarser medium of communication, could not, 
 perhaps; her eyes, as they rested upon him, seemed 
 
 T
 
 igo THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELlA 
 
 amply significant; but he could not fathom, quite, 
 their ultimate meaning. Perhaps a great sadness 
 underlay their calm. But at last, very faintly and 
 very slowly, she said 
 
 " You saw Camelia." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You know that I was cruel to Camelia ? " 
 
 " No, I did not know." 
 
 " I was." 
 
 " I cannot believe that, Mary." 
 
 "I was, I misjudged her. I struck her. She 
 did not tell you that ? " 
 
 " No," said Perior, after the little pause his 
 surprise allowed itself. 
 
 " I did, I struck her," Mary repeated, with a 
 certain placidity. " You understand ? " she added. 
 
 Perior was putting two and two together ; the 
 result was clearly comprehensible. 
 
 " Yes, I understand," he said. 
 
 " Camelia understood too." 
 
 " Yes," Perior repeated his assent, adding, " You 
 have saved Camelia, Mary; I don't think she can 
 ever again be blind or stupid." 
 
 " Camelia stupid ? " Mary's little smile was 
 almost arch. 
 
 " That is the kindest word, isn't it ? " Perior 
 smiled back at her. "Let us be kind, for we are 
 all of us stupid more or less; you very much 
 less, dear Mary." 
 
 Mary's look was grave again, though it thanked 
 him. "You are kind. Camelia has been very 
 unhappy," the words were spoken suddenly, and 
 almost with energy.
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 291 
 
 " I don't doubt that." Mary closed her eyes, as 
 if all effort, even the passive effort of sight, must 
 be concentrated in her words. 
 
 "And I am afraid she will be very unhappy 
 about me." 
 
 " That is unavoidable." 
 
 "But unjust. She is nothing that I thought. 
 Nothing is her fault. It is no one's fault. I was 
 born not rich, not pretty, not clever, not even 
 contented; it is no one's fault. I have been cruel. 
 You must comfort her," and Mary, suddenly open 
 ing her eyes, looked at him fixedly. "You must 
 comfort her," she repeated, adding, " I know that 
 you love Camelia." 
 
 Perior, with some shame, felt the red go over 
 his face. Mary observed his confusion calmly. 
 
 "You need not mind telling me," she said. 
 
 " Dear Mary, I am abased before you." 
 
 "That isn't kind to me," Mary smiled. "You 
 do love her do you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, I love her." 
 
 " And she loves you." 
 
 " I have thought it sometimes," said Perior, 
 looking away. 
 
 " She has always loved you. You too have mis 
 judged Camelia. She told me last night she 
 told me that you had rejected her." 
 
 " Did she, Mary ? " Perior looked down at the 
 hand in his. 
 
 " Yes through love of me. You understand ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " It brought us together," said Mary, closing 
 her eyes again.
 
 292 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 She lay so long without speaking that Ferior 
 thought she must, in her weakness, have fallen 
 asleep, but at last she said, the words wavering, 
 for her breath was very shallow, "That is what 
 Camelia needed. Some one to love a great 
 deal " And with an intentness, like the last 
 leap of a dying flame, she added, looking at him, 
 "You will marry Camelia." 
 
 " If Camelia will have me," said Perior, bending 
 over her hand and kissing it. 
 
 A gleam of gaiety, of pure joyousness, shone 
 on Mary's face. Humorously, without a shadow 
 of bitterness, she said, " I win where Camelia 
 failed!" 
 
 The tears rushed to Perior's eyes. He could 
 not speak. He rose, and stooping over her, he 
 took her in his arms and kissed her. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said quickly, " it is much better to 
 die. I love you." She looked up at him from the 
 circle of his arms. " How could I have lived ? " 
 
 At the great change in her face he wondered 
 if he had done well in yielding to the impulse of 
 pure tenderness ; but still supporting her fragile 
 shoulders he said, stammering 
 
 " Dear child in dying you have let us know 
 you and adore you." 
 
