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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Secret Power
+
+Author: Marie Corelli
+
+Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3831]
+Release Date: March, 2003
+First Posted: October 1, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET POWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET POWER
+
+
+BY
+
+MARIE CORELLI
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+  "God's Good Man" "The Master Christian" "Innocent,"
+  "The Treasure of Heaven," etc.
+
+
+JTABLE 5 26 1
+
+THE SECRET POWER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+A cloud floated slowly above the mountain peak. Vast, fleecy and white
+as the crested foam of a sea-wave, it sailed through the sky with a
+divine air of majesty, seeming almost to express a consciousness of its
+own grandeur. Over a spacious tract of Southern California it extended
+its snowy canopy, moving from the distant Pacific Ocean across the
+heights of the Sierra Madre, now and then catching fire at its extreme
+edge from the sinking sun, which burned like a red brand flung on the
+roof of a roughly built hut situated on the side of a sloping hollow in
+one of the smaller hills. The door of the hut stood open; there were a
+couple of benches on the burnt grass outside, one serving as a table,
+the other as a chair. Papers and books were neatly piled on the
+table,--and on the chair, if chair it might be called, a man sat
+reading. His appearance was not prepossessing at a first glance, though
+his actual features could hardly be seen, so concealed were they by a
+heavy growth of beard. In the way of clothing he had little to trouble
+him. Loose woollen trousers, a white shirt, and a leathern belt to keep
+the two garments in place, formed his complete outfit, finished off by
+wide canvas shoes. A thatch of dark hair, thick and ill combed,
+apparently served all his need of head covering, and he seemed
+unconscious of, or else indifferent to, the hot glare of the summer sky
+which was hardly tempered by the long shadow of the floating cloud. At
+some moments he was absorbed in reading,--at others in writing. Close
+within his reach was a small note-book in which from time to time he
+jotted down certain numerals and made rapid calculations, frowning
+impatiently as though the very act of writing was too slow for the
+speed of his thought. There was a wonderful silence everywhere,--a
+silence such as can hardly be comprehended by anyone who has never
+visited wide-spreading country, over-canopied by large stretches of
+open sky, and barricaded from the further world by mountain ranges
+which are like huge walls built by a race of Titans. The dwellers in
+such regions are few--there is no traffic save the coming and going of
+occasional pack-mules across the hill tracks--no sign of modern
+civilisation. Among such deep and solemn solitudes the sight of a
+living human being is strange and incongruous, yet the man seated
+outside his hut had an air of ease and satisfied proprietorship not
+always found with wealthy owners of mansions and park-lands. He was so
+thoroughly engrossed in his books and papers that he hardly saw, and
+certainly did not hear, the approach of a woman who came climbing
+wearily up the edge of the sloping hill against which his cabin
+presented itself to the view as a sort of fitment, and advanced towards
+him carrying a tin pail full of milk. This she set down within a yard
+or so of him, and then, straightening her back, she rested her hands on
+her hips and drew a long breath. For a minute or two he took no notice
+of her. She waited. She was a big handsome creature, sun-browned and
+black-haired, with flashing dark eyes lit by a spark that was not
+originally caught from heaven. Presently, becoming conscious of her
+presence, he threw his book aside and looked up.
+
+"Well! So you've come after all! Yesterday you said you wouldn't."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I do not wish you to starve."
+
+"Very kind of you! But nothing can starve me."
+
+"If you had no food--"
+
+"I should find some"--he said--"Yes!--I should find some,--somewhere! I
+want very little."
+
+He rose, stretching his arms lazily above his head,--then, stooping, he
+lifted the pail of milk and carried it into his cabin. Disappearing for
+a moment, he returned, bringing back the pail empty.
+
+"I have enough for two days now," he said--"and longer. What you
+brought me at the beginning of the week has turned beautifully sour,--a
+'lovely curd' as our cook at home used to say--, and with that 'lovely
+curd' and plenty of fruit I'm living in luxury." Here he felt in his
+pockets and took out a handful of coins. "That's right, isn't it?"
+
+She counted them over as he gave them to her--bit one with her strong
+white teeth and nodded.
+
+"You don't pay ME"--she said, emphatically--"It's the Plaza you pay."
+
+"How many times will you remind me of that!" he replied, with a
+laugh--"Of course I know I don't pay YOU! Of course I know I pay the
+Plaza!--that amazing hotel and 'sanatorium' with a tropical garden and
+no comfort--"
+
+"It is more comfortable than this"--she said, with a disparaging glance
+at his log dwelling.
+
+"How do YOU know?" and he laughed again--"What have YOU ever
+experienced in the line of hotels? You are employed at the Plaza to
+fetch and carry;--to wait on the wretched invalids who come to
+California for a 'cure' of diseases incurable--"
+
+"YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt.
+
+"No! I only pretend to be!"
+
+"Why do you pretend?"
+
+"Oh, Manella! What a question! Why do we all pretend?--all!--every
+human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not
+face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with
+flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful
+orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should go mad!"
+
+Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly.
+
+"I do not understand you"--she said--"Why do you talk nonsense about
+the sun? I suppose you ARE ill after all,--you have an illness of the
+head."
+
+He nodded with mock solemnity.
+
+"That's it! You're a wise woman, Manella! That's why I'm here. Not
+tubercles on the lungs,--tubercles on the brain! Oh, those tubercles!
+They could never stand the Plaza!--the gaiety, the brilliancy--the--the
+all-too dazzling social round!..." he paused, and a gleam of even white
+teeth under his dark moustache gave the suggestion of a smile--"That's
+why I stay up here."
+
+"You make fun of the Plaza"--said Manella, biting her lips
+vexedly--"And of me, too. I am nothing to you!"
+
+"Absolutely nothing, dear! But why should you be any thing?"
+
+A warm flush turned her sunburnt skin to a deeper tinge.
+
+"Men are often fond of women"--she said.
+
+"Often? Oh, more than often! Too often! But what does that matter?"
+
+She twisted the ends of her rose-coloured neckerchief nervously with
+one hand.
+
+"You are a man"--she replied, curtly--"You should have a woman."
+
+He laughed--a deep, mellow, hearty laugh of pleasure.
+
+"Should I? You really think so? Wonderful Manella? Come here!--come
+quite close to me!"
+
+She obeyed, moving with the soft tread of a forest animal, and, face to
+face with him, looked up. He smiled kindly into her dark fierce eyes,
+and noted with artistic approval the unspoiled beauty of natural lines
+in her form, and the proud poise of her handsome head on her full
+throat and splendid shoulders.
+
+"You are very good-looking, Manella"--he then remarked, lazily--"Quite
+the model for a Juno. Be satisfied with yourself. You should have
+scores of lovers!"
+
+She stamped her foot suddenly and impatiently.
+
+"I have none!" she said--"And you know it! But you do not care!"
+
+He shook a reproachful forefinger at her.
+
+"Manella, Manella, you are naughty! Temper, temper! Of course I do not
+care! Be reasonable! Why should I?"
+
+She pressed both hands tightly against her bosom, seeking to control
+her quick, excited breathing.
+
+"Why should you? I do not know! But _I_ care! I would be your woman! I
+would be your slave! I would wait upon you and serve you faithfully! I
+would obey your every wish. I am a good servant,--I can cook and sew
+and wash and sweep--I can do everything in a house and you should have
+no trouble. You should write and read all day,--I would not speak a
+word to disturb you. I would guard you like a dog that loves his
+master!"
+
+He listened, with a strange look in his eyes,--a look of wonder and
+something of compassion. There was a pause. The silence of the hills
+was, or seemed more intense and impressive--the great white cloud still
+spread itself in large leisure along the miles of slowly darkening sky.
+Presently he spoke. "And what wages, Manella? What wages should I have
+to pay for such a servant?--such a dog?"
+
+Her head drooped, she avoided his steady, searching gaze.
+
+"What wages, Manella? None, you would say, except--love! You tell me
+you would be my woman,--and I know you mean it. You would be my
+slave--you mean that, too. But you would want me to love you! Manella,
+there is no such thing as love!--not in this world! There is animal
+attraction,--the magnetism of the male for the female, the female for
+the male,--the magnetism that pulls the opposite sexes together in
+order to keep this planet supplied with an ever new crop of fools,--but
+love! No, Manella! There is no such thing!"
+
+Here he gently took her two hands away from their tightly folded
+position on her bosom and held them in his own.
+
+"No such thing, my dear!" he went on, speaking softly and soothingly,
+as though to a child--"Except in the dreams of poets, and
+you--fortunately!--know nothing about poetry! The wild animal in you is
+attracted to the tame, ruminating animal in me,--and you would be my
+woman, though I would not be your man. I quite believe that it is the
+natural instinct of the female to select her mate,--but, though the
+rule may hold good in the forest world, it doesn't always work among
+the human herd. Man considers that he has the right of selection--quite
+a mistake of his I'm sure, for he has no real sense of beauty or
+fitness, and generally selects most vilely. All the same he is an
+obstinate brute, and sticks to his brutish ideas as a snail sticks to
+its shell. _I_ am an obstinate brute!--I am absolutely convinced that I
+have the right to choose my own woman, if I want one--which I
+don't,--or if ever I do want one--which I never shall!"
+
+She drew her hands quickly from his grasp. There were tears in her
+splendid dark eyes.
+
+"You talk, you talk!" she said, with a kind of sob in her voice--"It is
+all talk with you--talk which I cannot understand! I don't WANT to
+understand!--I am only a poor, ignorant girl. I cannot talk--but I can
+love! Ah yes, I can love! You say there is no such thing as love! What
+is it then, when one prays every night and morning for a man?--when one
+would work one's fingers to the bone for him?--when one would die to
+keep him from sickness and harm? What do you call it?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Self-delusion, Manella! The beautiful self-delusion of every
+nature-bred woman when her fancy is attracted by a particular sort of
+man. She makes an ideal of him in her mind and imagines him to be a
+god, when he is nothing but a devil!"
+
+Something sinister and cruel in his look startled her,--she made the
+sign of the cross on her bosom.
+
+"A devil?" she murmured--"a devil--?"
+
+"Ah, now you are frightened!" he said, with a flash of amusement in his
+eyes--"You are a good Catholic, and you believe in devils. So you make
+the sign of the cross as a protection. That's right! That's the way to
+defend yourself from my evil influence! Wise Manella!"
+
+The light mockery of his tone roused her pride,--that pride which had
+been suppressed in her by the force of a passionate emotion she could
+not restrain. She lifted her head and regarded him with an air of
+sorrow and scorn.
+
+"After all, I think you must be a wicked man!" she said--"You have no
+heart! You are not worthy to be loved!"
+
+"Quite true, Manella! You've hit the bull's eye in the very middle
+three times! I am a wicked man,--I have no heart,--I'm not worthy to be
+loved. No I'm not. I should find it a bore!"
+
+"Bore?" she echoed--"What is that?"
+
+"What is that? It is itself, Manella! 'Bore' is just 'bore.' It means
+tiredness--worn-out-ness--a state in which you wish yourself in a hot
+bath or a cold one, so that nobody can come near you. To be 'loved'
+would finish me off in a month!"
+
+Her big eyes opened more widely than their wont in piteous perplexity.
+
+"But how?" she asked.
+
+"How? Why, just as you have put it,--to be prayed for night and
+morning,--to be worked for and waited on till fingers turned to
+bones,--to be guarded from sickness and harm,--heavens!--think of it!
+No more adventures in life,--no more freedom!--just love, love, love,
+which would not be love at all but the chains of a miserable wretch in
+prison!"
+
+She flushed an angry crimson.
+
+"Who is it that would chain you?" she demanded, "Not I! You could do as
+you liked with me--you know it!--and when you go away from this place,
+you could leave me and forget me,--I should never trouble you or remind
+you that I lived!! I should have had my happiness,--enough for my day!"
+
+The pathos in her voice moved him though he was not easily moved. On a
+sudden impulse he put an arm about her, drew her to him and kissed her.
+She trembled at his caress, while he smiled at her emotion.
+
+"A kiss is nothing, Manella!" he said--"We kiss children as I kiss you!
+You are a child,--a child-woman. Physically you are a Juno,--mentally
+you are an infant! By and by you will grow up,--and you will be glad I
+did no more than kiss you! It's getting late,--you must go home."
+
+He released her and put her gently away from him. Then, as he saw her
+eyes still uplifted questioningly to his face, he laughed.
+
+"Upon my word!" he exclaimed--"I am making a nice fool of myself!
+Actually wasting time on a woman. Go home, Manella, go home! If you are
+wise you won't stop here another minute! See now! You are full of
+curiosity--all women are! You want to know why I stay up here in this
+hill cabin by myself instead of staying at the 'Plaza.' You think I'm a
+rich Englishman. I'm not. No Englishman is ever rich,--not up to his
+own desires. He wants the earth and all that therein is--does the
+Englishman, and of course he can't have it. He rather grudges America
+her large slice of rich plum-pudding territory, forgetting that he
+could have had it himself for the price of tea. But I don't grudge
+anybody anything--America is welcome to the whole bulk as far as I'm
+concerned--Britain ditto,--let them both eat and be filled. All _I_
+want is to be left alone. Do you hear that, Manella? To be left alone!
+Particularly by women. That's one reason why I came here. This cabin is
+supposed to be a sort of tuberculosis 'shelter,' where a patient in
+hopeless condition comes with a special nurse to die. I don't want a
+nurse, and I'm not going to die. Tubercles don't touch me--they don't
+flourish on my soil. So this solitude just suits me. If I were at the
+'Plaza' I should have to meet a lot of women--"
+
+"No, you wouldn't," interrupted Manella, suddenly and sharply--"only
+one woman."
+
+"Only one? You?"
+
+She sighed, and moved impatiently.
+
+"Oh, no! Not me. A stranger."
+
+He looked at her with a touch of inquisitiveness.
+
+"An invalid?"
+
+"She may be. I don't know. She has golden hair."
+
+He gave a gesture of dislike.
+
+"Dreadful! That's enough! I can imagine her,--a die-away creature with
+a cough and a straw-coloured wig. Yes!--that will do, Manella! You'd
+better go and wait upon her. I've got all I want for a couple of days
+at least." He seated himself and took up his note-book. She turned away.
+
+"Stop a minute, Manella!"
+
+She obeyed.
+
+"Golden hair, you said?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Old or young?"
+
+"She might be either"--and Manella gazed dreamily at the darkening
+sky--"There is nobody old nowadays--or so it seems to me."
+
+"An invalid?"
+
+"I don't think so. She looks quite well. She arrived at the Plaza only
+yesterday."
+
+"Ah! Well, good-night, Manella! And if you want to know anything more
+about me, I don't mind telling you this,--that there's nothing in the
+world I so utterly detest as a woman with golden hair! There!"
+
+She looked at him, surprised at his harsh tone. He shook his forefinger
+at her.
+
+"Fact!" he said--"Fact as hard as nails! A woman with golden hair is a
+demon--a witch--a mischief and a curse! See? Always has been and always
+will be! Good-night!"
+
+But Manella paused, meditatively.
+
+"She looks like a witch," she said slowly--"One of those creatures they
+put in pictures of fairy tales,--small and white. Very small,--I could
+carry her."
+
+"I wouldn't try it if I were you"--he answered, with visible
+impatience--"Off you go! Good-night!"
+
+She gave him one lingering glance; then, turning abruptly picked up her
+empty milk pail and started down the hill at a run.
+
+The man she left gave a sigh, deep and long of intense relief. Evening
+had fallen rapidly, and the purple darkness enveloped him in its warm,
+dense gloom. He sat absorbed in thought, his eyes turned towards the
+east, where the last stretches of the afternoon's great cloud trailed
+filmy threads of woolly black through space. His figure seemed
+gradually drawn within the coming night so as almost to become part of
+it, and the stillness around him had a touch of awe in its impalpable
+heaviness. One would have thought that in a place of such utter
+loneliness, the natural human spirit of a man would instinctively
+desire movement,--action of some sort, to shake off the insidious
+depression which crept through the air like a creeping shadow, but the
+solitary being, seated somewhat like an Aryan idol, hands on knees and
+face bent forwards, had no inclination to stir. His brain was busy; and
+half unconsciously his thoughts spoke aloud in words--
+
+"Have we come to the former old stopping place?" he said, as though
+questioning some invisible companion; "Must we cry 'halt!' for the
+thousand millionth time? Or can we go on? Dare we go on? If actually we
+discover the secret--wrapped up like the minutest speck of a kernel in
+the nut of an electron,--what then? Will it be well or ill? Shall we
+find it worth while to live on here with nothing to do?--nothing to
+trouble us or compel us to labour? Without pain shall we be conscious
+of health?--without sorrow shall we understand joy?"
+
+A sudden whiteness flooded the dark landscape, and a full moon leaped
+to the edge of the receding cloud. Its rising had been veiled in the
+drift of black woolly vapour, and its silver glare, sweeping through
+the darkness flashed over the land with astonishing abruptness. The man
+lifted his eyes.
+
+"One would think that done for effect!" he said, half aloud--"If the
+moon were the goddess Cynthia beloved of Endymion, as woman and goddess
+in an impulse of vanity she would certainly have done that for effect!
+As it is--"
+
+Here he paused,--an instinctive feeling warned him that some one was
+looking at him, and he turned his head quickly. On the slope of the
+hill where Manella had lately stood, there was a figure, white as the
+white moonlight itself, outlined delicately against the dark
+background. It seemed to be poised on the earth like a bird just
+lightly descended; in the stirless air its garments appeared closed
+about it fold on fold like the petals of an unopened magnolia flower.
+As he looked, it came gliding towards him with the floating ease of an
+air bubble, and the strong radiance of the large moon showed its
+woman's face, pale with the moonbeam pallor, and set in a wave of hair
+that swept back from the brows and fell in a loosely twisted coil like
+a shining snake stealthily losing itself in folds of misty drapery. He
+rose to meet the advancing phantom.
+
+"Entirely for effect!" he said, "Well planned and quite worthy of you!
+All for effect!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+A laugh, clear and cold as a sleigh-bell on a frosty night rang out on
+the silence.
+
+"Why did you run away from me?"
+
+He replied at once, and brusquely.
+
+"Because I was tired of you!"
+
+She laughed again. A strange white elf as she looked In the spreading
+moonbeams she was woman to the core, and the disdainful movement of her
+small uplifted head plainly expressed her utter indifference to his
+answer.
+
+"I followed you"--she said--"I knew I should find you! What are you
+doing up here? Shamming to be ill?"
+
+"Precisely! 'Sham' is as much in my line as yours. I have to 'pretend'
+in order to be real!"
+
+"Paradoxical as usual!" and she shrugged her shoulders--"Anyway you've
+chosen a good place to do your shamming in. It's quite lovely up
+here,--much better than the Plaza. I am at the Plaza."
+
+"Automobile and all I suppose!" he said, sarcastically--"How many
+servants?--how many boxes with how many dresses?"
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"That's no concern of yours!" she replied--"I am my own mistress."
+
+"More's the pity!" he retorted.
+
+They faced each other. The moon, now soaring high in clear space, shed
+a luminous rain of silver over all the visible breadth of wild country,
+and their two figures looked mere dark silhouettes half drowned in the
+pearly glamour.
+
+"It's worth travelling all the long miles to see!" she declared,
+stretching her arms out with an enthusiastic gesture--"Oh, beautiful
+big moon of California! I'm glad I came!"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"You are not glad!" she continued--"You are a bear-man in hiding, and
+the moon says nothing to you!"
+
+"It says nothing because it IS nothing"--he answered, impatiently--"It
+is a dead planet without heart,--a mere shell of extinct volcanoes
+where fire once burned, and its light is but the reflection of the sun
+on its barren surface. It is like all women,--but mostly like YOU!"
+
+She made him a sweeping curtsy so exquisitely graceful that the action
+resembled nothing so much as the sway of a lily in a light wind.
+
+"Thanks, gentle Knight!--flower of chivalry!" she said--"I see you love
+me in spite of yourself!"
+
+He made a quick stride towards her,--then stopped. "Love you!" he
+echoed,--then laughed loudly and derisively-"Great God! Love you? YOU?
+If I did I should be mad! When will you learn the truth of me?--that
+women are less in my estimation than the insects crawling on a blade of
+grass or spawning in a stagnant pond?--that they have no power to move
+me to the smallest pulse of passion or desire?--and that you, of all
+your sex, seem to my mind the most--"
+
+"Hateful?" she suggested, smilingly.
+
+"No--the most complete and unmitigated bore!"
+
+"Dreadful!" and she made a face at him like that of a naughty
+child,--then she sank down on the sun-baked turf in an easy
+half-reclining attitude--"It's certainly much worse to be a bore than
+to be hated. Hate is quite a live sentiment,--besides it always means,
+or HAS meant--love! You can't hate anything that is quite indifferent
+to you, but of course you CAN be bored! YOU are bored by me and I am
+bored by YOU!--and we are absolutely indifferent to each other! What a
+comedy it is! Isn't it?"
+
+He stood still and sombre, gazing down at the figure resting on the
+ground at his feet, its white garments gathering about it as though
+they were sentiently aware that they must keep the line of classic
+beauty in every fold.
+
+"Boredom is the trouble"--she went on--"No one escapes it. The very
+babies of to-day are bored. We all know too much. People used to be
+happy because they were ignorant--they had no sort of idea why they
+were born, or what they came into the world for. Now they've learned
+the horrid truth that they are only here just as the trees and flowers
+are here--to breed other trees and flowers and then go out of it--for
+no purpose, apparently. They are 'disillusioned.' They say 'what's the
+use?' To put up with so much trouble and labour for the folks coming
+after us whom we shall never see,--it seems perfectly foolish and
+futile. They used to believe in another life after this--but that hope
+has been knocked out of them. Besides it's quite open to question
+whether any of us would care to live again. Probably it might mean more
+boredom. There's really nothing left. That's why so many of us go
+reckless--it's just to escape being bored."
+
+He listened in cold silence. After a pause--
+
+"Have you done?" he said.
+
+She looked up at him. The moonbeams set tiny frosty sparkles in her
+eyes.
+
+"Have I done?" she echoed--"No,--not quite! I love talking--and it's a
+new and amusing sensation for me to talk to a man in his shirt-sleeves
+on a hill in California by the light of the moon! So wild and
+picturesque you know! All the men I've ever met have been dressed to
+death! Have you had your dinner?"
+
+"I never dine," he replied.
+
+"Really! Don't you eat and drink at all?"
+
+"I live simply,"--he said--"Bread and milk are enough for me, and I
+have these."
+
+She laughed and clapped her hands.
+
+"Like a baby!" she exclaimed--"A big bearded baby! It's too delicious!
+And you're doing all this just to get away from ME! What a compliment!"
+
+With angry impetus he bent over her reclining figure and seized her two
+hands.
+
+"Get up!" he said harshly--"Don't lie there like a fallen angel!"
+
+She yielded to his powerful grasp as he pulled her to her feet--then
+looked at him still laughing.
+
+"Plenty of muscle!" she said--"Well?"
+
+He held her hands still and gripped them fiercely. She gave a little
+cry.
+
+"Don't! You forget my rings,--they hurt!"
+
+At once he loosened his hold, and gazed moodily at her small fingers on
+which two or three superb diamond circlets glittered like drops of dew.
+
+"Your rings!" he said--"Yes--I forgot them! Wonderful rings!--emblems
+of your inordinate vanity and vulgar wealth--I forgot them! How they
+sparkle in this wide moonlight, don't they? Just a drifting of nature's
+refuse matter, turned into jewels for women! Strange ordinance of
+strange elements! There!" and he let her hands go free--"They are not
+injured, nor are you."
+
+She was silent pouting her under-lip like a spoilt child, and rubbing
+one finger where a ring had dinted her flesh.
+
+"So you actually think I have come here to get away from YOU?" he went
+on--"Well for once your ineffable conceit is mistaken. You think
+yourself a personage of importance--but you are nothing,--less than
+nothing to me, I never give you a thought--I have come here to
+study--to escape from the crazy noise of modern life--the hurtling to
+and fro of the masses of modern humanity,--I want to work out certain
+problems which may revolutionise the world and its course of living--"
+
+"Why revolutionise it?" she interrupted--"Who wants it to be
+revolutionised? We are all very well as we are--it's a breeding place
+and a dying place--voila tout!"
+
+She gave a French shrug of her shoulder and waved her hands
+expressively. Then she pushed back her flowing hair,--the moonbeams
+trickled like water over it, making a network of silver on gold.
+
+"What did you come here for?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+"To see you!" she answered smilingly--"And to tell you that I'm 'on the
+war-path' as they say, taking scalps as I go. This means that I'm
+travelling about,--possibly I may go to Europe--"
+
+"To pick up a bankrupt nobleman!" he suggested.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Dear, no! Nothing quite so stupid! Neither noblemen nor bankrupts
+attract me. No! I'm doing a scientific 'prowl,' like you. I believe
+I've discovered something with which I could annihilate you--so!" and
+she made a round O of her curved fingers and blew through it--"One
+breath!--from a distance, too! and hey presto!--the bear-man on the
+hills of California eating bread and milk is gone!--a complete
+vanishing trick--no more of him anywhere!" The bear-man, as she called
+him, gloomed upon her with a scowl.
+
+"You'd better leave such things alone!" he said, angrily--"Women have
+no business with science."
+
+"No, of course not!" she agreed--"Not in men's opinion. That's why they
+never mention Madame Curie without the poor Monsieur! SHE found radium
+and he didn't,--but 'he' is always first mentioned."
+
+He gave an impatient gesture.
+
+"Enough of all this!" he said--"Do you know it's nearly ten o'clock at
+night?--I suppose you do know!--and the people at the Plaza--"
+
+"THEY know!"--she interrupted, nodding sagaciously--"They know I am
+rich--rich--rich! It doesn't matter what I do, because I am rich! I
+might stay out all night with a bear-man, and nobody would say a word
+against me, because I am rich! I might sit on the roof of the Plaza and
+swing my legs over the visitors' windows and it would be called
+'charming' because I am rich! I can appear at the table d'hote in a
+bath-wrap and eat peas with a hair-pin if I like--and my conduct will
+be admired, because I am rich! When I go to Europe my photo will be in
+all the London pictorials with the grinning chorus-girls, because I am
+rich! And I shall be called 'the beautiful,' 'the exquisite'--'the
+fascinating' by all the unwashed penny journalists because I am rich!
+O-ooh!" and she gave a comic little screw of her mouth and eyes--"It's
+great fun to be rich if you know what to do with your riches!"
+
+"Do YOU?" he enquired, sarcastically.
+
+"I think so!" here she put her head on one side like a meditative bird
+and her wonderful hair fell aslant like a golden wing--"I amuse
+myself--as much as I can. I learn all that can be done with greedy,
+stupid humanity for so much cash down! I would,"--here she paused, and
+with a sudden feline swiftness of movement came close up to him--"I
+would have married YOU!--if you would have had me! I would have given
+you all my money to play with,--you could have got everything you want
+for your inventions and experiments, and I would have helped you,--and
+then--then--you could have blown up the world and me with it, so long
+as you gave me time to look at the magnificent sight! And I wouldn't
+have married you for love, mind you!--only for curiosity!"
+
+He withdrew from her a couple of paces,--a glimmer of white teeth
+between his dark moustache and beard gave his face the expression of a
+snarl more than a smile.
+
+"For curiosity!" she repeated, stretching out a hand and touching his
+arm--"To see what the thing that calls itself a man is made of! I did
+my very best with you, didn't I?--uncouth as you always were and
+are!--but I did my best! And all Washington thought it was settled! Why
+wouldn't you do what Washington expected?"
+
+The light of the moon fell full on her upturned face. It was a
+wonderful face,--not beautiful according to the monotonous press-camera
+type, but radiant with such a light of daring intelligence as to make
+beauty itself seem cheap and meretricious in comparison with its
+glowing animation. He moved away from her another step, and shook his
+arm free from her touch.
+
+"Why wouldn't you?" she reiterated softly; then with a sudden ripple of
+laughter, she clasped her hands and uplifted them in an attitude of
+prayer--"Why wouldn't he? Oh, big moon of California, why? Oh, pagan
+gods and goddesses and fauns and fairies, tell me why? Why wouldn't he?"
+
+He gave her a glance of cool contempt.
+
+"You should have been on the stage!" he said.
+
+"'All the world's a stage,'" she quoted, letting her upraised arms fall
+languidly at her sides--"And ours is a real comedy! Not 'As You Like
+It' but 'As You Don't Like It!' Poor Shakespeare!--he never imagined
+such characters as we are! Now, suppose you had satisfied the
+expectations of all Washington City and married me, of course we should
+have bored each other dreadfully--but with plenty of money we could
+have run away from each other whenever we liked--they all do it
+nowadays!"
+
+"Yes--they all do it!" he repeated, mechanically.
+
+"They don't 'love' you know!" she went on--"Love is too much of a bore.
+YOU would find it so!"
+
+"I should, indeed!" he said, with sudden energy--"It would be worse
+than any imaginable torture!--to be 'loved' and looked after, and
+watched and coddled and kissed--"
+
+"Oh, surely no woman would want to kiss you!" she exclaimed--"Never!
+THAT would be too much of a good thing!"
+
+And she gave a little peal of laughter, merry as the lilt of a sky-lark
+in the dawn. He stared at her angrily, moved by an insensate desire to
+seize her and throw her down the hill like a bundle of rubbish.
+
+"To kiss YOU," she said, "one would have to wear a lip-shield of
+leather! As well kiss a bunch of nettles! No, no! I have quite a nice
+little mouth--soft and rosy! I shouldn't like to spoil it by scratching
+it against yours! It's curious how all men imagine women LIKE to kiss
+them! They never grasp an idea of the frequent unpleasantness of the
+operation! Now I'm going!"
+
+"Thank God!" he ejaculated fervently.
+
+"And don't worry yourself"--she continued, airily--"I shall not stay
+long at the Plaza."
+
+"Thank God again!" he interpolated.
+
+"It would be too dull,--especially as I'm not shamming to be ill, like
+you. Besides, I have work to do!--wonderful work! and I don't believe
+in doing it shut up like a hermit. Humanity is my crucible!
+Good-night,--good-bye!"
+
+He checked her movement by a quick, imperious gesture.
+
+"Wait!" he said--"Before you go I want you to know a bit of my mind--"
+
+"Is it necessary?" she queried.
+
+"I think so," he answered--"It will save you the trouble of ever trying
+to see me again, which will be a relief to me, if not to you.
+Listen!--and look at yourself with MY eyes--"
+
+"Too difficult!" she declared--"I can look at nothing with your eyes
+any more than you can with mine!"
+
+"Madam--"
+
+She uttered a little laughing "Oh!" and put her hand to her ears.
+
+"Not 'Madam' for heaven's sake!" she exclaimed; "It sounds as if I were
+either a queen or a dressmaker!"
+
+His sombre eyes had no smile in them.
+
+"How should you be addressed?" he demanded, "A woman of such wealth and
+independence as you possess can hardly be called 'Miss' as if she were
+in parental leading-strings!"
+
+She looked up at the clear dark sky where the moon hung like a huge
+silver air-ball.
+
+"No, I suppose not!" she replied--"The old English word was 'Mistress.'
+So quaint and pretty, don't you think?"
+
+  'Oh mistress mine, where are you roaming?
+   Oh stay and hear! your true love's coming!'
+
+She sang the two lines in a deliciously entrancing voice, full of youth
+and tenderness. With one quick stride he advanced upon her and caught
+her by the shoulders.
+
+"My God, I could shake the life out of you!" he said, fiercely--"I
+wonder you are not afraid of me!"
+
+She laughed, careless of his grasp.
+
+"Why should I be? You couldn't kill me if you tried--and if you could--"
+
+"If I could--ah, if I could!" he muttered, fiercely.
+
+"Why then there would be another murderer added to the general world of
+murderers!" she said--"That's all! It's not worth it!"
+
+Still he held her in his grip.
+
+"See here!" he said--"Before you go I want yon to know a thing or
+two,--you may as well learn once for all my views on women. They're
+brief, but they're fixed. And they're straight! Women are nothing--just
+necessary for the continuation of the race--no more. They may be
+beautiful or homely--it's all one--they serve the same purpose. I'm
+under no delusions about them. Without men they are utterly
+useless,--mere waste on the wind! To idealise them is a stupid mistake.
+To think that they can do anything original, intellectual or
+imaginative is to set one's self down an idiot. YOU,--you the spoilt
+only child of one of the biggest rascal financiers in New York,--YOU,
+left alone in the world with a fortune so vast as to be almost
+criminal--you think you are something superlative in the way of
+women,--you play the Cleopatra,--you are convinced you can draw men
+after you--but it's your money that draws them,--not YOU! Can't you see
+that?--or are you too vain to see it? And you've no mercy on them,--you
+make them believe you care for them and then you throw them over like
+empty nutshells! That's your way! But you never fooled ME,--and you
+never will!"
+
+He released her as suddenly as he had grasped her,--she drew her white
+draperies round her shoulders with a statuesque grace, and lifted her
+head, smiling.
+
+"Empty nutshells are a very good description of men who come after a
+woman for her money"--she observed, placidly--"and it's quite natural
+that the woman should throw them over her shoulder. There's nothing in
+them--not even a flavour! No--never fooled you,--you fooled
+yourself--you are fooling yourself now, only you don't know it. But
+there!--let's finish talking! I like the romance of the situation--you
+in your shirt-sleeves on a hill in California, and I in silken stuff
+and diamonds paying you a moonlight visit--it's really quite novel and
+charming!--but it can't go on for ever! Just now you said you wanted me
+to know a thing or two, and I presume you have explained yourself. What
+you think or what you don't think about women doesn't interest me. I'm
+one of the 'wastes on the wind!' _I_ shall not aid in the continuation
+of the race,--heaven forbid! The race is too stupid and too miserable
+to merit continuance. Everything has been done for it that can be done,
+over and over again, from the beginning--till now,--and now--NOW!" She
+paused, and despite himself the tone of her voice sent a thrill through
+his blood of something like fear.
+
+"NOW?--well! What NOW?" he demanded.
+
+She lifted one hand and pointed upwards. Her face in the moonbeams
+looked austere and almost spectral in outline.
+
+"Now--the Change!" she answered--"The Change when all things shall be
+made new!"
+
+A silence followed her words,--a strange and heavy silence.
+
+It was broken by her voice hushed to an extreme softness, yet clearly
+audible.
+
+"Good-night!--good-bye!"
+
+He turned impatiently away to avoid further leave-taking--then, on a
+sudden impulse, his mood changed.
+
+"Morgana!"
+
+The call echoed through emptiness. She was gone. He called again,--the
+long vowel in the strange name sounding like "Mor-ga-ar-na" as a
+shivering note on the G string of a violin may sound at the conclusion
+of a musical phrase. There was no reply. He was--as he had desired to
+be,--alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+"She left New York several weeks ago,--didn't you know it? Dear me!--I
+thought everybody was convulsed at the news!"
+
+The speaker, a young woman fashionably attired and seated in a rocking
+chair in the verandah of a favourite summer hotel on Long Island,
+raised her eyes and shrugged her shoulders expressively as she uttered
+these words to a man standing near her with a newspaper in his hand. He
+was a very stiff-jointed upright personage with iron grey hair and
+features hard enough to suggest their having been carved out of wood.
+
+"No--I didn't know it"--he said, enunciating his words in the
+deliberate dictatorial manner common to a certain type of American--"If
+I had I should have taken steps to prevent it."
+
+"You can't take steps to prevent anything Morgana Royal decides to do!"
+declared his companion. "She's a law to herself and to nobody else. I
+guess YOU couldn't stop her, Mr. Sam Gwent!"
+
+Mr. Sam Gwent permitted himself to smile. It was a smile that merely
+stretched the corners of his mouth a little,--it had no geniality.
+
+"Possibly not!" he answered--"But I should have had a try! I should
+certainly have pointed out to her the folly of her present adventure."
+
+"Do you know what it is?"
+
+He paused before replying.
+
+"Well,--hardly! But I have a guess!"
+
+"Is that so? Then I'll admit you're cleverer than I am!"
+
+"Thats a great compliment! But even Miss Lydia Herbert, brilliant woman
+of the world as she is, doesn't know EVERYTHING!"
+
+"Not quite!" she replied, stifling a tiny yawn--"Nor do you! But most
+things that are worth knowing I know. There's a lot one need never
+learn. The chief business of life nowadays is to have heaps of money
+and know how to spend it. That's Morgana's way."
+
+Mr. Sam Gwent folded up his newspaper, flattened it into a neat parcel,
+and put it in his pocket.
+
+"She has a great deal too much money"--he said, "and-to my
+thinking--she does NOT know how to spend it,--not in the right womanly
+way. She has gone off in the midst of many duties to society at a time
+when she should have stayed--"
+
+Miss Herbert opened her brown, rather insolent eyes wide at this and
+laughed.
+
+"Does it matter?" she asked. "The old man left his pile to her
+'absolutely and unconditionally'--without any orders as to society
+duties. And I don't believe YOU'VE any authority over her, have you? Or
+are you suddenly turning up as a trustee?"
+
+He surveyed her with a kind of admiring sarcasm.
+
+"No. I'm only an uncle,"--he said--"Uncle of the boy that shot himself
+this morning for her sake!"
+
+Miss Herbert uttered a sharp cry. She was startled and horrified.
+
+"What!... Jack?... Shot himself?... Oh, how dreadful!--I'm--I'm
+sorry--!"
+
+"You're not!"--retorted Gwent--"So don't pretend. No one is sorry for
+anybody else nowadays. There's no time. And no inclination. Jack was
+always a fool--perhaps he's best out of it. I've just seen him--dead.
+He's better-looking so than when alive."
+
+She sprang up from her rocking chair in a blaze of indignation.
+
+"You are brutal!" she exclaimed, with a half sob--"Positively brutal!"
+
+"Not at all!" he answered, composedly--"Only commonplace. It is you
+advanced women that are brutal,--not we left-behind men. Jack was a
+fool, I say--he staked the whole of his game on Morgana Royal, and he
+lost. That was the last straw. If he could have married her he would
+have cleared all his debts over and over--and that's what he had hoped
+for. The disappointment was too much for him."
+
+"But--didn't he LOVE her?" Lydia Herbert put the question almost
+imperatively.
+
+Mr. Sam Gwent raised his eyebrows quizzically. "I guess you came out of
+the Middle Ages!" he observed--"What's 'love'? Did you ever know a
+woman with millions of money who got 'loved'? Not a bit of it! Her
+MONEY is loved--but not herself. She's the encumbrance to the cash."
+
+"Then--then--you mean to tell me Jack was only after the money--?"
+
+"What else should he be after? The woman? There are thousands of
+women,--all to be had for the asking--they pitch themselves at men
+headlong--no hesitation or modesty about them nowadays! Jack's asking
+would never have been refused by any one of them. But the millions of
+Morgana Royal are not to be got every day!"
+
+Miss Herbert's rather thin lips tightened into a close line,--she
+flicked some light tear-drops away from her eyes with a handkerchief as
+fine as a cobweb delicately perfumed, and stood silently looking out on
+the view from the verandah.
+
+"You see," pursued Gwent, in his cold, deliberate accents, "Jack was
+ruined financially. And he has all but ruined ME. Now he has taken
+himself out of the way with a pistol shot, and left me to face the
+music for him. Morgana Royal was his only chance. She led him on,--she
+certainly led him on. He thought he had her,--then--just as he was
+about to pin the butterfly to his specimen card, away it flew!"
+
+"Cute butterfly!" interjected Miss Herbert.
+
+"Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see. Anyway Jack's game is finished."
+
+"And I suppose this is why, as you say, Morgana has gone off 'in the
+midst of many social duties'? Was Jack one of her social duties?"
+
+Gwent gazed at her with an unrevealing placidity.
+
+"No. Not exactly," he replied--"I give her credit for not knowing
+anything of his intention to clear out. Though I don't think she would
+have tried to alter his intention if she had."
+
+Miss Herbert still surveyed the scenery.
+
+"Well,--I don't feel so sorry for him now you tell me it was only the
+money he was after"--she said--"I thought he was a finer character--"
+
+"You're talking 'Middle Ages' again,"--interrupted Gwent--"Who wants
+fine characters nowadays? The object of life is to LIVE, isn't it? And
+to 'live' means to get all you can for your own pleasure and
+profit,--take care of Number One!--and let the rest of the world do as
+it likes. It's quite YOUR method,--though you pretend it isn't!"
+
+"You're not very polite!" she said.
+
+"Now, why should I be?" he pursued, argumentatively--"What's politeness
+worth unless you want to flatter something for yourself out of
+somebody? I never flatter, and I'm never polite. I know just how you
+feel,--you haven't got as much money as you want and you're looking
+about for a fellow who HAS. Then you'll marry him--if you can. You, as
+a woman, are doing just what Jack did as a man. But,--if you miss your
+game, I don't think you'll commit suicide. You're too well-balanced for
+that. And I think you'll succeed in your aims--if you're careful!"
+
+"If I'm careful?" she echoed, questioningly.
+
+"Yes--if you want a millionaire. Especially the old rascal you're
+after. Don't dress too 'loud.' Don't show ALL your back--leave some for
+him to think about. Don't paint your face,--let it alone. And be, or
+pretend to be, very considerate of folks' feelings. That'll do!"
+
+"Here endeth the first lesson!" she said. "Thanks, preacher Gwent! I
+guess I'll worry through!"
+
+"I guess you will!"--he answered, slowly. "I wish I was as certain of
+anything in the world as I am of THAT!"
+
+She was silent. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as though
+she sought to conceal a smile. She watched her companion furtively as
+he took a cigar from a case in his pocket and lit it.
+
+"I must go and fix up the funeral business"--he said, "Jack has gone,
+and his remains must be disposed of. That's my affair. Just now his
+mother's crying over him,--and I can't stand that sort of thing. It
+gets over me."
+
+"Then you actually HAVE a heart?" she suggested.
+
+"I suppose so. I used to have. But it isn't the heart,--that's only a
+pumping muscle. I conclude it's the head."
+
+He puffed two or three rings of smoke into the clear air.
+
+"You know where she's gone?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Morgana?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Lydia Herbert hesitated.
+
+"I THINK I know," she replied at last--"But I'm not sure."
+
+"Well, I'M sure"--said Gwent--"She's after the special quarry that has
+given her the slip,--Roger Seaton. He went to California a month ago."
+
+"Then she's in California?"
+
+"Certain!"
+
+Mr. Gwent took another puff at his cigar.
+
+"You must have been in Washington when every one thought that he and
+she were going to make a matrimonial tie of it"--he went on--"Why,
+nothing else was talked of!"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I know! I was there. But a man who has set his soul on science doesn't
+want a wife."
+
+"And what about a woman who has set her soul in the same direction?" he
+asked.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, that's all popcorn! Morgana is not a scientist,--she's hardly a
+student. She just 'imagines' she can do things. But she can't."
+
+"Well! I'm not so sure!" and Gwent looked ruminative--"She's got a
+smart way of settling problems while the rest of us are talking about
+them."
+
+"To her own satisfaction only"--said Miss Herbert,
+ironically,--"Certainly not to the satisfaction of anybody else! She
+talks the wildest nonsense about controlling the world! Imagine it! A
+world controlled by Morgana!" She gave an impatient little shake of her
+skirts. "I do hate these sorts of mysterious, philosophising women,
+don't you? The old days must have been ever so much better! When it was
+all poetry and romance and beautiful idealism! When Dante and Beatrice
+were possible!"
+
+Gwent smiled sourly.
+
+"They never WERE possible!" he retorted--"Dante was, like all poets, a
+regular humbug. Any peg served to hang his stuff on,--from a child of
+nine to a girl of eighteen. The stupidest thing ever written is what he
+called his 'New Life' or 'Vita Nuova.' I read it once, and it made me
+pretty nigh sick. Think of all that twaddle about Beatrice 'denying him
+her most gracious salutation'! That any creature claiming to be a man
+could drivel along in such a style beats me altogether!"
+
+"It's perfectly lovely!" declared Miss Herbert--"You've no taste in
+literature, Mr. Gwent!"
+
+"I've no taste for humbug"--he answered--"That's so! I guess I know the
+difference between tragedy and comedy, even when I see them side by
+side." He flicked a long burnt ash from his cigar. "I've had a bit of
+comedy with you this morning--now I'm going to take up tragedy! I tell
+you there's more written in Jack's dead face than in all Dante!"
+
+"The tragedy of a lost gamble for money!" she said, with a scornful
+uplift of her eyebrows.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"That's so! It upsets the mental balance of a man more than a lost
+gamble for love!"
+
+And he walked away.
+
+Lydia Herbert, left to herself, played idly with the leaves of the vine
+that clambered about the high wooden columns of the verandah where she
+stood, admiring the sparkle of her diamond bangle which, like a thin
+circlet of dewdrops, glittered on her slim wrist. Now and then she
+looked far out to the sea gleaming in the burning sun, and allowed her
+thoughts to wander from herself and her elegant clothes to some of the
+social incidents in which she had taken part during the past couple of
+months. She recalled the magnificent ball given by Morgana Royal at her
+regal home, when all the fashion and frivolity of the noted "Four
+Hundred" were assembled, and when the one whispered topic of
+conversation among gossips was the possibility of the marriage of one
+of the richest women in the world to a shabbily clothed scientist
+without a penny, save what he earned with considerable difficulty.
+Morgana herself played the part of an enigma. She laughed, shook her
+head, and moved her daintily attired person through the crowd of her
+guests with all the gliding grace of a fairy vision in white draperies
+showered with diamonds, but gave no hint of special favour or attention
+to any man, not even to Roger Seaton, the scientist in question, who
+stood apart from the dancing throng, in a kind of frowning disdain,
+looking on, much as one might fancy a forest animal looking at the last
+gambols of prey It purposed to devour. He had taken the first
+convenient interval to disappear, and as he did not return, Miss
+Herbert had asked her hostess what had become of him? Morgana, her
+cheeks flushed prettily by a just-finished dance, smiled in surprise at
+the question.
+
+"How should I know?" she replied--"I am not his keeper?"
+
+"But--but--you are interested in him?" Lydia suggested.
+
+"Interested? Oh, yes! Who would not be interested in a man who says he
+can destroy half the world if he wants to! He assumes to be a sort of
+deity, you know!--Jove and his thunderbolts in the shape of a man in a
+badly cut suit of modern clothes! Isn't it fun!" She gave a little peal
+of laughter. "And every one in the room to-night thinks I am going to
+marry him!"
+
+"And are you not?"
