Part 40

"Oh!" said Cornelia, and then, to the great amazement of herself as well as Ludlow, she began to laugh, and she laughed on, with her face in her handkerchief. When she took her handkerchief down, her eyes looked strange, but she asked, with a sort of radiance, "And did you think I thought Charmian was really like that?"

"Why, I didn't know---- You've been very severe with me when I've suggested she wasn't. At first, when I wanted to do her as Humbug, you wouldn't stand it, and now, when I've done her as Mystery, you laugh."

Cornelia pressed her handkerchief to her shining eyes, and laughed a little more. "That is because she isn't either. Can't you understand?"

"I could understand her being both, I think. Don't you think she's a little of both?"

"I told you," said Cornelia gravely, "that I didn't like to talk Charmian over."

"That was a good while ago. I didn't know but you might, by this time."

"Why?" she asked. "Am I so changeable?"

"No; you're the one constant and steadfast creature in a world of variableness. I didn't really expect that. I know that I can always find you where I left you. You are the same as when I first saw you."

It seemed to Cornelia that she had been asking him to praise her, and she was not going to have that. "Do you mean that I behave as badly as I did in the Fair House? No wonder you treat me like a child." This was not at all what she meant to say, however, and was worse than what she had said before.

"No," he answered seriously. "I meant that you are not capricious, and I hate caprice. But do I treat you like a child?"

"Sometimes," said Cornelia, looking down and feeling silly.

"I am very sorry. I wish you would tell me how."

She had not expected this pursuit, and she flashed back, "You are doing it now! You wouldn't say that to--to--any one else."

Ludlow paused thoughtfully. Then he said, "I seem to treat myself like a child when I am with you. Perhaps that's what displeases you. Well, I can't help that. It is because you are so true that I can't keep up the conventions with you." They were both silent; Cornelia was trying to think what she should say, and he added, irrelevantly, "If you don't like that sketch of her, I won't give it to her."

"I? What have I to do with it?" She did not know what they were talking about, or to what end. "Yes, you must give it to her. I know she wants it. And I know how kind you are, and good. I didn't mean--I didn't wish to blame you--I don't know why I'm making such a perfect fool of myself."

She had let him have her hand somehow, and he was keeping it; but they had both risen.

"May I stay a moment?" he entreated.

No one thing now seemed more inconsequent than another, and Cornelia answered, with a catching of her breath, but as if it quite followed, "Why, certainly," and they both sat down again.

"There is something I wish to tell--to speak of," he began. "I think it's what you mean. In my picture of Miss Maybough----"

"I didn't mean that at all. That doesn't make any difference to me," she broke incoherently in upon him. "I didn't care for it. You can do what you please with it."

He looked at her in a daze while she spoke. "Oh," he said, "I am very stupid. I didn't mean this sketch of mine; I don't care for that, now. I meant that other picture of her--the last one--the one I painted out before I gave up painting her---- Did you see that it was like you?"

Cornelia felt that he was taking an advantage of her, and she lifted her eyes indignantly. "Mr. Ludlow!"

"Ah! Don't think that," he pleaded, and she knew that he meant her unexpressed sense of unfairness in him. "I know you saw it; and the likeness was there because--I wanted to tell you long ago, but I couldn't, because when we met afterwards I was afraid that I was mistaken, in what I thought--hoped. I had no right to know anything till I was sure of myself; but--the picture was like you because you were all the time in my thoughts, and nothing and no one but you. Cornelia----" She rose up crazily, and looked toward the door, as if she were going to run out of the room. "What is it?" he implored. "You know I love you."

"Let me go!" she panted.

"If you tell me you don't care for me----"

"I don't! I don't care for you, and--let me go!"

He stood flushed and scared before her. "I--I am sorry. I didn't mean--I hoped---- But it is all right---- I mean you are right, and I am wrong. I am very wrong."

XXXI.