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 circumstances by a little twist or turn opposed her, he had caught her--too dexterous. Perior had not controlled himself, nor taken the advantage he might have seized. He had immediately lost his balance, exaggerated what Camelia regarded as a quite permissible 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 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 confession; 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 thinking that many of her perversities might be intentionally engineered for his benefit. Perior, too, had learned to smile, and Camelia was baffled. He would not scold her. After all, he counted 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 effectiveness. 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 worldling, 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 recognized 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 themselves into very evasive elements. She told him 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 color. 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.