+
+"Can you imagine it! ME, married? Lydia, Lydia, do you take me for a
+fool!" She laughed again--then grew suddenly serious. "To think of such
+a thing! Fancy ME!--giving my life into the keeping of a scientific
+wizard who, if he chose, could reduce me to a little heap of dust in
+two minutes, and no one any the wiser! Thank you! The sensational press
+has been pretty full lately of men's brutalities to women,--and I've no
+intention of adding myself to the list of victims! Men ARE brutes! They
+were born brutes, and brutes they will remain!"
+
+"Then you don't like him?" persisted Lydia, moved, in spite of herself,
+by curiosity, and also by a vague wonder at the strange brilliancy of
+complexion and eyes which gave to Morgana a beauty quite unattainable
+by features only--"You're not set on him?"
+
+Morgana held up a finger.
+
+"Listen!" she said--"Isn't that a lovely valse? Doesn't the music seem
+to sweep round and tie us all up in a garland of melody! How far, far
+above all these twirling human microbes it is!--as far as heaven from
+earth! If we could really obey the call of that music we should rise on
+wings and fly to such wonderful worlds!--as it is, we can only hop
+round and round like motes in a sunbeam and imagine we are enjoying
+ourselves for an hour or two! But the music means so much more!" She
+paused, enrapt;--then in a lighter tone went on--"And you think I would
+marry? I would not marry an emperor if there were one worth
+having--which there isn't!--and as for Roger Seaton, I certainly am not
+'set' on him as you so elegantly put it! And he's not 'set' on me.
+We're both 'set' on something else!"
+
+She was standing near an open window as she spoke, and she looked up at
+the dark purple sky sprinkled with stars. She continued slowly, and
+with emphasis--
+
+"I might--possibly I might--have helped him to that something else--if
+I had not discovered something more!"
+
+She lifted her hand with a commanding gesture as though
+unconsciously,--then let it drop at her side. Lydia Herbert looked at
+her perplexedly.
+
+"You talk so very strangely!" she said.
+
+Morgana smiled.
+
+"Yes, I know I do!" she admitted--"I am what old Scotswomen call 'fey'!
+You know I was born away in the Hebrides,--my father was a poor herder
+of sheep at one time before he came over to the States. I was only a
+baby when I was carried away from the islands of mist and rain--but I
+was 'fey' from my birth--"
+
+"What is fey?" interrupted Miss Herbert.
+
+"It's just everything that everybody else is NOT"--Morgana
+replied--"'Fey' people are magic people; they see what no one else
+sees,--they hear voices that no one else hears--voices that whisper
+secrets and tell of wonders as yet undiscovered--" She broke off
+suddenly. "We must not stay talking here"--she resumed-"All the folks
+will say we are planning the bridesmaids' dresses and that the very day
+of the ceremony is fixed! But you can be sure that I am not going to
+marry anybody--least of all Roger Seaton!"
+
+"You like him though! I can see you like him!"
+
+"Of course I like him! He's a human magnet,--he 'draws'! You fly
+towards him as if he were a bit of rubbed sealing-wax and you a snippet
+of paper! But you soon drop off! Oh, that valse! Isn't it entrancing!"
+
+And, swinging herself round lightly like a bell-flower in a breeze she
+danced off alone and vanished in the crowd of her guests.
+
+Lydia Herbert recalled this conversation now, as she stood looking from
+the vine-clad verandah of her hotel towards the sea, and again saw, as
+in a vision, the face and eyes of her "fey" friend,--a face by no means
+beautiful in feature, but full of a sparkling attraction which was
+almost irresistible.
+
+"Nothing in her!" had declared New York society generally--"Except her
+money! And her hair--but not even that unless she lets it down!"
+
+Lydia had seen it so "let down," once, and only once, and the sight of
+such a glistening rope of gold had fairly startled her.
+
+"All your own?" she had gasped.
+
+And with a twinkling smile, and comic hesitation of manner Morgana had
+answered.
+
+"I--I THINK it is! It seems so! I don't believe it will come off unless
+you pull VERY hard!"
+
+Lydia had not pulled hard, but she had felt the soft rippling mass
+falling from head to far below the knee, and had silently envied the
+owner its possession.
+
+"It's a great bother," Morgana declared--"I never know what to do with
+it. I can't dress it 'fashionably' one bit, and when I twist it up it's
+so fine it goes into nothing and never looks the quantity it is.
+However, we must all have our troubles!--with some it's teeth--with
+others it's ankles--we're never QUITE all right! The thing is to endure
+without complaining!"
+
+"And this curious creature who talked "so very strangely," possessed
+millions of money! Her father, who had arrived in the States from the
+wildest north of Scotland with practically not a penny, had so gathered
+and garnered every opportunity that came in his way that every
+investment he touched seemed to turn to five times its first value
+under his fingers. When his wife died very soon after his wealth began
+to accumulate, he was beset by women of beauty and position eager to
+take her place, but he was adamant against all their blandishments and
+remained a widower, devoting his entire care to the one child he had
+brought with him as an infant from the Highland hills, and to whom he
+gave a brilliant but desultory and uncommon education. Life seemed to
+swirl round him in a glittering ring of gold of which he made himself
+the centre,--and when he died suddenly "from overstrain" as the doctors
+said, people were almost frightened to name the vast fortune his
+daughter inherited, accustomed as they were to the counting of many
+millions. And now---?"
+
+"California!" mused Lydia--"Sam Gwent thinks she has gone there after
+Roger Seaton. But what can be her object if she doesn't care for him?
+It's far more likely she's started for Sicily--she's having a palace
+built there for her small self to live in 'all by her lonesome'! Well!
+She can afford it!"
+
+And with a short sigh she let go her train of thought and left the
+verandah,--it was time to change her costume and prepare "effects" to
+dazzle and bewilder the uncertain mind of a crafty old Croesus who,
+having freely enjoyed himself as a bachelor up to his present age of
+seventy-four, was now looking about for a young strong woman to manage
+his house and be a nurse and attendant for him in his declining years,
+for which service, should she be suitable, he would concede to her the
+name of "wife" in order to give stability to her position. And Lydia
+Herbert herself was privately quite aware of his views. Moreover she
+was entirely willing to accommodate herself to them for the sake of
+riches and a luxurious life, and the "settlement" she meant to insist
+upon if her plans ripened to fulfilment. She had no great ambitions;
+few women of her social class have. To be well housed, well fed and
+well clothed, and enabled to do the fashionable round without
+hindrance--this was all she sought, and of romance, sentiment, emotion
+or idealism she had none. Now and again she caught the flash of a
+thought in her brain higher than the level of material needs, but
+dismissed it more quickly than it came as--"Ridiculous! Absolute
+nonsense! Like Morgana!"
+
+And to be like Morgana, meant to be like what cynics designate "an
+impossible woman,"--independent of opinions and therefore "not
+understood of the people."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"Why do you stare at me? You have such big eyes!"
+
+Morgana, dotted only in a white silk nightgown, sitting on the edge of
+her bed with her small rosy toes peeping out beneath the tiny frill of
+her thin garment, looked at the broad-shouldered handsome girl Manella
+who had just brought in her breakfast tray and now stood regarding her
+with an odd expression of mingled admiration and shyness.
+
+"Such big eyes!" she repeated--"Like great head-lamps flaring out of
+that motor-brain of yours! What do you see in me?"
+
+Manella's brown skin flushed crimson.
+
+"Something I have never seen before!" she answered--"You are so small
+and white! Not like a woman at all!"
+
+Morgana laughed merrily.
+
+"Not like a woman! Oh dear! What am I like then?"
+
+Manella's eyes grew darker than ever in the effort to explain her
+thought.
+
+"I do not know"--she said, hesitatingly--"But--once--here in this
+garden--we found a wonderful butterfly with white wings--all
+white,--and it was resting on a scarlet flower. We all went out to look
+at it, because it was unlike any other butterfly we had ever seen,--its
+wings were like velvet or swansdown. You remind me of that butterfly."
+
+Morgana smiled.
+
+"Did it fly away?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Very soon! And an hour or so after it had flown, the scarlet
+flower where it had rested was dead."
+
+"Most thrilling!" And Morgana gave a little yawn. "Is that breakfast?
+Yes? Stay with me while I have it! Are you the head chambermaid at the
+Plaza?"
+
+Manella shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I do not know what I am! I do everything I am asked to do as well as I
+can."
+
+"Obliging creature! And are you well paid?"
+
+"As much as I want"--Manella answered, indifferently. "But there is no
+pleasure in the work."
+
+"Is there pleasure in ANY work?"
+
+"If one works for a person one loves,--surely yes!" the girl murmured
+as if she were speaking to herself, "The days would be too short for
+all the work to be done!"
+
+Morgana glanced at her, and the flash of her eyes had the grey-blue of
+lightning. Then she poured out the coffee and tasted it.
+
+"Not bad!" she commented--"Did you make it?"
+
+Manella nodded, and went on talking at random.
+
+"I daresay it's not as good as it ought to be"--she said--"If you had
+brought your own maid I should have asked HER to make it. Women of your
+class like their food served differently to us poor folk, and I don't
+know their ways."
+
+Morgana laughed.
+
+"You quaint, handsome thing! What do you know about it? What, in your
+opinion, IS my class?"
+
+Manella pulled nervously at the ends of the bright coloured kerchief
+she wore knotted across her bosom, and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Well, for one thing you are rich"--she said, at last--"There is no
+mistaking that. Your lovely clothes--you must spend a fortune on them!
+Then--all the people here wonder at your automobile--and your chauffeur
+says it is the most perfect one ever made! And all these riches make
+you think you ought to have everything just as you fancy it. I suppose
+you ought--I'm not sure! I don't believe you have much feeling,--you
+couldn't, you know! It is not as if you wanted something very badly and
+there was no chance of your getting it,--your money would buy all you
+could desire. It would even buy you a man!"
+
+Morgana paused in the act of pouring out a second cup of coffee, and
+her face dimpled with amusement.
+
+"Buy me a man!" she echoed--"You think it would?"
+
+"Of course it would!" Manella averred--"If you wanted one, which I
+daresay you don't. For all I know, you may be like the man who is
+living in the consumption hut on the hill,--he ought to have a woman,
+but he doesn't want one."
+
+Morgana buttered her little breakfast roll very delicately.
+
+"The man who lives in the consumption hut on the hill!" she repeated,
+slowly, and with a smile--"What man is that?"
+
+"I don't know--" and Manella's large dark eyes filled with a strangely
+wistful perplexity. "He is a stranger--and he's not ill at all. He is
+big and strong and healthy. But he has chosen to live in the 'house of
+the dying,' as it is sometimes called--where people from the Plaza go
+when there's no more hope for them. He likes to be quite alone--he
+thinks and writes all day. I take him milk and bread,--it is all he
+orders from the Plaza. I would be his woman. I would work for him from
+morning till night. But he will not have me."
+
+Morgana raised her eyes, glittering with the "fey" light in them that
+often bewildered and rather scared her friends.
+
+"You would be his woman? You are in love with him?" she said.
+
+Something in her look checked Manella's natural impulse to confide in
+one of her own sex.
+
+"No, I am not!"--she answered coldly--"I have said too much."
+
+Morgana smiled, and stretching out her small white hand, adorned with
+its sparkling rings, laid it caressingly on the girl's brown wrist.
+
+"You are a dear!"--she murmured, lazily--"Just a dear! A big, beautiful
+creature with a heart! That's the trouble--your heart! You've found a
+man living selfishly alone, scribbling what he perhaps thinks are the
+most wonderful things ever put on paper, when they are very likely
+nothing but rubbish, and it enters into your head that he wants
+mothering and loving! He doesn't want anything of the sort! And YOU
+want to love and mother him! Oh heavens!--have you ever thought what
+loving and mothering mean?"
+
+Manella drew a quick soft breath.
+
+"All the world, surely!" she answered, with emotion--"To love!--to
+possess the one we love, body and soul!--and to mother a life born of
+such love!--THAT must be heaven!"
+
+The smile flitted away from Morgana's lips, and her expression became
+almost sorrowful.
+
+"You are like a trusting animal!" she said--"An animal all innocent of
+guns and steel-traps! You poor girl! I should like you to come with me
+out of these mountain solitudes into the world! What is your name?"
+
+"Manella."
+
+"Manella--what?"
+
+"Manella Soriso"--the girl answered--"I am Spanish by both
+parents,--they are dead now. I was born at Monterey."
+
+Morgana began to hum softly--
+
+    "Under the walls of Monterey
+     At dawn the bugles began to play
+     Come forth to thy death
+     Victor Galbraith."
+
+She broke off,--then said--
+
+"You have not seen many men?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I have!" and Manella tossed her head airily--"Men all more or
+less alike--greedy for dollars, fond of smoke and cinema women,--I do
+not care for them. Some have asked me to marry, but I would rather hang
+myself than be wife to one of them!"
+
+Morgana slid off the edge of her bed and stood upright, her white silk
+nightgown falling symmetrically round her small figure. With a
+dexterous movement she loosened the knot into which she had twisted her
+hair for the night, and it fell in a sinuous coil like a golden snake
+from head to knee. Manella stepped back in amazement.
+
+"Oh!" she cried--"How beautiful! I have quite as much in quantity, but
+it is black and heavy--ugly!--no good. And he,--that man who lives in
+the hut on the hill--says there is nothing he hates so much as a woman
+with golden hair! How can he hate such a lovely thing!"
+
+Morgana shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Each one to his taste!" she said, airily--"Some like black hair--some
+red--some gold--some nut-brown. But does it matter at all what men
+think or care for? To me it is perfectly indifferent! And you are quite
+right to prefer hanging to marriage--I do, myself!"
+
+Fascinated by her wonderful elfin look as she stood like a white iris
+in its silken sheath, her small body's outline showing dimly through
+the folds of her garment, Manella drew nearer, somewhat timidly.
+
+"Ah, but I do not mean that I prefer hanging to real, true marriage!"
+she said--"When one loves, it is different! In love I would rather hang
+than not give myself to the man I love--give myself in all I am, and
+all I have! And YOU--you who look so pretty and wonderful--almost like
+a fairy!--do YOU not feel like that too?"
+
+Morgana laughed--a little laugh sweet and cold as rain tinkling on
+glass.
+
+"No, indeed!" she answered--"I have never felt like THAT! I hope I
+shall never feel like THAT! To feel like THAT is to feel like the
+female beasts of the field who only wait and live to be used by the
+males, giving 'all they are and all they have,' poor creatures! The
+bull does not 'love' the cow--he gives her a calf. When the calf is
+born and old enough to get along by itself, it forgets its mother just
+as its mother forgets IT, while the sire is blissfully indifferent to
+both! It's really the same thing with human animals,--especially
+nowadays--only we haven't the honesty to admit it! No, Manella
+Soriso!--with your good looks you ought to be far above 'feeling like
+THAT!--you are a nobler creature than a cow! No wonder men despise
+women who are always on the cow level!"
+
+She laughed again, and tripped lightly to the looking-glass.
+
+"I must dress;"--she said--"And you can take a message to my chauffeur
+and tell him to get everything ready to start. I've had a lovely
+night's rest and am quite fit for a long run."
+
+"Oh, are you going?" and Manella gave a little cry of pain--"I am
+sorry! I do want you to stay!"
+
+Morgana's eyes flashed mingled humour and disdain. "You quaint
+creature! Why should I stay? There's nothing to stay for!"
+
+"If there's nothing to stay for, why did you come?"
+
+This was an unexpected question, the result of a subconscious
+suggestion in Manella's mind which she herself could not have explained.
+
+Morgana seemed amused.
+
+"What did I come for? Really, I hardly know! I am full of odd whims and
+fancies, and I like to humour myself in my various ways. I think I
+wanted to see a bit of California,--that's all!"
+
+"Then why not see more of it?" persisted Manella.
+
+"Enough is better than too much!" laughed Morgana--"I am easily bored!
+This Plaza hotel would bore me to death! What do you want me to stay
+for? To see your man on the mountain?"
+
+"No!" Manella replied with sudden sharpness--"No! I would not like you
+to see him! He would either hate you or love you!"
+
+The grey-blue lightning flash glittered in Morgana's eyes.
+
+"You ARE a curious girl!" she said, slowly--"You might be a tragic
+actress and make your fortune on the stage, with that voice and that
+look! And yet you stay here as 'help' in a Sanatorium! Well! It's a
+dull, dreary way of living, but I suppose you like it!"
+
+"I DON'T like it!" declared Manella, vehemently, "I hate it! But what
+am I to do? I have no home and no money. I must earn my living somehow."
+
+"Will you come away with me?" said Morgana--"I'll take you at once if
+you like!"
+
+Manella stared in a kind of child-like wonderment,--her big dusky eyes
+grew brilliant,--then clouded with a sombre sadness.
+
+"Thank you, Senora!" she answered, pronouncing the Spanish form of
+address with a lingering sweetness, "It is very good of you! But I
+should not please you. I do not know the world, and I am not quick to
+learn. I am better where I am."
+
+A little smile, dreamy and mysterious, crept round Morgana's lips.
+
+"Yes!-perhaps you are!" she said--"I understand! You would not like to
+leave HIM! I am sure that is so! You want to feed your big bear
+regularly with bread and milk--yes, you poor deluded child! Courage!
+You may still have a chance to be, as you say, 'his woman!' And when
+you are I wonder how you will like it!"
+
+She laughed, and began to brush her shining hair out in two silky
+lengths on either side. Manella gazed and gazed at the glittering
+splendour till she could gaze no more for sheer envy, and then she
+turned slowly and left the room.
+
+Alone, Morgana continued brushing her hair meditatively,--then,
+twisting it up in a great coil out of her way, she proceeded with her
+toilette. Everything of the very finest and daintiest was hers to wear,
+from the silken hose to the delicate lace camisole, and when she
+reached the finishing point in her admirably cut summer serge gown and
+becoming close-fitting hat, she studied herself from head to foot in
+the mirror with fastidious care to be sure that every detail of her
+costume was perfect. She was fully aware that she was not a newspaper
+camera "beauty" and that she had subtle points of attraction which no
+camera could ever catch, and it was just these points which she knew
+how to emphasise.
+
+"I hate untidy travellers!"--she would say--"Horrors of men and women
+in oil-skins, smelling of petrol! No goblin ever seen in a nightmare
+could be uglier than the ordinary motorist!"
+
+She had no luggage with her, save an adaptable suitcase which, she
+declared "held everything." This she quickly packed and locked, ready
+for her journey. Then she stepped to the window and waved her hand
+towards the near hill and the "hut of the dying."
+
+"Fool of a bear man!" she said, apostrophising the individual she chose
+to call by that name--"Here you come along to a wild place in
+California running away from ME,--and here you find a sort of untutored
+female savage eager and willing to be your 'woman!' Well, why not?
+She's just the kind of thing you want--to fetch wood, draw water, cook
+food, and--bear children! And when the children come they'll run about
+the hill like savages themselves, and yell and dance and be greedy and
+dirty--and you'll presently wonder whether you are a civilised man or a
+species of unthinking baboon! You will be living the baboon life,--and
+your brain will grow thicker and harder as you grow older,--and your
+great scientific discovery will be buried in the thickness and hardness
+and never see the light of day! All this, IF she is 'your woman!' It's
+a great 'if' of course!--but she's big and handsome, with a beautiful
+body and splendid strength, and I never heard of a man who could resist
+beauty and strength together. As for ME and my 'vulgar wealth' as you
+call it, I'm a little wisp of straw not worth your thought!--or so you
+assume--no, good Bear!--not till we come to a tussle--if we ever do!"
+
+She took up her gloves and hand-bag and went downstairs, entering the
+broad, airy flower-bordered lounge of the Plaza with a friendly nod and
+smile to the book-keeper in the office where she paid her bill. Her
+chauffeur, a smart Frenchman in quiet livery, was awaiting her with an
+assistant groom or page beside him.
+
+"We go on to-day, Madame?" he enquired.
+
+"Yes,--we go on"--she replied--"as quickly and as far as possible. Just
+fetch my valise--it's ready packed in my room."
+
+The groom hurried away to obey this order, and Morgana glancing around
+her saw that she was an object of intense curiosity to some of the
+hotel inmates who were in the lounge--men and women both. Her grey-blue
+eyes flashed over them all carelessly and lighted on Manella who stood
+shrinking aside in a corner. To her she beckoned smilingly.
+
+"Come and see me off!" she said--"Take a look at my car and see how
+you'd like to travel in it!"
+
+Manella pursed her lips and shook her head.
+
+"I'd rather not!" she murmured--"It's no use looking at what one can
+never have!"
+
+Morgana laughed.
+
+"As you please!" she said--"You are an odd girl, but you are quite
+beautiful! Don't forget that! Tell the man on the mountain that I said
+so!--quite beautiful! Good-bye!"
+
+She passed through the lounge with a swift grace of movement and
+entered her sumptuous limousine, lined richly in corded rose silk and
+fitted with every imaginable luxury like a queen's boudoir on wheels,
+while Manella craned her neck forward to see the last of her. Her
+valise was quickly strapped in place, and in another minute to the
+sound of a high silvery bugle note (which was the only sort of "hooter"
+she would tolerate) the car glided noiselessly away down the broad,
+dusty white road, its polished enamel and silver points glittering like
+streaks of light vanishing into deeper light as it disappeared.
+
+"There goes the richest woman in America!" said the hotel clerk for the
+benefit of anyone who might care to listen to the
+announcement,--"Morgana Royal!"
+
+"Is that so?" drawled a sallow-faced man, reclining in an invalid
+chair--"She's not much to look at!"
+
+And he yawned expansively.
+
+He was right. She was not much to look at. But she was more than looks
+ever made. So, with sorrow and with envy, thought Manella, who
+instinctively felt that though she herself might be something to look
+at and "quite beautiful," she was nothing else. She had never heard the
+word "fey." The mystic glamour of the Western Highlands was shut away
+from her by the wide barrier of many seas and curtains of cloud. And
+therefore she did not know that "fey" women are a race apart from all
+other women in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+That evening at sunset Manella made her way towards the hill and the
+"House of the Dying," moved by she knew not what strange impulse. She
+had no excuse whatever for going; she knew that the man living up there
+in whom she was so much interested had as much food for three days as
+he asked for or desired, and that he was likely to be vexed at the very
+sight of her. Yet she had an eager wish to tell him something about the
+wonderful little creature with lightning eyes who had left the Plaza
+that morning and had told her, Manella, that she was "quite beautiful."
+Pride, and an innocent feminine vanity thrilled her; "if another woman
+thinks so, it must be so,"--she argued, being aware that women seldom
+admire each other. She walked swiftly, with head bent,--and was brought
+to a startled halt by meeting and almost running against the very
+individual she sought, who in his noiseless canvas shoes and with his
+panther-like tread had come upon her unawares. Checked in her progress
+she stood still, her eyes quickly lifted, her lips apart. In her
+adoration of the strength and magnificent physique of the stranger whom
+she knew only as a stranger, she thought he looked splendid as a god
+descending from the hill. Far from feeling god-like, he frowned as he
+saw her.
+
+"Where are you going?" he demanded, brusquely.
+
+The rich colour warmed her cheeks to a rose-red that matched the sunset.
+
+"I was going--to see if you--if you wanted anything"--she stammered,
+almost humbly.
+
+"You know I do not"--he said--"You can spare yourself the trouble."
+
+She drew herself up with a slight air of offence.
+
+"If you want nothing why do you come down into the valley?" she asked.
+"You say you hate the Plaza!"
+
+"I do!" and he spoke almost vindictively--"But, at the moment, there's
+some one there I want to see."
+
+Her black eyes opened inquisitively.
+
+"A man?"
+
+"No. Strange to say, a woman."
+
+A sudden light flashed on her mind.
+
+"I know!" she exclaimed--"But you will not see her! She has gone!"
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked, impatiently--"What do you know?"
+
+"Oh, I know nothing!" and there was a sobbing note of pathos in her
+voice--"But I feel HERE!"--and she pressed her hands against her
+bosom--"something tells me that you have seen HER--the little wonderful
+white woman, sweetly perfumed like a rose,--with her silks and jewels
+and her fairy car!--and her golden hair... ah!--you said you hated a
+woman with golden hair! Is that the woman you hate?"
+
+He stood looking at her with an amused, half scornful expression.
+
+"Hate is too strong a word"--he answered--"She isn't worth hating!"
+
+Her brows contracted in a frown.
+
+"I do not believe THAT!"--she said--"You are not speaking truly. More
+likely it is, I think, you love her!"
+
+He caught her roughly by the arm.
+
+"Stop that!" he exclaimed, angrily--"You are foolish and insolent!
+Whether I love or hate anybody or anything is no affair of yours! How
+dare you speak to me as if it were!"
+
+She shrank away from him. Her lips quivered, and tears welled through
+her lashes.
+
+"Forgive me! ... oh, forgive!" she murmured, pleadingly--"I am
+sorry!..."
+
+"So you ought to be!" he retorted--"You--Manella--imagine yourself in
+love with me ... yes, you do!--and you cannot leave me alone! No
+amorous man ever cadged round for love as much or as shamelessly as an
+amorous woman! Then you see another woman on the scene, and though
+she's nothing but a stray visitor at the Plaza where you help wash up
+the plates and dishes, you suddenly conceive a lot of romantic foolery
+in your head and imagine me to be mysteriously connected with her! Oh,
+for God's sake don't cry! It's the most awful bore! There's nothing to
+cry for. You've set me up like a sort of doll in a shrine and you want
+to worship me--well!--I simply won't be worshipped. As for your 'little
+wonderful white woman sweetly perfumed like a rose,' I don't mind
+saying that I know her. And I don't mind also telling you that she came
+up the hill last night to ferret me out."
+
+Step by step Manella drew nearer, her eyes blazing.
+
+"She went to see you?--She did THAT!--In the darkness?--like a thief or
+a serpent!"
+
+He laughed aloud.
+
+"No thief and no serpent in it!" he said--"And no darkness, but in the
+full light of the moon! Such a moon it was, too! A regular stage moon!
+A perfect setting for such an actress, in her white gown and her rope
+of gold hair! Yes--it was very well planned!--effective in its way,
+though it left me cold!"
+
+"Ah, but it did NOT leave you cold!" cried Manella; "Else you would not
+have come down to see her to-day! You say she went 'to ferret you
+out'--"
+
+"Of course she did"--he interrupted her--"She would ferret out any man
+she wanted for the moment. Forests could not hide him,--caves could not
+cover him if she made up her mind to find him. I had hoped she would
+not find ME--but she has--however,--you say she has gone--"
+
+The colour had fled from Manella's face,--she was pale and rigid.
+
+"She will come back," she said stiffly.
+
+"I hope not!" And he threw himself carelessly down on the turf to
+rest--"Come and sit beside me here and tell me what she said to you!"
+
+But Manella was silent. Her dark, passionate eyes rested upon him with
+a world of scorn and sorrow in their glowing depths.
+
+"Come!" he repeated--"Don't stare at me as if I were some new sort of
+reptile!"
+
+"I think you are!" she said, coldly--"You seem to be a man, but you
+have not the feelings of a man!"
+
+"Oh, have I not!" and he gave a light gesture of indifference--"I have
+the feelings of a modern man,--the 'Kultur' of a perfect super-German!
+Yes, that is so! Sentiment is the mere fly-trap of sensuality--the
+feeler thrust out to scent the prey, but once the fly is caught, the
+trap closes. Do you understand? No, of course you don't! You are a
+dreadfully primitive woman!"
+
+"I did not think you were German," she said.
+
+"Nor did I!" and he laughed--"Nor am I. I said just now that I had the
+'Kultur' of a super-German--and a super-German means something above
+every other male creature except himself. He cannot get away from
+himself--nor can I! That's the trouble! Come, obey me, Manella! Sit
+down here beside me!"
+
+Very slowly and very reluctantly she did as he requested. She sat on
+the grass some three or four paces off. He stretched out a hand to
+touch her, but she pushed it back very decidedly. He smiled.
+
+"I mustn't make love to you this morning, eh?" he queried. "All right!
+I don't want to make love--it doesn't interest me--I only want to put
+you in a good temper! You are like a rumpled pussy-cat--your fur must
+be stroked the right way."
+
+"YOU will not stroke it so!" said Manella, disdainfully.
+
+"No?"
+
+"No. Never again!"
+
+"Oh, dire tragedy!" And he stretched himself out on the turf with his
+arms above his head--"But what does it matter! Give me your news, silly
+child! What did the 'little wonderful white woman' say to you?"
+
+"You want to know?"
+
+"I think so! I am conscious of a certain barbaric spirit of curiosity,
+like that of a savage who sees a photograph of himself for the first
+time! Yes! I want to know what the modern feminine said to the
+primitive!"
+
+Manella gave an impatient gesture.
+
+"I do not understand all your fine words"--she said--"But I will answer
+you. I told her about you--how you had come to live in the hut for the
+dying on the hill rather than at the Plaza--and how I took to you all
+the food you asked for, and she seemed amused--"
+
+"Amused?" he echoed.
+
+"Yes--amused. She laughed,--she looks very pretty when she laughs.
+And--and she seemed to fancy--"
+
+He lifted himself upright in a sitting posture.
+
+"Seemed to fancy? ... what?--"
+
+"That I was not bad to look at--" and Manella, gathering sudden
+boldness, lifted her dark eyes to his face--"She said I could tell you
+that she thinks me quite beautiful! Yes!--quite beautiful!"
+
+He smiled--a smile that was more like a sneer.
+
+"So you are! I've told you so, often. 'There needs no ghost come from
+the grave' to emphasise the fact. But she--the purring cat!--she told
+you to repeat her opinion to me, because--can you guess why?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Simpleton! Because she wishes you to convey to me the message that she
+considers me your lover and that she admires my taste! Now she'll go
+back to New York full of the story! Subtle little devil! But I am not
+your lover, and never shall be,--not even for half an hour!"
+
+Manella sprang up from the turf where she had been sitting.
+
+"I know that!" she said, and her splendid eyes flashed proud
+defiance--"I know I have been a fool to let myself care for you! I do
+not know why I did--it was an illness! But I am well now!"
+
+"You are well now? Good! O let us be joyful! Keep well, Manella!--and
+be 'quite beautiful'--as you are! To be quite beautiful is a fine
+thing--not so fine as it used to be in the Greek period--still, it has
+its advantages! I wonder what you will do with your beauty?"
+
+As he spoke, he rose, stretching and shaking him self like a forest
+animal.
+
+"What will you do with it?" he repeated--"You must give it to somebody!
+You must transmit it to your offspring! That's the old law of
+nature--it's getting a bit monotonous, still it's the law! Now she--the
+wonderful white woman--she's all for upsetting the law! Fortunately
+she's not beautiful--"
+
+"She IS!" exclaimed Manella--"_I_ think her so!" He looked down upon
+her from his superior height with a tolerant amusement.
+
+"Really! YOU think her so! And SHE thinks you so! Quite a mutual
+admiration society! And both of you obsessed by the same one man! I
+pity that man! The only thing for him to do is to keep out of it! No,
+Manella!--think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE beautiful.
+But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God for that! SHE
+is outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her cleverness makes
+her see the sham of life all through; the absurdity of birth that ends
+in death--the freakishness of civilisation to no purpose--and she's out
+for something else. She wants some thing newer than sex-attraction and
+family life. A husband would bore her to extinction--the care of
+children would send her into a lunatic asylum!"
+
+Manella looked bewildered.
+
+"I cannot understand!" she said--"A woman lives for husband and
+children!"
+
+"SOME women do!" he answered--"Not all! There are a good few who don't
+want to stay on the animal level. Men try to keep them there--but it's
+a losing game nowadays. ('Foxes have holes and birds of the air have
+nests'--but we cannot fail to see that when Mother Fox has reared her
+puppies she sends them off about their own business and doesn't know
+them any more--likewise Mother Bird does the same. Nature has no
+sentiment.) We have, because we cultivate artificial feelings--we
+imagine we 'love,' when we only want something that pleases us for the
+moment. To live, as you say, for husband and children would make a
+woman a slave--a great many women are slaves--but they are beginning to
+get emancipated--the woman with the gold hair, whom you so much admire,
+is emancipated."
+
+Manella gave a slight disdainful movement of her head.
+
+"That only means she is free to do as she likes"--she said--"To marry
+or not to marry--to love or not to love. I think if she loved at all,
+she would love very greatly. Why did she go so secretly in the evening
+to see you? I suppose she loves you!"
+
+A sudden red flush of anger coloured his brow.
+
+"Yes"--he answered with a kind of vindictive slowness--"I suppose she
+does! You, Manella, are after me as a man merely--she is after me as a
+Brain! You would steal my physical liberty,--she would steal my
+innermost thought! And you will both be disappointed! Neither my body
+nor my brain shall ever be dominated by any woman!"
+
+He turned from her abruptly and began the ascent that led to his
+solitary retreat. Once he looked back--
+
+"Don't let me see you for two days at least!" he called--"I've more
+than enough food to keep me going."
+
+He strode on, and Manella stood watching him, her tall handsome figure
+silhouetted against the burning sky. Her dark eyes were moist with
+suppressed tears of shame and suffering,--she felt herself to be
+wronged and slighted undeservedly. And beneath this personal emotion
+came now a smarting sense of jealousy, for in spite of all he had said,
+she felt that there was some secret between him and "the little
+wonderful white woman," which she could not guess and which was
+probably the reason of his self-sought exile and seclusion.
+
+"I wish now I had gone with her!" she mused--"for if I am 'quite
+beautiful,' as she said, she might have helped me in the world,--I
+might have become a lady!"
+
+She walked slowly and dejectedly back to the Plaza, knowing in her
+heart that lady or no lady, her rich beauty was useless to her,
+inasmuch as it made no effect on the one man she had elected to care
+for, unwanted and unasked. Certain physiologists teach that the law of
+natural selection is that the female should choose her mate, but the
+difficulty along this line of argument is that she may choose where her
+choice is unwelcome and irresponsive. Manella was a splendid type of
+primitive womanhood,--healthy, warm-blooded and full of hymeneal
+passion,--as a wife she would have been devoted,--as a mother superb in
+her tenderness; but, measured by modern standards of advanced and
+restless femininity she was a mere drudge, without the ability to think
+for herself or to analyse subtleties of emotion. Intellectuality had no
+part in her; most people's talk was for her meaningless, and she had
+not the patience to listen to any conversation that rose above the food
+and business of the day. She was confused and bewildered by everything
+the strange recluse on the hill said to her,--she could not follow him
+at all,--and yet, the purely physical attraction he exercised over her
+nature drew her to him like a magnet and kept her in a state of
+feverish craving for a love she knew she could never win. She would
+have gladly been his servant on the mere chance and hope that possibly
+in some moment of abandonment he might have yielded to the importunity
+of her tenderness; Adonis himself in all the freshness of his youth
+never exercised a more potent spell upon enamoured Venus than this
+plain, big bearded man over the lonely, untutored Californian girl with
+the large loveliness of a goddess and the soul of a little child. What
+was the singular fascination which like the "pull" of a magnetic storm
+on telegraph wires, forced a woman's tender heart under the careless
+foot of a rough creature as indifferent to it as to a flower he
+trampled in his path? Nature might explain it in some unguarded moment
+of self-betrayal,--but Nature is jealous of her secrets,--they have to
+be coaxed out of her in the slow course of centuries. And with all the
+coaxing, the subtle work of her woven threads between the Like and the
+Unlike remains an unsolved mystery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+From California to Sicily is a long way. It used to be considered far
+longer than it is now but in these magical days of aerial and motor
+travelling, distance counts but little,--indeed as almost nothing to
+the mind of any man or woman brought up in America and therefore
+accustomed to "hustle." Morgana Royal had "hustled" the whole business,
+staying in Paris a few days only,--in Rome but two nights; and now here
+she was, as if she had been spirited over sea and land by supernatural
+power, seated in a perfect paradise-garden of flowers and looking out
+on the blue Mediterranean with dreamy eyes in which the lightning flash
+was nearly if not wholly subdued. About quarter of a mile distant, and
+seen through the waving tops of pines and branching oleander, stood the
+house to which the garden belonged,--a "restored" palace of ancient
+days, built of rose-marble on the classic lines of Greek architecture.
+Its "restoration" was not quite finished; numbers of busy workmen were
+employed on the facade and surrounded loggia; and now and again she
+turned to watch them with a touch of invisible impatience in her
+movement. A slight smile sweetened her mouth as she presently perceived
+one figure approaching her,--a lithe, dark, handsome man, who, when he
+drew near enough, lifted his hat with a profoundly marked reverence,
+and, as she extended her hand, raised it to his lips.
+
+"A thousand welcomes, Madama!" he said, speaking in English with a
+scarcely noticeable foreign accent--"Last night I heard you had
+arrived, but could hardly believe the good fortune! You must have
+travelled quickly?"
+
+"Never quickly enough for my mind!" she answered--"The whole world
+moves too slowly for me!"
+
+"You must carry that complaint to the buon Dio!" he said,
+gaily--"Perhaps He will condescend to spin this rolling planet a little
+faster! But in my mind, time flies far too rapidly! I have worked--we
+all have worked--to get this place finished for you, yet much remains
+to be done--"
+
+She interrupted him.
+
+"The interior is quite perfect"--she said--"You have carried out my
+instructions more thoroughly than I imagined could be possible. It is
+now an abode for fairies to live in,--for poets to dream in--"
+
+"For women to love in!" he said, with a sudden warmth in his dark eyes.
+
+She looked at him, laughing.
+
+"You poor Marchese!"--she said--"Still you think of love! I really
+believe Italians keep all the sentiment of le moyen age in their
+hearts,--other peoples are gradually letting it go. You are like a
+child believing in childish things! You imagine I could be happy with a
+lover--or several lovers! To moon all day and embrace all night! Oh
+fie! What a waste of time! And in the end nothing is so fatiguing!" She
+broke off a spray of flowering laurel and hit him with it playfully on
+the hand. "Don't moon or spoon, caro amico! What is it all about? Do I
+leave you nothing on which to write poetry? I find you out in Sicily--a
+delightful poor nobleman with a family history going back to the
+Caesars!--handsome, clever, with beautiful ideas--and I choose and
+commission you to restore and rebuild for me a fairy palace out of a
+half-ruined ancient one, because you have taste and skill, and I know
+you can do everything when money is no object--and you have done, and
+are doing it all perfectly. Why then spoil it by falling in love with
+me? Fie, fie!"
+
+She laughed again and rising, gave him her hand.
+
+"Hold that!" she said--"And while you hold it, tell me of my other
+palace--the one with wings!"
+
+He clasped her small white fingers in his own sun-browned palm and
+walked beside her bare-headed.
+
+"Ah!" And he drew a deep breath--"That is a miracle! What we called
+your 'impossible' plan has been made possible! But who would have
+thought that a woman--"
+
+"Stop there!" she interrupted--"Do not repeat the old gander-cackle of
+barbaric man, who, while owing his every comfort as well as the
+continuance of his race, to woman, denied her every intellectual
+initiative! 'Who would have thought that a woman'--could do anything
+but bend low before a man with grovelling humility saying 'My lord,
+here am I, the waiting vessel of your lordship's pleasure!--possess me
+or I die!' We have changed that beggarly attitude!"
+
+Her eyes flashed,--her voice rang out--the little fingers he held,
+stiffened resolutely in his clasp. He looked at her with a touch of
+anxiety.
+
+"Pardon me!--I did not mean--" he stammered.
+
+In a second her mood changed, and she laughed.
+
+"No!--Of course you 'did not mean' anything, Marchese! You are
+naturally surprised that my 'idea' which was little more than an idea,
+has resolved itself into a scientific fact--but you would have been
+just as surprised if the conception had been that of a man instead of a
+woman. Only you would not have said so!"
+
+She laughed again,--a laugh of real enjoyment,--then went on--
+
+"Now tell me--what of my White Eagle?--what movement?--what speed?"
+
+"Amazing!" and the Marchese lowered his voice to almost a whisper--"I
+hardly dare speak of it!--it is like something supernatural! We have
+carried out your instructions to the letter--the thing is LIVING, in
+all respects save life. I made the test with the fluid you gave me--I
+charged the cells secretly--none of the mechanics saw what I did--and
+when she rose in air they were terrified--"
+
+"Brave souls!" said Morgana, and now she withdrew her hand from his
+grasp--"So you went up alone?"
+
+"I did. The steering was easy--she obeyed the helm,--it was as though
+she were a light yacht in a sea,--wind and tide in her favour. But her
+speed outran every air-ship I have ever known--as also the height to
+which she ascends."
+
+"We will take a trip in her to-morrow pour passer le temps"--said
+Morgana, "You shall choose a place for us to go. Nothing can stop
+us--nothing on earth or in the air!--and nothing can destroy us. I can
+guarantee that!"
+
+Giulio Rivardi gazed at her wonderingly,--his dark deep Southern eyes
+expressed admiration with a questioning doubt commingled.
+
+"You are very sure of yourself"--he said, gently. "Of course one cannot
+but marvel that your brain should have grasped in so short a time what
+men all over the world are still trying to discover--"
+
+"Men are slow animals!" she said, lightly. "They spend years in talking
+instead of in doing. Then again, when one of them really does
+something, all the rest are up in arms against him, and more years are
+wasted in trying to prove him right or wrong. I, as a mere woman, ask
+nobody for an opinion--I risk my own existence--spend my own money--and
+have nothing to do with governments. If I succeed I shall be sought
+after fast enough!--but I do not propose to either give or sell my
+discovery."
+
+"Surely you will not keep it to yourself?"
+
+"Why not? The world is too full of inventions as it is--and it is not
+the least grateful to its inventors or explorers. It would make the
+fool of a film a three-fold millionaire--but it would leave a great
+scientist or a noble thinker to starve. No, no! Let It swing on its own
+round--I shall not enlighten it!"
+
+She walked on, gathering a flower here and there, and he kept pace
+beside her.
+
+"The men who are working here"--he at last ventured to say--"are deeply
+interested. You can hardly expect them not to talk among each other and
+in the outside clubs and meeting-places of the wonderful mechanism on
+which they have been engaged. They have been at it now steadily for
+fifteen months."
+
+"Do I not know it?" And she turned her head to him, smiling, "Have I
+not paid their salaries regularly?--and yours? I do not care how they
+talk or where,--they have built the White Eagle, but they cannot make
+her fly!--not without ME! You were as brave as I thought you would be
+when you decided to fly alone, trusting to the means I gave you and
+which I alone can give!"
+
+She broke off and was silent for a moment, then laying her hand lightly
+on his arm, she added--
+
+"I thank you for your confidence in me! As I have said, you were
+brave!--you must have felt that you risked your life on a
+chance!--nevertheless, for once, you allowed yourself to believe in a
+woman!"
+
+"Not only for once but for always would I so believe!--in SUCH a
+woman--if she would permit me!" he answered in a low tone of intense
+passion. She smiled.
+
+"Ah! The old story! My dear Marchese, do not fret your intellectual
+perception uselessly! Think what we have in store for us!--such wonders
+as none have yet explored,--the mysteries of the high and the low--the
+light and the dark--and in those far-off spaces strewn with stars, we
+may even hear things that no mortal has yet heard--"
+
+"And what is the use of it all?" he suddenly demanded.
+
+She opened her deep blue eyes in amaze.
+
+"The use of it?...  You ask the use of it?--"
+
+"Yes--the use of it--without love!" he answered, his voice shaken with
+a sudden emotion--"Madonna, forgive me!--Listen with patience for one
+moment!--and think of the whole world mastered and possessed--but
+without anyone to love in it--without anyone to love YOU! Suppose you
+could command the elements--suppose every force that science could
+bestow were yours, and yet!--no love for you--no love in yourself for
+anyone--what would be the use of it all? Think, Madonna!"
+
+She raised her delicate eyebrows in a little surprise,--a faint smile
+was on her lips.
+
+"Dear Marchese, I DO think! I HAVE thought!" she answered--"And I have
+observed! Love--such as I imagined it when I was quite a young
+girl--does not exist. The passion called by that name is too petty and
+personal for me. Men have made love to me often--not as prettily
+perhaps as you do!--but in America at least love means dollars! Yes,
+truly! Any man would love my dollars, and take me with them, just
+thrown in! You, perhaps--"
+
+"I should love you if you were quite poor!" he interposed vehemently.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Would you? Don't be angry if I doubt it! If I were 'quite poor' I
+could not have given you your big commission here--this house would not
+have been restored to its former beauty, and the White Eagle would be
+still a bird of the brain and not of the air! No, you very charming
+Marchese!--I should not have the same fascination for you without my
+dollars!--and I may tell you that the only man I ever felt disposed to
+like,--just a little,--is a kind of rude brute who despises my dollars
+and me!"
+
+His brows knitted involuntarily.
+
+"Then there IS some man you like?" he asked, stiffly.
+
+"I'm not sure!" she answered, lightly--"I said I felt 'disposed' to
+like him! But that's only in the spirit of contradiction, because he
+detests ME! And it's a sort of duel between us of sheer
+intellectuality, because he is trying to discover--in the usual slow,
+laborious, calculating methods of man--the very thing I HAVE
+discovered! He's on the verge--But not across it!"
+
+"And so--he may outstrip you?" And the Marchese's eyes glittered with
+sudden anger--"He may claim YOUR discovery as his own?"
+
+Morgana smiled. She was ascending the steps of the loggia, and she
+paused a moment in the full glare of the Sicilian sunshine, her
+wonderful gold hair shining in it with the hue of a daffodil.
+
+"I think not!" she said--"Though of course it depends on the use he
+makes of it. He--like all men--wishes to destroy; I, like all women,
+wish to create!"
+
+One or two of the workmen who were busy polishing the rose-marble
+pilasters of the loggia, here saluted her--she returned their
+salutations with an enchanting smile.
+
+"How delightful it all is!" she said--"I feel the real use of dollars
+at last! This beautiful 'palazzo,' in one of the loveliest places in
+the world--all the delicious flowers running down in garlands to the
+very shore of the sea-and liberty to enjoy life as one wishes to enjoy
+it, without hindrance or argument--without even the hindrance and
+argument of--love!" She laughed, and gave a mirthful upward glance at
+the Marchese's somewhat sullen countenance. "Come and have luncheon
+with me! You are the major-domo for the present--you have engaged the
+servants and you know the run of the house--you must show me everything
+and tell me everything! I have quite a nice chaperone--such a dear old
+English lady 'of title' as they say in the 'Morning Post'--so it's all
+quite right and proper--only she doesn't know a word of Italian and
+very little French. But that's quite British you know!"
