XX.  THEY VANISH

Priscilla immediately answered the summons, and made her appearance through the door of the boudoir.  I had conceived the idea, which I now recognized as a very foolish one, that Zenobia would have taken measures to debar me from an interview with this girl, between whom and herself there was so utter an opposition of their dearest interests, that, on one part or the other, a great grief, if not likewise a great wrong, seemed a matter of necessity.  But, as Priscilla was only a leaf floating on the dark current of events, without influencing them by her own choice or plan, as she probably guessed not whither the stream was bearing her, nor perhaps even felt its inevitable movement,—­there could be no peril of her communicating to me any intelligence with regard to Zenobia’s purposes.

On perceiving me, she came forward with great quietude of manner; and when I held out my hand, her own moved slightly towards it, as if attracted by a feeble degree of magnetism.

“I am glad to see you, my dear Priscilla,” said I, still holding her hand; “but everything that I meet with nowadays makes me wonder whether I am awake.  You, especially, have always seemed like a figure in a dream, and now more than ever.”

“Oh, there is substance in these fingers of mine,” she answered, giving my hand the faintest possible pressure, and then taking away her own.  “Why do you call me a dream?  Zenobia is much more like one than I; she is so very, very beautiful!  And, I suppose,” added Priscilla, as if thinking aloud, “everybody sees it, as I do.”

But, for my part, it was Priscilla’s beauty, not Zenobia’s, of which I was thinking at that moment.  She was a person who could be quite obliterated, so far as beauty went, by anything unsuitable in her attire; her charm was not positive and material enough to bear up against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fashion.  It was safest, in her case, to attempt no art of dress; for it demanded the most perfect taste, or else the happiest accident in the world, to give her precisely the adornment which she needed.  She was now dressed in pure white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric, which—­as I bring up her figure in my memory, with a faint gleam on her shadowy hair, and her dark eyes bent shyly on mine, through all the vanished years—­seems to be floating about her like a mist.  I wondered what Zenobia meant by evolving so much loveliness out of this poor girl.  It was what few women could afford to do; for, as I looked from one to the other, the sheen and splendor of Zenobia’s presence took nothing from Priscilla’s softer spell, if it might not rather be thought to add to it.

“What do you think of her?” asked Zenobia.

I could not understand the look of melancholy kindness with which Zenobia regarded her.  She advanced a step, and beckoning Priscilla near her, kissed her cheek; then, with a slight gesture of repulse, she moved to the other side of the room.  I followed.