 The light ebbed softly from her eyes as she 
 still looked up at him. " Perhaps I told you 
 hoping it " she murmured. These words of 
 victorious humility were Mary's last. When 
 Camelia came in a little while afterwards she saw 
 that Mary's smile knew, and drew her near ; but 
 standing beside her, holding her hand, she felt
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 293 
 
 that Mary would not speak to her again. Through 
 her tears she looked across the bed at Perior; 
 his head was bowed on the hand he held ; his 
 shoulders shook with weeping. At the unaccus 
 tomed sight a half dull wonder filled her. 
 
 For a long time Mary smiled before her, as 
 they held her hands ; and Camelia only felt 
 clearly that the smile was white and beautiful. 
 She waited for it to turn to her again. Only on 
 meeting Perior's solemn look the sense of final 
 awe smote upon her. 
 
 " She is dead," he said. 
 
 To Camelia the smile seemed still to live. 
 
 " Dead ! " she repeated. Perior gently put the 
 hand he held on Mary's breast. 
 
 " Not dead ! " said Camelia. " She had not said 
 good-bye to me ! " 
 
 Perior came to her; his silence, that could 
 not comfort, answered her. She fell upon her 
 knees beside the bed, and her desperate sobs 
 wailed uselessly against the irretrievable.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IT was many weeks afterwards that he told her 
 what Mary had said. Her woe, not selfish, but 
 inconsolable, made it impossible that during the 
 first days of bereavement he should do more than 
 help and sustain her by the fulness of a friendship 
 now recognised as deep and unrestrained. 
 
 It was she herself who asked him one day if 
 Mary had said anything that he could tell her, had 
 spoken of her with a continuation of the forgiveness, 
 her trust in which made life possible. Camelia, in 
 her new devotion to her mother, its vehemence 
 almost alarming Lady Paton, controlled for her 
 sake all tears and lamentations, but lying on a sofa 
 this afternoon, alone in the twilight, the tears had 
 risen, and they were falling fast when Perior came 
 in and sat down beside her. It was then that she 
 asked him about Mary. 
 
 "She told me what you said to her the night 
 before she died," Perior answered, and Camelia let 
 him take her hand. She lay reflecting for some 
 moments before saying 
 
 "She wanted you to think as well of me as 
 possible." 
 
 " She wanted to make me happy. She knew that 
 you were mistaken."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 295 
 
 " How mistaken ? " Camelia asked from her 
 pillow. 
 
 His voice had been unemphatic, but in the slight 
 pause that followed her question she felt that his 
 eyes dwelt upon her, and she looked up at him. 
 
 " You told her that I did not love you." Camelia 
 lay silent, her hand in his, her eyes on his eyes. 
 " You believed that, didn't you ? " he asked. 
 
 " How could I help believing it ? " 
 
 "Ah! that shows a trust in me! Well, Mary 
 did not believe it. Mary told me that I loved 
 you." 
 
 "And do you?" cried Camelia. She took her 
 hand away, sat upright, and faced him. 
 
 Perior was forced to smile a little at the baldness 
 of his answering, " I do, Camelia." 
 
 11 You did not know till " 
 
 "Oh, I knew all along," Perior confessed, in 
 terrupting her. Camelia's eyes widened immensely 
 as she took in the astounding revelation. He 
 replied to their silent interrogations with "I have 
 been a wretched hypocrite. How I convinced you 
 of the lie I don't know." 
 
 " And you told that to Mary." He saw now that 
 her gaze passed him, ignored him and his revelation 
 in its personal bearing. 
 
 " I told her the truth. It did not hurt her. She 
 was far above such hurts. You had showed her 
 that you were worthy of any love. To share her 
 secret made her happy." 
 
 " Happy ! Oh, Mary ! Mary ! " Camelia mur 
 mured, looking away from him. "It must have 
 hurt," she added. " Ah, it must have hurt,"
 
 296 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 "She was as capable of nobility as you that 
 was all." 
 
 " As I ! " It was a cry of bitterness. 
 
 " As you, indeed. I feel between you both what 
 a poor creature I am. I suppose I did for a test. 
 You proved yourselves on me." 
 