+
+She passed, smiling, into the house, and he followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Perhaps there is no lovelier effect in all nature than a Sicilian
+sunset, when the sky is one rich blaze of colour and the sea below
+reflects every vivid hue as in a mirror,--when the very air breathes
+voluptuous indolence, and all the restless work of man seems an
+impertinence rather than a necessity. Morgana, for once in her quick
+restless life, felt the sudden charm of sweet peace and holy
+tranquility, as she sat, or rather reclined at ease in a long lounge
+chair after dinner in her rose-marble loggia facing the sea and
+watching the intense radiance of the heavens burning into the still
+waters beneath. She had passed the afternoon going over her whole house
+and gardens, and to the Marchese Giulio Rivardi had expressed herself
+completely satisfied,--while he, to whom unlimited means had been
+entrusted to carry out her wishes, wondered silently as to the real
+extent of her fortune, and why she should have spent so much in
+restoring a "palazzo" for herself alone. An occasional thought of "the
+only man" she had said she was "disposed" to like, teased his brain;
+but he was not petty-minded or jealous. He was keenly and sincerely
+interested in her intellectual capacity, and he knew, or thought he
+knew, the nature of woman. He watched her now as she reclined, a small
+slim figure in white, with the red glow of the sun playing on the gold
+uptwisted coil of her hair,--a few people of the neighbourhood had
+joined her at dinner, and these were seated about, sipping coffee and
+chatting in the usual frivolous way of after-dinner guests--one or two
+of them were English who had made their home in Sicily,--the others
+were travelling Americans.
+
+"I guess you're pretty satisfied with your location, Miss Royal"--said
+one of these, a pleasant-faced grey-haired man, who for four or five
+years past had wintered in Sicily with his wife, a frail little
+creature always on the verge of the next world--"It would be difficult
+to match this place anywhere! You only want one thing to complete it!"
+
+Morgana turned her lovely eyes indolently towards him over the top of
+the soft feather fan she was waving lightly to and fro.
+
+"One thing? What is that?" she queried.
+
+"A husband!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"The usual appendage!" she said--"To my mind, quite unnecessary, and
+likely to spoil the most perfect environment! Though the Marchese
+Rivardi DID ask me to-day what was the use of my pretty 'palazzo' and
+gardens without love! A sort of ethical conundrum!"
+
+She glanced at Rivardi as she spoke--he was rolling a cigarette in his
+slim brown fingers and his face was impassively intent on his
+occupation.
+
+"Well, that's so!"--and her American friend looked at her kindly--"Even
+a fairy palace and a fairy garden might prove lonesome for one!"
+
+"And boresome for two!" laughed Morgana--"My dear Colonel Boyd! It is
+not every one who is fitted for matrimony--and there exist so many that
+ARE,--eminently fitted--we can surely allow a few exceptions! I am one
+of those exceptions. A husband would be excessively tiresome to me, and
+very much in my way!"
+
+Colonel Boyd laughed heartily.
+
+"You won't always think so!" he said--"Such a charming little woman
+must have a heart somewhere!"
+
+"Oh, yes, dear!" chimed in his fragile invalid wife, "I am sure you
+have a heart!"
+
+Morgana raised herself on her cushions to a sitting posture and looked
+round her with a curious little air or defiance.
+
+"A heart I MUST have!" she said--"otherwise I could not live. It is a
+necessary muscle. But what YOU call 'heart'--and what the dear elusive
+poets write about, is simply brain,--that is to say, an impulsive
+movement of the brain, suggesting the desirability of a particular
+person's companionship--and we elect to call that 'love'! On that mere
+impulse people marry."
+
+"It's a good impulse"--said Colonel Boyd, still smiling broadly--"It
+founds families and continues the race!"
+
+"Ah, yes! But I often wonder why the race should be continued at all!"
+said Morgana--"The time is ripe for a new creation!"
+
+A slow footfall sounded on the garden path, and the tall figure of a
+man clad in the everyday ecclesiastical garb of the Roman Church
+ascended the steps of the loggia.
+
+"Don Aloysius!" quickly exclaimed the Marchese, and every one rose to
+greet the newcomer, Morgana receiving him with a profound reverence. He
+laid his hand on her head with a kindly touch of benediction.
+
+"So the dreamer has come to her dream!" he said, in soft accents--"And
+it has not broken like an air-bubble!--it still floats and shines!" As
+he spoke he courteously saluted all present by a bend of his head,--and
+stood for a moment gazing at the view of the sea and the dying sunset.
+He was a very striking figure of a man--tall, and commanding in air and
+attitude, with a fine face which might be called almost beautiful. The
+features were such as one sees in classic marbles--the full clear eyes
+were set somewhat widely apart under shelving brows that denoted a
+brain with intelligence to use it, and the smile that lightened his
+expression as he looked from, the sea to his fair hostess was of a
+benignant sweetness.
+
+"Yes"--he continued--"you have realised your vision of loveliness, have
+you not? Our friend Giulio Rivardi has carried out all your plans?"
+
+"Everything is perfect!" said Morgana--"Or will be when it is finished.
+The workmen still have things to do."
+
+"All workmen always have things to do!" said Don Aloysius,
+tranquilly--"And nothing is ever finished! And you, dear child!--you
+are happy?"
+
+She flushed and paled under his deep, steady gaze.
+
+"I--I think so!" she murmured--"I ought to be!"
+
+The priest smiled and after a pause took the chair which the Marchese
+Rivardi offered him. The other guests in the loggia looked at him with
+interest, fascinated by his grave charm of manner. Morgana resumed her
+seat.
+
+"I ought to be happy"--she said--"And of course I am--or I shall be!"
+
+"'Man never is but always to be blest'!" quoted Colonel Boyd--"And
+woman the same! I have been telling this lady, reverend father, that
+maybe she will find her 'palazzo' a bit lonesome without some one to
+share its pleasures."
+
+Don Aloysius looked round with a questioning glance.
+
+"What does she herself think about it?" he asked, mildly.
+
+"I have not thought at all"--said Morgana, quickly, "I can always fill
+it with friends. No end of people are glad to winter in Sicily."
+
+"But will such 'friends' care for YOU or YOUR happiness?" suggested the
+Marchese, pointedly.
+
+Morgana laughed.
+
+"Oh, no, I do not expect that! Nowadays no one really cares for anybody
+else's happiness but their own. Besides, I shall be much too busy to
+want company. I'm bent on all sorts of discoveries, you know!--I want
+to dive 'deeper than ever plummet sounded'!"
+
+"You will only find deeper depths!" said Don Aloysius, slowly--"And in
+the very deepest depth of all is God!"
+
+There was a sudden hush as he spoke. He went on in gentle accents.
+
+"How wonderful it is that He should be THERE,--and yet HERE! No one
+need 'dive deep' to find Him. He is close to us as our very breathing!
+Ah!" and he sighed--"I am sorry for all the busy 'discoverers'--they
+will never arrive at the end,--and meanwhile they miss the clue--the
+little secret by the way!"
+
+Another pause ensued. Then Morgana spoke, in a very quiet and
+submissive tone.
+
+"Dear Don Aloysius, you are a 'religious' as they say--and naturally
+you mistrust all seekers of science--science which is upsetting to your
+doctrine."
+
+Aloysius raised a deprecating hand.
+
+"My child, there is no science that can upset the Source of all
+science! The greatest mathematician that lives did not institute
+mathematics--he only copies the existing Divine law."
+
+"That is perfectly true"--said the Marchese Rivardi--"But la Signora
+Royal means that the dogma of the Church is in opposition to scientific
+discovery--"
+
+"I have not found it so"--said Don Aloysius, tranquilly--"We have
+believed in what you call your 'wireless telephony'--for
+centuries;--when the Sanctus bell rings at Mass, we think and hope a
+message from Our Lord comes to every worshipper whose soul is 'in tune'
+with the heavenly current; that is one of your 'scientific
+discoveries'--and there are hundreds of others which the Church has
+incorporated through a mystic fore-knowledge and prophetic instinct.
+No--I find nothing upsetting in science,--the only students who are
+truly upset both physically and morally, are they who seek to discover
+God while denying His existence."
+
+There followed a silence. The group in the loggia seemed for the moment
+mesmerised by the priest's suave calm voice, steady eyes and noble
+expression, A bell rang slowly and sweetly--a call to prayer in some
+not far distant monastery, and the first glimmer of the stars began to
+sparkle faintly in the darkening heavens. A little sigh from Morgana
+stirred the stillness.
+
+"If one could always live in this sort of mood!" she suddenly
+exclaimed--"This lovely peace in the glow of the sunset and the perfume
+of the flowers!--and you, Don Aloysius, talking beautiful things!--why
+then, one would be perpetually happy and good! But such living would
+not be life!--one must go with the time--"
+
+Don Aloysius smiled indulgently.
+
+"Must one? Is it so vitally necessary? If I might take the liberty to
+go on speaking I would tell you a story--a mere tradition--but it might
+weary you--"
+
+A general chorus of protest from all present assured him of their
+eagerness to hear.
+
+"As if YOU could weary anybody!" Morgana said. "You never do--only you
+have an effect upon ME which is not very flattering to my
+self-love!--you make me feel so small!"
+
+You ARE small, physically"--said Don Aloysius--Do you mind that? Small
+things are always sweetest!"
+
+She flushed, and turned her head away as she caught the Marchese
+Rivardi's eyes fixed upon her.
+
+"You should not make pretty compliments to a woman, reverend father!"
+she said, lightly--"It is not your vocation!"
+
+His grave face brightened and he laughed with real heartiness.
+
+"Dear lady, what do you know of my vocation?" he asked--"Will you teach
+it to me? No!--I am sure you will not try! Listen now!--as you all give
+me permission--let me tell you of certain people who once 'went with
+the time'--and decided to stop en route, and are still at the
+stopping-place. Perhaps some of you who travel far and often, have
+heard of the Brazen City?"
+
+Each one looked at the other enquiringly, but with no responsive result.
+
+"Those who visit the East know of it"--went on Aloysius--"And some say
+they have seen a glimpse of its shining towers and cupolas in the far
+distance. However this may be, tradition declares that it exists, and
+that it was founded by St. John, the 'beloved disciple.' You will
+recall that when Our Lord was asked when and how John should die He
+answered--'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?'
+So--as we read--the rumour went forth that John was the one disciple
+for whom there should be no death. And now--to go on with the
+legend--it is believed by many, that deep in the as yet unexplored
+depths of the deserts of Egypt--miles and miles over rolling sand-waves
+which once formed the bed of a vast ocean, there stands a great city
+whose roofs and towers are seemingly of brass,--a city barricaded and
+built in by walls of brass and guarded by gates of brass. Here dwells a
+race apart--a race of beautiful human creatures who have discovered the
+secret of perpetual youth and immortality on this earth. They have seen
+the centuries come and go,--the flight of time touches them not,--they
+only await the day when the whole world will be free to them--that
+'world to come' which is not made for the 'many,' but the 'few.' All
+the discoveries of our modern science are known to them--our inventions
+are their common everyday appliances--and on the wings of air and rays
+of light they hear and know all that goes on in every country. Our wars
+and politics are no more to them than the wars and politics of ants in
+ant-hills,--they have passed beyond all trivialities such as these.
+They have discovered the secret of life's true enjoyment--and--they
+enjoy!"
+
+"That's a fine story if true!" said Colonel Boyd--
+
+"But all the same, it must be dull work living shut up in a city with
+nothing to do,--doomed to be young and to last for ever!"
+
+Morgana had listened intently,--her eyes were brilliant.
+
+"Yes--I think it would be dull after a couple of hundred years or
+so"--she said--"One would have tested all life's possibilities and
+pleasures by then."
+
+"I am not so sure of that!" put in the Marchese Rivardi--"With youth
+nothing could become tiresome--youth knows no ennui."
+
+Some of the other listeners to the conversation laughed.
+
+"I cannot quite agree to that"--said a lady who had not yet
+spoken--"Nowadays the very children are 'bored' and ever looking for
+something new--it is just as if the world were 'played out'--and
+another form of planet expected."
+
+"That is where we retain the vitality of our faith--" said Don
+Aloysius--"We expect--we hope! We believe in an immortal progress
+towards an ever Higher Good."
+
+"But I think even a soul may grow tired!" said Morgana, suddenly--"so
+tired that even the Highest Good may seem hardly worth possessing!"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Povera figlia!" murmured Aloysius, hardly above his breath,--but she
+caught the whisper, and smiled.
+
+"I am too analytical and pessimistic," she said--"Let us all go for a
+ramble among the flowers and down to the sea! Nature is the best
+talker, for the very reason that she has no speech!"
+
+The party broke up in twos and threes and left the loggia for the
+garden. Rivardi remained a moment behind, obeying a slight sign from
+Aloysius.
+
+"She is not happy!" said the priest--"With all her wealth, and all her
+gifts of intelligence she is not happy, nor is she satisfied. Do you
+not find it so?"
+
+"No woman is happy or satisfied till love has kissed her on the mouth
+and eyes!" answered Rivardi, with a touch of passion in his
+voice,--"But who will convince her of that? She is satisfied with her
+beautiful surroundings,--all the work I have designed for her has
+pleased her,--she has found no fault--"
+
+"And she has paid you loyally!" interpolated Aloysius--"Do not forget
+that! She has made your fortune. And no doubt she expects you to stop
+at that and go no further in an attempt to possess herself as well as
+her millions!"
+
+The Marchese flushed hotly under the quiet gaze of the priest's steady
+dark eyes.
+
+"It is a great temptation," went on Aloysius, gently--"But you must
+resist it, my son! I know what it would mean to you--the restoration of
+your grand old home--that home which received a Roman Emperor in the
+long ago days of history and which presents now to your eyes so
+desolate a picture with its crumbling walls and decaying gardens
+beautiful in their wild desolation!--yes, I know all this!--I know how
+you would like to rehabilitate the ancient family and make the
+venerable genealogical tree sprout forth into fresh leaves and branches
+by marriage with this strange little creature whose vast wealth sets
+her apart in such loneliness,--but I doubt the wisdom or the honour of
+such a course--I also doubt whether she would make a fitting wife for
+you or for any man!"
+
+The Marchese raised his eyebrows expressively with the slightest shrug
+of his shoulders.
+
+"You may doubt that of every modern woman!" he said--"Few are really
+'fitting' for marriage nowadays. They want something
+different--something new!--God alone knows what they want!"
+
+Don Aloysius sighed.
+
+"Aye! God alone knows! And God alone will decide what to give them!"
+
+"It must be something more 'sensational' than husband and children!"
+said Rivardi a trifle bitterly--"Only a primitive woman will care for
+these!"
+
+The priest laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Come, come! Do not be cynical, my son! I think with you that if
+anything can find an entrance to a woman's soul it is love--but the
+woman must be capable of loving. That is the difficulty with the little
+millionairess Royal. She is not capable!"
+
+He uttered the last words slowly and with emphasis.
+
+Rivardi gave him a quick searching glance.
+
+"You seem to know that as a certainty"--he said, "How and why do you
+know it?"
+
+Aloysius raised his eyes and looked straight ahead of him with a
+curious, far-off, yet searching intensity.
+
+"I cannot tell you how or why"--he answered--"You would not believe me
+if I told you that sometimes in this wonderful world of ours, beings
+are born who are neither man nor woman, and who partake of a nature
+that is not so much human as elemental and ethereal--or might one not
+almost say, atmospheric? That is, though generated of flesh and blood,
+they are not altogether flesh and blood, but possess other untested and
+unproved essences mingled in their composition, of which as yet we can
+form no idea. We grope in utter ignorance of the greatest of
+mysteries--Life!--and with all our modern advancement, we are utterly
+unable to measure or to account for life's many and various
+manifestations. In the very early days of imaginative prophecy, the
+'elemental' nature of certain beings was accepted by men accounted wise
+in their own time,--in the long ago discredited assertions of the Count
+de Gabalis and others of his mystic cult,--and I am not entirely sure
+that there does not exist some ground for their beliefs. Life is
+many-sided;--humanity can only be one facet of the diamond."
+
+Giulio Rivardi had listened with surprised attention.
+
+"You seem to imply then"--he said--"that this rich woman, Morgana
+Royal, is hardly a woman at all?--a kind of sexless creature incapable
+of love?"
+
+"Incapable of the usual kind of so-called 'love'--yes!" answered
+Aloysius--"But of love in other forms I can say nothing, for I know
+nothing!--she may be capable of a passion deep and mysterious as life
+itself. But come!--we might talk all night and arrive no closer to the
+solving of this little feminine problem! You are fortunate in your
+vocation of artist and designer, to have been chosen by her to carry
+out her conceptions of structural and picturesque beauty--let the
+romance stay there!--and do not try to become the husband of a Sphinx!"
+
+He smiled, resting his hand on the Marchese's shoulder with easy
+familiarity.
+
+"See where she stands!" he continued,--and they both looked towards the
+beautiful flower-bordered terrace at the verge of the gardens
+overhanging the sea where for the moment Morgana stood alone, a small
+white figure bathed in the deep rose afterglow of the sunken sun--"Like
+a pearl dropped in a cup of red wine!--ready to dissolve and disappear!"
+
+His voice had a strange thrill in it, and Giulio looked at him
+curiously.
+
+"You admire her very much, my father!" he said, with a touch of
+delicate irony in his tone.
+
+"I do, my son!" responded Aloysius, composedly, "But only as a poor
+priest may--at a distance!"
+
+The Marchese glanced at him again quickly,--almost suspiciously--and
+seemed about to say something further, but checked himself,--and the
+two walked on to join their hostess, side by side together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Early dawn peered through the dark sky like the silvery light of a pale
+lamp carried by an advancing watchman,--and faintly illumined the
+outline of a long, high, vastly extending wooden building which, at
+about a mile distant from Morgana's "palazzo" ran parallel with the
+sea-shore. The star-sparkle of electric lamps within showed it to be
+occupied--and the murmur of men's voices and tinkle of working tools
+suggested that the occupants were busy. The scarcely visible sea made
+pleasant little kissing murmurs on the lip-edges of the sand, and
+Nature, drowsing in misty space, seemed no more than the formless void
+of the traditional beginning of things.
+
+Outside the building which, by its shape, though but dimly defined
+among shadows, was easily recognisable as a huge aerodrome, the tall
+figure of Giulio Rivardi paced slowly up and down like a sentinel on
+guard. He, whose Marquisate was inherited from many noble Sicilian
+houses renowned in Caesar's day, apparently found as much satisfaction
+in this occupation as any warrior of a Roman Legion might have
+experienced in guarding the tent of his Emperor,--and every now and
+then he lifted his eyes to the sky with a sense of impatience at the
+slowness of the sun's rising. In his mind he reviewed the whole chapter
+of events which during the past three years had made him the paid
+vassal of a rich woman's fancy--his entire time taken up, and all the
+resources of his inventive and artistic nature (which were
+exceptionally great) drawn upon for the purpose of carrying out designs
+which at first seemed freakish and impossible, but which later
+astonished him by the extraordinary scientific acumen they displayed,
+as well as by their adaptability to the forces of nature. Then, the
+money!--the immense sums which this strange creature, Morgana Royal,
+had entrusted to him!--and with it all, the keen, business aptitude she
+had displayed, knowing to a centime how much she had spent, though
+there seemed no limit to how much she yet intended to spend! He looked
+back to the time he had first seen her, when on visiting Sicily
+apparently as an American tourist only, she had taken a fancy to a
+ruined "palazzo" once an emperor's delight, but crumbling slowly away
+among its glorious gardens, and had purchased the whole thing then and
+there. Her guide to the ruins at that period had been Don Aloysius, a
+learned priest, famous for his archaeological knowledge--and it was
+through Don Aloysius that he, the Marchese Rivardi, had obtained the
+commission to restore to something of its pristine grace and beauty the
+palace of ancient days. And now everything was done, or nearly done;
+but much more than the "palazzo" had been undertaken and completed, for
+the lady of many millions had commanded an air-ship to be built for her
+own personal use and private pleasure with an aerodrome for its safe
+keeping and anchorage. This airship was the crux of the whole business,
+for the men employed to build it were confident that it would never
+fly, and laughed with one another as they worked to carry out a woman's
+idea and a woman's design. How could it fly without an engine?--they
+very sensibly demanded,--for engine there was none! However, they were
+paid punctually and most royally for their labours; and when, despite
+their ominous predictions, the ship was released on her trial trip,
+manipulated by Giulio Rivardi, who ascended in her alone, sailing the
+ship with an ease and celerity hitherto unprecedented, they were more
+scared than enthusiastic. Surely some devil was in it!--for how could
+the thing fly without any apparent force to propel it? How was it that
+its enormous wings spread out on either side as by self-volition and
+moved rhythmically like the wings of a bird in full flight? Every man
+who had worked at the design was more or less mystified. They had,
+according to plan and instructions received, "plumed" the airship for
+electricity in a new and curious manner, but there was no battery to
+generate a current. Two small boxes or chambers, made of some
+mysterious metal which would not "fuse" under the strongest heat, were
+fixed, one at either end of the ship;--these had been manufactured
+secretly in another country and sent to Sicily by Morgana herself,--but
+so far, they contained nothing. They seemed unimportant--they were
+hardly as large as an ordinary petrol-can holding a gallon. When
+Rivardi had made a trial ascent he had inserted in each of these boxes
+a cylindrical tube made to fit an interior socket as a candle fits into
+a candle-stick,--all the workmen watched him, waiting for a revelation,
+but he made none. He was only particular and precise as to the firm
+closing down of the boxes when the tubes were in. And then in a few
+minutes the whole machine began to palpitate noiselessly like a living
+thing with a beating heart,--and to the amazement and almost fear of
+all who witnessed what seemed to be a miracle, the ship sprang up like
+a bird springing from the ground, and soared free and away into space,
+its vast white wings cleaving the air with a steady rise and fall of
+rhythmic power. Once aloft she sailed in level flight, apparently at
+perfect ease--and after several rapid "runs," and circlings, descended
+slowly and gracefully, landing her pilot without shock or jar. He was
+at once surrounded and was asked a thousand questions which it was
+evident he could not answer.
+
+"How can I tell!" he replied, to all interrogations. "The secret is the
+secret of a woman!"
+
+A woman! Man's pretty toy!--man's patient slave! How should a woman
+master any secret! Engineers and mechanics laughed scornfully and
+shrugged their shoulders--yet--yet--the great airship stared them in
+the face as a thing created,--a thing of such power and possibility as
+seemed wholly incredible. And now the creator,--the woman--had
+arrived,--the woman whose rough designs on paper had been carefully
+followed and elaborated into actual shape;--and there was a tense state
+of expectation among all the workers awaiting her presence. Meanwhile
+the lantern-gleam in the sky broadened and the web of mist which veiled
+the sea began to lift and Giulio Rivardi, pacing to and fro, halted
+every now and then to look in the direction of a path winding downward
+from the mainland to the shore, in watchful expectation of seeing an
+elfin figure, more spiritlike than mortal, floating towards him through
+the dividing vapours of the morning. The words of Don Aloysius haunted
+him strangely, though his common sense sharply rejected the fantastic
+notions to which they had given rise. She,--Morgana Royal,--was "not
+capable" of love, the priest had implied,--and yet, at times--only at
+times,--she seemed eminently lovable. At times,--again, only at
+times--he was conscious of a sweeping passion of admiration for her
+that well-nigh robbed him of his self-control. But a strong sense of
+honour held him in check--he never forgot that he was her paid employe,
+and that her wealth was so enormous that any man presuming too
+personally upon her indulgence could hardly be exonerated from ulterior
+sordid aims. And while he mused, somewhat vexedly, on all the
+circumstances of his position, the light widened in the heavens,
+showing the very faintest flush of rose in the east as an indication of
+the coming sun. He lifted his eyes....
+
+"At last!" he exclaimed, with relief, as he saw a small gliding shadow
+among shadows approaching him,--he figure of Morgana so wrapped in a
+grey cloak and hood as to almost seem part of the slowly dispersing
+mists of the morning. She pushed back the hood as she came near,
+showing a small eager white face in which the eyes glittered with an
+almost unearthly brightness.
+
+"I have slept till now,"--she said--"Imagine!--all night through
+without waking! So lazy of me!--but the long rest has done me good and
+I'm ready for anything! Are you? You look very solemn and morose!--like
+a warrior in bronze! Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of"--he replied--"The men are finishing some small
+detail of ornament. I have only looked in to tell them you are coming."
+
+"And are they pleased?"
+
+"Madama, they are not of a class to be either pleased or
+displeased"--he said--"They are instructed to perform certain work, and
+they perform it. In all that they have been doing for you, according to
+your orders, I truly think they are more curious than interested."
+
+A streak of rose and silver flared through the sky flushing the pallor
+of Morgana's face as she lifted it towards him, smiling.
+
+"Quite natural!" she said--"No man is ever 'interested' in woman's
+work, but he is always 'curious.' Woman is a many-cornered maze--and
+man is always peeping round one corner or another in the hope to
+discover her--but he never does!"
+
+Rivardi gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
+
+"Never?" he queried.
+
+"Never!" she affirmed, emphatically--"Don't be sarcastic, amico!--even
+in this dim morning light I can see the scornful curve of your upper
+lip!--you are really very good-looking, you know!--and you imply the
+same old Garden of Eden story of man giving away woman as a wholly
+incomprehensible bad job! Adam flung her back as a reproach to her
+Creator--'the woman thou gavest me;'--oh, that woman and that apple!
+But he had to confess 'I did eat.' He always eats,--he eats everything
+woman can give him--he will even eat HER if he gets the chance!" She
+laughed and pointed to the brightening sky. "See? ''Tis almost
+morning!' as Shakespeare's Juliet remarked--but I would not 'have thee
+gone'--not unless I go also. Whither shall we fly?"
+
+He looked at her, moved as he often was by a thrill of admiration and
+wonder.
+
+"It is for you to decide"--he answered--"You know best the
+possibilities-and the risks---"
+
+"I know the possibilities perfectly,"--she said--"But I know nothing of
+risks--there are none. This is our safety"--and she drew out from the
+folds of her cloak, two small packets of cylindrical form--"This
+emanation of Nature's greatest force will keep us going for a year if
+needful! Oh man!--I do not mean YOU particularly, but man
+generally!--why could you not light on this little, little clue!--why
+was it left to a woman! Come!--let us see the White Eagle in its
+nest,--it shall spread its wings and soar to-day--we will give it full
+liberty!"
+
+The dawn was spreading in threads of gold and silver and blue all over
+the heavens, and the sea flushed softly under the deepening light, as
+she went towards the aerodrome, he walking slowly by her side.
+
+"Are you so sure?" he said--"Will you not risk your life in this
+attempt?"
+
+She stopped abruptly.
+
+"My life? What is it? The life of a midge in the sun! It is no good to
+me unless I do something with it! I would live for ever if I
+could!--here, on this dear little ball of Earth--I do not want a better
+heaven. The heaven which the clergy promise us is so remarkably
+unattractive! But I run no risk of losing my life or yours in our
+aerial adventures; we carry the very essence of vitality with us.
+Come!--I want to see my flying palace! When I was a small child I used
+to feed my fancy on the 'Arabian Nights,' and most dearly did I love
+the story of Aladdin and his palace that was transported through the
+air. I used to say 'I will have a flying palace myself!' And now I have
+realised my dream."
+
+"That remains to be proved"--said Rivardi--"With all our work we may
+not have entirely carried out your plan."
+
+"If not, it will HAVE to be carried out"--returned Morgana,
+tranquilly--"There is no reason, moral or scientific, why it should NOT
+be carried out--we have all the forces of Nature on our side."
+
+He was silent, and accompanied her as she walked to the aerodrome and
+entered it. There were half a dozen or more men within, all
+working--but they ceased every movement as they saw her,--while she, on
+her part, scarcely seemed to note their presence. Her eyes were
+uplifted and fixed on a vast, smooth oblong object, like the body of a
+great bird with shut wings, which swung from the roof of the aerodrome
+and swayed lightly to and fro as though impelled by some mysterious
+breathing force. Morgana's swift glance travelled from its one end to
+the other with a flash of appreciation, while at the same time she
+received the salutations of all the men who advanced to greet her.
+
+"You have done well, my friends!"--she said, speaking in fluent
+French--"This beautiful creature you have made seems a perfect
+thing,--from the OUTSIDE. What of the interior?"
+
+A small, dark, intelligent looking man, in evident command of the rest,
+smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ah, Signora! It is as you commanded!" he answered--"It is
+beautiful--like a chrysalis for a butterfly. But a butterfly has the
+advantage--it comes to LIFE, to use its wings!"
+
+"Quite true, Monsieur Gaspard!" and Morgana gave him a smile as sunny
+as his own. "But what is life? Is it not a composition of many
+elements? And should we not learn to combine such elements to vitalise
+our 'White Eagle'? It is possible!"
+
+"With God all things are possible!" quoted the Marchese Rivardi--"But
+with man--"
+
+"We are taught that God made man 'in His image. In the image of God
+created He him.' If this is true, all things should be possible to
+man"--said Morgana, quietly--"To man,--and to that second thought of
+the Creator--Woman! And we mustn't forget that second thoughts are
+best!" She laughed, while the man called Gaspard stared at her and
+laughed also for company. "Now let me see how I shall be housed in
+air!" and with very little assistance she climbed into the great
+bird-shaped vessel through an entrance so deftly contrived that it was
+scarcely visible,--an entrance which closed almost hermetically when
+the ship was ready to start, air being obtained through other channels.
+
+Once inside it was easy to believe in Fairyland. Not a scrap of any
+sort of mechanism could be seen. There were two exquisitely furnished
+saloons--one a kind of boudoir or drawing-room where everything that
+money could buy or luxury suggest as needful or ornamental was
+collected and arranged with thoughtful selection and perfect taste. A
+short passage from these apartments led at one end to some small,
+daintily fitted sleeping-rooms beyond,--at the other was the steering
+cabin and accommodation for the pilot and observer. The whole interior
+was lined with what seemed to be a thick rose-coloured silk of a
+singularly smooth and shining quality, but at a sign from Morgana,
+Rivardi and Gaspard touched some hidden spring which caused this
+interior covering to roll up completely, thus disclosing a strange and
+mysterious "installation" beneath. Every inch of wall-space was fitted
+with small circular plates of some thin, shining substance, set close
+together so that their edges touched, and in the center of each plate
+or disc was a tiny white knob resembling the button of an ordinary
+electric bell. There seemed to be at least two or three thousand of
+these discs--seen all together in a close mass they somewhat resembled
+the "suckers" on the tentacles of a giant octopus. Morgana, seating
+herself in an easy chair of the richly carpeted "drawing-room" of her
+"air palace," studied every line, turn and configuration of this
+extraordinary arrangement with a keenly observant and criticising eye.
+The Marchese Rivardi and Gaspard watched her expression anxiously.
+
+"You are satisfied?" asked Rivardi, at last--"It is as you planned?"
+
+She turned towards Gaspard with a smile.
+
+"What do YOU think about it?" she queried--"You are an expert in modern
+scientific work--you understand many of the secrets of natural
+force--what do YOU think?"
+
+"Madama, I think as I have always thought!--a body without soul!"
+
+"What IS soul?" she said--"Is it not breath?--the breath of life? Is it
+not said that God 'made man of the dust of the ground and breathed into
+his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul!' And what
+is the breath of life? Is it not composed of such elements as are in
+the universe and which we may all discover if we will, and use to our
+advantage? You cannot deny this! Come, Marchese!--and you, Monsieur
+Gaspard! Call to them below to set this Eagle free; we will fly into
+the sunrise for an hour or two,--no farther, as we are not provisioned."
+
+"Madama!" stammered Gaspard--"I am not prepared--"
+
+"You are frightened, my friend!" and Morgana smiled, laying her little
+white hand soothingly on his arm--"But if I tell you there is no cause
+for fear, will you not believe me? Do you not think I love my own life?
+Oh yes, I love it so much that I seek to prolong it, not risk it by
+sudden loss. Nor would I risk YOUR life--or HIS!" and she looked
+towards Rivardi--"HE is not frightened--he will come with me wherever I
+go! Now, Monsieur Gaspard, see! Here is our breath of life!" And she
+held up before his eyes the two cylindrically shaped packages she had
+previously shown to Rivardi--"The Marchese has already had some
+experience of it"--here she unfastened the wrappings of the packages,
+and took out two tubes made of some metallic substance which shone like
+purest polished gold--"I will fix these in myself--will you open the
+lower end chamber first, please?"
+
+Silently the two men obeyed her gesture and opened the small
+compartment fixed at what might be called the hull end of the air-ship.
+The interior was seen to be lined with the same round discs which
+covered the walls of the vessel, every disc closely touching its
+neighbour. With extreme caution and delicacy Morgana set one of the
+tubes she held upright in the socket made to receive it, and as she did
+this, fine sharp, needle like flashes of light broke from it in a
+complete circle, filling the whole receptacle with vibrating rays which
+instantly ran round each disc, and glittered in and out among them like
+a stream of quicksilver. As soon as this manifestation occurred,
+Morgana beckoned to her two assistants to shut the compartment. They
+did so with scarcely an effort, yet it closed down with a silent force
+and tenacity that suggested some enormous outward pressure, yet
+pressure there seemed none. And now a sudden throbbing movement
+pulsated through the vessel--its huge folded wings stirred.
+
+"Quick! Tell them below to lose no time! Open the shed and let her
+rise!--when the contact is once established there will not be half a
+second to spare!"
+
+Hurriedly the man Gaspard, though obviously terrified, shouted the
+necessary orders, while Morgana went to the other end of the ship where
+Rivardi opened for her the second compartment into which she fixed the
+second tube. Once again the circular flashes broke out, but this time
+directly the compartment was closed down, the shining stream of light
+was seen to run rapidly and completely round the interior of the
+vessel, touching every disc that lined the walls as with the sparkling
+point of a jewel. The wings of the ship palpitated as with life and
+began to spread open....
+
+"Let her go!" cried Morgana--"Away to your place, pilot!" and she waved
+a commanding hand as Rivardi sprang to the steering gear--"Hold her
+fast! ...  Keep her steady! Straight towards the sun-rise!"
+
+As she spoke, a wonderful thing happened--every disc that lined the
+interior of the ship started throbbing like a pulse,--every little
+white knob in the centre of each disc vibrated with an extraordinary
+rapidity of motion which dazzled the eyes like the glittering of
+swiftly falling snow, and Gaspard, obeying Morgana's sign, drew down at
+once all the rose silk covering which completely hid the strange
+mechanism from view. There was absolutely no noise in this intense
+vibration,--and there was no start or jar, or any kind of difficulty,
+when the air-ship, released from bondage, suddenly rose, and like an
+actual living bird sprang through the vast opening gateway of the
+aerodrome and as it sprang, spread out its wings as though by its own
+volition. In one moment, it soared straight upright, far far into
+space, and the men who were left behind stood staring amazedly after
+it, themselves looking no more than tiny black pin-heads down
+below,--then, with a slow diving grace it righted itself as it were,
+and as if it had of its own will selected the particular current of air
+on which to sail. It travelled with a steady swiftness in absolute
+silence,--its great wings moved up and down with a noiseless power and
+rhythm for which there seemed no possible explanation,--and Morgana
+turned her face, now delicately flushed with triumph, on the pale and
+almost breathless Gaspard, smiling as she looked at him, her eyes
+questioning his. He seemed stricken dumb with astonishment,--his lips
+moved, but no word issued from them.
+
+"You believe me now, do you not?" she said--"We have nothing further to
+do but to steer. The force we use re-creates itself as it works--it
+cannot become exhausted. To slow down and descend to earth one need
+only open the compartments at either end--then the vibration grows less
+and less, and like a living creature the 'White Eagle' sinks gently to
+rest. You see there is no cause for fear!"
+
+While she yet spoke, the light of the newly risen sun bathed her in its
+golden glory, the long dazzling beams filtering through mysterious
+apertures inserted cunningly in the roof of the vessel and mingling
+with the roseate hues of the silken sheathing that covered its walls.
+So fired with light she looked ethereal--a very spirit of air or of
+flame; and Rivardi, just able to see her from his steering place, began
+to think there was some truth an the strange words of Don
+Aloysius--"Sometimes in this wonderful world of ours beings are born
+who are neither man nor woman and who partake of a nature that is not
+so much human as elemental--or, might not one almost say atmospheric?"
+
+At the moment Morgana seemed truly "atmospheric"--a small creature so
+fine and fair as to almost suggest an evanescent form about to melt
+away in mist. Some sudden thrill of superstitious fear moved Gaspard to
+make the sign of the cross and mutter an "Ave,"--Morgana heard him and
+smiled kindly.
+
+"I am not an evil spirit, my friend!" she said--"You need not exorcise
+me! I am nothing but a student with a little more imagination than is
+common, and in the moving force which carries our ship along I am only
+using a substance which, as our scientists explain, 'has an exceptional
+capacity for receiving the waves of energy emanating from the sun and
+giving them off.' On the 'giving off' of those waves we move--it is all
+natural and easy, and, like every power existent in the universe, is
+meant for our comprehension and use. You cannot say you feel any sense
+of danger?--we are sailing with greater steadiness than any ship at
+sea--there is scarcely any consciousness of movement--and without
+looking out and down, we should not realise we are so far from earth.
+Indeed we are going too far now--we do not realize our speed."
+
+"Too far!" said Gaspard, nervously--"Madama, if we go too far we may
+also go too high--we may not be able to breathe!..."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"That is a very remote possibility!" she said--"The waves of energy
+which bear us along are concerned in our own life-supply,--they make
+our air to breathe--our heat to warm. All the same it is time we
+returned--we are not provisioned."
+
+She called to Rivardi, and he, with the slightest turn of the wheel,
+altered the direction in which the air-ship moved, so that it travelled
+back again on the route by which it had commenced its flight. Soon,
+very soon, the dainty plot of earth, looking no more than a gay
+flower-bed, where Morgana's palazzo was situated, appeared below--and
+then, acting on instructions, Gaspard opened the compartments at either
+end of the vessel. The vibrating rays within dwindled by slow
+degrees--their light became less and less intense--their vibration less
+powerful,--till very gradually with a perfectly beautiful motion
+expressing absolute grace and lightness the vessel descended towards
+the aerodrome it had lately left, and all the men who were waiting for
+its return gave a simultaneous shout of astonishment and admiration, as
+it sank slowly towards them, folding its wings as it came with the
+quiet ease of a nesting-bird flying home. So admirably was the distance
+measured between itself and the great shed of its local habitation,
+that it glided into place as though it had eyes to see its exact
+whereabouts, and came to a standstill within a few seconds of its
+arrival. Morgana descended, and her two companions followed. The other
+men stood silent, visibly inquisitive yet afraid to express their
+curiosity. Morgana's eyes flashed over them all with a bright,
+half-laughing tolerance.
+
+"I thank you, my friends!" she said--"You have done well the work I
+entrusted you to do under the guidance of the Marchese Rivardi, and you
+can now judge for yourselves the result It mystifies you I can see! You
+think it is a kind of 'black magic'? Not so!--unless all our modern
+science is 'black magic' as well, born of the influence of those evil
+spirits who, as we are told in tradition, descended in rebellion from
+heaven and lived with the daughters of men! From these strange lovers
+sprang a race of giants,--symbolical I think of the birth of the
+sciences, which mingle in their composition the active elements of good
+and evil. You have built this airship of mine on lines which have never
+before been attempted;--you have given it wings which are plumed like
+the wings of a bird, not with quills, but with channels many and
+minute, to carry the runlets of the 'emanation' from the substance held
+in the containers at either end of the vessel,--its easy flight
+therefore should not surprise you. Briefly--we have filled a piece of
+mechanism with the composition or essence of Life!--that is the only
+answer I can give to your enquiring looks!--let it be enough!"
+
+"But, Madama"--ventured Gaspard--"that composition or essence of
+Life!--what is it?"
+
+There was an instant's silence. Every man's head craned forward eagerly
+to hear the reply. Morgana smiled strangely.
+
+"That," she said--"is MY secret!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+"And now you have attained your object, what is the use of it?" said
+Don Aloysius.
+
+The priest was pacing slowly up and down the old half-ruined cloister
+of an old half-ruined monastery, and beside his stately, black-robed
+figure moved the small aerial form of Morgana, clad in summer garments
+of pure white, her golden head uncovered to the strong Sicilian
+sunshine which came piercing in sword-like rays through the arches of
+the cloister, and filtered among the clustering leaves which hung in
+cool twining bunches from every crumbling grey pillar of stone.
+
+"What is the use of it?" he repeated, his calm eyes resting gravely on
+the little creature gliding sylph-like beside him. "Suppose your
+invention out-reaped every limit of known possibility--suppose your
+air-ship to be invulnerable, and surpassing in speed and safety
+everything ever experienced,--suppose it could travel to heights
+unimaginable, what then? Suppose even that you could alight on another
+star--another world than this--what purpose is served?--what peace is
+gained?--what happens?"
+
+Morgana stopped abruptly in her walk beside him.
+
+"I have not worked for peace or happiness,"--she said and there was a
+thrill of sadness in her voice--"because to my mind neither peace nor
+happiness exist. From all we can see, and from the little we can learn,
+I think the Maker of the universe never meant us to be happy or
+peaceful. All Nature is at strife with itself, incessantly labouring
+for such attainment as can hardly be won,--all things seem to be
+haunted by fear and sorrow. And yet it seems to me that there are
+remedies for most of our evils in the very composition of the
+elements--if we were not ignorant and stupid enough to discourage our
+discoverers on the verge of discovery. My application of a certain
+substance, known to scientists, but scarcely understood, is an attempt
+to solve the problem of swift aerial motion by light and heat--light
+and heat being the chiefest supports of life. To use a force giving out
+light and heat continuously seemed to me the way to create and command
+equally continuous movement. I have--I think and hope--fairly
+succeeded, and in order to accomplish my design I have used wealth that
+would not have been at the service of most inventors,--wealth which my
+father left to me quite unconditionally,--but were I able to fly with
+my 'White Eagle' to the remotest parts of the Milky Way itself, I
+should not look to find peace or happiness!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+The priest's simple query had a note of tender pity in it. Morgana
+looked up at him with a little smile, but her eyes were tearful.
+
+"Dear Don Aloysius, how can I tell 'why'? Nobody is really happy, and I
+cannot expect to have what is denied to the whole world!"
+
+Aloysius resumed his slow walk to and fro, and she kept quiet pace with
+him.
+
+"Have you ever thought what happiness is?" he asked, then--"Have you
+ever felt it for a passing moment?"
+
+"Yes"--she answered quickly--"But only at rare intervals--oh so rare!..."
+
+"Poor little rich child!" he said, kindly--"Tell me some of those
+'intervals'! Cannot they be repeated? Let us sit here"--and he moved
+towards a stone bench which fronted an ancient disused well in the
+middle square of the cloistered court,--a well round which a crimson
+passion-flower twined in a perfect arch of blossom--"What was the first
+'interval'?"
+
+He sat down, and the sunshine sent a dazzling ray on the silver
+crucifix he wore, giving it the gleam of a great jewel. Morgana took
+her seat beside him.
+
+"Interval one!" he said, playfully--"What was this little lady's first
+experience of happiness? When she played with her dolls?"
+
+"No, oh no!" cried Morgana, with sudden energy--"That was anything but
+happiness! I hated dolls!--abominable little effigies!"
+
+Don Aloysius raised his eyebrows in surprise and amusement.
+
+"Horrid little stuffed things of wood and wax and saw-dust!" continued
+Morgana, emphatically--"With great beads for eyes--or eyes made to look
+like beads--and red cheeks,--and red lips with a silly smile on them!
+Of course they are given to girl-children to encourage the 'maternal
+instinct' as it is called--to make them think of babies,--but _I_ never
+had any 'maternal instinct'!--and real babies have always seemed to me
+as uninteresting as sham ones!"
+
+"Dear child, you were a baby yourself once!"--said Aloysius gently.
+
+A shadow swept over her face.
+
+"Do you think I was?" she queried meditatively--"I cannot imagine it! I
+suppose I must have been, but I never remember being a child at all. I
+had no children to play with me--my father suspected all children of
+either disease or wickedness, and imagined I would catch infection of
+body or of soul by association with them. I was always
+alone--alone!--yet not lonely!" She broke off a moment, and her eyes
+grew dark with the intensity of her thought "No--never lonely! And the
+very earliest 'interval' of happiness I can recall was when I first saw
+the inside of a sun-ray!"
+
+Don Aloysius turned to look at her, but said nothing. She laughed.
+
+"Dear Father Aloysius, what a wise priest you are! Not a word falls
+from those beautifully set lips of yours! If you were a fool--(so many
+men are!) you would have repeated my phrase, 'the inside of a sun-ray,'
+with an accent of scornful incredulity, and you would have stared at me
+with all a fool's contempt! But you are not a fool,--you know or you
+perceive instinctively exactly what I mean. The inside of a
+sun-ray!--it was disclosed to me suddenly--a veritable miracle! I have
+seen it many times since, but not with all the wonder and ecstasy of
+the first revelation. I was so young, too! I told a renowned professor
+at one of the American colleges just what I saw, and he was so amazed
+and confounded at my description of rays that had taken the best
+scientists years to discover, that he begged to be allowed to examine
+my eyes! He thought there must be something unusual about them. In fact
+there IS!--and after his examination he seemed more puzzled than ever.
+He said something about 'an exceptionally strong power of vision,' but
+frankly admitted that power of vision alone would not account for it.
+Anyhow I plainly saw all the rays within one ray--there were seven. The
+ray itself was--or so I fancied--the octave of colour. I was little
+more than a child when this 'interval' of happiness--PERFECT
+happiness!--was granted to me--I felt as if a window had been opened
+for me to look through it into heaven!"
+
+"Do you believe in heaven?" asked Aloysius, suddenly.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I used to,--in those days. As I have just said I was only a child, and
+heaven was a real place to me,--even the angels were real presences--"
+
+"And you have lost them now?"
+
+She gave a little gesture of resignation.
+
+"They left me"--she answered--"I did not lose them. They simply went."
+
+He was silent. His fine, calm features expressed a certain grave
+patience, but nothing more.
+
+She resumed--
+
+"That was my first experience of real 'happiness.' Till then I had
+lived the usual monotonous life of childhood, doing what I was told,
+and going whither I was taken, but the disclosure of the sun-ray was a
+key to individuality, and seemed to unlock my prison doors. I began to
+think for myself, and to find my own character as a creature apart from
+others. My second experience was years after,--just when I left school
+and when my father took me to see the place where I was born, in the
+north of Scotland. Oh, it is such a wild corner of the world! Beautiful
+craggy hills and dark, deep lakes--rough moorlands purple with heather
+and such wonderful skies at sunset! The cottage where my father had
+lived as a boy when he herded sheep is still there--I have bought it
+for myself now,--it is a little stone hut of three rooms,--and another
+one about a mile off where he took my mother to live, and where I came
+into the world!--I have bought that too. Yes--I felt a great thrill of
+happiness when I stood there knee-deep among the heather, my father
+clasping my hand, and looking, with me, on those early scenes of his
+boyhood when he had scarcely a penny to call his own! Yet HE was
+sad!--very sad! and told me then that he would give all his riches to
+feel as light of heart and free from care as he did in those old days!
