"True, my brother's wealth--he dying intestate--is legally my own. I
know it; yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad,
and hide myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like
ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding her, so
beautiful,--so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of
outward state,--the cursed vanity, which, half a lifetime since,
dropt off like tatters of once gaudy apparel from my debased and
ruined person, is all renewed for her sake. Were I to reappear, my
shame would go with me from darkness into daylight. Zenobia has the
splendor, and not the shame. Let the world admire her, and be
dazzled by her, the brilliant child of my prosperity! It is
Fauntleroy that still shines through her!" But then, perhaps,
another thought occurred to him.
"My poor Priscilla! And am I just to her, in surrendering all to
this beautiful Zenobia? Priscilla! I love her best,--I love her
only!--but with shame, not pride. So dim, so pallid, so shrinking,--
the daughter of my long calamity! Wealth were but a mockery in
Priscilla's hands. What is its use, except to fling a golden
radiance around those who grasp it? Yet let Zenobia take heed!
Priscilla shall have no wrong!" But, while the man of show thus
meditated,--that very evening, so far as I can adjust the dates of
these strange incidents,--Priscilla poor, pallid flower!--was either
snatched from Zenobia's hand, or flung wilfully away!
XXIII.
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