 There was silence for a little while. Camelia 
 looked out of the window at the spring evening. 
 It was here they had sat together on that day of 
 their first meeting after her return. Her mind 
 went back to it in all the sorrow of hopeless regret. 
 What had Mary been to her then ? 
 
 "What more did she say?" she asked at last in 
 a voice of utter sadness. She still looked out of 
 the window, but when he answered, " She said that 
 you loved me," she looked at him. 
 
 " Is that still true, Camelia ? " he asked, smiling 
 gravely and with a certain timidity. 
 
 " So you know, at last, how much." 
 
 "My darling." His tone brought the tears to 
 her eyes; they rolled down her cheeks while she 
 said brokenly, "And I told her; I gave her the 
 weapon and she smiled at us. Oh, that 
 smile ! " 
 
 "There was triumph in it. She asked me to 
 marry you, Camelia, and I said I would if you 
 would have me. But, I must not ask you now 
 must I ? " He sat down beside her on the sofa, 
 and kissed her hand. 
 
 "Ah, no; don't think of that. It would kill me, 
 I think, if for one moment I forgot." 
 
 "You need not forget yet you may be happy, 
 and make me happy."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 297 
 
 "Oh, you don't know," said Camelia, clasping 
 her hands and looking down at them, "you don't 
 know. Even you don't know how wicked I have 
 been." 
 
 "We all have such dark closets in our hearts. 
 Don't shut yourself in yours." 
 
 " I don't shut myself. I am locked in. That is 
 my punishment. Michael," and she looked round 
 at him without turning her head, " I think of nothing 
 else ; that I made her miserable that I made her 
 glad to die. I must tell you. You don't know how 
 I treated her. I remember it all now years and 
 years so plainly. I robbed her of everything. 
 If a sunbeam fell on her path I stood between her 
 and it." 
 
 Perior was silent, but putting his hand over hers 
 he held it faithfully. 
 
 " Listen. Let me tell you a few only a few of 
 the things I remember. I don't know why you love 
 me ! how you can love me ! It hurts me to be 
 loved ! " she sobbed suddenly. 
 
 " If it will help you, tell me everything. And I 
 must love you, even if it hurts you." 
 
 And, her hand in that faithful hand, her eyes on 
 his, demanding inflexible judgment, Camelia began 
 the long confession a piteous tale, indeed. All 
 the blots and failings gathered in a huge blackness ; 
 she spoke from it. He felt as she spoke that the 
 clasp of his hand was her one link with revival. It 
 was a piteous tale : for the robbery of Mary's ride, 
 the brutal taunts flung at her on that winter night 
 these were but the bigger drops in the sea of 
 selfish thoughtlessness. After each incident, rounded
 
 298 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 with a succinct psychology that showed her pitiless 
 clearness of vision, she paused, as if waiting for him 
 to speak. His silence seemed to acquiesce, and she 
 wanted no soothing denial. And even now his hand 
 held hers, and did not cast her off. When she had 
 done, and after the silence had grown long, he 
 said 
 
 " And so I might lay bare my heart to you." 
 
 " I would not be afraid of its dark corner. You 
 have never been meanly selfish, never trodden on 
 people." 
 
 " But I might affirm other things. I will open 
 the door if it will help you to sit down with me in 
 the doubled darkness." 
 
 " No, dear Michael, no. Mine is enough." 
 
 " I have heard you ; and may I now tell you 
 again that I love you ? " 
 
 " Not again. Not now. But I am glad that you 
 love me. I feel it. I should like to sit like this for 
 ever, just feeling it, with my hand in yours." 
 