+And then--then we went to see old Alison--" Here she broke off,--a
+strange light came into her eyes and she smiled a little. "I think I
+had better not tell you about old Alison!" she said.
+
+"Why not?" and Don Aloysius returned her smile. "If old Alison has
+anything to do with your happiness I should like to hear."
+
+"Well, you see, you are a priest," went on Morgana, slowly, "and she is
+a witch. Oh yes, truly!--a real witch! There is no one in all that part
+of the Highlands that does not know of her, and the power she has! She
+is very, very old--some folks say she is more than a hundred. She knew
+my father and grandfather--she came to my father's cottage the night I
+was born, and said strange things about a 'May child'--I was born in
+May. We went--as I tell you--to see her, and found her spinning. She
+looked up from her wheel as we entered--but she did not seem surprised
+at our coming. Her eyes were very bright--not like the eyes of an old
+person. She spoke to my father at once--her voice was very clear and
+musical. 'Is it you, John Royal?' she said--'and you have brought your
+fey lass along with you!' That was the first time I ever heard the word
+'fey.' I did not understand it then."
+
+"And do you understand it now?" asked Aloysius.
+
+"Yes"--she replied,--"I understand it now! It is a wonderful thing to
+be born 'fey'! But it is a kind of witchcraft,--and you would be
+displeased--"
+
+"At what should I be displeased?" and the priest bent his eyes very
+searchingly upon her--"At the fact,--which none can disprove,--that
+'there are things in heaven and earth' which are beyond our immediate
+knowledge? That there are women strangely endowed with premonitory
+instincts land preternatural gifts? Dear child, there is nothing in all
+this that can or could displease me! My faith--the faith of my
+Church--is founded on the preternatural endowment of a woman!"
+
+She lifted her eyes to his, and a little sigh came from her lips.
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean!"--she said--"But I am sure you cannot
+possibly realise the weird nature of old Alison! She made me stand
+before her, just where the light of the sun streamed through the open
+doorway, and she looked at me for a long time with such a steady
+piercing glance that I felt as if her eyes were boring through my
+flesh. Then she got up from her spinning and pushed away the wheel, and
+stretched out both her hands towards me, crying out in quite a strange,
+wild voice--'Morgana! Morgana! Go your ways, child begotten of the sun
+and shower!--go your ways! Little had mortal father or mother to do
+with your making, for you are of the fey folk! Go your ways with your
+own people!--you shall hear them whispering in the night and singing in
+the morning,--and they shall command you and you shall obey!--they
+shall beckon and you shall follow! Nothing of mortal flesh and blood
+shall hold you--no love shall bind you,--no hate shall wound you!--the
+clue is given into your hand,--the secret is disclosed--and the spirits
+of air and fire and water have opened a door that you may enter in!
+Hark!--I can hear their voices calling "Morgana! Morgana!" Go your
+ways, child!--go hence and far!--the world is too small for your
+wings!' She looked so fierce and grand and terrible that I was
+frightened--I was only a girl of sixteen, and I ran to my father and
+caught his hand. He spoke quite gently to Alison, but she seemed quite
+beyond herself and unable to listen. 'Your way lies down a different
+road, John Royal'--she said--'You that herded sheep on these hills and
+that now hoard millions of money--of what use to you is your wealth?
+You are but the worker,--gathering gold for HER--the "fey" child born
+in an hour of May moonlight! You must go, but she must stay,--her own
+folk have work for her to do!' Then my father said, 'Dear Alison, don't
+frighten the child!' and she suddenly changed in her tone and manner.
+'Frighten her?' she muttered. 'I would not frighten her for the world!'
+And my father pushed me towards her and whispered--'Ask her to bless
+you before you go.' So I just knelt before her, trembling very much,
+and said, 'Dear Alison, bless me!'--and she stared at me and lifted her
+old brown wrinkled hands and laid them on my head. Then she spoke some
+words in a strange language as to herself, and afterwards she said,
+'Spirit of all that is and ever shall be, bless this child who belongs
+to thee, and not to man! Give her the power to do what is commanded, to
+the end.' And at this she stopped suddenly and bending down she lifted
+my head in her two hands and looked at me hard--'Poor child, poor
+child! Never a love for you--never a love! Alone you are, alone you
+must be! Never a love for a "fey" woman!' And she let me go, and sat
+down again to her spinning-wheel, nor would she say another
+word--neither to me nor to my father."
+
+"And you call THIS your second experience of happiness?" said Don
+Aloysius, wonderingly--"What happiness did you gain by your interview
+with this old Alison?"
+
+"Ah!" and Morgana smiled--"You would not understand me if I tried to
+explain! Everything came to me!--yes, everything! I began to live in a
+world of my own--" she paused, and her eyes grew dark and pensive, "and
+I have lived in it ever since. That is why I say my visit to old Alison
+was my second experience of happiness. I've seen her again many times
+since then, but not with quite the same impression."
+
+"She is alive still?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I often fancy she will never die!"
+
+There was a silence of some minutes. Morgana rose, and crossing over to
+the old well, studied the crimson passion-flowers which twined about
+it, with almost loving scrutiny.
+
+"How beautiful they are!" she said--"And they seem to serve no purpose
+save that of simple beauty!"
+
+"That is enough for many of God's creatures"--said Aloysius--"To give
+joy and re-create joy is the mission of perfection."
+
+She looked at him wistfully.
+
+"Alas, poor me!" she sighed--"I can neither give joy nor create it!"
+
+"Not even with all your wealth?"
+
+"Not even with all my wealth!" she echoed. "Surely you--a priest--know
+what a delusion wealth really is so far as happiness goes?--mere
+happiness? course you can buy everything with it--and there's the
+trouble! When everything is bought there's nothing left! And if you try
+to help the poor they resent it--they think you are doing it because
+you are afraid of them! Perhaps the worst of all things to do is to
+help artists--artists of every kind!--for THEY say you want to
+advertise yourself as a 'generous patron'! Oh, I've tried it all and
+it's no use. I was just crazy to help all the scientists,--once!--but
+they argued and quarrelled so much as to which 'society' deserved most
+money that I dropped the whole offer, and started 'scientising' myself.
+There is one man I tried to lift out of his brain-bog,--but he would
+have none of me, and he is still in his bog!"
+
+"Oh! There is one man!" said Aloysius, with a smile.
+
+"Yes, good father!" And Morgana left the passion-flowers and moved
+slowly back to her seat on the stone-bench--"There is one man! He was
+my third and last experience of happiness. When I first met him, my
+whole heart gave itself in one big pulsation--but like a wave of the
+sea, the pulsation recoiled, and never again beat on the grim rock of
+human egoism!" She laughed gaily, and a delicate colour flushed her
+face. "But I was happy while the 'wave' lasted,--and when it broke, I
+still played on the shore with its pretty foam-bells."
+
+"You loved this man?" and the priest's grave eyes dwelt on her
+searchingly.
+
+"I suppose so--for the moment! Yet no,--it was not love--it was just an
+'attraction'--he was--he IS--clever, and thinks he can change the face
+of the world. But he is fooling with fire! I tell you I tried to help
+him--for he is deadly poor. But he would have none of me nor of what he
+calls my 'vulgar wealth.' This is a case in point where wealth is
+useless! You see?"
+
+Don Aloysius was silent.
+
+"Then"--Morgana went on--"Alison is right. The witchery of the Northern
+Highlands is in my blood,--never a love for me--alone I am--alone I
+must be!--never a love for a 'fey' woman!"
+
+Over the priest's face there passed a quiver as of sudden pain.
+
+"You wrong yourself, my child"--he said, slowly--"You wrong yourself
+very greatly! You have a power of which you appear to be unconscious--a
+great, a terrible power!--you compel interest--you attract the love of
+others even if you yourself love no one--you draw the very soul out of
+a man--"
+
+He paused, abruptly.
+
+Morgana raised her eyes,--the blue lightning gleam flashed in their
+depths.
+
+"Ah, yes!" she half whispered--"I know I have THAT power!"
+
+Don Aloysius rose to his feet.
+
+"Then,--if you know it,--in God's name do not exercise it!" he said.
+
+His voice shook--and with his right hand he gripped the crucifix he
+wore as though it were a weapon of self-defence. Morgana looked at him
+wonderingly for a moment,--then drooped her head with a strange little
+air of sudden penitence. Aloysius drew a quick sharp breath as of one
+in effort,--then he spoke again, unsteadily--
+
+"I mean"--he said, smiling forcedly--"I mean that you should not--you
+should not break the heart of--of--the poor Giulio for instance!... it
+would not be kind."
+
+She lifted her eyes again and fixed them on him.
+
+"No, it would not be kind!" she said, softly--"Dear Don Aloysius, I
+understand! And I will remember!" She glanced at a tiny diamond-set
+watch-bracelet on her wrist--"How late it is!--nearly all the morning
+gone! I have kept you so long listening to my talk--forgive me! I will
+run away now and leave you to think about my 'intervals' of
+happiness,--will you?--they are so few compared to yours!"
+
+"Mine?" he echoed amazedly.
+
+"Yes, indeed!--yours! Your whole life is an interval of happiness
+between this world and the next, because you are satisfied in the
+service of God!"
+
+"A poor service!" he said, turning his gaze away from her elfin figure
+and shining hair--"Unworthy,--shameful!--marred by sin at every moment!
+A priest of the Church must learn to do without happiness such as
+ordinary life can give--and without love,--such as woman may
+give--but--after all--the sacrifice is little."
+
+She smiled at him, sweetly--tenderly,
+
+"Very little!" she said--"So little that it is not worth a regret!
+Good-bye! But not for long! Come and see me soon!"
+
+Moving across the cloister with her light step she seemed to float
+through the sunshine like a part of it, and as she disappeared a kind
+of shadow fell, though no cloud obscured the sun. Don Aloysius watched
+her till she had vanished,--then turned aside into a small chapel
+opening out on the cloistered square--a chapel which formed part of the
+monastic house to which he belonged as Superior,--and there, within
+that still, incense-sweetened sanctuary, he knelt before the noble,
+pictured Head of the Man of Sorrows in silent confession and prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day
+in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While
+still a mere lad he had taken to the study of science as a duck takes
+to water,--no new discovery or even suggestion of a new discovery
+missed his instant and close attention. His avidity for learning was
+insatiable,--his intense and insistent curiosity on all matters of
+chemistry gave a knife-like edge to the quality of his brain, making it
+sharp, brilliant and incisive. To him the ordinary social and political
+interests of the world were simply absurd. The idea that the greater
+majority of men should be created for no higher purpose than those of
+an insect, just to live, eat, breed, and die, was to him preposterous.
+
+"Think of it!" he would exclaim--"All this wondrous organisation of our
+planet for THAT! For a biped so stupid as to see nothing in his
+surroundings but conveniences for satisfying his stomach and his
+passions! We men are educated chiefly in order to learn how to make
+money, and all we can do with the money WHEN made, is to build houses
+to live in, eat as much as we want and more, and breed children to whom
+we leave all the stuff we have earned, and who either waste it or add
+to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are
+absolutely useless,--they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere.
+Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born--and at
+once, all who are merely Bodies leap up against it, like famished
+wolves, striving to tear it to pieces and devour it--if it survives the
+attack its worth is only recognised long after its owner has perished.
+The whole scheme is manifestly unintelligent and ludicrous, but it is
+not intended to be so--of that I am sure. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE!"
+
+When urged to explain what he conceived as this "something else," he
+would answer--
+
+"There has always been 'something else' in our environment,--something
+that stupid humanity has taken centuries to discover. Sound-waves for
+example--light-rays,--electricity--these have been freely at our
+service from the beginning. Electricity might have been used ages ago,
+had not dull-witted man refused to find anything better for lighting
+purposes than an oil-lamp or a tallow candle! If, in past periods, he
+had been told 'there is something else'--he would have laughed his
+informant to scorn. So with our blundering methods of living--'there is
+something else'--not after death, but NOW and HERE. We are going about
+in the darkness with a candle when a great force of wider light is all
+round us, only awaiting connection and application to our uses."
+
+Those who heard him speak in this way--(and they were few, for Seaton
+seldom discussed his theories with others)--convinced themselves that
+he was either a fool or a madman,--the usual verdict given for any
+human being who dares break away from convention and adopt an original
+line of thought and action. But they came to the conclusion that as he
+was direfully poor, and nevertheless refused various opportunities of
+making money, his folly or his madness would be brought home to him
+sooner or later by strong necessity, and that he would then either
+arrive at a sane every-day realisation of "things as they are"--or else
+be put away in an asylum and quietly forgotten. This being the
+sagacious opinion of those who knew him best, there was a considerable
+flutter in such limited American circles as call themselves "upper"
+when the wealthiest young woman in the States, Morgana Royal, suddenly
+elected to know him and to bring him into prominent notice at her
+parties as "the most wonderful genius of the time"--"a man whose
+scientific discoveries might change the very face of the globe"--and
+other fantastically exaggerated descriptions of her own which he
+himself strongly repudiated and resented. Gossip ran amok concerning
+the two, and it was generally agreed that if the "madman" of science
+were to become the husband of a woman multi-millionaire, he would not
+have to be considered so mad after all! But the expected romance did
+not materialise,--there came apparently a gradual "cooling off" in the
+sentiments of both parties concerned,--and though Roger Seaton was
+still occasionally seen with Morgana in her automobile, in her
+opera-box, or at her receptions, his appearances were fewer, and other
+men, in fact many other men, were more openly encouraged and
+flattered,--Morgana herself showing as much indifference towards him as
+she had at first shown interest. When, therefore, he suddenly left the
+social scene of action, his acquaintances surmised that he had got an
+abrupt dismissal, or as they more brusquely expressed it--"the game's
+up"!
+
+"He's lost his chance!" they said, shaking their heads forlornly--"And
+he's poorer than Job! He'll be selling newspapers in the cars for a
+living by and by!"
+
+However, he was never met engaged in this lucrative way of
+business,--he simply turned his back on everybody, Morgana Royal
+included, and so far as "society" was concerned, just disappeared. In
+the "hut of the dying" on that lonely hill-slope in California he was
+happy, feeling a relief from infinite boredom, and thankful to be
+alone. He had much to think about and much to do--inhabited places and
+the movement of people were to him tedious and fatiguing, and he
+decided that nature,--wild nature in a solitary and savage
+aspect,--would suit his speculative and creative tendencies best. Yet,
+like all human beings, he had his odd, almost child-like moods,
+inexplicable even to himself--moods illogical, almost pettish, and
+wholly incongruous with his own accepted principles of reasoning. For
+instance, he maintained that women had neither attraction nor interest
+for him--yet he found himself singularly displeased when after two or
+three days of utter solitude, and when he was rather eagerly expecting
+Manella to arrive with the new milk which was his staple food, a lanky,
+red-haired ugly boy appeared instead of her--a boy who slouched along,
+swinging the milk pail in one hand and clutching a half-munched slice
+of pine-apple in the other.
+
+"Hello--o!" called this individual. "Not dead yet?"
+
+For answer Seaton strode forward and taking the milk-pail from him
+gripped him by the dirty cotton shirt and gave him a brief but severe
+shaking.
+
+"No,--not dead yet!" he said--"You insolent young monkey! Who are you?"
+
+The boy wriggled in his captor's clutch, and tried to squirm himself
+out of it.
+
+"I'm--I'm Jake--they calls me Irish Jake"--he gasped--"O Blessed
+Mary!--my breath! I clean the knives at the Plaza--"
+
+"I'll clean knives for you presently!" remarked Seaton, with a
+threatening gesture--"Yes, Irish Jake, I will! Who sent you here?"
+
+"SHE did--oh, Mary mother!" and the youth gave a further wriggle--"Miss
+Soriso--the girl they call Manella. She told me to say she's too busy
+to come herself."
+
+Seaton let go the handful of shirt he had held.
+
+"Too busy to come herself!" he repeated, slowly--then smiled--"Well!
+That's all right!" Here he lifted the pail of milk, took it into his
+hut and brought it back empty, while "Irish Jake," as the boy had
+called himself, stood staring--"Tell Miss Soriso that I quite
+understand! And that I'm delighted to hear she is so busy! Now, let us
+see!" Here he pulled some money out of his pocket, and fingered a few
+dirty paper notes--"There, Irish Jake! You'll find that's correct. And
+when you come here again don't forget your manners! See? Then you may
+be able to keep that disgraceful shirt of yours on! Otherwise it's
+likely to be torn off! If you are Irish you should remember that in
+very ancient days there used to be manners in the Emerald Isle. Yes,
+positively! Fine, gracious, lovely manners! It doesn't look as if that
+will be ever any more--but we live in hope. Anyway, YOU--you young
+offspring of an Irish hybrid gorilla--you'd best remember what _I_ say,
+or there'll be trouble! And"--here he made a mock solemn bow--"My
+compliments to Miss Soriso!"
+
+The red-haired youth remained for a moment stock-still with mouth and
+eyes open,--then, snatching up the empty milk-pail he scampered down
+the hill-slope at a lightning quick run.
+
+Seaton looked after him with an air of contemptuous amusement.
+
+"Ugly little devil!" he soliloquised--"And yet Nature made him,--as she
+makes many hideous things--in a hurry, I presume, without any time for
+details or artistic finish. Well!"--here he stretched his arms out with
+a long sigh--"And the silly girl is 'too busy' to come! As if I could
+not see through THAT little game! She'd give her eyes to come!--fine
+eyes they are, too! She just thinks she'll pay me out for being rough
+with her the other day--she's got an idea that she'll vex me, and make
+me want to see her. She's right,--I AM vexed!--and I DO want to see
+her!"
+
+It was mid-morning, and the sun blazed down upon the hill-side with the
+scorching breath of a volcano. He turned into his hut,--it was a dark,
+cool little dwelling, comfortable enough for a single inhabitant. There
+was a camp-bed in one corner--and there were a couple of wicker chairs
+made for easy transposition into full-length couches if so required, A
+good sized deal table occupied the centre of the living-room,--and on
+the table was a clear crystal bowl full of what appeared at a first
+glance to be plain water, but which on closer observation showed a
+totally different quality. Unlike water it was never still,--some
+interior bubbling perpetually moved it to sway and sparkle, throwing
+out tiny flashes as though the smallest diamond cuttings were striving
+to escape from it--while it exhaled around itself an atmosphere of
+extreme coldness and freshness like that of ice. Seaton threw himself
+indolently into one of wicker chairs by the window--a window which was
+broad and wide, commanding a full view of distant mountains, and far
+away to the left a glimpse of sea.
+
+"I am vexed, and I want to see her"--he repeated, speaking aloud to
+himself--"Now--WHY? Why am I vexed?--and why do I want to see her?
+Reason gives no answer! If she were here she would bore me to death. I
+could do nothing. She would ask me questions--and if I answered them
+she would not understand,--she is too stupid. She has no comprehension
+of any thing beyond simple primitive animalism. Now if it were
+Morgana--"
+
+He stopped in his talk, and started as if he had been stung. Some
+subtle influence stole over him like the perfumed mist of incense--he
+leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes. What was the
+stealthy, creeping magnetic power that like an invisible hand touched
+his brain and pulled at his memory, and forced him to see before him a
+small elf-like figure clad in white, with a rope of gold hair twisting,
+snake-like, down over its shoulders and glistening in the light of the
+moon? For the moment he lost his usual iron mastery of will and let
+himself go on the white flood of a dream. He recalled his first meeting
+with Morgana,--one of accident, not design--in the great laboratory of
+a distinguished scientist,--he had taken her for a little girl student
+trying to master a few principles of chemistry, and was astonished and
+incredulous when the distinguished scientist himself had introduced her
+as "one of our most brilliant theorists on the future development of
+radio activity." Such a description seemed altogether absurd, applied
+to a little fair creature with beseeching blue eyes and gold hair! They
+had left the laboratory together, walking some way in company and
+charmed with each other's conversation, then, when closer acquaintance
+followed, and he had learned her true position in social circles and
+the power she wielded owing to her vast wealth, he at once withdrew
+from her as much as was civilly possible, disliking the suggestion of
+any sordid motive for his friendship. But she had so sweetly reproached
+him for this, and had enticed him on--yes!--he swore it within
+himself,--she had enticed him on in a thousand ways,--most especially
+by the amazing "grip" she had of scientific problems in which he was
+interested and which puzzled him, but which she seemed to unravel as
+easily as she might unravel a skein of wool. Her clear brightness of
+brain and logical precision of argument first surprised him into
+unqualified admiration, calling to his mind the assertion of a renowned
+physiologist that "From the beginning woman had lived in another world
+than man. Formed of finer vibrations and consequently finer chemical
+atoms she is in touch with more subtle planes of existence and of
+sensation and ideation. She holds unchallenged the code of Life." Then
+admiration yielded to the usual under-sense of masculine resentment
+against feminine intellectuality, and a kind of smouldering wrath and
+opposition took the place of his former chivalry and the almost tender
+pleasure he had previously felt in her exceptional genius and ability.
+And there came an evening--why did he think of it now, he
+wondered?--when, after a brilliant summer ball given at the beautiful
+residence of a noted society woman on Long Island, he had taken Morgana
+out into their hostess's garden which sloped to the sea, and they had
+strolled together almost unknowingly down to the shore where, under the
+light of the moon, the Atlantic waves, sunken to little dainty frills
+of lace-like foam, broke murmuringly at their feet,--and he, turning
+suddenly to his companion, was all at once smitten by a sense of
+witchery in her looks as she stood garmented in her white, vaporous
+ball-gown, with diamonds in her hair and on her bosom--smitten with an
+overpowering lightning-stroke of passion which burnt his soul as a
+desert is burnt by the hot breath of the simoon, and, yielding to its
+force, he had caught the small, fine, fairy creature in his arms and
+kissed her wildly on lips and eyes and hair. And she,--she had not
+resisted. Then--as swiftly as he had clasped her he let her go--and
+stood before her in a strange spirit of defiance.
+
+"Forgive me!" he said, in low uneven tones--"I--I did not mean it!"
+
+She lifted her eyes to his, half proudly half appealingly.
+
+"You did not mean it?" she asked, quietly.
+
+An amazed scorn flashed into her face, clouding its former
+sweetness--then she smiled coldly, turned away and left him. In a kind
+of stupor he watched her go, her light figure disappearing by degrees,
+as she went up the ascending path from the sea to the house where gay
+music was still sounding for dancers not yet grown weary. And from that
+evening a kind of silence fell between them,--they were separated as by
+an ice-floe. They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke
+more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana
+apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous
+admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless,
+manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,--so much so that he worked
+himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both
+as a student of science and a woman of wealth. And yet--and yet--he had
+almost loved her! And a thing that goaded him to the quick was that so
+far as scientific knowledge and attainment were concerned she was more
+than his equal. Irritated by his own quarrelsome set of sentiments
+which pulled him first this way and then that, he decided that the only
+thing possible for him was to put a "great divide" of distance between
+himself and her. This he had done--and to what purpose? Apparently
+merely to excite her ridicule!--and to prick her humor up to the
+mischievous prank of finding out where he had fled and following him!
+And she--even she--who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment
+on the seashore,--had discovered him on this lonely hill-side, and had
+taunted him with her light mockery--and actually said that "to kiss him
+would be like kissing a bunch of nettles!"--SHE said that!--she who for
+one wild moment he had held in his arms--bah!--he sprang up from his
+chair in a kind of rage with himself, as his thoughts crowded thick and
+fast one on the other--why did he think of her at all! It was as if
+some external commanding force compelled him to do so. Then--she had
+seen Manella, and had naturally drawn her own conclusions, based on the
+girl's rich beauty which was so temptingly set within his reach. He
+began to talk to himself aloud once more, picking up the thread of his
+broken converse where he had left it--
+
+"If it were Morgana it would be far worse than if it were Manella!" he
+said--"The one is too stupid--the other too clever. But the stupid
+woman would make the best wife--if I wanted one--which I do not; and
+the best mother, if I desired children,--which I do not. The question
+is,--what DO I want? I think I know--but supposing I get it, shall I be
+satisfied? Will it fulfil my life's desire? What IS my life's desire?"
+
+He stood inert--his tall figure erect--his eyes full of strange and
+meditative earnestness, and for a moment he seemed to gather his mental
+forces together with an effort. Turning towards the table where the
+bowl of constantly sparkling fluid danced in tiny flashing eddies
+within its crystal prison, he watched its movement.
+
+"There's the clue!" he said--"so little--yet so much! Life that cannot
+cease--force that cannot die! For me--for me alone this secret!--to do
+with it what I will--to destroy or to re-create! How shall I use it? If
+I could sweep the planet clean of its greedy, contentious human
+microbes, and found a new race I might be a power for good,--but should
+I care to do this? If God does not care, why should I?"
+
+He lost himself anew in musing--then, rousing his mind to work, he put
+paper, pens and ink on the table, and started writing busily--only
+interrupting himself once for a light meal of dry bread and milk during
+a stretch of six or seven hours. At the end of his self-appointed time,
+he went out of the hut to see, as he often expressed it, "what the sky
+was doing." It was not doing much, being a mere hot glare in which the
+sun was beginning to roll westwards slowly like a sinking fire-ball. He
+brought out one of the wicker chairs from the hut and set it in the
+only patch of shade by the door, stretching himself full length upon
+it, and closing his eyes, composed himself to sleep. His face in repose
+was a remarkably handsome one,--a little hard in outline, but strong,
+nobly featured and expressive of power,--an ambitious sculptor would
+have rejoiced in him as a model for Achilles. He was as unlike the
+modern hideous type of man as he could well be,--and most particularly
+unlike any specimen of American that could be found on the whole huge
+continent. In truth he was purely and essentially English of
+England,--one of the fine old breed of men nurtured among the winds and
+waves of the north, for whom no labour was too hard, no service too
+exacting, no death too difficult, provided "the word was the bond." His
+natural gifts of intellect were very great, and profound study had
+ripened and rounded them to fruition,--certain discoveries in chemistry
+which he had tested were brought to the attention of his own country's
+scientists, who in their usual way of accepting new light on old
+subjects smiled placidly, shook their heads, pooh-poohed, and finally
+set aside the matter "for future discussion." But Roger Seaton was not
+of a nature to sink under a rebuff. If the Wise Men of Gotham in
+England refused to take first advantage of the knowledge he had to
+offer them, then the Wise Men of Gotham in Germany or the United States
+should have their chance. He tried the United States and was received
+with open arms and open minds. So he resolved to stay there, for a few
+years at any rate, and managed to secure a position with the tireless
+magician Edison, in whose workshops he toiled patiently as an
+underling, obtaining deeper grasp of his own instinctive knowledge, and
+further insight into an immense nature secret which he had determined
+to master alone. He had not mastered it yet--but felt fairly confident
+that he was near the goal. As he slept peacefully, with the still shade
+of a heavily foliaged vine which ramped over the roof of the hut,
+sheltering his face from the sun, his whole form in its relaxed, easy
+attitude expressed force in repose,--physical energy held in leash.
+
+The sun sank lower, its hue changing from poppy red to burning
+orange--and presently a woman's figure appeared on the hill slope, and
+cautiously approached the sleeper--a beautiful figure of classic mould
+and line, clothed in a simple white linen garb, with a red rose at its
+breast. It was Manella. She had taken extraordinary pains with her
+attire, plain though it was--something dainty and artistic in the
+manner of its wearing made its simplicity picturesque,--and the red
+rose at her bosom was effectively supplemented by another in her hair,
+showing brilliantly against its rich blackness. She stopped when about
+three paces away from the sleeping man and watched him with a wonderful
+tenderness. Her lips quivered sweetly--her lovely eyes shone with a
+soft wistfulness,--she looked indeed, as Morgana had said of her,
+"quite beautiful." Instinctively aware in slumber that he was not
+alone, Seaton stirred--opened his eyes, and sprang up.
+
+"What! Manella!" he exclaimed--"I thought you were too busy to come!"
+
+She hung her head a little shamefacedly.
+
+"I HAD to come"--she answered--"There was no one else ready to bring
+this--for you."
+
+She held out a telegram. He opened and read it. It was very
+brief--"Shall be with you to-morrow. Gwent."
+
+He folded it and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to Manella,
+smiling.
+
+"Very good of you to bring this!" he said--"Why didn't you send Irish
+Jake?"
+
+"He is taking luggage down from the rooms," she answered--"Many people
+are going away to-day."
+
+"Is that why you are 'so busy'"? he asked, the smile still dancing in
+his eyes.
+
+She gave a little toss of her head but said nothing.
+
+"And how fine we are to-day!" he said, glancing over her with an air of
+undisguised admiration--"White suits you, Manella! You should always
+wear it! For what fortunate man have you dressed yourself so prettily?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders expressively--
+
+"For you!"
+
+"For me? Oh, Manella! What a frank confession! And what a contradiction
+you are to yourself! For did you not send word by that Irish monkey
+that you were 'too busy to come'? And yet you dress yourself in white,
+with red roses, for ME! And you come after all! Capricious child! Oh
+Senora Soriso, how greatly honoured I am!"
+
+She looked straight at him.
+
+"You laugh, you laugh!" she said--"But I do not care! You can laugh at
+me all the time if you like. But--you cannot help looking at me! Ah
+yes!--you cannot help THAT!"
+
+A triumphant glory flashed in her eyes--her red lips parted in a
+ravishing smile.
+
+"You cannot help it!" she repeated--"That little white lady--that
+friend of yours whom you hate and love at the same time!--she told me I
+was 'quite beautiful!' I know I am!--and you know it too!"
+
+He bent his eyes upon her gravely.
+
+"I have always known it--yes!"--he said, then paused--"Dear child,
+beauty is nothing--"
+
+She made a swift step towards him and laid a hand on his arm. Her
+ardent, glowing face was next to his.
+
+"You speak not truly!" and her voice was tremulous--"To a man it is
+everything!"
+
+Her physical fascination was magnetic, and for a moment he had some
+trouble to resist its spell. Very gently he put an arm round her,--and
+with a tender delicacy of touch unfastened the rose she wore at her
+bosom.
+
+"There, dear!" he said--"I will keep this with me for company! It is
+like you--except that it doesn't talk and doesn't ask for love--"
+
+"It has it without asking!" she murmured.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Has it? Well,--perhaps it has!" He paused--then stooping his tall head
+kissed her once on the lips as a brother might have kissed her. "And
+perhaps--one day--when the right man comes along, you will have it too!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Mr. Sam Gwent stood in what was known as the "floral hall" of the Plaza
+Hotel, so called because it was built in colonnades which opened into
+various vistas of flowers and clambering vines growing with all the
+luxuriance common to California. He had just arrived, and while
+divesting himself of a light dust overcoat interrogated the official at
+the enquiry office.
+
+"So he doesn't live here after all,"--he said--"Then where's he to be
+found?"
+
+"Mr. Seaton has taken the hill hut"--replied the book-keeper--"'The hut
+of the dying' it is sometimes called. He prefers it to the hotel. The
+air is better for his lungs."
+
+"Air? Lungs?"--Gwent sniffed contemptuously. "There's very little the
+matter with his lungs if he's the man _I_ know! Where's this hut of the
+dying? Can I get there straight?"
+
+The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared. Gwent stared
+openly. Here--if "prize beauties" were anything--was a real winner!
+
+"This gentleman wants Mr. Seaton"--said the bookkeeper--"Just show him
+the way up the hill."
+
+"Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy not
+common to his manner.
+
+"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most ravishing
+way--"The path is quite easy to follow."
+
+She preceded him out of the "floral hall," and across the great
+gardens, now in their most brilliant bloom to a gate which she opened,
+pointing with one hand towards the hill where the flat outline of the
+"hut of the dying" could be seen clear against the sky.
+
+"There it is"--she explained--"It's nothing of a climb, even on the
+warmest day. And the air is quite different up there to what it is down
+here."
+
+"Better, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Much better!"
+
+"And is that why Mr. Seaton lives in the hut? On account of the air?"
+
+Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture of
+indifference.
+
+"I suppose so! How should I know? He is here for his health."
+
+Sam Gwent uttered a curious inward sound, something between a grunt and
+a cough.
+
+"Ah! I should like to know how long he's been ill!"
+
+Manella again gave her graceful gesture.
+
+"Surely you DO know if you are a friend of his?" she said.
+
+He looked keenly at her.
+
+"Are YOU a friend of his?"
+
+She smiled--almost laughed.
+
+"I? I am only a help in the Plaza--I take him his food--"
+
+"Take him his food!" Sam Gwent growled out something like an
+oath--"What! Can't he come and get it for himself? Is he treated like a
+bear in a cage or a baby in a cradle?"
+
+Manella gazed at him with reproachful soft eyes.
+
+"Oh, you are rough!" she said--"He pays for whatever little trouble he
+gives. Indeed it is no trouble! He lives very simply--only on new milk
+and bread. I expect his health will not stand anything else--though
+truly he does not look ill--"
+
+Gwent cut her description short.
+
+"Well, thank you for showing me the way, Senora or Senorita, whichever
+you are--I think you must be Spanish--"
+
+"Senorita"--she said, with gentle emphasis--"I am not married. You are
+right that I am Spanish."
+
+"Such eyes as yours were never born of any blood but Spanish!" said
+Gwent--"I knew that at once! That you are not married is a bit of luck
+for some man--the man you WILL marry! For the moment adios! I shall
+dine at the Plaza this evening, and shall very likely bring my friend
+with me."
+
+She shook her head smiling.
+
+"You will not!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Because he will not come!"
+
+She turned away, back towards the Hotel, and Gwent started to ascend
+the hill alone.
+
+"Here's a new sort of game!"--he thought--"A game I should never have
+imagined possible to a man like Roger Seaton! Hiding himself up here in
+a consumption hut, and getting a beautiful woman to wait on him and
+'take him his food'! It beats most things I've heard of! Dollar
+sensation books aren't in it! I wonder what Morgana Royal would say to
+it, if she knew! He's given her the slip this time!"
+
+Half-way up the hill he paused to rest, and saw Seaton striding down at
+a rapid pace to meet him.
+
+"Hullo, Gwent!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"I got your wire at the beginning of the week"--said Gwent--"and came
+as soon as I could get away. It's been a stiff journey too--but I
+wouldn't keep you waiting."
+
+"Thanks,--it's as much your affair as mine"--said Seaton--"The thing is
+ripe for action if you care to act. It's quite in your hands, I hardly
+thought you'd come--"
+
+"But I sent you a reply wire?"
+
+"Oh, yes--that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinch
+business. Yours arrived last night."
+
+"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent--"It was addressed
+to the Plaza Hotel--not to a hut on a hill!"
+
+Seaton laughed.
+
+"You've heard all about it I see! But the hut on the hill is a
+'dependence' of the Plaza--a sort of annex where dying men are put away
+to die peaceably--"
+
+"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly--"And I can't
+make out why you pretend to be one!"
+
+Again Seaton laughed.
+
+"I'm not pretending!--my dear Gwent, we're all dying men! One may die a
+little faster than another, but it's all the same sort of 'rot, and
+rot, and thereby hangs a tale!' What's the news in Washington?"
+
+They walked up the hill slowly, side by side.
+
+"Not startling"--answered Gwent--then paused--and repeated--"Not
+startling--there's nothing startling nowadays--though some folks made a
+very good show of being startled when my nephew Jack shot himself."
+
+Seaton stopped in his walk.
+
+"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?"
+
+"Of course!--according to the coroner. Everybody is called 'insane' who
+gets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some people
+would call it sane. I call it just--cowardice! Jack had lost his last
+chance, you see. Morgana Royal threw him over."
+
+Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail.
+
+"Had she led him on?"
+
+"Rather! She leads all men 'on'--or they think she does. She led YOU on
+at one time!"
+
+Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement.
+
+"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a fool
+of ME!"
+
+Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity.
+
+"Well! Washington thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied your
+luck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you--"
+
+"Can't you talk of something else?" interposed Seaton, impatiently.
+
+Gwent gave him an amused side-glance.
+
+"Why, of course I can!" he responded--"But I thought I'd tell you about
+Jack--"
+
+"I'm sorry!" said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lacking
+in sympathy--"He was your heir, I believe?"
+
+"Yes,--he might have been, had he kept a bit straighter"--said
+Gwent--"But heirs are no good anywhere or anyhow. They only spend what
+they inherit and waste the honest work of a life-time. Is that your
+prize palace?"
+
+He pointed to the hut which they had almost reached.
+
+"That's it!" answered Seaton--"And I prefer it to any palace ever
+built. No servants, no furniture, no useless lumber--just a place to
+live in--enough for any man."
+
+"A tub was enough for Diogenes"--commented Gwent--"If we all lived in
+his way or your way it would be a poor look-out for trade! However, I
+presume you'll escape taxation here!"
+
+Seaton made no reply, but led the way into his dwelling, offering his
+visitor a chair.
+
+"I hope you've had breakfast"--he said--"For I haven't any to give you.
+You can have a glass of milk if you like?"
+
+Gwent made a wry face.
+
+"I'm not a good subject for primitive nourishment"--he said--"I've been
+weaned too long for it to agree with me!"
+
+He sat down. His eyes were at once attracted by the bowl of restless
+fluid on the table.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+Roger Seaton smiled enigmatically.
+
+"Only a trifle"--he answered--"Just health! It's a sort of
+talisman;--germ-proof, dust-proof, disease-proof! No microbe of
+mischief, however infinitesimal, can exist near it, and a few drops,
+taken into the system, revivify the whole."
+
+"If that's so, your fortune's made"--said Gwent, "Give your discovery,
+or recipe, or whatever it is, to the world---"
+
+"To keep the world alive? No, thank you!" And the look of dark scorn on
+Seaton's face was astonishing in its almost satanic expression--"That
+is precisely what I wish to avoid! The world is over-ripe and
+over-rotten,--and it is over-crowded with a festering humanity that is
+INhuman, and worse than bestial in its furious grappling for self and
+greed. One remedy for the evil would be that no children should be born
+in it for the next thirty or forty years--the relief would be
+incalculable,--a monstrous burden would be lifted, and there would be
+some chance of betterment,--but as this can never be, other remedies
+must be sought and found. It's pure hypocrisy to talk of love for
+children, when every day we read of mothers selling their offspring for
+so much cash down,--lately in China during a spell of famine parents
+killed their daughters like young calves, for food. Ugly facts like
+these have to be looked in the face--it's no use putting them behind
+one's back, and murmuring beautiful lies about 'mother-love' and such
+nonsense. As for the old Mosaic commandment 'Honour thy father and
+mother'--it's ordinary newspaper reading to hear of boys and girls
+attacking and murdering their parents for the sake of a few dollars."
+
+"You've got the ugly facts by heart"--said Gwent slowly--"But there's
+another and more cheerful outlook--if you choose to consider it.
+Newspaper reading always gives the worst and dirtiest side of
+everything--it wouldn't be newspaper stuff if it was clean. Newspapers
+remind me of the rotting heaps in gardens--all the rubbish piled
+together till the smell becomes a nuisance--then a good burning takes
+place of the whole collection and it makes a sort of fourth-rate
+manure." He paused a moment--then went on--
+
+"I'm not given to sentiment, but I dare say there are still a few folks
+who love each other in this world,--and it's good to know of when they
+do. My sister"--he paused again, as if something stuck in his throat;
+"My sister loved her boy,--Jack. His death has driven her silly for the
+time--doctors say she will recover--that it's only 'shock.' 'Shock' is
+answerable for a good many tragedies since the European war."
+
+Seaton moved impatiently, but said nothing,
+
+"You're a bit on the fidgets"--resumed Gwent, placidly--"You want me to
+come to business--and I will. May I smoke?"
+
+His companion nodded, and he drew out his cigar-case, selecting from it
+a particularly fragrant Havana.
+
+"You don't do this sort of thing, or I'd offer you one,"--he
+said,--"Pity you don't, it soothes the nerves. But I know your 'fads';
+you are too closely acquainted with the human organism to either smoke
+or drink. Well--every man to his own method! Now what you want me to do
+is this--to represent the force and meaning of a certain substance
+which you have discovered, to the government of the United States and
+induce them to purchase it. Is that so?"
+
+"That is so!" and Roger Seaton fixed his eyes on Gwent's hard,
+lantern-jawed face with a fiery intensity--"Remember, it's not child's
+play! Whoever takes what I can give, holds the mastery of the world! I
+offer it to the United States--but I would have preferred to offer it
+to Great Britain, being as I am, an Englishman. But the dilatory
+British men of science have snubbed me once--and I do not intend them
+to have the chance of doing it again. Briefly--I offer the United
+States the power to end wars, and all thought or possibility of war for
+ever. No Treaty of Versailles or any other treaty will ever be
+necessary. The only thing I ask in reward for my discovery is the
+government pledge to use it. That is, of course, should occasion arise.
+For my material needs, which are small, an allowance of a sum per annum
+as long as I live, will satisfy my ambition. The allowance may be as
+much or as little as is found convenient. The pledge to USE my
+discovery is the one all-important point--it must be a solemn, binding
+pledge--never to be broken."
+
+Gwent puffed slowly at his cigar.
+
+"It's a bit puzzling!"--he said--"When and where should it be used?"
+
+Seaton stretched out a hand argumentatively.
+
+"Now listen!" he said--"Suppose two nations quarrel--or rather, their
+governments and their press force them to quarrel--the United States
+(possessing my discovery) steps between and says--'Very well! The first
+move towards war--the first gun fired--means annihilation for one of
+you or both! We hold the power to do this!'"
+
+Gwent drew his cigar from his lips.
+
+"Annihilation!" he murmured--"Annihilation? For one or both!"
+
+"Just so--absolute annihilation!" and Seaton smiled with a pleasant air
+of triumph--"A holocaust of microbes! The United States must let the
+whole world know of their ability to do this (without giving away my
+discovery). They must say to the nations 'We will have no more wars. If
+innocent people are to be killed, they can be killed quite as easily in
+one way as another, and our way will cost nothing--neither ships nor
+ammunition nor guns.' And, of course, the disputants will be given time
+to decide their own fate for themselves."
+
+Sam Gwent, holding his cigar between his fingers and looking
+meditatively at its glowing end, smiled shrewdly.
+
+"All very well!"--he said--"But you forget money interests. Money
+interests always start a war--it isn't nations that do it, it's
+'companies.' Your stuff won't annihilate companies all over the globe.
+Governments are not likely to damage their own financial moves. Suppose
+the United States government agreed to your proposition and took the
+sole possession and proprietorship of your discovery, and gave you
+their written, signed and sealed pledge to use it, it doesn't at all
+follow that they would not break that pledge at the first opportunity.
+In these days governments break promises as easily as eggshells. And
+there would be ample excuse for breaking the pledge to you--simply on
+the ground of inhumanity."
+
+"War is inhumanity"--said Seaton--"The use of my discovery would be no
+worse than war."
+
+"Granted!--but war makes money for certain sections of the
+community,--you must think of that!" and Gwent's little shrewd eyes
+gleamed like bits of steel.--"Money!--money! Stores--food,
+clothing--transport--all these things in war mean fortunes to the
+contractors--while the wiping out of a nation in YOUR way would mean
+loss of money. Loss of life wouldn't matter,--it never does really
+matter--not to governments!--but loss of money--ah, well!--that's a
+very different and much more serious affair!"
+
+A cynical smile twisted his features as he spoke, and Roger Seaton,
+standing opposite to him with his fine head well thrown back on his
+shoulders and his whole face alive with the power of thought, looked
+rather like a Viking expostulating with some refractory vassal.
+
+"So you think the United States wouldn't take my 'discovery?'" he
+said--"Or--if they took it--couldn't be trusted to keep a pledged word?"
+
+Gwent shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Of course our government could be trusted as much as any other
+government in the world,"--he said--"Perhaps more. But it would
+exonerate itself for breaking even a pledged word which necessitated an
+inhuman act involving loss of money! See? War is an inhuman act, but it
+brings considerable gain to those who engineer it,--this makes all the
+difference between humanity and INhumanity!"
+
+"Well!--you are a senator, and you ought to know!" replied Seaton--"And
+if your opinion is against my offer, I will not urge you to make it.
+But--as I live and stand here talking to you, you may bet every dollar
+you possess that if neither the United States nor any other government
+will accept the chance I give it of holding the nations like dogs in
+leash, I'll hold them myself! I! One single unit of the overteeming
+millions! Yes, Mr. Senator Gwent, I swear it! I'll be master of the
+world!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Gwent was silent. With methodical care he flicked off the burnt end of
+his cigar and watched it where it fell, as though it were something
+rare and curious. He wanted a few minutes to think. He gave a quick
+upward glance at the tall athletic figure above him, with its
+magnificent head and flashing eyes,--and the words "I'll be master of
+the world" gave him an unpleasant thrill. One man on the planet with
+power to destroy nations seemed quite a fantastic idea--yet science
+made it actually possible! He bethought himself of a book he had lately
+read concerning radio-activity, in which he had been struck by the
+following passage--"Radio-activity is an explosion of great violence;
+the energy exerted is millions of times more powerful than the highest
+explosive substance yet made in our laboratories; one bomb loaded with
+such energy would be equal to millions of bombs of the same size and
+energy as used in the trenches. One's mind stands aghast at the thought
+of what could be possible if such power were used for destructive
+purposes; a single aeroplane could carry sufficient to annihilate a
+whole army, or lay the biggest city in ruins with the death of all its
+inhabitants." The writer of the book in question had stated that, so
+far, no means had been found of conserving and concentrating this
+tremendous force for such uses,--but Gwent, looking at Roger Seaton,
+said within himself--"He's got it!" And this impression, urging itself
+strongly in on his brain, was sufficiently startling to give him a
+touch of what is called "nerves."
+
+After a considerably long pause he said, slowly--"Well, 'master of the
+world' is a pretty tall order! Now, look here, Seaton--you're a plain,
+straight man, and so am I, as much as my business will let me. What are
+you after, anyway? What is your aim and end? You say you don't want
+money--yet money is the chief goal of all men's ambition. You don't
+care for fame, though you could have it for the lifting of a finger,
+and I suppose you don't want love--"
+
+Seaton laughed heartily, pushing back with a ruffling hand the thick
+hair from his broad open brow.
+
+"All three propositions are nil to me"--he said--"I suppose it is
+because I can have them for the asking! And what satisfaction is there
+in any one of them? A man only needs one dinner a day, a place to sleep
+in and ordinary clothes to wear--very little money is required for the
+actual necessaries of life--enough can be earned by any day-labourer.
