After Boswell's confidence concerning Anton Farwell, Priscilla's relation to the man who had befriended her, to life itself, became more vital and normal. The superficial conditions were dissipated by the knowledge that Boswell, in speaking so frankly to her, considered her a woman, not a child, and expected a woman's acceptance of duties and responsibilities. Besides this, Boswell himself took on new proportions. His whimsical oddities had been, for an hour, set aside. For a time he had permitted her to see and know him—the simple, good man he really was. In short, Priscilla could no longer play, could no longer make a defence of her shyness and ignorance; she realized that she must plunge into the whirlpool for which she had left the In-Place and she must do so at once.
Boswell might fantastically play at being ninety and permit her to lend her strength and youth to his use, but she never again could be deceived. He was assisting her for Farwell's sake. He liked her, found her entertaining, but intuitively she knew that in order to retain his respect and confidence she must fulfil her part.
For a week or so longer he and she went to operas and theatres together while final arrangements were being completed for her immediate admittance, on trial, to the finest private hospital in the city, to which was attached a training school of high repute.
Priscilla was both right and wrong about Boswell. He did appreciate and admire her insistence to begin her career. It was the only course for her to take; but he looked forward to the lonely, empty days without her with real concern.
He had, to a certain extent, grown used to the detachment and colourlessness of his life since Farwell had left it; but here, quite unexpectedly, a young and vital personality had entered in and had given him, in a crude, friendly way, to be sure, what his absent friend had given—the assurance that his deformity could not exclude him from the sweet humanity that was keen enough to recognize the soul of him. Sensitive, shrinking from suffering and publicity, the man found in Priscilla's companionship and confiding friendliness the deepest joy he had known since his great loss. He wished that he was ninety, indeed, and that his infirmity and wealth might secure for him this new interest that had taken him out of himself and caused his sluggish senses to revive. But he was not yet fifty. For all his handicaps he was still in fair health, and the best that he could hope for was that Priscilla, among her new duties, would remember him, come back to him, make his lonely home a retreat and comfort when her arduous duties permitted.
Those last few days of freedom and companionship were beautiful to them both. With pride and a certain complacency, Boswell saw that he had somewhat formed and developed Priscilla's tastes and judgment. She was no longer the ignorant girl she once had been. Music did not now move her to tears and a kind of dumb suffering. She began to understand, to control her emotions, and gain, through them, pleasure without pain.
"She laughs," Boswell thought, "more intelligently and discriminately when she sees a good farce."
All this was satisfying to them, but on a certain late-winter day it came to an end, and Priscilla, thrilling with a sense of achievement, entered St. Albans on probation.
What the weeks of doubt and preparation meant, no one, not even Boswell, ever knew. The old childish determination to suffer, in order to know, held true and unfaltering. The tortured nerves, after the first shocks, regained their poise and strength; the heavy work and strict discipline left the sturdy body like fine steel, although weariness often tested it sorely.
"'Tis not to dance, Priscilla Glenn," she often warned herself; "it is to suffer and know!"