 This very debatable love-scene must be Perior's 
 only amorous consolation for many months. Of 
 her quiet content in his presence there could be 
 no doubt. No barrier, no pain, was now between 
 them. Their union was achieved, as if by a mere 
 wave-wash, effacing one misunderstanding it hardly 
 seemed more now, nor their change of relation 
 apparent ; but under all Camelia's courage was the 
 fixed determination to allow herself no happiness. 
 Superficially there was almost gaiety at times ; her 
 regret would never become conventional or priggish; 
 but even Lady Paton did not guess that Camelia 
 and Michael were lovers, although a secret hope
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 299 
 
 very wonderful, and carefully hidden painted for 
 her future rosy possibilities. With all the sadness, 
 with all the regret, these days were the happiest 
 Lady Paton had known ; and as Camelia's devotion 
 was exclusively for her, she could not guess that 
 the secret hope was already realised. 
 
 Yet Camelia did not leave her silent lover utterly 
 bereft. After the deep gravity of the first avowal 
 her little demonstrations were of a light, an almost 
 mocking order. In this new phase she returned to 
 the teasing fondness of the old one ; and some 
 times the central tenderness would pierce the 
 lightness. 
 
 Perior could afford patience, Reading one after 
 noon in the library (his daily presence at Enthorpe 
 was a matter of course), he heard steps behind him, 
 then felt her hand clasp over his eyes. 
 
 " You are keeping on loving me ? " she de 
 manded. 
 
 "Yes, I am keeping on," said Perior, turning his 
 page with a masterly calm. He knew that the 
 little outburst conceded nothing, and that even 
 when Camelia dropped a swift kiss on his hair he 
 was by no means expected to retaliate. 
 
 For the lighter mood the cottages made endless 
 subjects for conversation and discussion. In talk 
 ing squabbling amicably over their interior 
 civilisation, Camelia felt that she and Perior had 
 much the playful gravity of children making sand 
 pies at the sea-side. 
 
 Camelia insisted on her prints and photographs, 
 and on hanging them herself. She had fixed 
 theories on the decoration of wall-spaces.
 
 300 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 Perior held the ladder and criticised. " They 
 are quite out of place, you know. That exotic 
 art is most incongruous. It jars." Camelia was 
 hanging up a modern print after Hiroshighe". 
 
 " It wouldn't jar on us, would it ? " she asked, 
 driving in a nail. 
 
 "We are exotic mentally." 
 
 " Let us train them to a more cosmopolitan out 
 look, then." 
 
 " They would far prefer the coloured prints from 
 Christmas numbers." 
 
 " Well, they shan't have them ! " Camelia de 
 clared, and he laughed at her determined tyranny. 
 But when her tenants were duly installed Camelia 
 was forced to own that the honest forces of the soil 
 were difficult to manage. She came in to tea one 
 afternoon with the announcement, that the Dawkins 
 had taken down all their prints and put up flower- 
 entwined texts and horrible coloured advertisements. 
 Mrs. Dawkins had said that her husband objected 
 to " those outlandish women ; " they made him feel 
 " quite creepy like." 
 
 Later on she had to confess that the Coles by 
 no means appreciated their photographs of the 
 Sistine Sibyls, so charmingly placed along the 
 walls, and that from among them glared a well- 
 fed maiden with upturned, prayerful, and heavily- 
 lashed eyes; testifying to the Coles' religious 
 instincts and to their only timid opposition. 
 
 " How can they be so stupid ! " cried Camelia. 
 "And how can I!" 
 
 " You can't grow roses on cabbages, Camelia,"
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 301 
 
 said Perior, " to say nothing of orchids. You are 
 demanding orchids of your cabbages." 
 
 ''Desire precedes function," Camelia replied 
 sententiously, "if the cabbages want to, very 
 much, they may grow orchids. I shall still 
 hope."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 ON a beautiful October afternoon a visitor came 
 to Enthorpe. 
 
 Camelia was summoned to find Mrs. Fox-Darriel 
 in the drawing-room. Mrs. Fox-Darriel, with a 
 pastoral hat rather Gallic in its conscious inno 
 cence tipped over her emphasised eyes, her gown 
 of muslin and lace very fluffy on very rigid founda 
 tions, looked with her triumphant artificiality of 
 outline quite oppressively smart. Camelia, after 
 her year's seclusion, felt her to be oppressive. 
 
 It was rather difficult to smile on meeting her, 
 their parting had such painful associations the 
 dark turmoil of those days drifted over Camelia's 
 memory as she gave her friend her hand. 
 