+As for fame--whosoever reads the life of even one 'famous' man will
+never be such a fool as to wish for the capricious plaudits of a
+fool-public. And love!--love does not exist--not what _I_ call love!"
+
+"Oh! May I have your definition?"
+
+"Why yes!--of course you may! Love, to my thinking, means complete
+harmony between two souls--like two notes that make a perfect chord.
+The man must feel that he can thoroughly trust and reverence the
+woman,--the woman must feel the same towards the man. And the sense of
+'reverence' is perhaps the best and most binding quality. But nowadays
+what woman will you find worth reverence?--what man so free from drink
+and debauchery as to command it? The human beings of our day are often
+less respectable than the beasts! I can imagine love,--what it might
+be--what it should be--but till we have a very different and more
+spiritualised world, the thing is impossible."
+
+Again, Gwent was silent for some minutes. Then he said--
+
+"Apparently the spirit of destructiveness is strong in you. As 'master
+of the world'--to quote your own words, I presume that in the event of
+a nation or nations deciding on war, you would give them a time-limit
+to consider and hold conference, with their allies--and then--if they
+were resolved to begin hostilities--"
+
+"Then I could--and WOULD--wipe them off the face of the earth in
+twenty-four hours!" said Seaton, calmly--"From nations they should
+become mere dust-heaps! War makes its own dust-heaps, but with
+infinitely more cost and trouble--the way of exit I offer would be
+cheap in comparison!"
+
+Gwent smiled a grim smile.
+
+"Well, I come back to my former question"--he said--"Suppose the
+occasion arose, and you did all this, what pleasure to yourself do you
+foresee?"
+
+"The pleasure of clearing the poor old earth of some of its
+pestilential microbes!"--answered Seaton, "Something of the same
+thankful satisfaction Sir Ronald Ross must have experienced when he
+discovered the mosquito-breeders of yellow fever and malaria, and
+caused them to be stamped out. The men who organise national disputes
+are a sort of mosquito, infecting their fellow-creatures with perverted
+mentality and disease,--they should be exterminated."
+
+"Why not begin with the newspaper offices?" suggested Gwent--"The
+purlieus of cheap journalism are the breeding-places of the human
+malaria-mosquito."
+
+"True! And it wouldn't be a bad idea to stamp them out," here Seaton
+threw back his head with the challenging gesture which was
+characteristic of his temperament--"But what is called 'the liberty of
+the press'(it should be called 'the license of the press') is more of
+an octopus than a mosquito. Cut off one tentacle, it grows another.
+It's entirely octopus in character, too,--it only lives to fill its
+stomach."
+
+"Oh, come, come!" and Gwent's little steely eyes sparkled--"It's the
+'safe-guard of nations' don't you know?--it stands for honest free
+speech, truth, patriotism, justice--"
+
+"Good God!" burst out Seaton, impatiently--"When it does, then the 'new
+world' about which men talk so much may get a beginning! 'Honest free
+speech--truth!' Why, modern journalism is one GREAT LIE advertised on
+hoardings from one end of the world to the other!"
+
+"I agree!" said Gwent--"And there you have the root and cause of war!
+No need to exterminate nations with your destructive stuff,--you should
+get at the microbes who undermine the nations first. When you can do
+THAT, you will destroy the guilty and spare the innocent,--whereas your
+plan of withering a nation into a dust-heap involves the innocent along
+with the guilty."
+
+"War does that,"--said Seaton, curtly.
+
+"It does. And your aim is to do away with all chance or possibility of
+war for ever. Good! But you need to attack the actual root of the evil."
+
+Seaton's brow clouded into a frown.
+
+"You're a careful man, Gwent,"--he said--"And, in the main, you are
+right. I know as well as you do that the license of the press is the
+devil's finger in the caldron of affairs, stirring up strife between
+nations that would probably be excellent friends and allies, if it were
+not for this 'licensed' mischief. But so long as the mob read the lies,
+so long will the liars flourish. And my argument is that if any two
+peoples are so brainless as to be led into war by their press, they are
+not fit to live--no more fit than the mosquitoes that once made Panama
+a graveyard."
+
+Gwent smoked leisurely, regarding his companion with unfeigned interest.
+
+"Apparently you haven't much respect for life?" he said.
+
+"Not when it is diseased life--not when it is perverted
+life;"--returned Seaton--"Then it is mere deformity and encumbrance.
+For life itself in all its plenitude, health and beauty I have the
+deepest, most passionate respect. It is the outward ray or reflex of
+the image of God--"
+
+"Stop there!" interrupted Gwent--"You believe in God?"
+
+"I do,--most utterly! That is to say I believe in an all-pervading Mind
+originating and commanding the plan of the Universe. We talk of 'ions'
+and 'electrons'--but we are driven to confess that a Supreme
+Intelligence has the creation of electrons, and directs them as to the
+formation of all existing things. To that Mind--to that Intelligence--I
+submit my soul! And I do NOT believe that this Supreme Mind desires
+evil or sorrow,--we create disaster ourselves, and it is ourselves that
+must destroy it, We are given free-will--if we 'will' to create
+disease, we must equally 'will' to exterminate it by every means in our
+power."
+
+"I think I follow you"--said Gwent, slowly--"But now, as regards this
+Supreme Intelligence, I suppose you will admit that the plan of
+creation is a dual sort of scheme--that is to say 'male and female
+created He them'?"
+
+"Why, of course!" and Seaton smiled--"The question is superfluous!"
+
+"I asked it," went on Gwent--"because you seem to eliminate the female
+element from your life altogether. Therefore, so I take it, you are not
+at your full strength, either as a scientist or philosopher. You are a
+kind of eagle, trying to fly high on one wing. You'll need the other!
+There, don't look at me in that savage way! I'm merely making my own
+comments on your position,--you needn't mind them. I want to get out of
+the tangle-up of things you have suggested. You fancy it would be easy
+to get the United States Government to purchase your discovery and
+pledge themselves to use it on occasion for the complete wiping out of
+a nation,--any nation--that decided to go to war,--and, failing their
+acceptance, or the acceptance of any government on these lines, you
+purpose doing the deed yourself. Well!--I can tell you straight away
+it's no use my trying to negotiate such a business, The inhumanity of
+it is to palpable."
+
+"What of the inhumanity of war?" asked Seaton.
+
+"That PAYS!" replied Gwent, with emphasis--"You don't, or won't, seem
+to recognise that blistering fact! The inhumanity of war pays everybody
+concerned in it except the fellows who fight to order. They are the
+'raw material.' They get used up. YOUR business WOULDN'T 'pay.' And
+what won't 'pay' is no good to anybody in this present sort of world."
+
+Seaton, still standing erect, bent his eyes on the lean hard features
+of his companion with eloquent scorn.
+
+"So! Everything must be measured and tested by money!" he said--"And
+yet you senators talk of reform!--of a 'new' world!--of a higher code
+of conduct between man and man--"
+
+"Yes, we talk"--interrupted Gwent--"But we don't mean what we say!--we
+should never think of meaning it!"
+
+"'Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'" quoted Seaton with passionate
+emphasis.
+
+"Just so! The Lord Christ said it two thousand years ago, and it's true
+to-day! We haven't improved!"
+
+With an impatient movement, Seaton strode to the door of his hut and
+looked out at the wide sky,--then turned back again. Gwent watched him
+critically.
+
+"After all," he said, "It isn't as if you wanted anything of anybody.
+Money is no object of yours. If it were I should advise your selling
+your discovery to Morgana Royal,--she'd buy it--and, I tell you
+what!--SHE'D USE IT!"
+
+"Thanks!" and Seaton nodded curtly--"I can use it myself!"
+
+"True!" And Gwent looked interestedly at his dwindling Havana--"You
+can!" There followed a pause during which Gwent thought of the strange
+predicament in which the world might find itself, under the scientific
+rule of one man who had it in his power to create a terrific
+catastrophe without even "showing his hand." "Anyway, Seaton, you
+surely want to make something out of life for yourself, don't you?"
+
+"What IS there to be made out of it?" he asked.
+
+"Well!-happiness--the physical pleasure of living--"
+
+"I AM happy"--declared Seaton--"and I entirely appreciate the physical
+pleasure of living. But I should be happier and better pleased with
+life if I could rid the earth of some of its mischief, disease and
+sorrow--"
+
+"How about leaving that to the Supreme Intelligence?" interposed Gwent.
+
+"That's just it! The Supreme Intelligence led me to the discovery I
+have made--and I feel that it has been given into my hands for a
+purpose. Gwent, I am positive that this same Supreme Intelligence
+expects his creature, Man, to help Him in the evolvement and work of
+the Universe! It is the only reasonable cause for Man's existence. We
+must help, not hinder, the scheme of which we are a part. And wherever
+hindrance comes in we are bound to remove and destroy it!"
+
+The last ash of Gwent's cigar fell to the floor, and Gwent himself rose
+from his chair.
+
+"Well, I suppose we've had our talk out"--he said; "I came here
+prepared to offer you a considerable sum for your discovery--but I
+can't go so far as a Government pledge. So I must leave you to it. You
+know"--here he hesitated--"you know a good many people would consider
+you mad--"
+
+Seaton laughed.
+
+"Oh, that goes without saying! Did you ever hear of any scientist
+possessing a secret drawn from the soul of nature that was not called
+'mad' at once by his compeers and the public? I can stand THAT
+accusation! Pray Heaven I never get as mad as a Wall Street gambler!"
+
+"You will, if you gamble with the lives of nations!" said Gwent.
+
+"Let the nations beware how they gamble with their own lives!" retorted
+Seaton--"You say war is a method of money-making--let them take heed
+how they touch money coined in human blood! I--one man only,--but an
+instrument of the Supreme Intelligence,--I say and swear there shall be
+no more wars!"
+
+As he uttered these words there was something almost supernatural in
+the expression of his face--his attitude, proudly erect, offered a kind
+of defiance to the world,--and involuntarily Gwent, looking at him,
+thought of the verse in the Third Psalm--
+
+"I laid me down and slept; I awaked for the Lord sustained me. I will
+not be afraid of ten thousands of the people that have set themselves
+against me round about."
+
+"No--he would not be afraid!" Gwent mused--"He is a man for whom there
+is no such thing as fear! But--if it knew--the world might be afraid of
+HIM!"
+
+Aloud he said--"Well, you may put an end to war, but you will never put
+an end to men's hatred and envy of one another, and if they can't 'let
+the steam off' in fighting, they'll find some other way which may be
+worse. If you come to consider it, all nature is at war with
+itself,--it's a perpetual struggle to live, and it's evident that the
+struggle was intended and ordained as universal law. Life would be
+pretty dull without effort--and effort means war."
+
+"War against what?--against whom?" asked Seaton.
+
+"Against whatever or whoever opposes the effort," replied Gwent,
+promptly--"There must be opposition, otherwise effort would be
+unnecessary. My good fellow, you've got an idea that you can alter the
+fixed plan of things, but you can't. The cleverest of us are only like
+goldfish in a glass bowl--they see the light through, but they cannot
+get to it. The old ship of the world will sail on its appointed way to
+its destined port,--and the happiest creatures are those who are
+content to sail with it in the faith that God is at the helm!" He broke
+off, smiling at his own sudden eloquence, then added--"By-the-by, where
+is your laboratory?"
+
+"Haven't got one!" replied Seaton, briefly.
+
+"What! Haven't got one! Why, how do you make your stuff?"
+
+Seaton laughed.
+
+"You think I'm going to tell you? Mr. Senator Gwent, you take me for a
+greater fool than I am! My 'stuff' needs neither fire nor
+crucible,--the formula was fairly complete before I left Washington,
+but I wanted quiet and solitude to finish what I had begun. It is
+finished now. That's why I sent for you to make the proposition which
+you say you cannot carry through."
+
+"Finished, is it?" queried Gwent, abstractedly--"And you have it
+here?--in a finished state?"
+
+Seaton nodded affirmatively.
+
+"Then I suppose"--said Gwent with a nervous laugh--"you could 'finish'
+ME, if it suited your humour?"
+
+"I could, certainly!" and Seaton gave him quite an encouraging
+smile--"I could reduce Mr. Senator Gwent into a small pinch of grey
+dust in about forty seconds, without pain! You wouldn't feel it I
+assure you! It would be too swift for feeling."
+
+"Thanks! Much obliged!" said Gwent--"I won't trouble you this morning!
+I rather enjoy being alive."
+
+"So do I!" declared Seaton, still smiling--"I only state what I COULD
+do."
+
+Gwent stood at the door of the hut and surveyed the scenery.
+
+"You've a fine, wild view here"--he said--"I think I shall stay at the
+Plaza a day or two before returning to Washington. There's a very
+attractive girl there."
+
+"Oh, you mean Manella"--said Seaton, carelessly; "Yes, she's quite a
+beauty. She's the maid, waitress or 'help' of some sort at the hotel."
+
+"She's a good 'draw' for male visitors"--said Gwent--"Many a man I know
+would pay a hundred dollars a day to have her wait upon him!"
+
+"Would YOU?" asked Seaton, amused.
+
+"Well!--perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her
+eyes are the finest I've ever seen."
+
+Seaton made no comment.
+
+"You'll come and dine with me to-night, won't you?" went on Gwent--"You
+can spare me an hour or two of your company?"
+
+"No, thanks"--Seaton replied--"Don't think me a churlish brute--but I
+don't like hotels or the people who frequent them. Besides--we've done
+our business."
+
+"Unfortunately there was no business doing!" said Gwent--"Sorry I
+couldn't take it on."
+
+"Don't be sorry! I'll take it on myself when the moment comes. I would
+have preferred the fiat of a great government to that of one
+unauthorised man--but if there's no help for it then the one man must
+act."
+
+Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be
+impressive.
+
+"Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!" he
+said--"If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief
+than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very
+planet we live on, some day!"
+
+"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly--"But it wouldn't be missed!
+Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill."
+
+He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing sun,
+for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly
+unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion
+as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than
+that afforded by the two men,--the conventionally clothed,
+stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of
+his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the
+hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their
+appearance in her own special way.
+
+"Poof!" she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air--"He is so
+ugly!--that one man--so dry and yellow and old! But the other--he is a
+god!"
+
+And she snapped her fingers again,--then kissed them towards the object
+of her adoration,--an object as unconscious and indifferent as any
+senseless idol ever worshipped by blind devotees.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation
+with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors
+in the dining-room, and Gwent imagined he knew the reason why. Her
+beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and
+admiration of men, whose open attentions were likely to be embarrassing
+to her, and annoying to her employers. She was therefore kept very much
+out of the way, serving on the upper floors, and was only seen flitting
+up and down the staircase or passing through the various corridors and
+balconies. However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat made
+even the hotel lounge, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play,
+almost unbearable, Gwent, strolling forth into the garden, found her
+there standing near a thick hedge of myrtle which exhaled a heavy scent
+as if every leaf were being crushed between invisible fingers. She
+looked up as she saw him approaching and smiled.
+
+"You found your friend well?" she said.
+
+"Very well, indeed!" replied Gwent, promptly--"In fact, I never knew he
+was ill!"
+
+Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of
+her many fascinating gestures.
+
+"He is not ill"--she said--"He only pretends! That is all! He has some
+reason for pretending. I think it is love!"
+
+Gwent laughed.
+
+"Not a bit of it! He's the last man in the world to worry himself about
+love!"
+
+Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air.
+
+"Ah, perhaps you do not know!" And she waved her hands expressively.
+"There was a wonderful lady came here to see him some weeks ago--she
+stole up the hill at night, like a spirit--a little, little fairy woman
+with golden hair--"
+
+Gwent pricked up his ears and stood at attention.
+
+"Yes? Really? You don't say so! 'A little fairy woman'? Sounds like a
+story!"
+
+"She wore the most lovely clothes"--went on Manella, clasping her hands
+in ecstasy--"She stayed at the Plaza one night--I waited upon her. I
+saw her in her bed--she had skin like satin, and eyes like blue
+stars--her hair fell nearly to her ankles--she was like a dream! And
+she went up the hill by moonlight all by herself, to find HIM!"
+
+Gwent listened with close interest.
+
+"And I presume she found him?"
+
+Manella nodded, and a sigh escaped her.
+
+"Oh, yes, she found him! He told me that. And I am sure--something
+tells me HERE" and she pressed one hand against her heart--"by the way
+he spoke--that he loves her!"
+
+"You seem to be a very observant young woman," said Gwent,
+smiling--"One would think you were in love with him yourself!"
+
+She raised her large dark eyes to his with perfect frankness.
+
+"I am!" she said--"I see no shame in that! He is a fine man--it is good
+to love him!"
+
+Gwent was completely taken aback. Here was primitive passion with a
+vengeance!--passion which admitted its own craving without subterfuge.
+Manella's eyes were still uplifted in a kind of childlike confidence.
+
+"I am happy to love him!" she went on--"I wish only to serve him. He
+does not love ME--oh, no!--he loves HER! But he hates her too--ah!" and
+she gave a little shivering movement of her shoulders--"There is no
+love without hate!--and when one loves and hates with the same
+heart-beat, THAT is a love for life and death!" She checked herself
+abruptly--then with a simplicity which was not without dignity
+added--"I am saying too much, perhaps? But you are his friend--and I
+think he must be very lonely up there!"
+
+Mr. Senator Gwent was perplexed. He had not looked to stumble on a
+romantic episode, yet here was one ready made to his hand. His nature
+was ill attuned to romance of any kind, but he felt a certain
+compassion for this girl, so richly dowered with physical beauty, and
+smitten with love for a man like Roger Seaton who, according to his own
+account, had no belief in love's existence. And the "fairy woman" she
+spoke of--who could that be but Morgana Royal? After his recent
+interview with Seaton his thoughts were rather in a whirl, and he
+sought for a bit of commonplace to which he could fasten them without
+the risk of their drifting into greater confusion. Yet that bit of
+commonplace was hard to find with a woman's lovely passionate eyes
+looking straight into his, and the woman herself, a warm-blooded
+embodiment of exquisite physical beauty, framed like a picture among
+the scented myrtle boughs under the dusky violet sky, where glittered a
+few stars with that large fiery brilliance so often seen in California.
+He coughed--it was a convenient thing to cough--it cleared the throat
+and helped utterance.
+
+"I--I--well!--I hardly think he is lonely"--he said at last,
+hesitatingly--"Perhaps you don't know it--but he's a very clever
+man--an inventor--a great thinker with new ideas--"
+
+He stopped. How could this girl understand him? What would she know of
+"inventors"--and "thinkers with new ideas"? A trifle embarrassed, he
+looked at her. She nodded her dark head and smiled.
+
+"I know!" she said--"He is a god!"
+
+Sam Gwent almost jumped. A god! Oh, these women! Of what fantastic
+exaggerations they are capable!
+
+"A god!" she repeated, nodding again, complacently; "He can do
+anything! I feel that all the time. He could rule the whole world!"
+
+Gwent's nerves "jumped" for the second time. Roger Seaton's own
+words--"I'll be master of the world" knocked repeatingly on his brain
+with an uncomfortable thrill. He gathered up the straying threads of
+his common sense and twisted them into a tough string.
+
+"That's all nonsense!" he said, as gruffly as he could--"He's not a god
+by any means! I'm afraid you think too much of him, Miss--Miss--er--"
+
+"Soriso," finished Manella, gently--"Manella Soriso."
+
+"Thank you!" and Gwent sought for a helpful cigar which he lit--"You
+have a very charming name! Yes--believe me, you think too much of him!"
+
+"You say that? But--are you not his friend?"
+
+Her tone was reproachful.
+
+But Gwent was now nearly his normal business self again.
+
+"No,--I am scarcely his friend"--he replied--"'Friend' is a big
+word,--it implies more than most men ever mean. I just know him--I've
+met him several times, and I know he worked for a while under
+Edison--and--and that's about all. Then I THINK"--he was cautious
+here--"I THINK I've seen him at the house of a very wealthy lady in New
+York--a Miss Royal--"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Manella--"That is the name of the fairy woman who came
+here!"
+
+Gwent went on without heeding her.
+
+"She, too, is very clever,--she is also an inventor and a
+scientist--and if it was she who came here--(I daresay it was!) it was
+probably because she wished to ask his advice and opinion on some of
+the difficult things she studies--"
+
+Manella snapped her fingers as though they were castanets.
+
+"Ah--bah!" she exclaimed--"Not at all! No difficult thing takes a woman
+out by moonlight, all in soft white and diamonds to see a man!--no
+difficult thing at all, except to tempt him to love! Yes! That is the
+way it is done! I begin to learn! And you, if you are not his friend,
+what are you here for?"
+
+Gwent began to feel impatient with this irrepressible "prize" beauty.
+
+"I came to see him at his own request on business;" he answered
+curtly--"The business is concluded and I go away to-morrow."
+
+Manella was silent. The low chirping of a cicada hidden in the myrtle
+thicket made monotonous sweetness on the stillness.
+
+Moved by some sudden instinct which he did not attempt to explain to
+himself, Gwent decided to venture on a little paternal advice.
+
+"Now don't you fly off in a rage at what I'm going to say,"--he began,
+slowly--"You're only a child to me--so I'm just taking the liberty of
+talking to you as a child. Don't give too much of your time or your
+thought to the man you call a 'god.' He's no more a god than I am. But
+I tell you one thing--he's a dangerous customer!"
+
+Manella's great bright eyes opened wide like stars in the darkness.
+
+"Dangerous?--How?--I do not understand---!"
+
+"Dangerous!"--repeated Gwent, shaking his head at her--"Not to you,
+perhaps,--for you probably wouldn't mind if he killed you, so long as
+he kissed you first! Oh, yes, I know the ways of women! God made them
+trusting animals, ready to slave all their lives for the sake of a
+caress. YOU are one of that kind--you'd willingly make a door-mat of
+yourself for Seaton to wipe his boots on. I don't mean that he's
+dangerous in that way, because though _I_ might think him so, YOU
+wouldn't. No,--what I mean is that he's dangerous to himself--likely to
+run risks of his life---"
+
+Here he paused, checked by the sudden terror in the beautiful eyes that
+stared at him.
+
+"His life!" and Manella's voice trembled--"You think he is here to kill
+himself---"
+
+"No, no--bless my soul, he doesn't INTEND to kill himself"--said Gwent,
+testily--"He's not such a fool as all that! Now look here!--try and be
+a sensible girl! The man is busy with an invention--a discovery--which
+might do him harm--I don't say it WILL--but it MIGHT. You've heard of
+bombs, haven't you?--timed to explode at a given moment?"
+
+Manella nodded--her lips trembled, and she clasped her hands nervously
+across her bosom.
+
+"Well!--I believe--I won't say it for certain,--that he's got something
+worse than that!" said Gwent, impressively--"And that's why he was
+chosen to live up on that hill in the 'hut of the dying' away from
+everybody. See? And--of course--anything may happen at any moment. He's
+plucky enough, and is not the sort of man to involve any other man in
+trouble--and that's why he stays alone. Now you know! So you can put
+away your romantic notions of his being 'in love'! A very good thing
+for him if he were! It might draw him away from his present occupation.
+In fact, the best that could happen to him would be that you should
+make him fall in love with YOU!"
+
+She gave a little cry.
+
+"With ME?"
+
+"Yes, with you! Why not? Why don't you manage it? A beautiful woman
+like you could win the game in less than a week?"
+
+She shook her head sorrowfully.
+
+"You do not know him!" she said--"But--HE knows!"
+
+"Knows what?"
+
+She gave a despairing little gesture.
+
+"That I love him!"
+
+"Ah! That's a pity!" said Gwent--"Men are curious monsters in their
+love-appetites; they always refuse the offered dish and ask for
+something that isn't in the bill of fare. You should have pretended to
+hate him!"
+
+"I could not pretend THAT!" said Manella, sadly--"But if I could, it
+would not matter. He does not want a woman."
+
+"Oh, doesn't he?" Gwent was amused at her quaint way of putting it.
+"Well, he's the first man I ever heard of, that didn't! That's all
+bunkum, my good girl! Probably he's crying for the moon!"
+
+"What is that?" she asked, wistfully.
+
+"Crying for the moon? Just hankering after what can't be got. Lots of
+men are afflicted that way. But they've been known to give up crying
+and content themselves with something else."
+
+"HE would never content himself!" she said--"If she--the woman that
+came here, is the moon, he will always want her. Even _I_ want her!"
+
+"You?" exclaimed Gwent, amazed.
+
+"Yes! I want to see her again!" A puzzled look contracted her brows.
+"Since she spoke to me I have always thought of her,--I cannot get her
+out of my mind! She just HOLDS me--yes!--in one of her little white
+hands! There are few women like that I think!--women who hold the souls
+of others as prisoners till they choose to let them go!"
+
+Mr. Senator Gwent was fairly nonplussed. This dark-eyed Spanish beauty
+with her romantic notions was almost too much for him. Had he met her
+in a novel he would have derided the author of the book for delineating
+such an impossible character,--but coming in contact with her in real
+life, he was at a loss what to say. Especially as he himself was quite
+aware of the mysterious "hold" exercised by Morgana Royal on those whom
+she chose to influence either near or at a distance. After a few
+seconds of deliberation he answered--
+
+"Yes--I should say there are very few women of that rather
+uncomfortable sort of habit,--the fewer the better, in my opinion. Now
+Miss Manella Soriso, remember what I say to you! Don't think about
+being 'held' by anybody except by a lover and husband! See? Play the
+game! With such looks as God has given you, it should be easy! Win your
+'god' away from his thunderbolts before he begins havoc with them from
+his miniature Olympus. If he wants the 'moon' (and possibly he
+doesn't!) he won't say no to a star,--it's the next best thing.
+Seriously now,"--and Gwent threw away the end of his cigar and laid a
+hand gently on her arm--"be a good girl and think over what I've said
+to you. Marry him if you can!--it will be the making of him!"
+
+Manella gazed about her in the darkness, bewildered. A glittering
+little mob of fire-flies danced above her head like a net of jewels.
+
+"Oh, you talk so strangely!" she said--"You forget!--I am a poor
+girl--I have no money--"
+
+"Neither has he,"--and Gwent gave a short laugh. "But he could make a
+million dollars to-morrow--if he chose. Having only himself to
+consider, he DOESN'T choose! If he had YOU, he'd change his opinion.
+Seaton's not the man to have a wife without keeping her in comfort. I
+tell you again, you can be the making of him. You can save his life!"
+
+She clasped her hands nervously. A little gasping sigh came from her
+lips.
+
+"Oh!--Santa Madonna!--to save his life!"
+
+"Ah, just that!" said Gwent impressively--"Think of it! I'm not
+speaking lies--that's not my way. The man is making for himself what we
+in the European war called a 'danger zone,' where everybody not 'in the
+know' was warned off hidden mines. Hidden mines! He's got them! That's
+so! You can take my word! It's no good looking for them, no one will
+ever find them but himself, and he thinks of nothing else. But if he
+fell in love with YOU---"
+
+She gave a hopeless gesture.
+
+"He will not--he thinks nothing of me--nothing!--no!--though he says I
+am beautiful!"
+
+"Oh, he says that, does he?" and Gwent smiled--"Well, he'd be a fool if
+he didn't!"
+
+"Ah, but he does not care for beauty!" Manella went on. "He sees it and
+he smiles at it, but it does not move him!"
+
+Gwent looked at her in perplexity, not knowing quite how to deal with
+the subject he himself had started. Truth to tell his nerves had been
+put distinctly "on edge" by Seaton's cool, calculating and seemingly
+callous assertion as to the powers he possessed to destroy, if he
+chose, a nation,--and all sorts of uncomfortable scraps of scientific
+information gleaned from books and treatises suggested themselves
+vividly to his mind at this particular moment when he would rather have
+forgotten them. As, for example--"A pound weight of radio-active
+energy, if it could be extracted in as short a time as we pleased,
+instead of in so many million years, could do the work of a hundred and
+fifty tons of dynamite." This agreeable fact stuck in his brain as a
+bone may stick in a throat, causing a sense of congestion. Then the
+words of one of the "pulpit thunderers" of New York rolled back on his
+ears--"This world will be destroyed, not by the hand of God, but by the
+wilful and devilish malingering of Man!" Another pleasant thought! And
+he felt himself to be a poor weak fool to even try to put up a girl's
+beauty, a girl's love as a barrier to the output of a destroying force
+engineered by a terrific human intention,--it was like the old story of
+the Scottish heroine who thrust a slender arm through the great staple
+of a door to hold back the would-be murderers of a King.
+
+"Beauty does not move him!" she said.
+
+She was right. Nothing was likely to move Roger Seaton from any purpose
+he had once resolved upon. What to him was beauty? Merely a "fortuitous
+concourse of atoms" moving for a time in one personality. What was a
+girl? Just the young "female of the species"--no more. And love? Sexual
+attraction, of which there was enough and too much in Seaton's opinion.
+And the puzzled Gwent wondered whether after all he would not have
+acted more wisely--or diplomatically--in accepting Seaton's proposal to
+part with his secret to the United States Government, even with the
+proviso and State pledge that it was to be "used" should occasion
+arise, rather than leave him to his own devices to do as he pleased
+with the apparently terrific potentiality of which he alone had the
+knowledge and the mastery. And while his thoughts thus buzzed in his
+head like swarming bees, Manella stood regarding him in a kind of
+pitiful questioning like a child with a broken toy who can not
+understand "why" it is broken. As he did not speak at once she took up
+the thread of conversation.
+
+"You see how it is no use," she said. "No use to think of his ever
+loving ME! But love for HIM--ah!--that I have, and that I will ever
+keep in my heart!--and to save his life I would myself gladly die!"
+
+Gwent uttered a sound between a grunt and a sigh.
+
+"There it is! You women always run to extremes! 'Gladly die' indeed!
+Poor girl, why should you 'die' for him or for any man! That's sheer
+sentimental nonsense! There's not a man that ever lived, or that ever
+will live, that's worth the death of a woman! That's so! Men think too
+much of themselves--they've been killing women ever since they were
+born--it's time they stopped a bit."
+
+Manella's beautiful eyes expressed bewilderment.
+
+"Killing women? Is that what they do?"
+
+"Yes, my good girl!--that is what they do! The silly trusting creatures
+go to them like lambs, and get their throats cut! In marriage or out of
+it--the throat-cutting goes on, for men are made of destructive stuff
+and love the sport of killing. They are never satisfied unless they can
+kill something--a bird, a fox or a woman. I'm a man myself and I know!"
+
+"YOU would kill a woman?" Manella's voice was a horrified whisper.
+
+Gwent laughed.
+
+"No,--not I, my child! I'm too old. I've done with love-making and
+'sport' of all kinds. I don't even drive a golf-ball, in make-believe
+that it's a woman I'm hitting as fast and far as I can. Oh, yes!--you
+stare!--you are wondering why, if I have such ideas, I should suggest
+love-making and marriage to YOU,--well, I don't actually recommend
+it!--but I'm rather thinking more of your 'god' than of you. You might
+possibly help him a bit--"
+
+"Ah, I am not clever!" sighed Manella.
+
+"No--you're not clever--thank God for it! But you're devoted--and
+devotion is sometimes more than cleverness." He paused, reflectively.
+"Well, I'll have to go away tomorrow--it wouldn't be any use my staying
+on here. In fact, I'd rather be out of the way. But I've a notion I may
+be able to do something for Seaton in Washington when I get back--in
+the meantime I'll leave a letter for you to give him--"
+
+"You will not write of me in that letter!" interrupted the girl,
+hastily. "No--you must not--you could not!---"
+
+Gwent raised a deprecating hand.
+
+"Don't be afraid, my girl! I'm not a cad. I wouldn't give you away for
+the world! I've no right to say a word about you, and I shall not. My
+letter will be a merely business one--you shall read it if you like---"
+
+"Oh no!"--she said at once, with proud frankness; "I would not doubt
+your word!"
+
+Gwent gave her a comprehensively admiring glance. Even in the dusk of
+evening her beauty shone with the brilliance of a white flower among
+the dark foliage. "What a sensation she would make in New York!" he
+thought--"With those glorious eyes and that hair!"
+
+And a vague regret for his lost youth moved him; he was a very wealthy
+man, and had he been in his prime he would have tried a matrimonial
+chance with this unspoilt beautiful creature,--it would have pleased
+him to robe her in queenly garments and to set the finest diamonds in
+her dark tresses, so that she should be the wonder and envy of all
+beholders. He answered her last remark with a kindly little nod and
+smile.
+
+"Good! You needn't doubt it ever!"--he said--"If at any time you want a
+friend you can bet on Sam Gwent. I'm a member of Congress and you can
+always find me easily. But remember my advice--don't make a 'god' of
+any man;--he can't live up to it---"
+
+As he spoke a sudden jagged flash of lightning tore the sky, followed
+almost instantaneously by a long, low snarl of thunder rolling through
+the valley. Great drops of rain began to fall.
+
+"Come along! Let us get in!" and Gwent caught Manella's hand--"Run!"
+
+And like children they ran together through the garden into the Plaza
+lounge, reaching it just before a second lightning flash and peal of
+thunder renewed double emphasis.
+
+"Storm!" observed a long-faced invalid man in a rocking-chair, looking
+at them as they hurried in.
+
+"Yes! Storm it is!" responded Gwent, releasing the hand of his
+companion--"Good-night, Miss Soriso!"
+
+She inclined her head graceful, smiling.
+
+"Good-night, Senor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Convention is still occasionally studied even in these unconventional
+days, and Morgana Royal, independent and wealthy young woman as she
+was, had subscribed to its rule and ordinance by engaging a
+chaperone,--a "dear old English lady of title," as she had described
+her to the Marchese Rivardi. Lady Kingswood merited the description
+thus given of her, for she was distinctly a dear old English lady, and
+her title was the least thing about her, especially in her own opinion.
+There was no taint of snobbery in her simple, kindly disposition, and
+when her late husband, a distinguished military officer, had been
+knighted for special and splendid service in the war, she had only
+deplored that the ruin of his health and disablement by wounds,
+prevented him from taking any personal pleasure in the "honour." His
+death followed soon after the King's recognition of his merit, and she
+was left with his pension to live upon, and a daughter who having
+married in haste repented at leisure, being deserted by a drunken
+husband and left with two small children to nourish and educate.
+Naturally, Lady Kingswood took much of their care upon herself--but the
+pension of a war widow will not stretch further than a given point, and
+she found it both necessary and urgent to think of some means by which
+she could augment her slender income. She was not a clever woman,--she
+had no special talents,--her eyes would not stand her in good stead for
+plain sewing, and she could not even manage a typing machine. But she
+had exquisitely gentle manners,--she was well-bred and tactful, and,
+rightly judging that good-breeding and tact are valuable assets in some
+quarters of the "new" society, she sought, through various private
+channels, for a post as companion or "chaperone" to "one lady." Just
+when she was rather losing hope as to the success of her effort, the
+"one lady" came along in the elfin personality of Morgana Royal, who,
+after a brief interview in London, selected her with a decision as
+rapid as it was inexplicable, offering her a salary of five hundred a
+year, which to Lady Kingswood was a small fortune.
+
+"You will have nothing to do but just be pleasant!" Morgana had told
+her, smilingly, "And enjoy your self as you like. Of course I do not
+expect to be controlled or questioned,--I am an independent woman, and
+go my own way, but I'm not at all 'modern.' I don't drink or smoke or
+'dope,' or crave for male society. I think you'll find yourself all
+right!"
+
+And Lady Kingswood had indeed "found herself all right." Her own
+daughter had never been so thoughtful for her comfort as Morgana was,
+and she became day by day more interested and fascinated by the
+original turn of mind and the bewitching personality of the strange
+little creature for whom the ordinary amusements of society seemed to
+have no attraction. And now, installed in her own sumptuously fitted
+rooms in the Palazzo d'Oro, Morgana's Sicilian paradise, she almost
+forgot there was such a thing as poverty, or the sordid business of
+"making both ends meet." Walking up and down the rose-marble loggia and
+looking out to the exquisite blue of the sea, she inwardly thanked God
+for all His mercies, and wondered at the exceptional good luck that had
+brought her so much peace, combined with comfort and luxury in the
+evening of her days. She was a handsome old lady; her refined features,
+soft blue eyes and white hair were a "composition" for an
+eighteenth-century French miniature, and her dress combined quiet
+elegance with careful taste. She was inflexibly loyal to her stated
+position; she neither "questioned" nor "controlled" Morgana, or
+attempted to intrude an opinion as to her actions or movements,--and
+if, as was only natural, she felt a certain curiosity concerning the
+aims and doings of so brilliant and witch-like a personality she showed
+no sign of it. She was interested in the Marchese Rivardi, but still
+more so in the priest, Don Aloysius, to whom she felt singularly
+attracted, partly by his own dignified appearance and manner, and
+partly by the leaning she herself had towards the Catholic Faith where
+"Woman" is made sacred in the person of the Holy Virgin, and deemed
+worthy of making intercession with the Divine. She knew, as we all in
+our innermost souls know, that it is a symbol of the greatest truth
+that can ever be taught to humanity.
+
+The special morning on which she walked, leaning slightly on a
+silver-knobbed stick, up and down the loggia and looked at the sea, was
+one of rare beauty even in Sicily, the sky being of that pure ethereal
+blue for which one can hardly find a comparison in colour, and the
+ocean below reflecting it, tone for tone, as in a mirror. In the
+terraced garden, half lost among the intertwining blossoms, Morgana
+moved to and fro, gathering roses,--her little figure like a white rose
+itself set in among the green leaves. Lady Kingswood watched her, with
+kindly, half compassionate eyes.
+
+"It must be a terrible responsibility for her to have so much money!"
+she thought. "She can hardly know what to do with it! And somehow--I do
+not think she will marry."
+
+At that moment Morgana came slowly up the steps cut in the grass
+bordered on either side by flowers, and approached her.
+
+"Here are some roses for you, dear 'Duchess!'" she said, "Duchess"
+being the familiar or "pet" name she elected to call her by. "Specially
+selected, I assure you! Are you tired?--or may I have a talk?"
+
+Lady Kingswood took the roses with a smile, touching Morgana's cheek
+playfully with one of the paler pink buds.
+
+"A talk by all means!" she replied--"How can I be tired, dear child?
+I'm a lazy old woman, doing nothing all day but enjoy myself!"
+
+Morgana nodded her golden head approvingly.
+
+"That's right!--I'm glad!" she said. "That's what I want you to do!
+It's a pretty place, this Palazzo d'Oro, don't you think?"
+
+"More than pretty--it's a perfect paradise!" declared Lady Kingswood,
+emphatically.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you like it"--went on Morgana--"Because then you won't
+mind staying here and looking after it when I'm away. I'll have to go
+away quite soon."
+
+Lady Kingswood controlled her first instinctive movement of surprise.
+
+"Really?" she said--"That seems a pity as you only arrived so
+recently--"
+
+Morgana gave a wistful glance round her at the beautiful gardens and
+blue sea beyond.
+
+"Yes--perhaps it is a pity!" she said, with a light shrug of her
+shoulders--"But I have a great deal to do, and ever so much to learn. I
+told you, didn't I?--that I have had an air-ship built for me quite on
+my own lines?--an air-ship that moves like a bird and is quite
+different from any other air-ship ever made or known?"
+
+"Yes, you told me something about it"--answered Lady Kingswood--"But
+you know, my dear, I am very stupid about all these wonderful new
+inventions. 'Progress of science' they call it. Well, I'm rather afraid
+of the 'progress of science.' I'm an old-fashioned woman and I cannot
+bear to hear of aeroplanes and air-ships and poor wretched people
+falling from the sky and being dashed to pieces. The solid earth is
+quite good enough for my old feet as long as they will support me!"
+
+Morgana laughed.
+
+"You dear Duchess!" she said, affectionately--"Don't worry! I'm not
+going to ask you to travel in my air-ship--I wouldn't so try your
+nerves for the world! Though it is an absolutely safe
+ship,--nothing"--and she emphasised the word--"NOTHING can upset it or
+drive it out of its course unless natural law is itself upset! Now let
+us sit here"--and she drew two wicker chairs into the cool shadow of
+the loggia and set them facing the sea--"and have our talk! I've begun
+it--I'll go on! Tell me"--and she nestled down among the cushions,
+watching Lady Kingswood seat herself in slower, less supple
+fashion--"tell me--what does it feel like to be married?"
+
+Lady Kingswood opened her eyes, surprised and amused.
+
+"What does it feel like? My dear--?"
+
+"Oh, surely you know what I mean!" pursued Morgana--"YOU have been
+married. Well, when you were first married were you very, very happy?
+Did your husband love you entirely without a thought for anybody or
+anything else?--and were you all in all to each other?"
+
+Lady Kingswood was quite taken aback by the personal directness of
+these questions, but deciding within herself that Morgana must be
+contemplating marriage on her own behalf, answered simply and
+truthfully--
+
+"My husband and I were very fond of each other. We were the best of
+friends and good companions. Of course he had his military duties to
+attend to and was often absent--"
+
+"And you stayed at home and kept house,"--interpolated Morgana,
+musingly--"I see! That is what all wives have to do! But I suppose he
+just adored you?"
+
+Lady Kingswood smiled.
+
+"'Adore' is a very strong word to use, my dear!" she said--"I doubt if
+any married people 'adore' each other! If they can be good friends and
+rub along pleasantly through all the sorrows and joys of life together,
+they should be satisfied."
+
+"And you call that LOVE!" said Morgana, with a passionate thrill in her
+voice--"Love! 'Love that is blood within the veins of time!' Just
+'rubbing along pleasantly together!' Dear 'Duchess,' that wouldn't suit
+ME!"
+
+Lady Kingswood looked at her with interested, kind eyes.
+
+"But then, what WOULD suit you?" she queried--"You know you mustn't
+expect the impossible!"
+
+"What the world calls the impossible is always the possible"--said
+Morgana--"And only the impossible appeals to me!"
+
+This was going beyond the boundary-line of Lady Kingswood's brain
+capacity, so she merely remained agreeably quiescent.
+
+"And when your child was born"--pursued Morgana--"did you feel a
+wonderful ecstasy?--a beautiful peace and joy?--a love so great that it
+was as if God had given you something of His Own to hold and keep?"
+
+Lady Kingswood laughed outright.
+
+"My dear girl, you are too idealistic! Having a baby is not at all a
+romantic business!--quite the reverse! And babies are not interesting
+till they 'begin to take notice' as the nurses say. Then when they get
+older and have to go to school you soon find out that you have loved
+THEM far more than they have loved or ever WILL love YOU!"
+
+As she said this her voice trembled a little and she sighed.
+
+"I see! I think I quite understand!" said Morgana--"And it is just what
+I have always imagined--there is no great happiness in marriage. If it
+is only a matter of 'rubbing along pleasantly together' two friends can
+always do that without any 'sex' attraction, or tying themselves up
+together for life. And it's not much joy to bring children into the
+world and waste treasures of love on them, if after you have done all
+you can, they leave you without a regret,--like the birds that fly from
+a nest when once they know how to use their wings."
+
+Lady Kingswood's eyes were sorrowful.
+
+"My daughter was a very pretty girl,"--she said--"Her father and I were
+proud of her looks and her charm of manner. We spared every shilling we
+could to give her the best and most careful education--and we
+surrounded her with as much pleasure and comfort at home as
+possible,--but at the first experience of 'society,' and the flattery
+of strangers, she left us. Her choice of a husband was most
+unfortunate--but she would not listen to our advice, though we had
+loved her so much--she thought 'he' loved her more."
+
+Morgana lifted her eyes. The "fey" light was glittering in them.
+
+"Yes! She thought he loved her! That's what many a woman thinks--that
+'he'--the particular 'he' loves her! But how seldom he does! How much
+more often he loves himself!"
+
+"You must not be cynical, my dear!" said Lady Kingswood, gently--"Life
+is certainly full of disappointments, especially in love and
+marriage--but we must endure our sorrows patiently and believe that God
+does everything for the best."
+
+This was the usual panacea which the excellent lady offered for all
+troubles, and Morgana smiled.
+
+"Yes!--it must be hard work for God!" she said--"Cruel work! To do
+everything for the best and to find it being turned into the worst by
+the very creatures one seeks to benefit, must be positive torture!
+Well, dear 'Duchess,' I asked you all these questions about love and
+marriage just to know if you could say anything that might alter my
+views--but you have confirmed them. I feel that there is no such thing
+in the world as the love _I_ want--and marriage without it would be
+worse than any imagined hell. So I shall not marry."
+
+Lady Kingswood's face expressed a mild tolerance.
+
+"You say that just now"--she said--"But I think you will alter your
+mind some day! You would not like to be quite alone always--not even in
+the Palazzo d'Oro."
+
+"YOU are quite alone?"
+
+"Ah, but I am an old woman, my dear! I have lived my day!"
+
+"That's not true," said Morgana, decisively--"You have not 'lived your
+day' since you are living NOW! And if you are old, that is just a
+reason why you should NOT be alone. But you ARE. Your husband is dead,
+and your daughter has other ties. So even marriage left you high and
+dry on the rocks as it were till my little boat came along and took you
+off them!"
+
+"A very welcome little boat!" said Lady Kingswood, with feeling--"A
+rescue in the nick of time!"
+
+"Never mind that!" and Morgan waved her pretty hand expressively--"My
+point is that marriage--just marriage--has not done much for you. It is
+what women clamour for, and scheme for,--and nine out of ten regret the
+whole business when they have had their way. There are so many more
+things in life worth winning!"
+
+Lady Kingswood looked at her interestedly. She made a pretty picture
+just then in her white morning gown, seated in a low basket chair with
+pale blue silk cushions behind her on which her golden head rested with
+the brightness of a daffodil.
+
+"So many more things!" she repeated--"My air-ship for instance!--it's
+worth all the men and all the marriages I've ever heard of! My beloved
+'White Eagle!'--my own creation--my baby--SUCH a baby!" She laughed.
+"But I must learn to fly with it alone!"
+
+"I hope you will do nothing rash!"--said Lady Kingswood, mildly; she
+was very ignorant of modern discovery and invention, and all attempt to
+explain anything of the kind to her would have been a hope less
+business--"I understand that it is always necessary to take a pilot and
+an observer in these terrible sky-machines--"
+
+She was interrupted by a gay little peal of laughter from Morgana.
+
+"Terrible?--Oh, dear 'Duchess,' you are too funny! There's nothing
+'terrible' about MY 'sky-machine!' Do you ever read poetry? No?--Well
+then you don't know that lovely and prophetic line of Keats--"
+
+    'Beautiful things made new
+     For the surprise of the sky-children.'
