The next moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the
area like a shower of dusky snow, and before it was quite dark, the
gong of the hotel summoned me to tea.
When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an astral lamp was
penetrating mistily through the white curtain of Zenobia's
drawing-room. The shadow of a passing figure was now and then cast
upon this medium, but with too vague an outline for even my
adventurous conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented.
All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was my behavior in
thus tormenting myself with crazy hypotheses as to what was going on
within that drawing-room, when it was at my option to be personally
present there, My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged,--as a
familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long enterprise,--
gave me the right, and made it no more than kindly courtesy
demanded, to call on her. Nothing, except our habitual independence
of conventional rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from sooner
recognizing this duty. At all events, it should now be performed.
In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found myself actually
within the house, the rear of which, for two days past, I had been so
sedulously watching. A servant took my card, and, immediately
returning, ushered me upstairs. On the way, I heard a rich, and, as
it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which I felt
Zenobia's character, although heretofore I had known nothing of her
skill upon the instrument.
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