My experiment had fully succeeded. She had
shown me the true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involuntarily
resenting my slight, pitying, half-kind, half-scornful mention of the
man who was all in all with her. She herself probably felt this; for
it was hardly a moment before she tranquillized her uneven breath,
and seemed as proud and self-possessed as ever.
"I rather imagine," said she quietly, "that your appreciation falls
short of Mr. Hollingsworth's just claims. Blind enthusiasm,
absorption in one idea, I grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be
fatal to the respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very
high and powerful character to make it otherwise. But a great
man--as, perhaps, you do not know--attains his normal condition only
through the inspiration of one great idea. As a friend of Mr.
Hollingsworth, and, at the same time, a calm observer, I must tell
you that he seems to me such a man. But you are very pardonable for
fancying him ridiculous. Doubtless, he is so--to you! There can be
no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the
degree in which he possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism
from absurdity."
I dared make no retort to Zenobia's concluding apothegm. In truth, I
admired her fidelity. It gave me a new sense of Hollingsworth's
native power, to discover that his influence was no less potent with
this beautiful woman here, in the midst of artificial life, than it
had been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild birch-trees
of the wood-path, when she so passionately pressed his hand against
her heart.
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