+
+"Poets are always prophetic,--that is, REAL poets, not modern verse
+mongers; and I fancy Keats must have imagined something in the far
+distant future like my 'White Eagle!' For it really IS 'a beautiful
+thing made new'--a beautiful natural force put to new uses--and who
+knows?--I may yet surprise those 'sky-children!'"
+
+Lady Kingswood's mind floundered helplessly in this flood of what, to
+her, was incomprehensibility. Morgana went on in the sweet fluting
+voice which was one of her special charms.
+
+"If you haven't read Keats, you must have read at some time or other
+the 'Arabian Nights' and the story of 'Sindbad the Sailor'? Yes? You
+think you have? Well, you know how poor Sindbad got into the Valley of
+Diamonds and waited for an eagle to fly down and carry him off! That's
+just like me! I've been dropped into a Valley of Diamonds and often
+wondered how I should escape--but the Eagle has arrived!"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you"--said Lady Kingswood--"I'm rather
+dense, you know! Surely your Valley of Diamonds--if you mean
+wealth--has made your 'Eagle' possible?"
+
+Morgana nodded.
+
+"Exactly! If there had been no Valley of Diamonds there would have been
+no Eagle! But, all the same, this little female Sindbad is glad to get
+out of the valley!"
+
+Lady Kingswood laughed.
+
+"My dear child, if you are making a sort of allegory on your wealth,
+you are not 'out of the valley' nor are you likely to be!"
+
+Morgana sighed.
+
+"My vulgar wealth!" she murmured.
+
+"What? Vulgar?"
+
+"Yes. A man told me it was."
+
+"A vulgar man himself, I should imagine!" said Lady Kingswood, warmly.
+
+Morgana shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
+
+"Oh, no, he isn't. He's eccentric, but not vulgar. He's aristocratic to
+the tips of his toes--and English. That accounts for his rudeness.
+Sometimes, you know--only sometimes--Englishmen can be VERY rude! But
+I'd rather have them so--it's a sort of well-bred clumsiness, like the
+manners of a Newfoundland dog. It's not the 'make-a-dollar' air of
+American men."
+
+"You are quite English yourself, aren't you?" queried her companion.
+
+"No--not English in any sense. I'm pure Celtic of Celt, from the
+farthest Highlands of Scotland. But I hate to say I'm 'Scotch,' as
+slangy people use that word for whisky! I'm just Highland-born. My
+father and mother were the same, and I came to life a wild moor, among
+mists and mountains and stormy seas--I'm always glad of that! I'm glad
+my eyes did not look their first on a city! There's a tradition in the
+part of Scotland where I was born which tells of a history far far back
+in time when sailors from Phoenicia came to our shores,--men greatly
+civilised when we all were but savages, and they made love to the
+Highland women and had children by them,--then when they went away back
+to Egypt they left many traces of Eastern customs and habits which
+remain to this day. My father used always to say that he could count
+his ancestry back to Egypt!--it pleased him to think so and it did
+nobody any harm!"
+
+"Have you ever been to the East?" asked Lady Kingswood.
+
+"No--but I'm going! My 'White Eagle' will take me there in a very short
+time! But, as I've already told you, I must learn to fly alone."
+
+"What does the Marchese Rivardi say to that?"
+
+"I don't ask him!" replied Morgana, indifferently--"What I may decide
+to do is not his business." She broke off abruptly--then continued--"He
+is coming to luncheon,--and afterwards you shall see my air-ship. I
+won't persuade you to go up in it!"
+
+"I COULDN'T!" said Lady Kingswood, emphatically--"I've no nerve for
+such an adventure."
+
+Morgana rose from her chair, smiling kindly.
+
+"Dear 'Duchess' be quite easy in your mind!" she said--"I want you very
+much on land, but I shall not want you in the air! You will be quite
+safe and happy here in the Palazzo d'Oro"--she turned as she saw the
+shadow of a man's tall figure fall on the smooth marble pavement of the
+loggia--"Ah! Here is the Marchese! We were just speaking of you!"
+
+"Tropp' onore!" he murmured, as he kissed the little hand she held out
+to him in the Sicilian fashion of gallantry--"I fear I am perhaps too
+early?"
+
+"Oh no! We were about to go in to luncheon--I know the hour by the bell
+of the monastery down there--you hear it?"
+
+A soft "ting-ting tong"--rang from the olive and ilex woods below the
+Palazzo,--and Morgana, listening, smiled.
+
+"Poor Don Aloysius!" she said--"He will now go to his soup maigre--and
+we to our poulet, sauce bechamel,--and he will be quite as contented as
+we are!"
+
+"More so, probably!" said Rivardi, as he courteously assisted Lady
+Kingswood, who was slightly lame, to rise from her chair--"He is one of
+the few men who in life have found peace."
+
+Morgana gave him a keen glance.
+
+"You think he has really found it?"
+
+"I think so,--yes! He has faith in God--a great support that has given
+way for most of the peoples of this world."
+
+Lady Kingswood looked pained.
+
+"I am sorry to hear you say that!"
+
+"I am sorry myself to say it, miladi, but I fear it is true!" he
+rejoined--"It is one sign of a general break-up."
+
+"Oh, you are right! You are very right!" exclaimed Morgana suddenly,
+and with emphasis--"We know that when even one human being is unable to
+recognise his best friend we say--'Poor man! His brain is gone!' It's
+the same thing with a nation. Or a world! When it is so ailing that it
+cannot recognise the Friend who brought it into being, who feeds it,
+keeps it, and gives it all it has, we must say the same thing--'Its
+brain is gone!'"
+
+Rivardi was surprised at the passionate energy she threw into these
+words.
+
+"You feel that deeply?" he said--"And yet--pardon me!--you do not
+assume to be religious?"
+
+"Marchese, I 'assume' nothing!" she answered--"I cannot 'pretend'! To
+'assume' or to 'pretend' would hardly serve the Creator adequately.
+Creative or Natural Force is so far away from sham that one must do
+more than 'assume'--one must BE!"
+
+Her voice thrilled on the air, and Lady Kingswood, who was crossing the
+loggia, leaning on her stick, paused to look at the eloquent speaker.
+She was worth looking at just then, for she seemed inspired. Her eyes
+were extraordinarily brilliant, and her whole personality expressed a
+singular vitality coupled with an ethereal grace that suggested some
+thing almost superhuman.
+
+"Yes--one must be!" she repeated--"I have not BEEN A STUDENT OF SCIENCE
+SO LONG WITHOUT LEARNING that there is no 'assuming' anything in the
+universe. One must SEE straight, and THINK straight too! I could not
+'assume' religion, because I FEEL it--in the very depths of my soul! As
+Don Aloysius said the other day, it is marvellous how close we are to
+the Source of all life, and yet we imagine we are far away! If we could
+only realise the truth of the Divine Nearness, and work WITH it and IN
+it, we should make discoveries worth knowing! We work too much WITH
+ourselves and OF ourselves." She paused,--then added slowly and
+seriously--"I have never done any work that way. I have always
+considered myself Nothing,--the Force I have obeyed was and is
+Everything."
+
+"And so--being Nothing--you still made your air-ship possible!" said
+Rivardi, smiling indulgently at her fantastic speech.
+
+She answered him with unmoved and patient gravity.
+
+"It is as you say,--being Nothing myself, and owning myself to be
+Nothing; the Force that is Everything made my air-ship possible!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Two or three hours later the "White Eagle" was high in air above the
+Palazzo d'Oro. Down below Lady Kingswood stood on the seashore by the
+aerodrome, watching the wonderful ship of the sky with dazzled, scared
+eyes--amazed at the lightning speed of its ascent and the steadiness of
+its level flight. She had seen it spread its great wings as by
+self-volition and soar out of the aerodrome with Morgana seated inside
+like an elfin queen in a fairy car--she had seen the Marchese Giulio
+Rivardi "take the helm" with the assistant Gaspard, now no longer a
+prey to fear, beside him. Up, up and away they had flown, waving to her
+till she could see their forms no longer--till the "White Eagle" itself
+looked no bigger than a dove soaring in the blue. And while she waited,
+even this faint dove-image vanished! She looked in every direction, but
+the skies were empty. To her there was something very terrifying in
+this complete disappearance of human beings in the vast stretches of
+the air--they had gone so silently, too, for the "White Eagle's" flight
+made no sound, and though the afternoon was warm and balmy she felt
+chilled with the cold of nervous apprehension. Yet they had all assured
+her there was no cause for alarm,--they were only going on a short
+trial trip and would be back to dinner.
+
+"Nothing more than a run in a motor-car!" Morgana said, gaily.
+
+Nothing more,--but to Lady Kingswood it seemed much more. She belonged
+to simple Victorian days--days of quiet home-life and home affections,
+now voted "deadly dull!" and all the rushing to and fro and gadding
+about of modern men and women worried and distressed her, for she had
+the plain common sense to perceive that it did no good either to health
+or morals, and led nowhere. She looked wistfully out to sea,--the blue
+Sicilian sea so exquisite in tone and play of pure reflections,--and
+thought how happy a life lived after the old sweet ways might be for a
+brilliant little creature like Morgana, if she could win "a good man's
+love" as Shakespeare puts it. And yet--was not this rather harking back
+to mere sentiment, often proved delusive? Her own "good man's love" had
+been very precious to her,--but it had not fulfilled all her heart's
+longing, though she considered herself an entirely commonplace woman.
+And what sort of a man would it be that could hold Morgana? As well try
+to control a sunbeam or a lightning flash as the restless vital and
+intellectual spirit that had, for the time being, entered into feminine
+form, showing itself nevertheless as something utterly different and
+superior to women as they are generally known. Some thoughts such as
+these, though vague and disconnected, passed through Lady Kingswood's
+mind as she turned away from the sea-shore to re-ascend the
+flower-bordered terraces of the Palazzo d'Oro,--and it was with real
+pleasure that she perceived on the summit of the last flight of grassy
+steps, the figure of Don Aloysius. He was awaiting her approach, and
+came down a little way to meet her.
+
+"I saw the air-ship flying over the monastery,"--he explained, greeting
+her--"And I was anxious to know whether la Signora had gone away into
+the skies or was still on earth! She has gone, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, she has gone!" sighed Lady Kingswood--"and the Marchese with her,
+and one assistant. Her 'nerve' is simply astonishing!"
+
+"You did not think of venturing on a trip with her yourself?"--and the
+priest smiled kindly, as he assisted her to ascend the last flight of
+steps to the loggia.
+
+"No indeed! I really could not! I feel I ought to be braver--but I
+cannot summon up sufficient courage to leave terra firma. It seems
+altogether unnatural."
+
+"Then what will you do when you are an angel, dear lady?" queried
+Aloysius, playfully--"You will have to leave terra firma then! Have you
+ever thought of that?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't think!" she said--"I take my life on trust. I
+always believe that God who brought me HERE will take care of me
+THERE!--wherever 'there' is. You understand me, don't you? You speak
+English so well that I'm sure you do."
+
+"Yes--I understand you perfectly"--he replied--"That I speak English is
+quite natural, for I was educated at Stonyhurst, in England. I was then
+for a time at Fort Augustus in Scotland, and studied a great many of
+the strange traditions of the Highland Celts, to which mystic people
+Miss Royal by birth belongs. Her ancestry has a good deal to do with
+her courage and character."
+
+While he spoke Lady Kingswood gazed anxiously into the sky, searching
+it north, south, east, west, for the first glimpse of the returning
+"White Eagle," but there was no sign of it.
+
+"You must not worry yourself,"--went on the priest, putting a chair for
+her in the loggia, and taking one himself--"If we sit here we shall see
+the air-ship returning, I fancy, by the western line,--certainly near
+the sunset. In any case let me assure you there is no danger!" "No
+danger?"
+
+"Absolutely none!"
+
+Lady Kingswood looked at him in bewildered amazement.
+
+"Surely there MUST be danger?" she said--"The terrible accidents that
+happen every day to these flying machines--"
+
+"Yes--but you speak of ordinary flying machines," said Aloysius,--"This
+'White Eagle' is not an ordinary thing. It is the only one of its kind
+in the world--the only one scientifically devised to work with the laws
+of Nature. You saw it ascend?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"It made no sound?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Then how did its engines move, if it HAD engines?" pursued
+Aloysius--"Had you no curiosity about it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I hadn't--I was really too nervous! Morgana begged me to go
+inside, but I could not!"
+
+Don Aloysius was silent for a minute or two, out of gentle tolerance.
+He recognised that Lady Kingswood belonged to the ordinary class of
+good, kindly women not overburdened with brains, to whom thought,
+particularly of a scientific or reflective nature, would be a kind of
+physical suffering. And how fortunate it is that there are, and always
+will be such women! Many of them are gifted with the supreme talent of
+making happiness around themselves,--and in this way they benefit
+humanity more than the often too self-absorbed student of things which
+are frequently "past finding out."
+
+"I understand your feeling";--he said, at last--"And I hardly wonder at
+your very natural fears. I must admit that I think human daring is
+going too fast and too far--the science of to-day is not tending to
+make men and women happier--and after all, happiness is the great goal."
+
+A slight sigh escaped him, and Lady Kingswood looked at his fine,
+composed features with deep interest.
+
+"Do you think God meant us to be happy?" she asked, gently.
+
+"It is a dubious question!" he answered--"When we view the majesty and
+loveliness of nature--we cannot but believe we were intended to enjoy
+the splendid treasures of beauty freely spread out before us,--then
+again, if we look back thousands of years and consider the great
+civilisations of the past that have withered into dust and are now
+forgotten, we cannot help wondering why there should be such a waste of
+life for apparently no purpose. I speak in a secular sense,--of course
+my Church has but one reply to doubt, or what we call 'despair of God's
+mercy'--that it is sin. We are not permitted to criticise or to
+question the Divine."
+
+"And surely that is best!" said Lady Kingswood, "and surely you have
+found happiness, or what is nearest to happiness, in your beautiful
+Faith?"
+
+His eyes were shadowed by deep gravity.
+
+"Miladi, I have never sought happiness," he replied; "From my earliest
+boyhood I felt it was not for me. Among the comrades of my youth many
+started the race of life with me--happiness was the winning post they
+had in view--and they tried many ways to reach it--some through
+ambition, some through wealth, some through love--but I have never
+chanced to meet one of them who was either happy or satisfied. MY mind
+was set on nothing for myself--except this--to grope through the
+darkness for the Great Mind behind the Universe--to drop my own 'ego'
+into it, as a drop of rain into the sea--and so--to be content! And in
+this way I have learned much,--more than I consider myself worthy to
+know. Modern science of the surface kind--(not the true deep
+discoveries)--has done its best to detach the rain-drop from the
+sea!--but it has failed. I stay where I have plunged my soul!"
+
+He spoke as it were to himself with the air of one inspired; he had
+almost forgotten the presence of Lady Kingswood, who was gazing at him
+in a rapture of attention.
+
+"Oh, if I could only think as you do!" she said, in a low tone--"Is it
+truly the Catholic Church that teaches these things?"
+
+"The Catholic Church is the sign and watchword of all these things!" he
+answered--"Not only that, but its sacred symbols, though ancient enough
+to have been adopted from Babylonia and Chaldea, are actually the
+symbols of our most modern science. Catholicism itself does not as yet
+recognise this. Like a blind child stumbling towards the light it has
+FELT the discoveries of science long before discovery. In our
+sacraments there are the hints of the transmutation of elements,--the
+'Sanctus' bell suggests wireless telegraphy or telepathy, that is to
+say, communication between ourselves and the divine Unseen,--and if we
+are permitted to go deeper, we shall unravel the mystery of that
+'rising from the dead' which means renewed life. I am a 'prejudiced'
+priest, of course,"--and he smiled, gravely--"but with all its
+mistakes, errors, crimes (if you will) that it is answerable for since
+its institution, through the sins of unworthy servants, Catholicism is
+the only creed with the true seed of spiritual life within it--the only
+creed left standing on a firm foundation in this shaking world!"
+
+He uttered these words with passionate eloquence and added--
+
+"There are only three things that can make a nation great,--the love of
+God, the truth of man, the purity of woman. Without these three the
+greatest civilisation existing must perish,--no matter how wide its
+power or how vast its wealth. Ignorant or vulgar persons may sneer at
+this as 'the obvious'--but it is the 'obvious' sun alone that rules the
+day."
+
+Lady Kingswood's lips trembled; there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"How truly you speak!" she murmured--"And yet we live in a time when
+such truths appear to have no influence with people at all. Every one
+is bent on pleasure--on self--"
+
+"As every one was in the 'Cities of the Plain,'"--he said, "and we may
+well expect another rain of fire!"
+
+Here, lifting his eyes, he saw in the soft blush rose of the
+approaching sunset a small object like a white bird flying homeward
+across the sea.
+
+"Here it comes!" he exclaimed--"Not the rain of fire, but something
+more agreeable! I told you, did I not, miladi, that there was no
+danger? See!"
+
+Lady Kingswood looked where he pointed.
+
+"Surely that is not the air-ship?" she said--"It is too small!"
+
+"At this distance it is small"--answered Aloysius--"But wait!
+Watch,--and you will soon perceive Its great wings! What a marvellous
+thing it is! Marvellous!--and a woman's work!"
+
+They stood together, gazing into the reddening west, thrilled with
+expectancy,--while with a steady swiftness and accuracy of movement the
+bird-like object which at the first glimpse had seemed so small
+gradually loomed larger with nearer vision, its enormous wings
+spreading wide and beating the air rhythmically as though the true
+pulsation of life impelled their action. Neither Lady Kingswood nor Don
+Aloysius exchanged a word, so absorbed were they in watching the "White
+Eagle" arrive, and not till it began to descend towards the shore did
+they relax their attention and turn to each other with looks of
+admiration and amazement.
+
+"How long have they been gone?" asked Aloysius then.
+
+Lady Kingswood glanced at her watch.
+
+"Barely two hours."
+
+At that moment the "White Eagle" swooped suddenly over the gardens,
+noiselessly and with an enormous spread of wing that was like a white
+cloud in the sky--then gracefully swerved aside towards its "shed" or
+aerodrome, folding its huge pinions as of its own will and sliding into
+its quarters as easily as a hand may slide into a loose-fitting glove.
+The two interested watchers of its descent and swift "run home" had no
+time to exchange more than a few words of comment before Morgana ran
+lightly up the terrace, calling to them with all the gaiety of a child
+returning on a holiday.
+
+"It was glorious!" she exclaimed--"Just glorious! We've been to
+Naples,--crowds gathered in the street to stare at us,--we were ever so
+high above them and they couldn't make us out, as we moved so silently!
+Then we hovered for a bit over Capri,--the island looked like a lovely
+jewel shining with sun and sea,--and now here we are!--home in plenty
+of time to dress for dinner! You see, dear 'Duchess'--you need not have
+been nervous,--the 'White Eagle' is safer than any railway train, and
+ever so much pleasanter!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you've come back all right"--said Lady Kingswood--"It's
+a great relief! I certainly was afraid---"
+
+"Oh, you must never be afraid of anything!" laughed Morgana--"It does
+no good. We are all too much afraid of everything and everybody,--and
+often when there's nothing to be afraid of! Am I not right, most
+reverend Father Aloysius?" and she turned with a radiant smile to the
+priest whose serious dark eyes rested upon her with an expression of
+mingled admiration and wonder--"I'm so glad to find you here with Lady
+Kingswood--I'm sure you told her there was no danger for me, didn't
+you? Yes? I thought so! Now do stay and dine with us, please!--I want
+you to talk to the Marchese Rivardi--he's rather cross! He cannot bear
+me to have my own way!--I suppose all men are like that!--they want
+women to submit, not to command!" She laughed again. "See!--here he
+comes,--with the sulky air of a naughty boy!" this, as Rivardi slowly
+mounted the terrace steps and approached--"I'm off to dress for
+dinner--come, 'Duchess!' We'll leave the men to themselves!"
+
+She slipped her arm through Lady Kingswood's and hurried her away. Don
+Aloysius was puzzled by her words,--and, as Rivardi came up to him
+raised his eyebrows interrogatively. The Marchese answered the unspoken
+query by an impatient shrug.
+
+"Altro! She is impossible!" he said irritably--"Wild as the
+wind!--uncontrollable! She will kill herself!--but she does not care!"
+
+"What has she done?" asked Aloysius, smiling a little--"Has she
+invented something new?--a parachute in which to fall gracefully like a
+falling star?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind"--retorted Rivardi; vexed beyond all reason at the
+priest's tranquil air of good-humored tolerance--"But she insists on
+steering the air-ship herself! She took my place to-day."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well! You think that nothing? I tell you it is very serious--very
+foolhardy. She knows nothing of aerial navigation--"
+
+"Was her steering faulty?"
+
+Rivardi hesitated.
+
+"No,--it was wonderful"--he admitted, reluctantly; "Especially for a
+first attempt. And now she declares she will travel with the 'White
+Eagle' alone! Alone! Think of it! That little creature alone in the air
+with a huge air-ship under her sole control! The very idea is madness!"
+
+"Have patience, Giulio!" said Don Aloysius, gently--"I think she cannot
+mean what she says in this particular instance. She is naturally full
+of triumph at the success of her invention,--an amazing invention you
+must own!--and her triumph makes her bold. But be quite easy in your
+mind!--she will not travel alone!"
+
+"She will--she will!" declared Rivardi, passionately--"She will do
+anything she has a mind to do! As well try to stop the wind as stop
+her! She has some scheme in her brain,--so fantastic vision of that
+Brazen City you spoke of the other day--"
+
+Don Aloysius gave a sudden start.
+
+"No!--not possible!" he said--"She will not pursue a phantasm,--a
+dream!"
+
+He spoke nervously, and his face paled. Rivardi looked at him curiously.
+
+"There is no such place then?" he asked--"It is only a legend?"
+
+"Only a legend!" replied Aloysius, slowly--"Some travellers say it is a
+mirage of the desert,--others tell stories of having heard the bells in
+the brazen towers ring,--but no one--NO ONE," and he repeated the words
+with emphasis--"has ever been able to reach even the traditional
+environs of the place. Our hostess," and he smiled--"is a very
+wonderful little person, but even she will hardly be able to discover
+the undiscoverable!"
+
+"Can we say that anything is undiscoverable?" suggested Rivardi.
+
+Don Aloysius thought a moment before replying.
+
+"Perhaps not!"--he said, at last--"Our life all through is a voyage of
+discovery wherein we have no certainty of the port of arrival. The
+puzzling part of it is that we often 'discover' what has been
+discovered before in past ages where the discoverers seemed to make no
+use of their discoveries!--and so we lose ourselves in wonder--and
+often in weariness!" He sighed,--then added--"Had we not better go in
+and prepare to meet our hostess at dinner? And Giulio!--unbend your
+brows!--you must not get angry with your charming benefactress! If you
+do not let her have HER way, she will never let you have YOURS!"
+
+Rivardi gave a resigned gesture.
+
+"Oh, MINE! I must give up all hope--she will never think of me more
+than as a workman who has carried out her design. There is something
+very strange about her--she seems, at certain moments, to withdraw
+herself from all the interests of mere humanity. To-day, for instance,
+she looked down from the air-ship on the swarming crowds in the streets
+of Naples and said 'Poor little microbes! How sad it is to see them
+crawling about and festering down there! What IS the use of them! I
+wish I knew!' Then, when I ventured to suggest that possibly they were
+more than 'microbes,'--they were human beings that loved and worked and
+thought and created, she looked at me with those wonderful eyes of hers
+and answered--'Microbes do the same--only we don't take the trouble to
+think about them! But if we knew their lives and intentions, I dare say
+we should find they are quite as clever in their own line as we are in
+ours!' What is one to say to a woman who argues in this way?"
+
+Don Aloysius laughed gently.
+
+"But she argues quite correctly after all! My son, you are like the
+majority of men--they grow impatient with clever women,--they prefer
+stupid ones. In fact they deliberately choose stupid ones to be the
+mothers of their children--hence the ever increasing multitude of
+fools!" He moved towards the open doors of the beautiful lounge-hall of
+the Palazzo, Rivardi walking at his side. "But you will grant me a
+measure of wisdom in the advice I gave you the other day-the little
+millionairess is unlike other women--she is not capable of loving,--not
+in the way loving is understood in this world,--therefore do not seek
+from her what she cannot give!--As for her 'flying alone'--leave that
+to the fates!--I do not think she will attempt it."
+
+They entered the Palazzo just as a servant was about to announce to
+them that dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour, and their
+talk, for the time being, ended. But the thoughts of both men were
+busy; and unknown to each other, centered round the enigmatical
+personality of one woman who had become more interesting to them than
+anything else in the world,--so much so indeed that each in his own
+private mind wondered what life would be worth without her!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+That evening Morgana was in one of her most bewitching moods--even the
+old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant
+variations from grave to gay, from gay to romantic, and from romantic
+to a kind of humorous-satiric vein which moved her to utter quick
+little witticisms which might have seemed barbed with too sharp a point
+were they not so quickly covered with a sweetness of manner which
+deprived them of all malice. She looked her best, too,--she had robed
+herself in a garment of pale shimmering blue which shone softly like
+the gleam of moonbeams through crystal--her wonderful hair was twisted
+up in a coronal held in place by a band of diamonds,--tiny diamonds
+twinkled in her ears, and a star of diamonds glittered on her breast.
+Her elfin beauty, totally unlike the beauty of accepted standards,
+exhaled a subtle influence as a lily exhales fragrance--and the
+knowledge she had of her own charm combined with her indifference as to
+its effect upon others gave her a dangerous attractiveness. As she sat
+at the head of her daintily adorned dinner-table she might have posed
+for a fairy queen in days when fairies were still believed in and
+queens were envied,--and Giulio Rivardi's thoughts were swept to and
+fro in his brain by cross-currents of emotion which were not altogether
+disinterested or virtuous. For years his spirit had been fretted and
+galled by poverty,--he, the descendant of a long line of proud Sicilian
+nobles, had been forced to earn a precarious livelihood as an art
+decorator and adviser to "newly rich" people who had neither taste nor
+judgment, teaching them how to build, restore or furnish their houses
+according to the pure canons of art, in the knowledge of which he
+excelled,--and now, when chance or providence had thrown Morgana in his
+way,--Morgana with her millions, and an enchanting personality,--he
+inwardly demanded why he should not win her to have and to hold for his
+own? He was a personable man, nobly born, finely educated,--was it
+possible that he had not sufficient resolution and force of character
+to take the precious citadel by storm? These ideas flitted vaguely
+across his mind as he watched his fair hostess talking, now to Don
+Aloysius, now to Lady Kingswood, and sometimes flinging him a light
+word of badinage to rally him on what she chose to call his "sulks."
+
+"He can't get over it!" she declared, smiling--"Poor Marchese Giulio!
+That I should have dared to steer my own air-ship was too much for him,
+and he can't forgive me!"
+
+"I cannot forgive your putting yourself into danger," said
+Rivardi--"You ran a great risk--you must pardon me if I hold your life
+too valuable to be lightly lost."
+
+"It is good of you to think it valuable,"--and her wonderful blue eyes
+were suddenly shadowed with sadness--"To me it is valueless."
+
+"My dear!" exclaimed Lady Kingswood--"How can you say such a thing!"
+
+"Only because I feel it"--replied Morgana--"I dare say my life is not
+more valueless than other lives--they are all without ultimate meaning.
+If I knew, quite positively, that I was all in all to some ONE being
+who would be unhappy without me,--to whom I could be helper and
+inspirer, I dare say I should value my life more,--but unfortunately I
+have seen too much of the modern world to believe in the sincerity of
+even that 'one' being, could I find him--or her. I am very positively
+alone in life,--no woman was ever more alone than I!"
+
+"But--is not that your own fault?" suggested Don Aloysius, gently.
+
+"Quite!" she answered, smiling--"I fully admit it. I am what they call
+'difficult' I know,--I do not like 'society' or its amusements, which
+to me seem very vulgar and senseless,--I do not like its conversation,
+which I find excessively banal and often coarse--I cannot set my soul
+on tennis or golf or bridge--so I'm quite an 'outsider.' But I'm not
+sorry!--I should not care to be INside the human menagerie. Too much
+barking, biting, scratching, and general howling among the animals!--it
+wouldn't suit me!"
+
+She laughed lightly, and continued,--
+
+"That's why I say my life is valueless to anyone but myself. And that's
+why I'm not afraid to risk it in flying the 'White Eagle' alone."
+
+Her hearers were silent. Indeed there was nothing to be said. Whatever
+her will or caprice there was no one with any right to gainsay it.
+Rivardi was inwardly seething with suppressed irritation--but his
+handsome face showed no sign of annoyance save in an extreme pallor and
+gravity of expression.
+
+"I think,"--said Don Aloysius, after a pause--"I think our hostess will
+do us the grace of believing that whatever she has experienced of the
+world in general, she has certainly won the regard and interest of
+those whom she honours with her company at the present moment!"--and
+his voice had a thrill of irresistible kindness--"And whatever she
+chooses to do, and however she chooses to do it, she cannot avoid
+involving such affection and interest as those friends represent--"
+
+"Dear Father Aloysius!" interrupted Morgana, quickly and
+impulsively--"Forgive me!--I did not think!--I am sure you and the
+Marchese and Lady Kingswood have the kindest feeling for me!--but--"
+
+"But!"--and Aloysius smiled--"But--it is a little lady that will not be
+commanded or controlled! Yes--that is so! However this may be, let us
+not imagine that in the rush of commerce and the marvels of science the
+world is left empty of love! Love is still the strongest force in
+nature!"
+
+Morgana's eyes flashed up, then drooped under their white lids fringed
+with gold.
+
+"You think so?" she murmured--"To me, love leads nowhere!"
+
+"Except to Heaven!" said Aloysius.
+
+There followed a silence.
+
+It was broken by the entrance of a servant announcing that coffee was
+served in the loggia. They left the dinner-table and went out into the
+wonder of a perfect Sicilian moonlight. All the gardens were illumined
+and the sea beyond, with wide strands of silver spreading on all sides,
+falling over the marble pavements and steps of the loggia and
+glistening on certain white flowering shrubs with the smooth sheen of
+polished pearl. The magical loveliness of the scene, made lovelier by
+the intense silence of the hour, held them as with a binding spell, and
+Morgana, standing by one of the slender columns which not only
+supported the loggia but the whole Palazzo d'Oro as with the petrified
+stems of trees, made a figure completely in harmony with her
+surroundings.
+
+"Could anything be more enchantingly beautiful!" sighed Lady
+Kingswood--"One ought to thank God for eyes to see it!"
+
+"And many people with eyes would not see it at all,"--said Don
+Aloysius--"They would go indoors, shut the shutters and play Bridge!
+But those who can see it are the happiest!"
+
+And he quoted--
+
+     "'On such a night as this,
+       When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
+       And they did make no noise,--on such a night
+       Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls
+       And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents
+       Where Cressid lay!'"
+
+"You know your Shakespeare!" said Rivardi.
+
+"Who would not know him!" replied Aloysius--"One is not blind to the
+sun!"
+
+"Ah, poor Shakespeare!" said Morgana--"What a lesson he gives us
+miserable little moderns in the worth of fame! So great, so
+unapproachable,--and yet!--doubted and slandered and reviled three
+hundred years after his death by envious detractors who cannot write a
+line!"
+
+"But what does that matter?" returned Aloysius. "Envy and detraction in
+their blackness only emphasise his brightness, just as a star shines
+more brilliantly in a dark sky. One always recognises a great spirit by
+the littleness of those who strive to wound it,--if it were not great
+it would not be worth wounding!"
+
+"Shakespeare might have imagined my air-ship!" said Morgana,
+suddenly--"He was perhaps dreaming vaguely of something like it when he
+wrote about--"
+
+     'A winged messenger of heaven
+      When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
+      And sails upon the bosom of the air!'
+
+"The 'White Eagle' sails upon the bosom of the air!"
+
+"Quite true"--said the Marchese Rivardi, looking at her as she stood,
+bathed in the moonlight, a nymph-like figure of purely feminine charm,
+as unlike the accepted idea of a "science" scholar as could well be
+imagined--"And the manner of its sailing is a mystery which you only
+can explain! Surely you will reveal this secret?--especially when so
+many rush into the air-craft business without any idea of the
+scientific laws by which you uphold your great design? Much has been
+said and written concerning new schemes for air-vessels moved by
+steam--"
+
+"That is so like men!" interrupted Morgana, with a laugh--"They will
+think of steam power when they are actually in possession of
+electricity!--and they will stick to electricity without moving the one
+step further which would give them the full use of radio-activity! They
+will 'bungle' to the end!--and their bungling is always brought about
+by an ineffable conceit of their own so-called 'logical' conclusions!
+Poor dears!--they 'get there' at last--and in the course of centuries
+find out what they could have discovered in a month if they had opened
+their minds as well as their eyes!"
+
+"Well, then,--help them now," said Rivardi--"Give them the chance to
+learn your secret!"
+
+Morgana moved away from the column where she had leaned, and came more
+fully into the broad moonlight.
+
+"My dear Marchese Giulio!" she said, indulgently, "You really are a
+positive child in your very optimistic look-out on the world of to-day!
+Suppose I were to 'give them the chance,' as you suggest, to learn my
+secret, how do you think I should be received? I might go to the great
+scientific institutions of London and Paris and I might ask to be
+heard--I might offer to give a 'demonstration,'" here she began to
+laugh; "Oh dear!--it would never do for a woman to 'demonstrate' and
+terrify all the male professors, would it! No!--well, I should probably
+have to wait months before being 'heard,'--then I should probably meet
+with the chill repudiation dealt out to that wonderful Hindu scientist,
+Jagadis Bose, by Burdon Sanderson when the brilliant Indian savant
+tried to teach men what they never knew before about the life of
+plants. Not only that, I should be met with incredulity and
+ridicule--'a woman! a WOMAN dares to assume knowledge superior to
+ours!' and so forth. No, no! Let the wise men try their steam air-ships
+and spoil the skies by smoke and vapour, so that agriculture becomes
+more and more difficult, and sunshine an almost forgotten
+benediction!--let them go their own foolish way till they learn wisdom
+of themselves--no one could ever teach them what they refuse to learn,
+till they tumble into a bog or quicksand of dilemma and have to be
+forcibly dragged out."
+
+"By a woman?" hinted Don Aloysius, with a smile.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
+
+"Very often! Marja Sklodowska Curie, for example, has pulled many
+scientists out of the mud, but they are not grateful enough to
+acknowledge it. One of the greatest women of the age, she is allowed to
+remain in comparative obscurity,--even Anatole France, though he called
+her a 'genius,' had not the generosity or largeness of mind to praise
+her as she deserves. Though, of course, like all really great souls she
+is indifferent to praise or blame--the notice of the decadent press,
+noisy and vulgar like the beating of the cheap-jack's drum at a country
+fair, has no attraction for her. Nothing is known of her private
+life,--not a photograph of her is obtainable--she has the lovely
+dignity of complete reserve. She is one of my heroines in this
+life--she does not offer herself to the cheap journalist like a
+milliner's mannequin or a film face. She will not give herself
+away--neither will I!"
+
+"But you might benefit the human race"--said Rivardi--"Would not that
+thought weigh with you?"
+
+"Not in the least!"--and she smiled--"The human race in its present
+condition is 'an unweeded garden, things rank and gross in nature
+possess it merely,' and it wants clearing. I have no wish to benefit
+it. It has always murdered its benefactors. It deludes itself with the
+idea that the universe is for IT alone,--it ignores the fact that there
+are many other sharers in its privileges and surroundings--presences
+and personalities as real as itself. I am almost a believer in what the
+old-time magicians called 'elementals'--especially now."
+
+Don Aloysius rose from his chair and put aside his emptied coffee-cup.
+His tall fine figure silhouetted more densely black by the whiteness of
+the moon-rays had a singularly imposing effect.
+
+"Why especially now?" he asked, almost imperatively--"What has chanced
+to make you accept the idea--an old idea, older than the lost continent
+of Atlantis!--of creatures built up of finer life-cells than ours?"
+
+Morgana looked at him, vaguely surprised by his tone and manner.
+
+"Nothing has chanced that causes me any wonder," she said--"or that
+would 'make' me accept any theory which I could not put to the test for
+myself. But, out in New York while I have been away, a fellow-student
+of mine--just a boy,--has found out the means of 'creating energy from
+some unknown source'--that is, unknown to the scientists of
+rule-and-line. They call his electric apparatus 'an atmospheric
+generator.' Naturally this implies that the atmosphere has something to
+'generate' which has till now remained hidden and undeveloped. I knew
+this long ago. Had I NOT known it I could not have thought out the
+secret of the 'White Eagle'!"
+
+She paused to allow the murmured exclamations of her hearers to
+subside,--then she went on--"You can easily understand that if
+atmosphere generates ONE form of energy it is capable of many other
+forms,--and on these lines there is nothing to be said, against the
+possibility of 'elementals.' I feel quite 'elemental' myself in this
+glorious moonlight!--just as if I could slip out of my body like a
+butterfly out of a chrysalis and spread my wings!"
+
+She lifted her fair arms upward with a kind of expansive rapture,--the
+moonbeams seemed to filter through the delicate tissue of her garments
+adding brightness to their folds and sparkling frostily on the diamonds
+in her hair,--and even Lady Kingswood's very placid nature was
+conscious of an unusual thrill, half of surprise and half of fear, at
+the quite "other world" appearance she thus presented.
+
+"You have rather the look of a butterfly!" she said, kindly--"One of
+those beautiful tropical things--or a fairy!--only we don't know what
+fairies are like as we have never seen any!"
+
+Morgana laughed, and let her arms drop at her sides. She felt rather
+than saw the admiring eyes of the two men upon her and her mood changed.
+
+"Yes--it is a lovely night,--for Sicily,"--she said. "But it would be
+lovelier in California!"
+
+"In California!" echoed Rivardi--"Why California?"
+
+"Why? Oh, I don't know why! I often think of California--it is so vast!
+Sicily is a speck of garden-land compared with it--and when the moon
+rises full over the great hills and spreads a wide sheet of silver over
+the Pacific Ocean you begin to realise a something beyond ordinary
+nature--it helps you to get to the 'beyond' yourself if you have the
+will to try!"
+
+Just then the soft slow tolling of a bell struck through the air and
+Don Aloysius prepared to take his leave.
+
+"The 'beyond' calls to me from the monastery," he said, smiling--"I
+have been too long absent. Will you walk with me, Giulio?"
+
+"Willingly!" and the Marchese bowed over Lady Kingswood's hand as he
+bade her "Good night."
+
+"I will accompany you both to the gate,"--said Morgana, suddenly--"and
+then--when you are both gone I shall wander a little by myself in the
+light of the moon!"
+
+Lady Kingswood looked dubiously at her, but was too tactful to offer
+any objection such as the "danger of catching cold" which the ordinary
+duenna would have suggested, and which would have seemed absurd in the
+warmth and softness of such a summer night. Besides, if Morgana chose
+to "wander by the light of the moon" who could prevent her? No one! She
+stepped off the loggia on to the velvety turf below with an aerial
+grace more characteristic of flying than walking, and glided along
+between the tall figures of the Marchese and Don Aloysius like a
+dream-spirit of the air, and Lady Kingswood, watching her as she
+descended the garden terraces and gradually disappeared among the
+trees, was impressed, as she had often been before, by a strange sense
+of the supernatural,--as if some being wholly unconnected with ordinary
+mortal happenings were visiting the world by a mere chance. She was a
+little ashamed of this "uncanny" feeling,--and after a few minutes'
+hesitation she decided to retire within the house and to her own
+apartments, rightly judging that Morgana would be better pleased to
+find her so gone than waiting for her return like a sentinel on guard.
+She gave a lingering look at the exquisite beauty of the moonlit scene,
+and thought with a sigh--
+
+"What it would be if one were young once more!"
+
+And then she turned, slowly pacing across the loggia and entering the
+Palazzo, where the gleam of electric lamps within rivalled the
+moonbeams and drew her out of sight.
+
+Meanwhile, Morgana, between her two escorts stepped lightly along,
+playfully arguing with them both on their silence.
+
+"You are so very serious, you good Padre Aloysius!" she said--"And you,
+Marchese--you who are generally so charming!--to-night you are a very
+morose companion! You are still in the dumps about my steering the
+'White Eagle!'--how cross of you!"
+
+"Madama, I think of your safety,"--he said, curtly.
+
+"It is kind of you! But if I do not care for my safety?"
+
+"I do!" he said, decisively.
+
+"And I also!"--said Aloysius, earnestly--"Dear lady, be advised! Think
+no more of flying in the vast spaces of air alone--alone with an
+enormous piece of mechanism which might fail at any moment--"
+
+"It cannot fail unless the laws of nature fail!"--said Morgana,
+emphatically--"How strange it is that neither of you seems to realise
+that the force which moves the 'White Eagle' is natural force alone!
+However--you are but men!" Here she stopped in her walk, and her
+brilliant eyes flashed from one to the other--"Men!--with pre-conceived
+ideas wedged in obstinacy!--yes!--you cannot help yourselves! Even
+Father Aloysius--" she paused, as she met his grave eyes fixed full
+upon her.
+
+"Well!" he said gently--"What of Father Aloysius? He is 'but man' as
+you say!--a poor priest having nothing in common with your wealth or
+your self-will, my child!--one whose soul admits no other instruction
+than that of the Great Intelligence ruling the universe, and from whose
+ordinance comes forth joy or sorrow, wisdom or ignorance. We are but
+dust on the wind before this mighty power!--even you, with all your
+study and attainment are but a little phantom on the air!"
+
+She smiled as he spoke.
+
+"True!" she said--"And you would save this phantom from vanishing into
+air utterly?"
+
+"I would!" he answered--"I would fain place you in God's keeping,"--and
+with a gesture infinitely tender and solemn, he made the sign of the
+cross above her head--"with a prayer that you may be guided out of the
+tangled ways of life as lived in these days, to the true realisation of
+happiness!"
+
+She caught his hand and impulsively kissed it.
+
+"You are good!--far too good!" she said--"And I am wild and
+wilful--forgive me! I will say good night here--we are just at the
+gate. Good night, Marchese! I promise you shall fly with me to the
+East--I will not go alone. There!--be satisfied!" And she gave him a
+bewitching smile--then with another markedly gentle "Good night" to
+Aloysius, she turned away and left them, choosing a path back to the
+house which was thickly overgrown with trees, so that her figure was
+almost immediately lost to view.
+
+The two men looked at each other in silence.
+
+"You will not succeed by thwarting her!"--said Aloysius, warningly.
+
+Rivardi gave an impatient gesture.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I? My son, I have no aim in view with regard to her! I should like to
+see her happy--she has great wealth, and great gifts of intellect and
+ability--but these do not make real happiness for a woman. And yet--I
+doubt whether she could ever be happy in the ordinary woman's way."
+
+"No, because she is not an 'ordinary' woman," said Rivardi,
+quickly--"More's the pity I think--for HER!"
+
+"And for you!" added Aloysius, meaningly.
+
+Rivardi made no answer, and they walked on in silence, the priest
+parting with his companion at the gate of the monastery, and the
+Marchese going on to his own half-ruined villa lifting its crumbling
+walls out of wild verdure and suggesting the historic past, when a
+Caesar spent festal hours in its great gardens which were now a
+wilderness.
+
+Meanwhile, Morgana, the subject of their mutual thoughts, followed the
+path she had taken down to the seashore. Alone there, she stood
+absorbed,--a fairylike figure in her shimmering soft robe and the
+diamonds flashing in her hair--now looking at the moonlit water,--now
+back to the beautiful outline of the Palazzo d'Oro, lifted on its rocky
+height and surrounded by a paradise of flowers and foliage--then to the
+long wide structure of the huge shed where her wonderful air-ship lay,
+as it were, in harbour. She stretched out her arms with a fatigued,
+appealing gesture.
+
+"I have all I want!"--she said softly aloud,--"All!--all that money can
+buy--more than money has ever bought!--and yet--the unknown quantity
+called happiness is not in the bargain. What is it? Why is it? I am
+like the princess in the 'Arabian Nights' who was quite satisfied with
+her beautiful palace till an old woman came along and told her that it
+wanted a roc's egg to make it perfect. And she became at once miserable
+and discontented because she had not the roc's egg! I thought her a
+fool when I read that story in my childhood--but I am as great a fool
+as she to-day. I want that roc's egg!"
+
+She laughed to herself and looked up at the splendid moon, round as a
+golden shield in heaven.
+
+"How the moon shone that night in California!" she murmured--"And Roger
+Seaton--bear-man as he is--would have given worlds to hold me in his
+arms and kiss me as he did once when he 'didn't mean it!' Ah! I wonder
+if he ever WILL mean it! Perhaps--when it is too late!"
+
+And there swept over her mind the memory of Manella--her rich, warm,
+dark beauty--her frank abandonment to passions purely primitive,--and
+she smiled, a cold little weird smile.
+
+"He may marry her,"--she said--"And yet--I think not! But--if he does
+marry her he will never love her--as he loves ME! How we play at
+cross-purposes in our lives!--he is not a marrying man--I am not a
+marrying woman--we are both out for conquest on other lines,--and if
+either of us wins our way, what then? Shall we be content to live on a
+triumph of power,--without love?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"So the man from Washington told you to bring this to me?"
+
+Roger Seaton asked the question of Manella, twirling in his hand an
+unopened letter she had just given him. She nodded in the affirmative.
+He looked at her critically, amused at the evident pains she had taken
+with her dress and general appearance. He twirled the letter again like
+a toy in his fingers.
+
+"I wonder what it's all about? Do you know?"
+
+Manella shrugged her shoulders with a charming air of indifference.
+
+"I? How should I know? He is your friend I suppose?"
+
+"Not a bit of it!" and Roger stretched himself lazily and yawned--"He's
+the friend of nobody who is poor. But he's the comrade of everybody
+with plenty of cash. He's as hard as a dried old walnut, without the
+shred of a heart--"
+
+"You are wrong!" said Manella, flushing up suddenly--"You are wrong and
+unjust! He is an ugly old man, but he is very kind."
+
+Seaton threw back his head and laughed heartily with real enjoyment.
+
+"Manella, oh, Manella!" he exclaimed--"What has he said or done to you
+to win your good opinion? Has he made you some pretty compliments, and
+told you that you are beautiful? Every one can tell you that, my dear!
+It does not need Mr. Senator Gwent's assurance to emphasise the fact!
+That you find him an ugly old man is natural--but that you should also
+think him 'very kind' DOES surprise me!"
+
+Manella gazed at him seriously--her lovely eyes gleaming like jewels
+under her long black lashes.
+
+"You mock at everything,"--she said--"It is a pity!"
+
+Her tone was faintly reproachful. He smiled.
