Chap­ter II intro­duces Denis’s arrival at Crome, a house that seems to breathe silence as he steps into its grand, emp­ty halls. The still­ness doesn’t dis­com­fort him; rather, it invites reflec­tion. Each room evokes a per­son­al­i­ty, a mood shaped by the invis­i­ble pres­ence of those who have inhab­it­ed the space. His eyes move from paint­ings to fur­ni­ture, not­ing how the past lingers in these care­ful­ly pre­served cor­ners. He finds amuse­ment in imag­in­ing con­ver­sa­tions that nev­er hap­pened, assign­ing thoughts and feel­ings to por­traits that nev­er spoke. When he sees his book of poems dis­played casu­al­ly on a table, a surge of pride min­gles with uncer­tain­ty. The thought that Anne might have read it and rec­og­nized his veiled admi­ra­tion leaves him hope­ful, if slight­ly embar­rassed.

Walk­ing fur­ther, Denis stum­bles upon Priscil­la Wim­bush in her boudoir, absorbed in cast­ing horo­scopes. The moment is odd­ly theatrical—silk gowns, scat­tered charts, and incense waft­ing faint­ly through the air. She receives Denis with a blend of dis­tract­ed warmth and rit­u­al­ized indif­fer­ence. Her tone is affec­tion­ate but fil­tered through the lens of astro­log­i­cal tim­ing. Priscil­la is no longer the live­ly host­ess of her younger years; she’s tran­si­tioned into a more mys­tic per­sona. Now, instead of manip­u­lat­ing social cir­cles, she cal­cu­lates plan­e­tary influ­ences. There’s a rhythm to her words that reflects deep famil­iar­i­ty with soli­tude. She talks freely, not just about the stars, but about the gam­ble of life itself.

What cap­ti­vates Denis is how unboth­ered she seems by the change. Once known for lav­ish par­ties and extrav­a­gant bets, Priscil­la now finds more sat­is­fac­tion pre­dict­ing plan­e­tary align­ments than chas­ing roulette spins. Her finan­cial ruin is ref­er­enced not with shame, but with detach­ment, as though it were some­one else’s past. She tells her sto­ry with a grace that sug­gests accep­tance, not bit­ter­ness. Through her, the shift from pub­lic per­for­mance to pri­vate rit­u­al becomes a kind of lib­er­a­tion. The stars, unlike peo­ple, nev­er lie or judge. Astrol­o­gy gives her struc­ture, and with­in its cod­ed mean­ings, she feels empow­ered. Denis, lis­ten­ing close­ly, sens­es both depth and whim­sy in her beliefs.

Her mem­o­ries of Monte Car­lo come laced with charm, but there’s always a con­trast between her for­mer chaos and her cur­rent calm. Priscil­la laughs about it now, recall­ing how chance ruled her days. Yet her laugh­ter isn’t nos­tal­gic; it’s philo­soph­i­cal. Now she lets cos­mic order replace ran­dom­ness, as if to regain con­trol through pat­terns only she can read. Denis notices that this new ver­sion of her seems more con­fi­dent, more at peace. In trad­ing games of luck for maps of the sky, she has found a way to reclaim agency. What once felt impul­sive is now delib­er­ate. She embraces this mys­ti­cism with both flair and sin­cer­i­ty, merg­ing the the­atri­cal with the spir­i­tu­al.

Denis, unsure whether to admire or mock, remains polite­ly curi­ous. He sees how Crome offers refuge for trans­for­ma­tions like Priscilla’s—how its qui­et dis­tance allows per­son­al­i­ties to evolve with­out inter­rup­tion. His own mind drifts toward his writ­ing. Does art func­tion the same way as astrol­o­gy? Is cre­ativ­i­ty just anoth­er form of seek­ing struc­ture in the unknown? He won­ders if his poems, like star charts, are mere­ly attempts to make sense of emo­tions too com­plex to speak aloud. The par­al­lels begin to set­tle in his thoughts. Both the artist and the astrologer try to cap­ture some­thing fleet­ing and fix it into mean­ing.

Priscilla’s approach to life, while uncon­ven­tion­al, reveals some­thing more uni­ver­sal. Peo­ple are always look­ing for pat­terns, seek­ing com­fort in cycles, rit­u­als, and sym­bols. For some, this takes the form of belief sys­tems. For oth­ers, it becomes lit­er­a­ture or sci­ence. Her per­son­al rein­ven­tion shows how crises can push peo­ple to con­struct new frame­works, to rebuild iden­ti­ty from what once felt bro­ken. Crome, with its qui­et grandeur, becomes a per­fect con­tain­er for such intro­spec­tion. Here, peo­ple aren’t mere­ly escap­ing the world—they’re rewrit­ing their place with­in it. And Denis, qui­et­ly observ­ing, begins to real­ize that even pas­sive wit­ness­es are changed by what they see.

The more time Denis spends at Crome, the more he sees its res­i­dents as reflec­tions of the choic­es they’ve made. Priscil­la chose stars over scan­dal, peace over per­for­mance. Her life might seem eccen­tric, but it feels authen­tic. Denis, by con­trast, is still drift­ing, still hop­ing his thoughts will align into some­thing mean­ing­ful. He sees her not just as a char­ac­ter but as a clue. Per­haps rein­ven­tion doesn’t always come with loud announce­ments. Some­times, it begins in qui­et rooms with scat­tered papers and a belief in unseen forces. This encounter deep­ens Denis’s aware­ness that behind every per­son lies a pri­vate mythology—one shaped not just by expe­ri­ence, but by the sto­ries we choose to tell our­selves.

By the end of their con­ver­sa­tion, Denis feels less like a vis­i­tor and more like some­one begin­ning to under­stand the lan­guage of Crome. The place itself is not just a back­drop but a mirror—one that shows peo­ple what they are when no one is watch­ing. Priscilla’s tran­si­tion, from flam­boy­ant risk-tak­er to intu­itive stargaz­er, reminds him that change doesn’t always require dis­tance. Some­times it just needs still­ness and time. He leaves the room with more than he expect­ed: not advice, but per­spec­tive. Her life, strange as it seems, car­ries clar­i­ty. And in wit­ness­ing it, Denis begins to grasp that the mean­ing he seeks might already be form­ing qui­et­ly beneath his own sur­face.