 "You are surprised to see me, aren't you, 
 Camelia ? " said Mrs. Fox-Darriel. 
 
 " Yes. Rather surprised." 
 
 " No wonder, you faithless young woman. You 
 haven't troubled to toss me a thought for this 
 twelvemonth. Well, I bear you no grudge ; it is a 
 psychological phase that will, I hope, wear itself 
 away. Yes, I am stopping down in these parts 
 again, twenty miles away, with the Lambournes. 
 You have not seen them yet, I hear. New impor 
 tations. Mr. Lambourne is a bloated capitalist, 
 and as my poor Charlie is Labour personified, I
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 303 
 
 hope that my display of four new gowns daily 
 in the Lambourne ancestral halls they will be 
 ancestral some day will result in a beneficial 
 return of favours. Charlie is going in very much 
 for companies ; Mr. Lambourne's companies are 
 extremely advantageous. Oh, I uphold the uses 
 of Lambournes in our modern world; they make 
 us poor penniless aristocrats so very comfortable; 
 they are good, grateful people." 
 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel, while she talked, was looking 
 Camelia up and down in a slowly cogitating 
 manner. 
 
 "No, I can't stop to tea; I must be going back 
 directly, it is a long drive. I only came to have a 
 look at you, and, if possible, to solve the mystery. 
 What's up, Camelia ? That is what I want to 
 know. Is this all the result of last year's little 
 esclandre ? " 
 
 Camelia evaded the question. 
 
 "We have had trouble. You heard that my 
 cousin was dead." 
 
 Mrs. Fox - Darriel's eye travelled again over 
 Camelia's black dress. " Yes I heard. Poor 
 little thing. And she would never appreciate how 
 charming was the mourning being worn for her; 
 that gown is really well, there is a great deal in 
 it, a great deal. I don't know how you manage to 
 make your clothes so significant. You've got all 
 Chopin's Funeral March into those lines. Well, it 
 makes you feel badly, of course." 
 
 "Yes. Very badly." From the very patience 
 of Camelia's voice Mrs. Fox - Darriel was keenly 
 aware of barriers. How Camelia had disappointed
 
 304 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 her ! A certain baffled, angry affection rose within 
 her. 
 
 " You certainly treated her horribly, my dear. I 
 understand regrets." Camelia made no reply, and 
 looked at her with a steady sadness. " And she 
 was in love with the vial of wrath. You knew 
 that, I suppose." 
 
 " I knew that I was in love with him, Frances." 
 
 At that Mrs. Fox-Darriel gasped. Her eyes took 
 on an unblinking fixity. " So you own to it ? " 
 
 "Yes, I certainly own to it." 
 
 "Camelia! You are not going to ". The 
 conjecture made her really white. 
 
 " To what ? " and Camelia smiled irrepressibly. 
 
 "Camelia, I am fond of you. I did wish best 
 things for you. I did hope to see you somebody. 
 You would have been you can be. Sir Arthur 
 will be on his knees before you if you lift a 
 finger." 
 
 " Oh ! I hope not," cried Camelia. 
 
 " You know it. You know it. Lady Elizabeth 
 hasn't a chance. She has become literary is 
 writing the life of her great-grandfather, deep in 
 archives that means hopelessness. Camelia ! " and 
 Mrs. Fox -Daniel's cry gathered from Camelia's 
 impassive smile a frenzied energy. "You are not 
 tell me you are not going to marry that man 
 relapse into a country matron ! He will swamp 
 you. You have nothing in common. It is calf 
 love, pure and simple. I felt it all along; hoped 
 he would see the incongruity of it take your poor 
 little cousin, who was cut out for submission and 
 nurseries."
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 305 
 
 " Oh, I don't think a superfluity of either will 
 be expected of me," said Camelia, with a laugh 
 really unkind. 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! You are going to marry him ? " 
 
 "Yes, immediately," said Camelia, somewhat to 
 her own surprise. She had not expected her rather 
 indefinite views on this subject to crystallise so 
 suddenly and so irrevocably. "Console yourself, 
 Frances," she added, really feeling some compunc 
 tion before Mrs. Fox-Darnel's tragic contemplation, 
 "it won't be my funeral. He dug me out, and I 
 am going to dig him out. You may hear of me yet 
 as his wife." 
 