+
+"My dear girl, I really cannot regard Mr. Senator Gwent as a figure to
+be reverenced!"--he said--"He's one of the dustiest, driest old
+dollar-grabbers in the States. I gave him the chance of fresh grab--but
+he was too much afraid to take it--"
+
+"Afraid of what?" asked Manella, quickly.
+
+"Of shadows!--shadows of coming events!--yes, they scared him! Now if
+you are a good girl, and will sit very quiet, you can come into my hut
+out of this scorching sun, and sit down while I read the letter--I may
+have to write an answer--and if so you can post it at the Plaza."
+
+He went before her into the hut, and she followed. He bade her sit down
+in the chair by the window,--she obeyed, and glanced about her shyly,
+yet curiously. The room was not untidy, as she expected it would be
+without a woman's hand to set it in order,--on the contrary it was the
+perfection of neatness and cleanliness. Her gaze was quickly attracted
+by the bowl of perpetually moving fluid in the center of the table.
+
+"What is that?" she asked.
+
+"That? Oh, nothing! An invention of mine--just to look pretty and cool
+in warm weather! It reminds me of women's caprices and fancies--always
+on the jump! Yes!--don't frown, Manella!--that is so! Now--let me see
+what Mr. Sam Gwent has to say that he didn't say before---" and seating
+himself, he opened the letter and began to read.
+
+Manella watched him from under the shadow of her long-fringed
+eyelids--her heart beat quickly and uncomfortably. She was fearful lest
+Gwent should have broken faith with her after all, and have written of
+her and her vain passion, to the man who already knew of it only too
+well. She waited patiently for the "god of her idolatry" to look up. At
+last he did so. But he seemed to have forgotten her presence. His brows
+were knitted in a frown, and he spoke aloud, as to himself--
+
+"A syndicate! Old humbug! He knows perfectly well that the thing could
+not be run by a syndicate! It must be a State's own single
+possession--a State's special secret. If I were as bent on sheer
+destructiveness as he imagines me to be, I should waste no more time,
+but offer it to Germany. Germany would take it at once--Germany would
+require no persuasion to use it!--Germany would make me a millionaire
+twice over for the monopoly of such a force!--that is, if I wanted to
+be a millionaire, which I don't. But Gwent's a fool--I must have scared
+him out of his wits, or he wouldn't write all this stuff about risks to
+my life, advising me to marry quickly and settle down! Good God!
+I?--Marry and settle down? What a tame ending to a life's adventure!
+Hello, Manella!"
+
+His eyes lighted upon her as if he had only just seen her. He rose from
+his chair and went over to where she sat by the window.
+
+"Patient girl!" he said, patting her dark head with his big sun-browned
+hand--"As good as gold and quieter than a mouse! Well! You may go now.
+I've read the letter and there's no answer. Nothing for me to write, or
+for you to post!" She lifted her brilliant eyes to his--what glorious
+eyes they were! He would not have been man had he not been conscious of
+their amorous fire. He patted her head again in quite a paternal way.
+
+"Nothing for me to write or for you to post"--he repeated,
+abstractedly--"and how satisfactory that is!"
+
+"Then you are pleased?" she said.
+
+"Pleased? My dear, there is nothing to be pleased or displeased about!
+The ugly old man whom you found so 'very kind' tells me to take care of
+myself--which I always do. Also--to marry and settle down--which I
+always don't!"
+
+She stood upright, turning her head away from the touch of his hand.
+She had never looked more attractive than at that moment,--she wore the
+white gown in which he had before admired her, and a cluster of roses
+which were pinned to her bodice gave rich contrast to the soft tone of
+her smooth, suntanned skin, and swayed lightly with the unquiet heaving
+of the beautiful bosom which might have served a sculptor as a perfect
+model. A faint, quivering smile was on her lips.
+
+"You always don't? That sounds very droll! You will be unlike every man
+in the world, then,--they all marry!"
+
+"Oh, do they? You know all about it? Wise Manella!"
+
+And he looked at her, smiling. Her passionate eyes, full of glowing
+ardour, met his,--a flashing fire seemed to leap from them into his own
+soul, and for the moment he almost lost his self-possession.
+
+"Wise Manella!" he repeated, his voice shaking a little, while he
+fought with the insidious temptation which beset him,--the temptation
+to draw her into his arms and take his fill of the love she was so
+ready to give--"They always marry? No dear, they do NOT! Many of them
+avoid marriage--" he paused, then continued--"and do you know why?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Because it is the end of romance! Because it rings down the curtain on
+a beautiful Play! The music ceases--the lights are put out--the
+audience goes home,--and the actors take off their fascinating
+costumes, wash away their paint and powder and sit down to
+supper--possibly fried steak and onions and a pot of beer. The fried
+steak and onions--also the beer--make a very good ordinary 'marriage.'"
+
+In this flippant talk he gained the mastery over himself he had feared
+to lose--and laughed heartily as he saw Manella's expression of utter
+bewilderment.
+
+"I do not understand!" she said, plaintively--"What is steak and
+onions?--how do they make a marriage? You say such strange things!"
+
+He laughed again, thoroughly amused.
+
+"Yes, don't I!" he rejoined--"But not half such strange things as I
+could say if I were so inclined! I'm a queer fellow!"
+
+He touched her hair gently, putting back a stray curl that had fallen
+across her forehead.
+
+"Now, dear," he continued, "It's time you went. You'll be wanted at the
+Plaza--and they mustn't think I'm keeping you up here, making love to
+you!"
+
+She tossed her head back, and her eyes flashed almost angrily.
+
+"There's no danger of that!" she said, with a little suppressed tremor
+in her throat like the sob of a nightingale at the close of its song.
+
+"Isn't there?" and putting his arm round her, he drew her close to
+himself and looked full in her eyes--"Manella--there WAS!--a moment
+ago!"
+
+She remained still and passive in his arms--hardly daring to breathe,
+so rapt was she in a sudden ecstasy, but he could feel the wild beating
+of her heart against his own.
+
+"A moment ago!" he repeated, in a half whisper. "A moment ago I could
+have made such desperate love to you as would have astonished
+myself!--and YOU! And I should have regretted it ever afterwards--and
+so would you!"
+
+The struggling emotion in her found utterance.
+
+"No, no--not I!" she said, in quick little passionate murmurs--"I could
+not regret it!--If you loved me for an hour it would be the joy of my
+life-time!--You might leave me,--you might forget!--but that would not
+take away my pride and gladness! You might kill me--I would die gladly
+if it saved YOUR life!--ah, you do not understand love--not the love of
+Manella!"
+
+And she lifted her face to his--a face so lovely, so young, so warm
+with her soul's inward rapture that its glowing beauty might have made
+a lover of an anchorite. But with Roger Seaton the impulses of passion
+were brief--the momentary flame had gone out in vapour, and the spirit
+of the anchorite prevailed. He looked at the dewy red lips, delicately
+parted like rose petals--but he did not kiss them, and the clasp of his
+arms round her gradually relaxed.
+
+"Hush, hush Manella!" he said, with a mild kindness, which in her
+overwrought state was more distracting than angry words would have
+been--"Hush! You talk foolishness--beautiful foolishness--all women do
+when they set their fancies on men. It is nature, of course,--YOU think
+it is love, but, my dear girl, there is no such thing as love!
+There!--now you are cross!" for she drew herself quickly away from his
+hold and stood apart, her eyes sparkling, her breast heaving, with the
+air of a goddess enraged,--"You are cross because I tell you the
+truth---"
+
+"It is not the truth," she said, in a low voice quivering with intense
+feeling--"you tell me lies to disguise yourself. But I can see! You
+yourself love a woman--but you have not my courage!--you are afraid to
+own it! You would give the world to hold her in your arms as you just
+now held ME--but you will not admit it--not even to yourself--and you
+pretend to hate when you are mad for love!--just as you pretend to be
+ill when you are well! You should be ashamed to say there is no such
+thing as love! What mean you then by playing so false with
+yourself?--with me?--and with HER?"
+
+She looked lovelier than ever in her anger, and he was taken by
+surprise at the impetuous and instinctive guess she had made at the
+complexity of his moods, which he himself scarcely understood. For a
+moment he stood inert, embarrassed by her straight, half-scornful
+glance--then he regained his usual mental poise and smiled with
+provoking good humour and tolerance.
+
+"Temper, Manella!--temper again! A pity, a pity! Your Spanish blood is
+too fiery, Manella!--it is indeed! You have been very rude--do you know
+how rude you have been? But there! I forgive you! You are only a
+naughty child! As for love---"
+
+He paused, and going to the door of the hut looked out.
+
+"Manella, there is a big cloud in the west just over the ocean. It is
+shaped like a great white eagle and its wings are edged with gold,--it
+is the beginning of a fine sunset. Come and look at it,--and while we
+watch it floating along I will talk to you about love!"
+
+She hesitated,--her whole spirit was up in arms against this man whom
+she loved, and who, so she argued with herself, had allowed her to love
+HIM, while having no love for HER; and yet,--since Gwent had told her
+that his mysterious occupation might result in disaster and danger to
+his life, her devotion had received a new impetus which was wholly
+unselfish,--that of watchful guardianship such as inspires a faithful
+dog to defend its master. And, moved by this thought, she obeyed his
+beckoning hand, and stood with him on the sward outside the hut,
+looking at the cloud he described. It was singularly white,--new-fallen
+snow could be no whiter,--and, shaped like a huge bird, its great wings
+spread out to north and south were edged with a red-gold fire. Seaton
+pushed an old tree stump into position and sat down upon it, making
+Manella sit beside him.
+
+"Now for this talk!" he said--"Love is the subject,--Love the theme! We
+are taught that we must love God and love our neighbor--but we don't,
+because we can't! In the case of God we cannot love what we don't know
+and don't see,--and we cannot love our neighbor because he is often a
+person whom we DO know and CAN see, and who is extremely offensive. Now
+let us consider what IS love? You, Manella, are angry because I say
+there is no such thing--and you accuse me of indulging in love for a
+woman myself. Yet--I still declare, in spite of you, there is no such
+thing as love! I ought to be ashamed of myself for saying this--so YOU
+think!--but I'm not ashamed. I know I'm right! Love is a divine idea,
+never realised. It is like a ninth new note in the musical scale--not
+to be attained. It is suggested in the highest forms of poetry and art,
+but the suggestion can never be carried out. What men and women call
+'love' is the ordinary attraction of sex,--the same attraction that
+pulls all male and female living things together and makes them mate.
+It is very unromantic! And to a man of my mind, very useless."
+
+She looked at him in a kind of sorrowful perplexity.
+
+"You have much talk"--she said--"and no doubt you are clever. But I
+think you are all wrong!"
+
+"You do? Wise child! Now listen to my much talk a little longer! Have
+you ever watched silkworms? No? They are typical examples of humanity.
+A silkworm, while it is a worm, feeds to repletion,--you can never get
+it as many mulberry leaves as it would like to eat--then when it is
+gorged, it builds itself a beautiful house of silk (which is taken away
+from it in due course) and comes out at the door in wings!--wings it
+hardly uses and seems not to understand--then, if it is a female moth,
+it looks about for 'love' from the male. If the male 'loves' it, the
+female produces a considerable number of eggs like pin-heads--and
+then?--what then? Why she promptly dies, and there's an end of her! Her
+sole aim and end of being was to produce eggs, which in their turn
+become worms and repeat the same dull routine of business. Now--think
+me as brutal as you like--I say a woman is very like a female
+silkworm,--she comes out of her beautiful silken cocoon of maidenhood
+with wings which she doesn't know how to use--she merely flutters about
+waiting to be 'loved'--and when this dream she calls 'love' comes to
+her, she doesn't dream any longer--she wakes--to find her life
+finished!--finished, Manella!--dry as a gourd with all the juice run
+out!"
+
+Manella rose from her seat beside him. The warm light in her eyes had
+gone--her face was pale, and as she drew herself up to her stately
+height she made a picture of noble scorn.
+
+"I am sorry for you!" she said. "If you think these things your
+thoughts are quite dreadful! You are a cruel man after all! I am sorry
+I spoke of the beautiful little lady who came here to see you--you do
+not love her--you cannot!--I felt sure you did--but I am wrong!--there
+is no love in you except for yourself and your own will!"
+
+She spoke, breathing quickly, and trembling with suppressed emotion. He
+smiled,--and, rising, saluted her with a profound bow.
+
+"Thank you, Manella! You give me a true character!--Myself and my own
+will are certainly the chief factors in my life--and they may work
+wonders yet!--who knows! And there is no love in me--no!--not what YOU
+call love!--but--as concerns the 'beautiful little lady,' you may know
+this much of me--THAT _I_ WANT HER!"
+
+He threw out his hands with a gesture that was almost tragic, and such
+an expression came into his face of savagery and tenderness commingled
+that Manella retreated from him in vague terror.
+
+"I want her!" he repeated--"And why? Not to 'love' her,--but to break
+her wings,--for she, unlike a silkworm moth, knows how to use them! I
+want her, to make her proud mind bend to MY will and way!--I want her
+to show her how a man can, shall, and MUST be master of a woman's brain
+and soul!"
+
+A sudden heat of pent-up feeling broke out in this impulsive rush of
+words;--he checked himself,--and seeing Manella's pale, scared face he
+went up to her and took her hand.
+
+"You see, Manella?" he said, in quiet tones--"There is no such thing as
+'love,' but there is such a thing as 'wanting.' And--for the most
+selfish reasons man ever had--I want HER--not you!"
+
+The colour rushed back to her cheeks in a warm glow--her great dark
+eyes were ablaze with indignation. She drew her hand quickly from his
+hold.
+
+"And I hope you will never get her!" she said, passionately--"I will
+pray the Holy Virgin to save her from you! For you are wicked! She is
+like an angel--and you are a devil!--yes, surely you must be, or you
+could not say such horrible things! You do not want me, you say? I know
+that! I am a fool to have shown you my heart--you have broken it, but
+you do not care--you could have been master of my brain and soul
+whenever you pleased---"
+
+"Ah yes, dear!" he interrupted, with a smile--"That would be so easy!"
+
+The touch of satire in these words was lost on her,--she took them
+quite literally, and a sudden softness sweetened her anger.
+
+"Yes!--quite easy!" she said--"And you would be pleased! You would do
+as you wished with me--men like to rule women!"
+
+"When it is worth while!" he thought, looking at her with a curious
+pitifulness as one might look at a struggling animal caught in a net.
+Aloud he said--
+
+"Yes, Manella!--men like to rule women. It is their special
+privilege--they have enjoyed it always, even in the days when the
+Indian 'braves' beat their squaws out here in California, and killed
+them outright if they dared to complain of the beating! Women are busy
+just now trying to rule men--it's an experiment, but it won't do! Men
+are the masters of life! They expect to be obeyed by all the rest of
+creation. _I_ expect to be obeyed!--and so, Manella, when I tell you to
+go home, you must go! Yes!--love, tempers and all!--you must go!"
+
+She met his eyes with a resolved look in her own.
+
+"I am going!" she answered--"But I shall come again. Oh, yes! And yet
+again! and very often! I shall come even if it is only to find you dead
+on this hill--killed by your own secret! Yes--I shall come!"
+
+He gave an involuntary movement of surprise and annoyance. Had Mr.
+Senator Gwent discussed his affairs with this beautiful foolish girl
+who, like some forest animal, cared for nothing but the satisfaction of
+mating where her wishes inclined.
+
+"What do you mean, Manella?" he demanded, imperatively--"Do you expect
+to find me dead?"
+
+She nodded vehemently. Tears were in her eyes and she turned her head
+away that he might not see them.
+
+"What a cheerful prospect!" he exclaimed, gaily--"And I'm to be killed
+by my own secret, am I? I wonder what it is! Ah, Manella, Manella! That
+stupid old Gwent has been at you, stuffing your mind with a lot of
+nonsense--don't you believe him! I've no 'secret' that will kill me--I
+don't want to be killed; No, Manella! Though you come 'again and yet
+again and ever so often' as you say, you will not find me dead! I'm too
+strong!"
+
+But Manella, yielding to her inward excitement, pointed a hand at him
+with a warning air of a tragedy queen.
+
+"Do not boast!" she said--"God is always listening! No man is too
+strong for God! I am not clever--I have no knowledge of what you
+do--but this I will tell you surely! You may have a secret,--or you may
+not have it,--but if you play with the powers of God you will be
+punished! Yes!--of that I am quite certain! And this I will also
+say--if you were to pull all the clouds down upon you and the thunders
+and the lightnings and all the terrible things of destruction in the
+world, I would be there! And you would know what love is!--Yes!"--her
+voice choked, and then pealed out like that of a Sybilline prophetess,
+"If God struck you down to hell, I would be there!"
+
+And with a wild, sobbing cry she rushed away from him down the hill
+before he could move or utter a word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+A red sky burned over Egypt,--red with deep intensity of spreading
+fire. The slow-creeping waters of the Nile washed patches of dull
+crimson against the oozy mud-banks, tipping palms and swaying reeds
+with colour as though touched with vermilion, and here and there long
+stretches of wet sand gleamed with a tawny gold. All Cairo was out,
+inhabitants and strangers alike, strangers especially, conceiving it
+part of their "money's worth" never to miss a sunset,--and beyond
+Cairo, where the Pyramids lifted their summits aloft,--stern points of
+warning or menace from the past to the present and the future,--a crowd
+of tourists with their Arab guides were assembled, staring upward in,
+amazement at a white wonder in the red sky, a great air-ship, which,
+unlike other air-ships, was noiseless, and that moved vast wings up and
+down with the steady, swift rhythm of a bird's flight, as though of its
+own volition. It soared at an immense height so that it was quite
+impossible to see any pilot or passenger. It hung over the Pyramids
+almost motionless for three or four minutes as if about to descend, and
+the watching groups below made the usual alarmist prognostications of
+evil, taking care to look about for the safest place of shelter for
+themselves should the huge piece of mechanism above them suddenly
+escape control and take a downward dive. But apparently nothing was
+further from the intention of its invisible guides. Its pause above the
+Pyramids was brief--and almost before any of the observers had time to
+realise its departure it had floated away with an easy grace, silence
+and swiftness, miraculous to all who saw it vanish into space towards
+the Libyan desert and beyond. The Pyramids, even the Sphinx--lost
+interest for the time being, every eye being strained to watch the
+strange aerial visitant till it disappeared. Then a babble of question
+and comment began in all languages among the travellers from many
+lands, who, though most of them were fairly well accustomed to
+aeroplanes, air-ships and aerial navigation as having become part of
+modern civilisation, found themselves nonplussed by the absolute
+silence and lightning swiftness of this huge bird-shaped thing that had
+appeared with extraordinary suddenness in the deep rose glow of the
+Egyptian sunset sky. Meanwhile the object of their wonder and
+admiration had sped many miles away, and was sailing above a desert
+which, from the height it had attained, looked little more than a small
+stretch of sand such as children play upon by the sea. Its speed
+gradually slackened--and its occupants, Morgana, the Marchese Rivardi
+and their expert mechanic, Gaspard, gazed down on the unfolding
+panorama below them with close and eager interest. There was nothing
+much to see. Every sign of humanity seemed blotted out. The red sky
+burning on the little stretch of sand was all.
+
+"How small the world looks from the air!" said Morgana--"It's not worth
+half the fuss made about it! And yet--it's such a pretty little God's
+toy!"
+
+She smiled,--and in her smiling expressed a lovely sweetness. Rivardi
+raised his eyes from his steering gear.
+
+"You are not tired, Madama?" he asked.
+
+"Tired? No, indeed! How can I be tired with so short a journey!"
+
+"Yet we have travelled a thousand miles since we left Sicily this
+morning"--said Rivardi--"We have kept up the pace, have we not,
+Gaspard?--or rather, the 'White Eagle' has proved its speed?"
+
+Gaspard looked up from his place at the end of the ship.
+
+"About two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles an hour,"--he
+said--"One does not realise it in the movement."
+
+"But you realise that the flight is as safe as it is quick?" said
+Morgana--"Do you not?"
+
+"Madama, I confess my knowledge is outdistanced by yours,"--replied
+Gaspard--"I am baffled by your secret--but I freely admit its power and
+success."
+
+"Good! Now let us dine!" said Morgana, opening a leather case such as
+is used for provisions in motoring, set plates, glasses, wine and food
+on the table--"A cold collation--but we'll have hot coffee to finish.
+We could have dined in Cairo, but it would have been a bore! Marchese,
+we'll stop here, suspended in mid-air, and the stars shall be our
+festal lamps, vying with our own!" and she turned on a switch which
+illumined the whole interior of the air-ship with a soft bright
+radiance--"Whereabouts are we? Still over the Libyan desert?"
+
+Rivardi consulted the chart which was spread open in his steering-cabin.
+
+"No--I think not. We have passed beyond it. We are over the Sahara.
+Just now we can take no observations--the sunset is dying rapidly and
+in a few minutes it will be quite dark."
+
+As he spoke he brought the ship to a standstill--it remained absolutely
+motionless except for the slight swaying as though touched by wave-like
+ripples of air. Morgana went to the window aperture of her silken-lined
+"drawing-room" and looked out. All round the great air-ship were the
+illimitable spaces of the sky, now of a dense dark violet hue with here
+and there a streak of dull red remaining of the glow of the vanished
+sun,--below there was only blackness. For the first time a nervous
+thrill ran through her frame at the look of this dark chaos--and she
+turned quickly back to the table where Rivardi and Gaspard awaited her
+before sitting down to their meal. Something quite foreign to her
+courageous spirit chilled her blood, but she fought against it, and
+seating herself became the charming hostess to her two companions as
+they ate and drank, though she took scarcely anything herself. For most
+unquestionably there was something uncanny in a meal served under such
+strange circumstances, and so far as the two men were concerned it was
+only eaten to sustain strength.
+
+"Well, now, have I not been very good?" she asked suddenly of
+Rivardi--"Did I not say you should fly with me to the East, and are you
+not here? I have not come alone--though that was my wish,--I have even
+brought Gaspard who had no great taste for the trip!"
+
+Gaspard moved uneasily.
+
+"That is true, Madama,"--he said--"The art of flying is still in its
+infancy, and though in my profession as an engineer I have studied and
+worked out many problems, I dare not say I have fathomed all the
+mysteries of the air or the influences of atmosphere. I am glad that we
+have made this voyage safely so far--but I shall be still more glad
+when we return to Sicily!"
+
+Morgana laughed.
+
+"We can do that to-morrow, I dare say!" she said; "If there is nothing
+to see in the whole expanse of the desert but dark emptiness"--
+
+"But--what do you expect to see, Madama?" enquired Gaspard, with lively
+curiosity.
+
+She laughed again as she met Rivardi's keen glance.
+
+"Why, ruins of temples--columns--colossi--a new Sphinx-all sorts of
+things!" she replied--"But at night, of course, we can see nothing--and
+we must move onward slowly--I cannot rest swaying like this in
+mid-air." She put aside the dinner things, and served them with hot
+coffee from one of the convenient flasks that hold fluids hot or cold
+for an interminable time, and when they had finished this, they went
+back to their separate posts. The great ship began to move--and she was
+relieved to feel it sailing steadily, though at almost a snail's pace
+"on the bosom of the air." The oppressive nervousness which affected
+her had not diminished; she could not account for it to herself,--and
+to rally her forces she went to the window, so-called, of her luxurious
+cabin. This was a wide aperture filled in with a transparent,
+crystal-clear material, which looked like glass, but which was wholly
+unbreakable, and through this she gazed, awe-smitten, at the
+magnificence of the starry sky. The millions upon millions of worlds
+which keep the mystery of their being veiled from humanity flashed upon
+her eyes and moved her mind to a profound sadness.
+
+"What is the use of it all!" she thought--"If one could only find the
+purpose of this amazing creation! We learn a very little, only to see
+how much more there is to know! We live our lives, all hoping,
+searching, praying--and never an answer comes for all our prayers! From
+the very beginning--not a word from the mysterious Poet who has written
+the Poem! We are to breed and die--and there an end!--it seems strange
+and cruel, because so purposeless! Or is it our fault? Do we fail to
+discover the things we ought to know?"
+
+So she mused, while her "White Eagle" ship sailed serenely on with a
+leisurely, majestic motion through a seeming wilderness of stars.
+Courageous as she was, with a veritable lion-heart beating in her
+delicate little body, and firm as was her resolve to discover what no
+woman had ever discovered before, to-night she was conscious of actual
+fear. Something--she knew not what--crept with a compelling influence
+through her blood,--she felt that some mysterious force she had never
+reckoned with was insidiously surrounding her with an invisible ring.
+She called to Rivardi--
+
+"Are we not flying too high? Have you altered the course?"
+
+"No, Madama," he replied at once--"We are on the same level."
+
+She turned towards him. Her face was very pale.
+
+"Well--be careful! To my mind we seem to be in a new atmosphere--there
+is a sensation of greater tension in the air--or--it is my fancy. We
+must not be too adventurous,--we must avoid the Great Nebula in Orion
+for example!"
+
+"Madama, you jest! We are trillions upon trillions of miles distant
+from any great constellation--"
+
+"Do I not know it? You are too literal, Marchese! Of course I jest--you
+could not suppose me to be in earnest! But I am sure we are passing
+through the waves of a new ether--not altogether suited to the average
+human being. The average human being is not made to inhabit the higher
+spaces of the upper air--hark!--What was that?"
+
+She held up a warning hand, and listened. There was a distinct and
+persistent chiming of bells. Bells loud and soft,--bells mellow and
+deep, clear and silvery--clanging in bass and treble shocks of rising
+and falling rhythm and tune! "Do you hear?"
+
+Rivardi and Gaspard simultaneously rose to their feet, amazed.
+Undoubtedly they heard! It was impossible NOT to hear such a clamour of
+concordant sound! Startled beyond all expression, Morgana sprang to the
+window of her cabin, and looking out uttered a cry of mingled terror
+and rapture...  for there below her, in the previously inky blackness
+of the Great Desert, lay a great City, stretching out for miles, and
+glittering from end to end with a peculiarly deep golden light which
+seemed to bathe it in the lustre of a setting sun. Towers, cupolas,
+bridges, streets, squares, parks and gardens could be plainly seen from
+the air-ship, which had suddenly stopped, and now hung immovably in
+mid-air; though for some moments Morgana was too excited to notice
+this. Again she called to her companions--
+
+"Look! Look!" she exclaimed--"We have found it! The Brazen City!"
+
+But she called in vain. Turning for response, she saw, to her amazement
+and alarm, both men stretched on the floor, senseless! She ran to them
+and made every effort to rouse them,--they were breathing evenly and
+quietly as in profound and comfortable sleep--but it was beyond her
+skill to renew their consciousness. Then it flashed upon her that the
+"White Eagle" was no longer moving,--that it was, in fact, quite
+stationary,--and a quick rush of energy filled her as she realised that
+now she was as she had wished to be, alone with her air-ship to do with
+it as she would. All fear had left her,--her nerves were steady, and
+her daring spirit was fired with resolution. Whatever the mischance
+which had so swiftly overwhelmed Rivardi and Gaspard, she could not
+stop now to question, or determine it,--she was satisfied that they
+were not dead, or dying. She went to the steering-gear to take it in
+hand--but though the mysterious mechanism of the air-ship was silently
+and rapidly throbbing, the ship did not move. She grasped the
+propeller--it resisted her touch with hard and absolute inflexibility.
+All at once a low deep voice spoke close to her ear--
+
+"Do not try to steer. You cannot proceed."
+
+Her heart gave one wild bound,--then almost stood still from sheer
+terror. She felt herself swaying into unconsciousness, and made a
+violent effort to master the physical weakness that threatened her.
+That voice--what voice? Surely one evoked from her own imagination! It
+spoke again--this time with an intonation that was exquisitely soothing
+and tender.
+
+"Why are you afraid? For you there is nothing to fear!"
+
+She raised her eyes and looked about nervously. The soft luminance
+which lit the "White Eagle's" interior from end to end showed nothing
+new or alarming,--her dainty, rose-lined cabin held no strange or
+supernatural visitant,--all was as usual. After a pause she rallied
+strength enough to question the audible but invisible intruder.
+
+"Who is it that speaks to me?" she asked, faintly.
+
+"One from the city below,"--was the instant reply given in full clear
+accents--"I am speaking on the Sound Ray."
+
+She held her breath in mute wonder, listening. The voice went on,
+equably--
+
+"You know the use of wireless telephony--we have it as you have it,
+only your methods are imperfect. We speak on Sound Rays which are not
+yet discovered in your country. We need neither transmitter nor
+receiver. Wherever we send our messages, no matter how great the
+distance, they are always heard."
+
+Slowly Morgana began to regain courage. By degrees she realised that
+she was attaining the wish of her heart--namely, to know what no woman
+had ever known before. Again she questioned the voice--
+
+"You tell me I cannot proceed,"--she said--"Why?"
+
+"Because our city is guarded and fortified by the air,"--was the
+answer--"We are surrounded by a belt of etheric force through which
+nothing can pass. A million bombs could not break it,--everything
+driven against it would be dashed to pieces. We saw you coming--we were
+surprised, for no air-ship has ever ventured so far--we rang the bells
+of the city to warn you, and stopped your flight."
+
+The warm gentleness of the voice thrilled her with a sudden sympathy.
+
+"That was kind!" she said, and smiled. Some one smiled in response--or
+she thought so. Presently she spoke again--
+
+"Then you hold me here a prisoner?"
+
+"No. You can return the way you came, quite freely."
+
+"May I not come down and see your city?" "No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are not one of us." The Voice hesitated. "And because you
+are not alone."
+
+Morgana glanced at the prostrate and unconscious forms of Rivardi and
+Gaspard with a touch of pity.
+
+"My companions are half dead!" she said.
+
+"But not wholly!" was the prompt reply.
+
+"Is it that force you speak of--the force which guards your city--that
+has struck them down?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then why was I not also struck down?"
+
+"Because you are what you are!" Then--after a silence--"You are
+Morgana!"
+
+At this every nerve in her body started quivering like harp strings
+pulled by testing fingers. The unseen speaker knew her name!--and
+uttered it with a soft delicacy that made it sound more than musical.
+She leaned forward, extending a hand as though to touch the invisible.
+
+"How do you know me?" she asked.
+
+"As we all know you,"--came the answer--"Even as YOU have known the
+inside of a sun-ray!"
+
+She listened, amazed--utterly mystified. Whoever or whatever it was
+that spoke knew not only her name, but the trend of her earliest
+studies and theories. The "inside of a sun-ray"! This was what she had
+only the other day explained to Father Aloysius as being her first
+experience of real happiness! She tried to set her thoughts in
+order--to realise her position. Here she was, a fragile human thing, in
+a flying ship of her own design, held fast by atmospheric force above
+an unknown city situate somewhere in the Great Desert,--and some one in
+that city was conversing with her by a method of "wireless" as yet
+undiscovered by admitted science,--yet communication was perfect and
+words distinct. Following up the suggestion presented to her she said--
+
+"You are speaking to me in English. Are you all English folk in your
+city?"
+
+A faint quiver as of laughter vibrated through the "Sound Ray."
+
+"No, indeed! We have no nationality."
+
+"No nationality?"
+
+"None. We are one people. But we speak every language that ever has
+been spoken in the past, or is spoken in the present. I speak English
+to you because it is your manner of talk, though not your manner of
+life."
+
+"How do you know it is not my manner of life?"
+
+"Because you are not happy in it. Your manner of life is ours. It has
+nothing to do with nations or peoples. You are Morgana."
+
+"And you?" she cried with sudden eagerness--"Oh, who are you that speak
+to me?--man, woman, or angel? What are the dwellers in your city, if it
+is in truth a city, and not a dream!"
+
+"Look again and see!" answered the Voice--"Convince yourself!--do not
+be deceived! You are not dreaming--Look and make yourself sure!"
+
+Impelled to movement, she went to the window which she had left to take
+up the steering-gear,--and from there saw again the wonderful scene
+spread out below, the towers, spires, cupolas and bridges, all lit with
+that mysterious golden luminance like smouldering sunset fire.
+
+"It is beautiful!" she said--"It seems true--it seems real--"
+
+"It IS true-it IS real!"--the Voice replied--"It has been seen by many
+travellers,--but because they can never approach it they call it a
+desert 'mirage.' It is more real and more lasting than any other city
+in the world."
+
+"Can I never enter it?" she asked, appealingly--"Will you never let me
+in?"
+
+There was a silence, which seemed to her very long. Still standing at
+the window of her cabin she looked down on the shining city, a broad
+stretch of splendid gold luminance under the canopy of the dark sky
+with its millions of stars. Then the Voice answered her--
+
+"Yes--if you come alone!"
+
+These words sounded so close to her ear that she felt sure the speaker
+must be standing beside her.
+
+"I will come!" she said, impulsively--"Somehow--some way!--no matter
+how difficult or dangerous! I will come!"
+
+As she spoke she was conscious of a curious vibration round her, as
+though some other thing than the ceaseless, silent throbbing of the
+air-ship's mechanism had disturbed the atmosphere.
+
+"Wait!" said the Voice--"You say this without thought. You do not
+realise the meaning of your words. For--if you come, you must stay!"
+
+A thrill ran through her blood.
+
+"I must stay!" she echoed--"Why?"
+
+"Because you have learned the Life-Secret,"--answered the Voice--"And,
+as you have learned it, so must you live. I will tell you more if you
+care to hear--"
+
+An inrush of energy came to her as she listened--she felt that the
+unseen speaker acknowledged the power which she herself knew she
+possessed.
+
+"With all my soul I care to hear!" she said--"But where do you speak
+from? And who are you that speak?"
+
+"I speak from the central Watch-Tower,"--the Voice replied--"The City
+is guarded from that point--and from there we can send messages all
+over the world in every known language. Sometimes they are
+understood--more often they are ignored,--but we, who have lived since
+before the coming of Christ, have no concern with such as do not or
+will not hear. Our business is to wait and watch while the ages go
+by,--wait and watch till we are called forth to the new world.
+Sometimes our messages cross the 'wireless' Marconi system--and some
+confusion happens--but generally the 'Sound Ray' carries straight to
+its mark. You must well understand all that is implied when you say you
+will come to us,--it means that you leave the human race as you have
+known it and unite yourself with another human race as yet unknown to
+the world!"
+
+Here was an overwhelming mystery--but, nothing daunted, Morgana pursued
+her enquiry.
+
+"You can talk to me on the Sound Ray"--she said--"And I understand its
+possibility. You should equally be able to project your own portrait--a
+true similitude of yourself--on a Light Ray. Let me see you!"
+
+"You are something of a wilful spirit!" answered the Voice--"But you
+know many secrets of our science and their results. So--as you wish
+it--"
+
+Another second, and the cabin was filled with a pearly lustre like the
+vapour which sweeps across the hills in an early summer dawn--and in
+the center of this as in an aureole stood a nobly proportioned figure,
+clad in gold-coloured garments fashioned after the early Greek models.
+Presumably this personage was human,--but never was a semblance of
+humanity so transfigured. The face and form were those of a beautiful
+youth,--the eyes were deep and brilliant,--and the expression of the
+features was one of fine serenity and kindliness. Morgana gazed and
+gazed, bending herself towards her wonderful visitor with all her soul
+in her eyes,--when suddenly the vision, if so it might be called, paled
+and vanished. She uttered a little cry.
+
+"Oh, why have you gone so soon?" she exclaimed.
+
+"It is not I who have gone,"--replied the Voice--"It is only the
+reflection of me. We cannot project a light picture too far or too
+long. And even now--when you come to us--if you ever do come!--do you
+think you will remember me?"
+
+"How could I forget anyone so beautiful!" she said, with passionate
+enthusiasm.
+
+This time the Sound Ray conveyed a vibration of musical laughter.
+
+"Where every being has beauty for a birthright, how should you know me
+more than another!" said the Voice--"Beauty is common to all in our
+city--as common as health, because we obey the Divine laws of both."
+
+She stretched out her hands appealingly.
+
+"Oh, if I could only come to you now!" she murmured.
+
+"Patience!" and the Voice grew softer--"There is something for you to
+do in the world. You must lose a love before you find it!"
+
+She drew a quick breath. What could these words mean?
+
+"It is time for you now to turn homeward,"--went on the Voice--"You
+must not be seen above this City at dawn. You would be attacked and
+instantly destroyed, as having received a warning which you refused to
+heed."
+
+"Do you attack and destroy all strangers so?" she asked--"Is that your
+rule?"
+
+"It is our rule to keep away the mischief of the modern world"--replied
+the Voice--"As well admit a pestilence as the men and women of to-day!"
+
+"I am a woman of to-day,"--said Morgana.
+
+"No, you are not,--you are a woman of the future!" and the Voice was
+grave and insistent--"You are one of the new race. At the appointed
+hour you will take your part with us in the new world?"
+
+"When will be that hour?"
+
+There was a pause. Then, with an exceeding sweetness and solemnity the
+Voice replied--
+
+"If He will that we tarry till He come, what is that to thee?"
+
+A sense of great awe swept over her, oppressive and humiliating. She
+looked once more through her cabin window at the city spread out below,
+and saw that some of the lights were being extinguished in the taller
+buildings and on the bridges which connected streets and avenues in a
+network of architectural beauty.
+
+The Voice spoke again--
+
+"We are releasing you from the barrier. You are free to depart."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I have no wish to go!" she said.
+
+"You must!" The Voice became commanding. "If you stay now, you and your
+companions are doomed to perish. There is no alternative. Be satisfied
+that we know you--we watch you--we shall expect you sooner or later.
+Meanwhile--guide your ship!--the way is open."
+
+Quickly she sprang to the steering-gear--she felt the "White Eagle"
+moving, and lifting its vast wings for flight.
+
+"Farewell!" she cried, with a sense of tears in her throat--"Farewell!"
+
+"Not farewell!" came the reply, spoken softly and with tenderness--"We
+shall meet again soon! I will speak to you in Sicily!"
+
+"In Sicily!" she exclaimed, joyfully--"You will speak to me there?"
+
+"There and everywhere!" answered the Voice--"The Sound Ray knows no
+distance. I shall speak--and you shall hear--whenever you will!"
+
+The last syllables died away like faintly sung music--and in a few more
+seconds the great air-ship was sailing steadily in a level line and at
+a swift pace onward,--the last shining glimpse of the mysterious City
+vanished, and the "White Eagle" soared over a sable blackness of empty
+desert, through a dark space besprinkled with stars. Filled with a new
+sense of power and gladness, Morgana held the vessel in the guidance of
+her slight but strong hands, and it had flown many miles before the
+Marchese Rivardi sprang up suddenly from where he had lain lost in
+unconsciousness and stared around him amazed and confused.
+
+"A thousand pardons, Madama!" he stammered--"I shall never forgive
+myself! I have been asleep!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+At almost the same moment Gaspard stumbled to his feet.
+
+"Asleep--asleep!" he exclaimed--"_Mon Dieu!_--the shame of it!--the
+shame! What pigs are men! To sleep after food and wine, and to leave a
+woman alone like this!...  the shame!"
+
+Morgana, quietly steering the "White Eagle," smiled.
+
+"Poor Gaspard!" she said--"You could not help it! You were so tired!
+And you, Marchese! You were both quite worn out! I was glad to see you
+sleeping--there is no shame in it! As I have often told you, I can
+manage the ship alone."
+
+But Rivardi was white with anger and self-reproach.
+
+"Gross pigs we are!" he said, hotly--"Gaspard is right! And yet--" here
+he passed a hand across his brow and tried to collect his
+thoughts--"yes!--surely something unusual must have happened! We heard
+bells ringing--"
+
+Morgana watched him closely, her hand on her air-vessel's helm.
+
+"Yes--we all thought we heard bells"--she said--"But that was a noise
+in our own brains--the clamour of our own blood brought on by
+pressure--we were flying at too great a height and the tension was too
+strong--"
+
+Gaspard threw out his hands with a half defiant gesture.
+
+"No, Madama! It could not be so! I swear we never left our own level!
+What happened I cannot tell--but I felt that I was struck by a sudden
+blow--and I fell without force to recover--"
+
+"Sleep struck you that sudden blow, you poor Gaspard!" said Morgana,
+"And you have not slept so long--barely an hour--just long enough for
+me to hover a while above this black desert and then turn homeward,--I
+want no more of the Sahara!"
+
+Rivardi, smarting under a sense of loss and incompetency, went up to
+her.
+
+"Give me the helm!" he said, almost sharply--"You have done enough!"
+
+She resigned her place to him, smiling at his irritation.
+
+"You are sure you are quite rested?" she asked.
+
+"Rested!" he echoed the word disdainfully--"I should never have rested
+at all had I been half the man I profess to be! Why do you turn back? I
+thought you were bent on exploring the Great Desert!--that you meant to
+try and find the traditional Brazen City?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I do not like the prospect"--she said--"There is nothing but
+sand--interminable billows of sand! I can well believe it was all ocean
+once,--when the earth gave a sudden tilt, and all the water was thrown
+off from one surface to another. If we could dig deep enough below the
+sand I think we should find remains of wrecked ships, with the
+skeletons of antediluvian men and animals, remains of one of the many
+wasted civilisations--"
+
+"You do not answer me--" interrupted Rivardi with impatience--"What of
+your search for the Brazen City?"
+
+She raised her lovely, mysterious eyes and looked full at him.
+
+"Do you believe it exists?" she asked.
+
+He gave a gesture of annoyance.
+
+"Whether I believe or not is of no importance,"--he answered--"YOU have
+some idea about it, and you have every means of proving the truth of
+your idea--yet, after making the journey from Sicily for the purpose,
+you suddenly turn back!"
+
+Still she kept her eyes upon him.
+
+"You must not mind the caprices of a woman!" she said, with a
+smile--"And do please remember the 'Brazen City' is not MY idea! The
+legend of this undiscovered place in the desert was related by your
+friend Don Aloysius--and he was careful to say it was 'only' a legend.
+Why should you think I accept it as a truth?"
+
+"Surely it was the motive of your flight here?" he demanded,
+imperatively.
+
+Her brows drew together in a slight frown.
+
+"My dear Marchese, I allow no one to question my motives"--she said
+with sudden coldness--"That I have decided to go no farther in search
+of the Brazen City is my own affair."
+
+"But--not even to wait for the full daylight!" he expostulated--"You
+could not see it by night even if it existed!"
+
+"Not unless it was lit like other cities!" she said, smiling--"I
+suppose if such a city existed, its inhabitants would need some sort of
+illuminant--they would not grope about in the dark. In that case it
+would be seen from our ship as well by night as by day."
+
+Gaspard, busy with some mechanical detail, looked up.
+
+"Then why not make a search for it while we are here?" he said--"You
+evidently believe in it!"
+
+"I have turned the 'White Eagle' homeward, and shall not turn
+again"--she said--"But I do not see any reason why such a city should
+not exist and be discovered some day. Explorers in tropical forests
+find the remains or beginnings of a different race of men from our
+own--pygmies, and such like beings--there is nothing really against the
+possibility of an undiscovered City in the Great Desert. We modern folk
+think we know a great deal--but our wisdom is very superficial and our
+knowledge limited. We have not mastered EVERYTHING under the sun!"
+
+The Marchese Rivardi looked at her with something of defiance in his
+glance.
+
+"I will adventure in search of the legendary city myself, alone!" he
+said.
+
+Morgana laughed, her clear little cold laugh of disdain.
+
+"Do so, my friend! Why not?" she said--"You are a daring airman on many
+forms of airships--I knew that,--before I entrusted you with the scheme
+of mine. Discover the legendary 'Brazen City' if you can!--I promise
+not to be jealous!--and return to the world of curiosity
+mongers--(also, if you CAN!) with a full report of its inhabitants and
+their manners and customs. And so--you will become famous! But you must
+not fall asleep on the way!"
+
+He paled with anger and annoyance,--she still smiled.
+
+"Do not be cross, AMICO!" she said, sweetly. "Think where we are!--in
+the wide spaces of heaven, pilgrims with the stars! This is no place
+for personal feeling of either disappointment or irritation. You asked
+me a while ago if I was tired--I thought I was Hot, but I am--very
+tired!--I am going to rest. And I trust you both to take care of me and
+the 'White Eagle'!"
+
+"We are to make straight for Sicily?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--straight for Sicily."
+
+She retired into her sleeping-cabin and disappeared. The Marchese
+Rivardi looked at Gaspard questioningly.
+
+"We must obey her, I suppose?"
+
+"We could not think of disobeying!" returned Gaspard.
+
+"She is a strange woman!" and as he spoke Rivardi gripped his
+steering-gear with a kind of vindictive force--"It seems absurd that
+we,--two men of fair intelligence and scientific attainment,--should be
+ruled by her whim,--her fancies--for after all she is made up of
+fancies--"
+
+Gaspard shook his finger warningly.
+
+"This air-ship is not a 'whim' or a 'fancy'"--he said,
+impressively--"It is the most wonderful thing of its kind ever
+invented! If it is given to the world it will revolutionise the whole
+system of aerial navigation. Here we are, flying at top speed in
+perfect ease and safety with no engine--nothing to catch fire--nothing
+to break or bust--and the whole mechanism mysteriously makes its own
+motive power as it goes. Radio-activity it may be--but its condensation
+and use for such a purpose is the secret invention of a woman--and
+surely we must admit her genius! As for our obedience--ECCELLENZA, we
+are both royally paid to obey!"
+
+Rivardi flushed red.
+
+"I know!" he said, curtly--"I never forget it. But money is not
+everything."
+
+Gaspard's mobile French face lit up with a mirthful smile.
+
+"It is most things!" he replied--"Without it even science is crippled.
+And this lady has so much of it!--it seems without end! Again,--it is
+seldom one meets with money and brains and beauty--all together!"
+
+"Beauty?" Rivardi queried.
+
+"Why, yes!--beauty that only flashes out at moments--of all beauty the
+most fascinating! A face that is always beautiful is fatiguing,--it is
+the changeful face with endless play of expression that enthralls,--or
+so it is to me!" And Gaspard gave an eloquent gesture--"This lady we
+both work for seems to have no lovers--but if she had, not one of them
+could ever forget her!"
+
+Rivardi was silent.
+
+"I should not wonder," ventured Gaspard, presently--"if--while we
+slept--she had seen her 'Brazen City'!"
+
+Rivardi uttered something like an oath.
+
+"Impossible!" he exclaimed--"She would have awakened us!"
+
+"If she could, no doubt!" agreed Gaspard--"But if she could not, how
+then?"
+
+For a moment Rivardi looked puzzled,--then he dismissed his companion's
+suggestion with a contemptuous shrug.
+
+"Basta! There is no 'Brazen City'! When she heard the old tradition she
+was like a child with a fairy tale--a child who, reading of
+strawberries growing in the winter snow, goes out forthwith to find
+them--she did not really believe in it--but it pleased her to imagine
+she did. The mere sight of the arid empty desert has been enough for
+her."
