Never was mortal blessed--if blessing it were--with a glance of such
entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its completeness,
as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She
seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood
over it in perfect content. The very woman whom he pictured--the
gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence--sat
there at his feet.
I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent--as I felt,
by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this
outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine
egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her
very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere
incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered
what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. Without
intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled
waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the champion of
her sex.
But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. Some
tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not anger.
"Well, be it so," was all she said. "I, at least, have deep cause to
think you right. Let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is only
too ready to become to him what you say!"
I smiled--somewhat bitterly, it is true--in contemplation of my own
ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely
conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of
my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible
injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet!
"Women almost invariably behave thus," thought I. "What does the fact
mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at last, the result of ages of
compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible ever
to redeem them?"
An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this
time, at least, there was no more to be said. With one accord, we
arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth
towards one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among the
overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as partly to
conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. Priscilla
had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in
advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the
motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in
the same direction as herself. Never did she seem so happy as that
afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of
heart.