 "Ah!" Mrs. Fox-Darriel had found the calm 
 of her despair. " It is the same old story. His 
 indifference has done it all. It may be brutal, but 
 I must say it, you threw yourself at his head. 
 The flattery at last penetrated his priggishness ; 
 Endymion stooped to Selena." 
 
 Camelia's serenity held good. 
 
 "You can't make me angry. I like your dis 
 interestedness, Frances. Let me thank you for 
 Endymion; I am sure the simile would flatter his 
 forty-five years." 
 
 "And I came hoping " 
 
 " Hoping what, my kind Frances ? " 
 
 " That I was to be a link ; that I would find 
 you sane again willing to pay me a visit, and 
 meet him" 
 
 "But, as you see, I am on Latmos, and like it." 
 
 "Yes, I see. I am disillusionised, Camelia; I 
 confess it. I didn't expect that sort of floppiness 
 from you. And there is a self-righteousness about 
 
 U
 
 306 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 your whole manner that is insufferable, quite; I 
 tell you so frankly." Mrs. Fox-Darriel, as she 
 spoke, shouldered her closed parasol, and clasped 
 her hands over it in a militant antagonism of 
 attitude. "The sheep looking suavely from its 
 fold at the goat. We are all goats to you 
 now." 
 
 " Come, let us kiss through the bars, then." 
 
 " Oh, you are miles away aeons away ! " Mrs. 
 Fox-Darriel submitted drearily. " You are lost ! 
 done for ! And the name, the power, the future 
 you might have had ! You were clever." 
 
 "I rather doubt that." 
 
 " Ah ! of course you doubt it ; you must doubt 
 it. As the wife of a crusty country squire it would 
 be a corroding cleverness merely. You turn your 
 back on it." 
 
 "We won't be hopelessly provincial. You will 
 see us in London. He may get into Parliament." 
 
 " Us ! He ! Alas ! he will swamp you," she 
 repeated. " He will turn you into a pillar of salt 
 looking back, and being sorry. You to be 
 wasted ! " was the last Camelia heard. 
 
 When she had gone Camelia went slowly across 
 the lawn ; Perior, she knew, was lurking about 
 the garden waiting for her. Some of Mrs. Fox- 
 Darriel's remarks had cut so far less deeply, 
 though, than her own thoughts during past months. 
 It was the strong revival of these thoughts that 
 pained her more than the mode of revival. 
 
 It was dusk, a pensive dusk, the evening sky 
 faintly barred with pink. Perior was walking up 
 and down the garden between rows of tall growing
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 307 
 
 flowers. Was the thought of his patience and 
 loneliness, of her selfishness in prolonging them, a 
 mere sophistry meant to hide her own longing for 
 happiness ? As she walked down the path towards 
 him her mind juggled with this thought ; it was very 
 confusing. 
 
 " Who do you think it was ? " she asked, putting 
 her hand in his, a little douceur Perior had never 
 presumed upon. 
 
 " Mrs. Jedsley ? Mrs. Grier ? Lady Haversham ? " 
 he asked affably, but scanning, as she felt, the sad 
 ness of her face. 
 
 " No the past has been having a flick at me 
 Mrs. Fox-Darriel the whip." 
 
 "Ah yes. I never liked her." 
 
 "There is not much harm in her." 
 
 " No, perhaps not," Perior acquiesced. 
 
 " I told her," said Camelia, after a little pause 
 in which they turned a corner of the garden, and 
 walked down it again by an outward path. 
 
 "Well, what did you tell her? She has hurt 
 you. I can see that." 
 
 " No, not she. She asked me if I had never seen 
 that Mary loved you, so, in reply, I said that I had 
 only seen that / loved you." 
 
 " Did that excellent piece of truth-telling pain 
 you?" 
 
