place. He put an undecided hand upon a prop of
the box that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, and so stood leaning and
looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines and short shoulder-cape
of the frock of his Order than he knew. Hilda, in one of those
impenetrable regards which she threw straight in front of her while
Pilate yawned and posed nearer and nearer the desire of the Magdalene to
be admitted to his household, was at once aware of him. Presently he sat
down again--it was still the profane, the fabulous, the horrible
Patullo, but a strain of pure gold had come into the fabric worth
holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close the eyes upon. Far enough
it was from any semblance to historical fact, but almost possible,
almost admissible, in the form of the woman, as historical fiction. She
dared to sit upon the floor now, in the ungraceful, huddled Eastern
fashion, clasping her knees to her breast, with her back half turned to
her lord the friend of Caesar, so that he could not see the design that
sat behind the mask of her sharp indifference. She rested her chin upon
her knees, and let the blankness of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety
of her replies, plainly measuring the power of her provocation against
the impoverished quality that camp and grove, court and schools, might
leave upon august Roman sensibilities. It was the old, old
sophistication, so perfect in its concentration behind the _kol_-brushed
eyes and the brown breasts, the igniting, flickering, raging of an
instinct upon the stage. Alicia, when it was over, said to Mrs. Yardley,
"How the modern woman goes off upon side issues?" to which that lady
nodded a rather suspicious assent.

Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to play to his special
consciousness, he was fastened to his chair, held down, so to speak, by
a whirlpool of conflicting impulses. She did so much more than "lift"
the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the common sense; she
inspired and transfused it so that wherever she appeared people
irresistibly forgot the matter for her, or made private acknowledgments
to the effect that something was to be said even for an impious fantasy
which gave her so unique an opportunity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment
of an incident in that which was his morning and evening meditation made
special appeal, and though it was in a way as if she had thrust her
heathen torch into his Holy of Holies, he saw it lighted with
fascination,