It was as though he were looking at things for a moment through her eyes.
They came back through the sunlit streets to find Miss Pinckney recovered from the Seth business, and after luncheon that day, assisted by Dinah and the directions of Miss Pinckney, Phyl's hair "went up."
"It's beautiful," said the old lady, as she contemplated the result, "and more like Juliet than ever. Take the glass and look at yourself."
She did not see the beauty but she saw the change. Her childhood had vanished as though some breath had blown it away in the magic mirror.
In a fortnight Phyl had adjusted herself to her new environment so completely that to use Pinckney's expression, she might have been bred and born in Charleston.
Custom and acquaintanceship had begun to dull without destroying the charm of the place and the ghostly something, the something that during the first two days had seemed to haunt Vernons, the something indefinable she had called "It" had withdrawn.
The spell, whatever it was, had been broken that night in the garden, when Pinckney's commonplace remark had shattered the dream-state into which she had worked herself with the assistance of Prue, Juliet's letters, the little secret arbour and the moonlight of the South.
One morning, coming down to breakfast, she found Miss Pinckney in agitation, an open telegram in one hand and a feather duster in the other.
It was one of the early morning habits of Miss Pinckney to range the house superintending things with a feather duster in hand, not so much for use as for the purpose of encouraging others. She was in the breakfast room now dusting spasmodically things that did not require dusting and talking all the time, pausing every now and then to have another glance at the telegram whilst Richard Pinckney, unable to get a word in, sat on a chair, and Jim, the little coloured page, who had brought in the urn, stood by listening and admiring.
"Forty miles from here and ten from a railway station," said Miss Pinckney, "and how am I to get there?"
It was evidently not his first suggestion as to this means of locomotion, for the suggestion was received without an outburst, neither resented nor assented to in fact. They took their seats at table and then it all came out.