"What does it do?" The true eyes held Farwell commandingly, and with a sense of dismay he looked back at the only world he really knew: the world of his own ungoverned passions and selfishness. A kind of shame came over him, and he felt he was no safe guide. There were worlds and worlds! He had sold his birthright; this woman, bent upon finding hers, might inherit a fairer kingdom.
"What does it do, Master Farwell?"
"I do not know. It depends upon—you. It is like a great quarry—I have read somewhere something like this—we must all mould and chisel our characters; some of us crush them and chip them. It isn't always the world's fault. God help us!"
Priscilla looked at him with large, shining eyes and the maternal in her rose to the call of his sad recognition of failure where she was to go with such brave courage.
"Do not fear for me," she said gently; "'twould be a poor return if I failed, after all you have done for me."
"I—what have I done?"
"Everything. Have you ever thought what sort I would have been had Lonely Farm been my only training?" she smiled faintly, and her girlish face, in the setting of the faded hat and soiled veil, struck Farwell again by its change, which now seemed to have settled into permanency. Of course it was only the ridiculous fashion of the world he once knew, but he could not free himself of the fancy that Priscilla was more her real self in the shabby trappings than she had ever been in the absurd costumes of the In-Place.
With the acceptance of the fact that the girl really meant to get away and at once, a wave of dreariness swept over him. He thought of the time on ahead when his last vital interest would be taken from him. Then he aroused from his stupor and brought his mind to bear upon the inevitable; the here and now.
"It's a big drop in your ambition, Priscilla," he said; "you used to think you could dance your way to your throne."
"There is no throne now, Master Farwell. I'm just thinking all the time of My Road."