 " No ; it was a delicious mouthful. But, she 
 said too, that the flattery of my love had pierced 
 your indifference or your priggislmess, she called 
 it " and Camelia gave him a rather arch 
 glance, "and, I didn't really wonder, not really ; 
 but, you were so much more indifferent than I
 
 308 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 was, weren't you ? " and she paused in the path 
 to look at him, not archly, but very seriously. 
 Her candour was so charming, with its little touch 
 of fear, that Perior's answer could not resist an 
 emphasis. 
 
 "Dearest," he said, and Camelia's wonder was 
 not unpleasant, and his daring went unrebuked, as 
 he put his arm around her. 
 
 " That means you were not ? " 
 
 " It means a great deal more. I was in love with 
 you when I was nothing to you. I've always been 
 in love with you horribly in love with you. In 
 difference ! Great heavens ! that was what I prayed 
 for, that was what I tried to feign, for I thought you 
 such an abominable little siren. All the time that 
 you were picking me up, and putting me down, and 
 whisking past me, and torturing and teasing me, all 
 the time I was adoring you, I couldn't help myself! 
 adoring you with all your crimes upon you ! thinking 
 myself a fool for it, I grant." 
 
 " Putting you down ? No, I never did that," 
 Camelia demurred. 
 
 "Well, I thought so. And at all events you 
 know that you were most comfortably indifferent 
 until you found out that you couldn't get me for 
 the asking." 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Camelia. " From the first, if 
 you had really let me think you loved me, told me 
 so, nicely, and begged a little, I should have fallen 
 straight into your arms, and perhaps never have 
 found out how bad I was ! " 
 
 "And that would have been a pity, eh? No," 
 he added, with an argumentative gravity that
 
 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 309 
 
 touched and made her smile sadly. " You were 
 never bad. It was always half my fault. I mis 
 judged you, and you danced to my lugubrious 
 piping." 
 
 "This is the very madness of devotion! Oh, 
 dear Alceste, with you, perhaps, with you I have 
 not dealt so badly; but, but " She walked on 
 again, turning away her head. 
 
 " Don't," said Perior gently. 
 
 "Ah, I must, I must remember." 
 
 For a long time they were silent during the 
 rounding of the whole garden, where the high walls 
 grew dark against the sky, and the flowers, in the 
 faint light, were ghostly. 
 
 " Michael," she said at last, " I rebel sometimes 
 against my own unhappiness. I want to crush it 
 I am afraid of it; but I am more afraid of being 
 happy." 
 
 " Why can't they go together ? " he asked. 
 
 " Ah ! but can they ? " 
 
 "They must, sooner or later. Then you won't 
 be afraid of either. Doesn't this all mean," he 
 added, " that now I may tell you how much I love 
 you ? " and he stopped to look at her. Her face 
 was like a white flower in the dusk. Far away, 
 over long sweeps of thin purpling cloud, shone one 
 star, faint and steady. He saw together her face, 
 the sky and the star. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Camelia, " do you know me ? Even 
 now, do you know me ? I'm not one bit good ! I 
 am still the horrid child who clamoured for your 
 love ; my love for you the only good thing in me ! 
 You love me, all the same ? You don't mind ?
 
 310 THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA 
 
 don't expect anything? I want so much, but I 
 will have nothing, not a kiss, not your hand hold 
 ing mine there, I let it go on false pretences." 
 
 " I can only retaliate. / am not one bit good. 
 Dear, horrid child, will you put up with me ? " 
 
 " Oh, I never minded ! " she cried. " I loved 
 you, good or bad." 
 
 "And I you; only I minded. That is all the 
 difference. There isn't a falsity between us, 
 Camelia," he added. 
 
 " No, there isn't." 
 
 "Then, may I kiss you, and hold your hand?" 
 
 "Yes; only first first " she held him off, 
 smiling, yet still doubting, still tremulously grave, 
 " I am not good enough ; no, I am not good 
 enough." 
 
 " Quite good enough for me," said Perior. " I 
 am getting tired of your conscience, Camelia." 
 
 THE END 
 
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