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.
Sir Arthur surveyed her with pained hesitation.
"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 he laughed. I heard what he said too, I prefer that, you know."
Camelia herself was feeling wounded, was smarting under a sense of angry humiliation. This added and unexpected blow brought the blood vividly to her face, and the sincerity of her discomfort seemed even to herself to warrant the sincerity of her quick question.
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 seasick--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 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 humiliation.