"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 studying with it too; she must keep up with everything."
"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 interest 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.
"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, standing 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! _Il me fait des miseres_, 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 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 superlative 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 recognition 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 preceptor 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 persistency 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 suppose."
"Yes; their lives comprise a few more movements, but very few. It is a mere sort of rhythmic necessity."
Perior laughed again, and his eyes met hers, as she leaned above her mother"s chair, in quite a twinkling mood.
Mary, near the window, paused in her st.i.tching to look at them both with a seemingly bovine contemplation.
"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 enjoyment was emphasized 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.
"How are the tenants getting on?" asked Lady Paton, taking from the table a soft ma.s.s 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 pauperizing 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."