+
+"We certainly heard bells"--said Gaspard.
+
+"In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for a
+long while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. I
+have heard on the 'wireless,' sounds that do not seem of this world at
+all."
+
+"So have I"--said Gaspard--"And though it may be my own brain talking,
+I'm not so obstinate in my own knowledge as to doubt a possible
+existing means of communication between one continent and another apart
+from OUR special 'wireless.' In fact I'm sure there is something of the
+kind,--though where it comes from and how it travels I cannot say. But
+certain people get news of occurring events somehow, from somewhere,
+long before it reaches Paris or London. I dare say the lady we are with
+could tell us something about it."
+
+"Her powers are not limitless!" said Rivardi--"She is only a woman
+after all!"
+
+Gaspard said no more, and there followed a silence,--a silence all the
+more tense and deep because of the amazing swiftness with which the
+"White Eagle" kept its steady level flight, making no sound despite the
+rapidity of its movement. Very gradually the darkness of night lifted,
+as it were, one corner of its sable curtain to show a grey peep-hole of
+dawn, and soon it became apparent that the ship was already far away
+from the mysterious land of Egypt--"The land shadowing with wings"--and
+was flying over the sea. There was something terrific in the complete
+noiselessness with which it sped through the air, and Rivardi, though
+now he had a good grip on his nerves, hardly dared allow himself to
+think of the adventurous business on which he was engaged. A certain
+sense of pride and triumph filled him, to realise that he had been
+selected from many applicants for the post he occupied--and yet with
+all his satisfaction there went a lurking spirit of envy and
+disappointed ambition. If he could win Morgana's love--if he could make
+the strange elfin creature with all her genius and inventive ability
+his own,--why then!--what then? He would share in her fame,--aye, more
+than share it, since it is the way of the world to give its honour to
+no woman whose life is connected with that of a man. The man receives
+the acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserve
+it, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, and
+prefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have their
+hardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands. When Roger Seaton
+confessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend and
+subdue Morgana's intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, not
+only for himself but for all men. Absolutely disinterested love for a
+brilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any male
+nature,--men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior. Thus
+women who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability have
+to choose one of two alternatives--love, or what is called love, and
+child-bearing,--or fame, and lifelong loneliness.
+
+The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic,
+had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana's complex character
+such as it appeared to him,--and had almost come to the conclusion that
+if he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her that
+wifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman's happiness than
+all the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment.
+He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,--but he chose
+to forget that women's mental outlook has, in these modern days, been
+greatly widened,--whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy to
+say. Even for men "much knowledge increaseth sorrow,"--and it may be
+hinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggerated
+sentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax the
+brain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of the
+calm which is essential to health. Though it has to be admitted that
+married life is less peaceful than hard study--and the bright woman who
+recently said, "A husband is more trying than any problem in Euclid,"
+no doubt had good cause for the remark. Married or single, woman both
+physically and mentally is the greatest sufferer in the world--her time
+of youth and unthinking joy is brief, her martyrdom long--and it is
+hardly wonderful that she goes so often "to the bad" when there is so
+little offered to attract her towards the good.
+
+Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition,
+pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and as
+mother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoring
+his once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its former
+renown. He saw no reason why this should not be,--yet--even while he
+indulged in his thoughts of her, he knew well enough that behind her
+small delicate personality there was a powerful intellectual "lens," so
+to speak, through which she examined the ins and outs of character in
+man or woman; and he felt that he was always more or less under this
+"lens," looked at as carefully as a scientist might study bacteria, and
+that as a matter of fact it was as unlikely as the descent of the
+moon-goddess to Endymion that she would ever submit herself to his
+possession. Nevertheless, he argued, stranger things had happened!
+
+The grey peep of dawn widened into a silver rift, and the silver rift
+streamed into a bar of gold, and the gold broke up into long strands of
+blush pink and pale blue like festal banners hanging in heaven's bright
+pavilion, and the "White Eagle" flew on swiftly, steadily, securely,
+among all the glories of the dawn like a winged car for the conveyance
+of angels. And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far from
+the realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the door
+of her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white,
+her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.
+
+"What a perfect morning!" she exclaimed--"All things seem new! And I
+have had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean--surely we are
+over the sea?"
+
+"We are some fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean"--answered
+Rivardi, looking at her as he spoke with unconcealed
+admiration;--never, he thought, had she seemed so charming, youthful
+and entirely lovable--"I am glad you have rested--you look quite
+refreshed and radiant. After all, it is a test of endurance--this
+journey to Egypt and back."
+
+"Do you think so?" and Morgana smiled--"It should be nothing--it really
+is nothing! We ought to be quite ready and willing to travel like this
+for a week on end! But you and Gaspard are not yet absolutely sure of
+our motive power!--you cannot realise that as long as we keep going so
+long will our 'going' force be generated without effort--yet surely it
+is proved!"
+
+Gaspard lifted his eyes towards her where she stood like a little white
+Madonna in a shrine.
+
+"Yes, Madama, it is proved!" he said--"But the secret of its proving?--"
+
+"Ah! That, for the present, remains locked up in the mystery
+box--here!" and she tapped her forehead with her finger--"The world is
+not ready for it. The world is a destructive savage, loving evil rather
+than good, and it would work mischief more than usefulness with such a
+force--if it knew! Now I will dress, and give you breakfast in ten
+minutes."
+
+She waved a hand to them and disappeared, returning after a brief
+interval attired in her "aviation" costume and cap. Soon she had
+prepared quite a tempting breakfast on the table.
+
+"Thermos coffee!" she said, gaily--"All hot and hot! We could have had
+Thermos tea, but I think coffee more inspiriting. Tea always reminds me
+of an afternoon at a country vicarage where good ladies sit round a
+table and talk of babies and rheumatism. Kind,--but so dull! Come--you
+must take it in turns--you, Marchese, first, while Gaspard steers--and
+Gaspard next--just as you did last night at what we called dinner,
+before you fell asleep! Men DO fall asleep after dinner you know!--it's
+quite ordinary. Married men especially!--I think they do it to avoid
+conversation with their wives!"
+
+She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfully as Rivardi seated himself
+opposite to her at table.
+
+"Well, _I_ am not married"--he said, rather petulantly--"Nor is
+Gaspard. But some day we may fall into temptation and NOT be delivered
+from evil."
+
+"Ah yes!" and Morgana shook her fair head at him with mock
+dolefulness--"And that will be very sad! Though nowadays it will not
+bind you to a fettered existence. Marriage has ceased to be a
+sacrament,--you can leave your wives as soon as you get tired of
+them,--or--they can leave YOU!"
+
+Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes.
+
+"You read the modern Press"--he said--"A pity you do!"
+
+"Yes--it's a pity anyone reads it!"--she answered--"But what are we to
+read? If low-minded and illiterate scavengers are employed to write for
+the newspapers instead of well-educated men, we must put up with the
+mud the scavengers collect. We know well enough that every journal is
+more or less a calendar of lies,--all the same we cannot blind
+ourselves to the great change that has come over manners and
+morals--particularly in relation to marriage. Of course the Press
+always chronicles the worst items bearing on the subject--"
+
+"The Press is chiefly to blame for it"--declared Rivardi.
+
+"Oh, I think not!" and Morgana smiled as she poured out a second cup of
+coffee--"The Press cannot create a new universe. No--I think human
+nature alone is to blame--if blame there be. Human nature is tired."
+
+"Tired?" echoed Rivardi--"In what way?"
+
+"In every way!"--and a lovely light of tenderest pity filled her eyes
+as she spoke--"Tired of the same old round of working, mating, breeding
+and dying--for no results really worth having! Civilisation after
+civilisation has arisen--always with strife and difficulty, only to
+pass away, leaving, in many cases, scarce a memory. Human nature begins
+to weary of the continuous 'grind'--it demands the 'why' of its
+ceaseless labour. Latterly, poor striving men and women have been
+deprived of faith--they used to believe they had a loving Father in
+Heaven who cared for them,--but the monkeys of the race, the atheists,
+swinging from point to point of argument and chattering all the time,
+have persuaded them that they are as Tennyson once mournfully wrote--"
+
+  "Poor orphans of nothing--alone on that lonely shore,
+  Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she
+  bore!"
+
+"Can we wonder then that they are tired?--tired of pursuing a useless
+quest? Human nature is craving for a change--for a newer world--a newer
+race,--and those who see that Nature is NOT 'brainless' but full of
+intelligent conception, are sure that the change will come!"
+
+"And you are one of 'those who see'?--" said Rivardi, incredulously.
+
+"I do not say I am,--that would be too much self-assertion"--she
+answered--"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richly
+with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In
+what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as
+this we ought to be able to do more!"
+
+"We shall do more in time"--he said--"The advance of one step leads to
+another."
+
+"In time!" echoed Morgana--"What time the human race has already taken
+to find out the simplest forces of nature! It is the horrible bulk of
+blank stupidity that hinders knowledge--the heavy obstinate bulk that
+declines to budge an inch out of its own fixity. Nowadays we triumph in
+our so-called 'discoveries' of wireless telegraphy and telephony,
+light-rays and other marvels--but these powers have always been with us
+from the beginning of things,--it is we, we only, who have refused to
+accept them as facts of the universe. Let us talk no more about
+it!--Stupidity is the only thing that moves me to despair!"
+
+She rose from the little table, and called Gaspard to breakfast, while
+Rivardi went back to the business of steering. The day was now fully
+declared, and the great air-ship soared easily in a realm of ethereal
+blue--blue above, blue below--its vast wings moving up and down with
+perfect rhythm as if it were a living, sentient creature, revelling in
+the joys of flight. For the rest of the day Morgana was very silent,
+contenting herself to sit in her charming little rose-lined nest of a
+room, and read,--now and then looking out on the radiating space around
+her, and watching for the first slight downward movement of the "White
+Eagle" towards land. She had plenty to occupy her thoughts--and strange
+to say she did not consider as anything unexpected or remarkable, her
+brief communication with the "Brazen City." On the contrary it seemed
+quite a natural happening. Of course it had always been there, she said
+to herself,--only people were too dull and unenterprising to discover
+it,--besides, if they had ever found it (certain travellers having
+declared they had seen it in the distance) they would not have been
+allowed to approach it. This fact was the one point that chiefly dwelt
+in her mind--a secret of science which she puzzled her brain to fathom.
+What could be the unseen force that guarded the city?--girding it round
+with an unbreakable band from all exterior attack? A million bombs
+could not penetrate it,--so had said the Voice travelling to her ears
+on the mysterious Sound Ray. She thought of Shakespeare's lines on
+England--
+
+  "This precious stone set in the silver sea
+  Which serves it in the office of a wall,
+  Or as a moat defensive to a house
+  Against the envy of less happy lands."
+
+Modern science had made the sea useless as a "wall" or "moat defensive"
+against attacks from the air,--but if there existed an atmospheric or
+"etheric" force which could be utilised and brought to such pressure as
+to encircle a city or a country with a protective ring that should
+resist all effort to break it, how great a security would be assured
+"against the envy of less happy lands"! Here was a problem for
+study,--study of the intricate character which she loved--and she
+became absorbed in what she called "thinking for results," a form of
+introspection which she knew, from experience, sometimes let in
+unexpected light on the creative cells of the brain and impelled them
+to the evolving of hitherto untried suggestions. She sat quietly with a
+book before her, not reading, but bent on seeking ways and means for
+the safety and protection of nations,--as bent as Roger Seaton was on a
+force for their destruction. So the hours passed swiftly, and no
+interruption or untoward obstacle hindered the progress of the "White
+Eagle" as it careered through the halcyon blue of the calmest,
+loveliest sky that ever made perfect weather, till late afternoon when
+it began to glide almost insensibly downward towards earth. Then she
+roused herself from her long abstraction and looked through the window
+of her cabin, watching what seemed to be the gradual rising of the land
+towards the air-ship, showing in little green and brown patches like
+the squares of a chess-board,--then the houses and towns, tiny as
+children's toys--then the azure gleam of the sea and the boats dancing
+like bits of cork upon it,--then finally the plainer, broader view,
+wherein the earth with its woods and hills and rocky promontories
+appeared to heave up like a billow crowned with varying colours,--and
+so steadily, easily down to the pattern of grass and flowers from the
+centre of which the Palazzo d'Oro rose like a little white house for
+the abode of fairies.
+
+"Well steered!" said Morgana, as the ship ran into its shed with the
+accuracy of a sword slipping into its sheath, and the soundless
+vibration of its mysterious motive-power ceased--"Home again
+safely!--and only away forty-eight hours! To the Sahara and back!--how
+far we have been, and what we have seen!"
+
+"WE have seen nothing"--said Rivardi meaningly, as he assisted her to
+alight--"The seeing is all with YOU!"
+
+"And the believing!" she answered, smiling--"All my thanks to you both
+for your skilful pilotage. You must be very tired--" here she gave her
+hand to them each in turn--"Again a thousand thanks! No air-ship could
+be better manned!"
+
+"Or woman'd?" suggested Rivardi.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"IF you like! But I only steered while you slept. That is nothing! Good
+night!"
+
+She left them, running up the garden path lightly like a child
+returning from a holiday, and disappeared.
+
+"But that which she calls nothing"--said Gaspard as he watched her
+go--"is everything!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+For some days after her adventurous voyage to the Great Desert and back
+Morgana chose to remain in absolute seclusion. Save for Lady Kingswood
+and her own household staff, she saw no one, and was not accessible
+even to Don Aloysius, who called several times, moved not only by
+interest, but genuine curiosity, to enquire how she fared. Many of the
+residents in the vicinity of the Palazzo d'Oro had gleaned scraps of
+information here and there concerning the wonderful air-ship which they
+had seen careering over their heads during its testing trials, and as a
+matter of course they had heard more than scraps in regard to its
+wealthy owner. But nowadays keen desire to know and to investigate has
+given place to a sort of civil apathy which passes for good form--that
+absolute indifferentism which is too much bored to care about other
+people's affairs, and which would not disturb itself if it heard of a
+neighbour deciding to cross the Atlantic in a washtub. "Nothing
+matters," is the general verdict on all events and circumstances.
+Nevertheless, the size, the swiftness and soundlessness of the "White
+Eagle" and the secrecy observed in its making, had somewhat moved the
+heavy lump of human dough called "society," and the whispered novelty
+of Morgana's invention had reached Rome and Paris, nay, almost London,
+without her consent or knowledge. So that she was more or less deluged
+with letters; and noted scientists, both in France and Italy, though
+all incredulous as to her attainment, made it a point of "business" to
+learn all they could about her, which was not much more than can be
+usually learned about any wealthy woman or man with a few whims to
+gratify. A murderer gains access to the whole press,--his look, his
+manner, his remarks, are all carefully noted and commented upon,--but a
+scientist, an explorer, a man or woman whose work is that of
+beneficence and use to humanity, is barely mentioned except in the way
+of a sneer. So it often chances that the public know nothing of its
+greatest till they have passed beyond the reach of worldly honour.
+
+Morgana, however, had no desire that her knowledge or attainment should
+be admitted or praised. She was entirely destitute of ambition. She had
+read too much and studied too deeply to care for so-called "fame,"
+which, as she knew, is the mere noise of one moment, to be lost in
+silence the next. She was self-centered and yet not selfish. She felt
+that to understand her own entity, its mental and physical composition,
+and the possibilities of its future development, was sufficient to fill
+her life--that life which she quite instinctively recognised as bearing
+within itself the seed of immortality. Her strange interview with the
+"Voice" from the City in the Desert, and the glimpse she had been
+permitted to see of the owner of that voice, had not so much surprised
+her as convinced her of a theory she had long held,--namely that there
+were other types of the human race existing, unknown to the generality
+of ordinary men and women--types that were higher in their organisation
+and mental capacity,--types which by reason of their very advancement
+kept themselves hidden and aloof from modern civilisation. And she
+forthwith plunged anew into the ocean of scientific problems, where she
+floated like a strong swimmer at ease with her mind upturned to the
+stars.
+
+Yet she did not neglect the graceful comforts and elegancies of the
+Palazzo d'Oro, and life went on in that charming abode peacefully.
+Morgana always being the kindest of patrons to Lady Kingswood, and
+discoursing feminine commonplaces with her as though there were no
+other subjects of conversation in the world than embroidery and
+specific cures for rheumatism. She said little--indeed almost
+nothing,--of her aerial voyage to the East, except that she had enjoyed
+it, and that the Pyramids and the Sphinx were dwarfed into mere
+insignificant dots on the land as seen from the air,--she had
+apparently nothing more to describe, and Lady Kingswood was not
+sufficiently interested in air-travel to press enquiry. One bright
+sunny morning, after a week of her self-imposed seclusion, she
+announced her intention of calling at the monastery to see Don Aloysius.
+
+"I have been rather rude"--she said--"Of course he has wanted to know
+how my flight to the East went off!--and I have given no sign and sent
+no message."
+
+"He has called several times"--replied Lady Kingswood--"and I think he
+has been very much disappointed not to be received."
+
+"Poor reverend Father!" and Morgana smiled--"He should not bother his
+mind about a woman! Well! I'm going to see him now."
+
+Lady Kingswood looked at her critically. She was gowned in a simple
+white morning frock with touches of blue,--and she wore a broad-brimmed
+Tuscan straw hat with a fold of blue carelessly twined about it. She
+made a pretty picture--one of extraordinary youthfulness for any woman
+out of her 'teens--so much so that Lady Kingswood wondered if voyages
+in the air would be found to have a rejuvenating effect.
+
+"They do not admit women into the actual monastery"--she went
+on--"Feminine frivolities are forbidden! But the ruined cloister is
+open to visitors and I shall ask to see Don Aloysius there."
+
+She lightly waved adieu and went, leaving her amiable and contented
+chaperone to the soothing companionship of a strip of embroidery at
+which she worked with the leisurely tranquillity which such an
+occupation engenders.
+
+The ruined cloister looked very beautiful that morning, with its
+crumbling arches crowned and festooned with roses climbing every way at
+their own sweet will, and Morgana's light figure gave just the touch of
+human interest to the solemn peacefulness of the scene. She waited but
+two or three minutes before Don Aloysius appeared--he had seen her
+arrive from the window of his own private library. He approached her
+slowly--there was a gravity in the expression of his face that almost
+amounted to coldness, and no smile lightened it as she met his keen,
+fixed glance.
+
+"So you have come to me at last!" he said--"I have not merited your
+confidence till now! Why?"
+
+His rich voice had a ring of deep reproach in its tone--and she was for
+a moment taken aback. Then her native self-possession and perfect
+assurance returned.
+
+"Dear Father Aloysius, you do not want my confidence! You know all I
+can tell you!" she said--and drawing close to him she laid her hand on
+his arm--"Am I not right?"
+
+A tremor shook him--gently he put her hand aside.
+
+"You think I know!" he replied--"You imagine--"
+
+"Oh, no, I imagine nothing!" and she smiled--"I am sure--yes,
+SURE!--that you have the secret of things that seem fabulous and yet
+are true! It was you who first told me of the Brazen City in the Great
+Desert,--you said it was a mere tradition--but you filled my mind with
+a desire to find it--"
+
+"And you found it?" he interrupted, quickly--"You found it?"
+
+"You know I did!" she replied--"Why ask the question? Messages on a
+Sound-Ray can reach YOU, as well as me!"
+
+He moved to the stone bench which occupied a corner of the cloister and
+sat down. He was very pale and his eyes were feverishly bright.
+Presently he seemed to recover himself, and spoke more in his usual
+manner.
+
+"Rivardi has been here every day"--he said--"He has talked of nothing
+but you. He told me that he and Gaspard fell suddenly asleep--for which
+they were grievously ashamed of themselves--and that you took control
+of the air-ship and turned it homeward before you had given them any
+chance to explore the desert--"
+
+"Quite true!" she answered, tranquilly--"And--YOU knew all that before
+he told you! You knew that I was compelled to turn the ship homeward
+because it was not allowed to proceed! Dear Father Aloysius, you cannot
+hide yourself from me! You are one of the few who have studied the
+secrets of the approaching future,--the 'change' which is imminent--the
+'world to come' which is coming! Yes!--and you are brave to live as you
+do in the fetters of a conventional faith when you have such a far
+wider outlook--"
+
+He stopped her by a gesture, rising from where he sat and extending a
+hand of warning and authority.
+
+"Child, beware what you say!" and his voice had a ring of sternness in
+its mellow tone--"If I know what you think I know, on what ground do
+you suppose I have built my knowledge? Only on that faith which you
+call 'conventional'--that faith which has never been understood by the
+world's majority! That faith which teaches of the God-in-Man, done to
+death by the Man WITHOUT God in him!--and who, nevertheless, by the
+spiritual strength of a resurrection from the grave, proves that there
+is no death but only continuous renewal of life! This is no mere
+'convention' of faith,--no imaginary or traditional tale--it is pure
+scientific fact. The virginal conception of divinity in woman, and the
+transfiguration of manhood, these things are true--and the advance of
+scientific discovery will prove them so beyond all denial. We have held
+the faith, AS IT SHOULD BE HELD, for centuries,--and it has led us, and
+continues to lead us, to all we know."
+
+"We?" queried Morgana, softly--"WE--of the Church?--or of the Brazen
+City?"
+
+He looked at her for some moments without speaking. His tall fine
+figure seemed more than ever stately and imposing--and his features
+expressed a calm assurance and dignity of thought which gave them
+additional charm.
+
+"Your question is bold!" he said--"Your enterprising spirit stops at
+nothing! You have learned much--you are resolved to learn more!
+Well,--I cannot prevent you,--nor do I see any reason why I should try!
+You are a resolved student,--you are also a woman:--a woman different
+to ordinary women and set apart from ordinary womanhood. So I say to
+you 'We of the Brazen City'--if you will! For more than three thousand
+years 'we' have existed--'we' have studied, 'we' have discovered--'we'
+have known. 'We,' the selected offspring of all the race that ever were
+born,--'we,' the pure blood of the earth,--'we,' the progenitors of the
+world TO BE,--'we' have lived, watching temporary civilisations rise
+and fall,--seeing generations born and die, because, like weeds, they
+have grown without any root of purpose save to smother their neighbours
+and destroy. 'We' remain as commanded, waiting for the full declaration
+and culmination of those forces which are already advancing to the
+end,--when the 'Kingdom' comes!"
+
+Morgana moved close to him, and looked up at his grave, dark face
+beseechingly.
+
+"Then why are you here?" she asked--"If you know,--if you were ever in
+the 'Brazen City' how did it happen that you left it? How could it
+happen?"
+
+He smiled down into the jewel-blue of her clear eyes.
+
+"Little child!" he said--"Brilliant soul, that rejoiced in the
+perception that gave you what you called 'the inside of a
+sun-ray,'--you, for whom the things which interest men and women of the
+moment are mere toys of poor invention--you, of all others, ought to
+know that when the laws of the universe are understood and followed,
+there can be no fetters on the true liberty of the subject? IF I were
+ever in the 'Brazen City'--mind! I say 'if'--there could be nothing to
+prevent my leaving it if I chose--"
+
+She interrupted him by the uplifting of a hand.
+
+"I was told"--she said slowly--"by a Voice that spoke to me--that if I
+went there I should have to stay there!"
+
+"No doubt!" he answered--"For love would keep you!"
+
+"Love!" she echoed.
+
+"Even so! Such love as you have never dreamed of, dear soul weighted
+with millions of gold! Love!--the only force that pulls heaven to earth
+and binds them together!"
+
+"But YOU--you--if you were in the Brazen City--"
+
+"If!" he repeated, emphatically.
+
+"If--yes! if"--she said--"If you were there, love did not hold YOU?"
+
+"No!"
+
+There was a silence. The sunshine burned down on the ancient grey
+flagstones of the cloister, and two gorgeous butterflies danced over
+the climbing roses that hung from the arches in festal wreaths of pink
+and white. A luminance deeper than that of the sun seemed to encircle
+the figures standing together--the one so elfin, light and
+delicate,--the other invested with a kind of inward royalty expressing
+itself outwardly in stateliness of look and bearing. Something
+mysteriously suggestive of super-humanity environed them; a spirit and
+personality higher than mortal. After some minutes Aloysius spoke
+again--
+
+"The city is not a 'Brazen' City"--he said--"It has been called so by
+travellers who have seen its golden towers glistening afar off in a
+sudden refraction of light lasting but a few seconds. Gold often looks
+like brass and brass like gold, in human entities as in architectural
+results." He paused--then went on slowly and impressively--"Surely you
+remember,-you MUST remember, that it is written 'The city lieth
+four-square, and the length is as large as the breadth. The wall
+thereof is according to the measure of a man--that is, of the Angel.
+And the city is of pure gold.' Does that give you no hint of the
+measure of a man, that is, of the Angel?--of the 'new heavens and the
+new earth,' the old things being passed away? Dear child, you have
+studied deeply--you have adventured far and greatly!--continue your
+quest, but do not forget to take your guiding Light, the Faith which
+half the world and more ignores!"
+
+She sprang to him impulsively and caught his hands.
+
+"Oh, you must help me!" she cried--"You must teach me--I want to know
+what YOU know!--"
+
+He held her gently and with reverent tenderness.
+
+"I know no more than you,"--he answered--"you work by Science--I, by
+Faith, the bed-rock from Which all science proceeds--and we arrive at
+the same discoveries by different methods. I am a poor priest in the
+temple of the Divine, serving my turn--but I am not alone in service,
+for in every corner of the habitable globe there is one member of our
+'City' who communicates with the rest. One!--but enough! To-day's
+commercial world uses old systems of wireless telegraphy and telephony
+which were known and done with thousands of years ago--but 'we' have
+the sound-ray--the light which carries music on its wings and creates
+form as it goes."
+
+Here he released her hands.
+
+"Knowing what you do know you have no need of my help"--he
+continued--"You have not found happiness yet, because that only comes
+through one source--Love. But I doubt not that God will give you that
+in His own good time." He paused--then went on--"As you go out, enter
+the chapel for a moment and send a prayer on the Sound-Ray to the
+Centre of all Knowledge,--the source of all discovery--have no fear but
+that it will arrive! The rest is for you to decide."
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"And--the Brazen City?" she queried.
+
+"The Golden City!" he answered--"Well, you have had your experience!
+Your name is known there--and no doubt you can hear from it when you
+will."
+
+"Do YOU hear from it?" she asked, pointedly.
+
+He smiled gravely.
+
+"I may not speak of what I hear"--he answered. "Nor may you!"
+
+She was silent for a space--then looked up at him appealingly.
+
+"The world is changed for me"--she said--"It will never be the same
+again! I do not seem to belong to it--other influences surround
+me,--how I live in it?--how shall I work--what shall I do?"
+
+"You will do as you have always done--go your own way"--he
+replied--"The way which has led you to so much discovery and
+attainment. You must surely know in your own soul that you have been
+guided in that way--and your success is the result of allowing yourself
+to BE guided. In all things you will be guided now--have no fear for
+yourself! All will be well for you!"
+
+"And for you?" she asked impulsively.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Why think of me?" he said, gently--"I am nothing in your life--"
+
+"You are!" she replied--"You are more than you imagine. I begin to
+realise--"
+
+He held up his hand with a warning gesture.
+
+"Hush!" he said--"There are things of which we must not speak!"
+
+At that moment the monastery bell tolled the midday "Angelus." Don
+Aloysius bent his head--Morgana instinctively did the same. Within the
+building the deep voices of the brethren sounded, chanting,--
+
+     "Angelus Domini nuntiavit Maria Et concepit de Spiritu
+      sancto."
+
+As the salutation to heaven finished, the mellow music of the organ in
+the chapel sent a wave of solemn and prayerful tenderness on the air,
+and, moved by the emotion of the hour, Morgana's heart beat more
+quickly and tears filled her eyes.
+
+"There must be beautiful music in the Golden City!" she said.
+
+Don Aloysius smiled.
+
+"There is! And when the other things of life give you pause to listen,
+you will often hear it!"
+
+She smiled happily in response, and then, with a silent gesture of
+farewell, left the cloister and made her way to the chapel, part of
+which was kept open for public worship. It was empty, but the hidden
+organist was still playing. She went towards the High Altar and knelt
+in front of it. She was not of the Catholic faith,--she was truly of no
+faith at all save that which is taught by Science, which like a door
+opened in heaven shows all the wonders within,--but her keen sense of
+the beautiful was stirred by the solemn peace of the shut Tabernacle
+with the Cross above it, and the great lilies bending under their own
+weight of loveliness and fragrance on either side.
+
+"It is the Symbol of a great Truth which is true for all time"--she
+thought, as she clasped her hands in an attitude of prayer--"And how
+sad and strange it is to feel that there are thousands among its
+best-intentioned worshippers and priests who have not discovered its
+mystic meaning. The God in Man, born of purity in woman! Is it only in
+the Golden City that they know?"
+
+She raised her eyes in half unconscious appeal--and, as she did so, a
+brilliant Ray of light flashed downward from the summit of the Cross
+which surmounted the Altar, and remained extended slantwise towards
+her. She saw it,--and waited expectantly. Close to her ears a Voice
+spoke with extreme softness, yet very distinctly.
+
+"Can you hear me?"
+
+"Yes," she replied at once, with equal softness.
+
+"Then, listen! I have a message for you!"
+
+And Morgana listened,--listened intently,--the sapphire hue of the Ray
+lighting her gold hair, as she knelt, absorbed. What she heard filled
+her with a certain dread; and a tremor of premonition, like the
+darkness preceding storm, shook her nerves. But the inward spirit of
+her was as a warrior clothed in steel,--she was afraid of
+nothing--least of all of any event or incident passing for
+"supernatural," knowing beyond all doubt that the most seeming
+miraculous circumstances are all the result of natural movement and
+transmutation. There never had been anything surprising to her in the
+fact that light is a conveyor of sound; and that she was receiving a
+message by such means seemed no more extraordinary to her mind than
+receiving it by the accepted telephonic service. Every word spoken she
+heard with the closest attention--until--as though a cloud had suddenly
+covered it,--the "Sound-Ray" vanished, and the Voice ceased.
+
+She rose at once from her knees, alert and ready for action--her face
+was pale, her lips set, her eyes luminous.
+
+"I must not hesitate"--she said--"If I can save him I will!"
+
+She left the chapel and hurried home, where as soon as she reached her
+own private room she wrote to the Marchese Rivardi the following note,
+which was more than unpleasantly startling to him when he received it.
+
+"I shall need you and Gaspard for a long journey in the 'White Eagle.'
+Prepare everything in the way of provisioning and other necessary
+details. No time must be lost, and no expense need be spared. We must
+start as quickly as possible."
+
+This message written, sealed and dispatched by one of her servants to
+the Marchese's villa, she sat for some moments lost in thought,
+wistfully looking out on her flower-filled gardens and the shimmering
+blue of the Mediterranean beyond.
+
+"I may be too late!" she said, speaking aloud to herself--"But I will
+take the risk! He will not care--no!--a man like that cares for nothing
+but himself. He would have broken my life--(had I given him the
+chance!)--for the sake of an experiment. Now--if I can--I will rescue
+his for the sake of an ideal!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+"There shall be no more wars!--there CAN be none!"
+
+Roger Seaton said these words aloud with defiant emphasis, addressing
+the dumb sky. It was early morning, but an intense heat had so scorched
+the earth that not the smallest drop of dew glittered on any leaf or
+blade of grass; it was all arid, brown and burned into a dryness as of
+fever. But Seaton was far too much engrossed with himself and his own
+business to note the landscape, or to be troubled by the suffocating
+closeness of the atmosphere,--he stood gazing with the idolatry of a
+passionate lover at a small, plain metal case, containing a dozen or
+more small plain metal cylinders, as small as women's thimbles, all
+neatly ranged side by side, divided from contact with one another by
+folded strips of cotton.
+
+"There it is!" he went on, apostrophising the still
+air--"Complete,--perfected! If I sold that to any nation under the sun,
+that nation could rule the world!--could wipe out everything save
+itself and its own people! I have wrested the secret from the very womb
+of Nature!--it is mine--all mine! I would have given it to Britain--or
+to the United States--but neither will accept my terms--so therefore I
+hold it--I, only!--which is just as well! I--just I--am master of
+destiny!--the Power we call God, has put this tiling into my hands!
+What a marvel and shall I not use it? I will! Let Germany but stir an
+inch towards aggression, and Germany shall exist no longer!--The same
+with any other nation that starts a quarrel--I--I alone will settle it!"
+
+His eyes blazed with the light of fanaticism--he was obsessed by the
+force of his own ideas and schemes, and the metal case on the table
+before him was, to his mind, time, life, present and future. He had
+arrived at that questionable point of intellectual attainment when man
+forgets that there is any existing force capable of opposing him, and
+imagines that he has but to go on in his own way to grasp all worlds
+and the secrets of their being. At this juncture, so often arrived at
+by many, a kind of super-sureness sets in, persuading the finite nature
+that it has reached the infinite. The whole mental organisation of the
+man thrilled with an awful consciousness of power. He said within
+himself "I hold the lives of millions at my mercy!"
+
+Other thoughts--other dreams had passed away for the moment--he had
+forgotten life as it presents itself to the ordinary human being. Now
+and again a flitting vision of Morgana vaguely troubled him,--her
+intellectual capacity annoyed him, and yet he would have been glad to
+discuss with her the scientific unfolding of his great secret--she
+would understand it in all its bearings,--she might
+advise--Advice!--no!--he did not need the advice of a woman! As for
+Manella, he had not seen her since her last violent outburst of what he
+called "temper"--and he had no wish for her presence. For now he had a
+thing to do which was of paramount importance,--and this was, to
+deposit the treasured discovery of his life in a secret hiding-place he
+had found for it, till he should be ready to remove it to safer
+quarters--or--TILL HE RESOLVED TO USE IT. Had he been a religious man,
+of such humility as should accompany true religion, he would have
+prayed that its use should never be called upon,--but he had trained
+himself into an attitude of such complete indifferentism towards life
+and the things of life, that to him it seemed useless to pray for what
+did not matter. Sometimes the thought, appalling in its truth, flashed
+across his brain that the force he had discovered and condensed within
+small compass might as easily destroy half the world as a nation! The
+fabled thunderbolts of Jove were child's play compared with those
+plain-looking, thimble-like cylinders which contained such terrific
+power! A touch of hesitation--of pure human dread affected his nerves
+for the moment,--he shivered in the sultry air as with cold, and looked
+about him right and left as though suspecting some hidden witness of
+his actions. There was not so much as a bird or a butterfly in sight,
+and he drew a long deep breath of relief. The day was treading in the
+steps of dawn with the full blazonry of burning Californian sunlight,
+and away in the distance the ridges and peaks of distant mountains
+stood out sharply clear against the intense blue of the sky. There was
+great stillness everywhere,--a pause, as it seemed, in the mechanism of
+the universe. The twitter of a bird or the cry of some wild animal
+would have been a relief,--so Seaton felt, though accustomed to deep
+silence.
+
+"Better get through with this at once"--he said, aloud--"Now that a
+safe place is prepared." Here he looked at his watch. "In a couple of
+hours they will be sending up from the Plaza to know if I want
+anything--Irish Jake or Manilla will be coming on some trivial
+matter--I'd better take the opportunity of complete secrecy while I
+can."
+
+For the next few minutes or so he hesitated. With the sudden fancy that
+he had forgotten something, he turned out his pockets, looking for he
+scarcely knew what. The contents were mixed and various, and among them
+was a crumpled letter which he had received some days since from Sam
+Gwent. He smoothed it out carefully and re-read it, especially one
+passage--
+
+"I think the States will never get involved in another war, but I am
+fairly sure Germany will. If she joins up with Russia look out for
+squalls. In your old country, which appears to be peopled by madmen,
+there's a writing chap who spent a fortnight in Russia, not long enough
+to know the ins and outs of a village, yet assuming to know everything
+about the biggest territory in Europe, and the press is puffing up his
+ignorance as if it were wisdom. Germany has her finger on the spot--so
+perhaps your stuff will come in useful. But don't forget that if you
+make up your mind to use it you will ruin America, commercially
+speaking. And many other countries besides. So think it well
+over,--more than a hundred times! Lydia Herbert, whom perhaps you
+remember, and perhaps you don't, has caught her 'ancient mariner'--that
+is to say, her millionaire,--and all fashionable New York is going to
+the wedding, including yours truly. I had expected Morgana Royal to
+grace the function, but I hear she is quite engrossed with the
+decoration and furnishing of her Sicilian palace, as well as with her
+advising artist, a very good-looking Marquis or Marchese as he is
+called. It is also whispered that she has invented a wonderful air-ship
+which has no engines, and creates its own motive power as it goes!
+Sounds rather tall talk!--but this is an age of wonders and we never
+know what next. There is a new Light Ray just out which prospects for
+gold, oil and all ores and minerals, and finds them in a fifty-mile
+circuit--so probably nobody need be poor for the future. When we've all
+got most things we want, and there's nothing left to work for, I wonder
+what the world will be worth!"
+
+Seaton left off reading and thrust the letter again in his pocket.
+
+"What will the world be worth?" he soliloquised--"Why, nothing!"
+
+Suddenly struck by this thought, which had not always presented itself
+with such sharp and clear precision as now, he took time to consider
+it. Capital and Labour, the two forces which are much more prone to
+rend each other than to co-operate--these would both possibly be
+non-existent if Science had its full way. If gold, silver and other
+precious minerals could be "picked up" as on the fabled Tom Tiddler's
+ground, by a ray of light, then the striving for wealth would cease and
+work would be reduced to a minimum. The prospect was stupendous, but
+hardly entirely pleasing. If there were no need for effort, then the
+powers of mind and body would sink into inertia.
+
+"What object should we live for?" he mused--"Merely to propagate our
+own kind and bring more effortless beings into the world to cumber it?
+The very idea is horrible! Work is the very blood and bone of
+existence--without it we should rot! But one must work for something or
+some one--wife?--children?--Useless labour!--for in nine cases out
+often the wife becomes a bore,--and the children grow up ungrateful.
+Why waste strength and feeling on either?"
+
+Thus mentally arguing, the exquisite lines of Tennyson's "Lotus Eaters"
+suddenly rang in his memory like a chime of bells from the old English
+village where he had lived as a boy, when his mother, one of the past
+sweet "old-fashioned" women, used to read to him and teach him much of
+the best in literature,--
+
+    "Death is the end of life; ah, why
+     Should life all labour be?
+     Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast
+     And in a little while our lips are dumb,
+     Let us alone. What is it that will last?
+     All things are taken from us and become
+     Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past,
+     Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
+     To war with evil? Is there any peace
+     In ever climbing up the climbing wave?"
+
+An effortless existence would be the existence of such as these fabled
+Lotus Eaters--moreover, it was not possible it could go on, since all
+Nature shows effort without cessation. Roger Seaton knew this as all
+know it--but his soul's demand remained unsatisfied, for he sought to
+know the CAUSE of all the toil and trouble,--the "why" it should be.
+And at the back of his mind there was ever a teasing reminder of
+Morgana and her strange theories, some of which she had half imparted
+to him when their friendship had first begun. For her Tennyson's
+line--"Death is the end of life"--would be the statement of a foolish
+fallacy, as she held that there is no such thing as death, only failure
+to adapt the spirit to advancing and higher change in its physical
+organisation. To-day he remembered with curious clearness what she had
+said on this subject--
+
+"Radio-activity is the chief secret of life. It is for us to learn how
+to absorb it into our systems as we grow,--to add by its means to our
+supplies of vitality and energy. It never gives out,--nor should we.
+The Nature-intention is that we should become better, stronger, more
+beautiful, more mentally and spiritually perfect--and that we do not
+fulfil this intention is our own fault. The decimation of the human
+race by wars and plagues and famines has always been traceable to human
+error. All accidents happen through those who make accidents
+possible,--diseases are bred through human dirt, greed, ignorance, and
+neglect. They are no part of the divine scheme of things. The plan is
+to advance and make progress from one point of excellence to
+another,--not to stop half way and turn back on the road. Humanity
+dies, because it will not learn how to live."
+
+She had spoken these words with a quiet simplicity and earnestness that
+impressed him at the time as being almost child-like, considering the
+depth of thought into which she must have plunged, notwithstanding her
+youth and her sex--and on this morning of all others, this morning on
+which he had set himself a task for which he had made long and
+considerable preparation, he found himself half mechanically repeating
+her phrase--"Humanity dies because it will not learn how to live."
+
+There was no fatalism,--no fixed destiny in this; only the force of
+Will was implied--the Will to learn,--the Will to know.
+
+"And why should not humanity die?" he argued within himself--"If, in
+the long course of ages, it is proved that it will neither learn nor
+know,--why should it remain? Room should be made for a new race! A
+clever gardener can produce a perfectly beautiful flower from an
+insignificant and common weed,--surely this is a lesson to us that it
+may be possible to produce a god from a man!"
+
+He bent his eyes lovingly on the case of small cylinders lying open
+before him;--the just risen sun brightened them to a glitter as of cold
+steel,--and for a moment he fancied they flashed upon him with an
+almost sinister gleam.
+
+"Power of good or power of evil?" he questioned his inward spirit--"Who
+can decide? If it is good to destroy evil then the force is a good
+force--if it is evil to destroy good WITH evil, then it is an evil
+thing. But Nature makes no such particular discriminations--she
+destroys evil and good together at one blow. Why therefore should I--or
+anyone--offer to discriminate?--since evil is always the preponderating
+factor. When the 'Lusitania' was torpedoed neither God nor Nature
+interfered to save the innocent from the guilty--men, women and
+children were all plunged into the pitiless sea. I--as a part of
+Nature--if I destroy, I only follow her example. War is an evil,--an
+abominable crime--and those that attempt to make it should be swept
+from the face of the earth even if good and peace-loving units are
+swept along with them. This cannot be helped."
+
+He went into his hut, and in a few minutes came out again clothed in
+thick garments of a dark, earth colour, and carrying a stout staff,
+steel-pointed at its end something after the fashion of a Swiss
+alpenstock. He brought with him a small metal box into which he placed
+the case of cylinders, covering it with a closely fitting lid. Then he
+put the package into a basket made of rough twigs and strips of bark,
+having a strong handle, to which he fastened a leather strap, and slung
+the whole thing over his shoulders like a knapsack. Then, casting
+another look round to make sure that there was no one about, he started
+to walk towards a steeper descent of the hill in a totally different
+direction from that which led to the "Plaza" hotel. He went swiftly, at
+a steady swinging pace,--and though his way took him among confused
+masses of rock, and fallen boulders, he thought nothing of these
+obstacles, vaulting lightly across them with the ease of a chamois,
+till he came to a point where there was a declivity running sheer down
+to invisible depths, from whence came the rumbling echo of falling
+water. In this almost perpendicular wall of rock were a few ledges,
+like the precarious rungs of a broken ladder, and down these he
+prepared to go. Clinging at first to the topmost edge of the precipice,
+he let himself down warily inch by inch till his figure entirely
+disappeared, sunken, as it were in darkness. As he vanished there was a
+sudden cry--a rush as of wings--and a woman sprang up from amid bushes
+where she had lain hidden,--it was Manella. For days and nights she had
+stolen away in the intervals of her work, to watch him--and nothing had
+chanced to excite her alarm till now--till now, when she had seen him
+emerge from his hut and pack up the mysterious box he carried,--and
+when she had heard him talking strangely to himself in a way she could
+not understand.
+
+As soon as he started to walk she followed him, pushing through heavy
+brushwood and crawling along the ground where she could not be
+seen;--and now,--with dishevelled hair, and staring, terrified eyes she
+leaned over the edge of the precipice, baffled and desperate. Tearless
+sobs convulsed her throat,--
+
+"Oh, God of mercy!" she moaned in suffocated accents--"How can I follow
+him down there! Oh, help me, Mary mother! Help me! I must--I must be
+with him!"
+
+She gathered up her hair in a close coil and wound her skirts tightly
+about her, looking everywhere for a footing. She saw a deep cranny
+which had been hollowed out by some torrent of water--it cut sharply
+through the rock like a path,--she could risk that perhaps, she
+thought,--and yet her brain reeled--she felt sick and giddy--would it
+not be wiser to stay where she was and wait for the return of the
+reckless creature who had ventured all alone into one of the deepest
+canons of the whole country? While she hesitated she caught a sudden
+glimpse of him, stepping with apparent ease over huge heaps of stones
+and fallen pieces of rock at the bottom of the declivity,--she watched
+his movements in breathless suspense. On he went towards a vast
+aperture, shaped arch-wise like the entrance to a cavern--he paused a
+moment--then entered it. This was enough for Manella--her wild love and
+wilder terror gave her an almost supernatural strength and daring,--and
+all heedless now of results she sprang boldly towards the deep cutting
+in the rock, swinging herself from jagged point to point till--reaching
+the bottom of the declivity at last, bruised and bleeding, but
+undaunted,--she stopped, checked by a rushing stream which tumbled over
+great boulders and dashed its cold spray in her face. Looking about her
+she saw to her dismay that the vaulted cavern wherein Seaton had
+disappeared was on the other side of this stream--she stood almost
+opposite to it--but how to get across? Gazing despairingly in every
+direction she suddenly perceived the fallen trunk of a tree lying half
+in and half out of the brawling torrent--it was green with slippery
+moss and offered but a dangerous foothold,--nevertheless she resolved
+to attempt it.
+
+"I said I would die for him!" she thought--"and I will!"
+
+Getting astride the tree, it swayed under her,--but she found she could
+push one of the larger boughs forward to lengthen the extemporary
+bridge,--and so, as it were, riding the waters, which surged noisily
+around her, she managed by dint of super-human effort to reach the
+projection of pebbly shore where the entrance to the cavern yawned open
+before her, black and desolate. The sun in its full morning glory
+blazed slanting down upon the darkness of the canon, and as she stood
+shivering, wet through and utterly exhausted, wondering what next she
+should do, she caught sight of a form moving within the cave like a
+moving shadow, and ascending a steep natural stairway of columnar rocks
+piled one on top of the other. Affrighted as she was by the tomb-like
+aspect of the deep vault, she had not ventured so far that she should
+now shrink from further dangers or fail in her quest;--the cherished
+object of her constant watchful care was within that subterranean
+blackness,--for what purpose?--she did not dare to think! But there was
+an instinctive sense of dread foreknowledge upon her,--a warning of
+impending evil,--and had she not sworn to him--"If God struck you down
+to hell I would be there!" The entrance to the cavern looked like the
+mouth of hell itself, as she had seen it depicted in one of her
+Catholic early lesson books. There were serpents and dragons in the
+picture ready to devour the impenitent sinner,--there might be serpents
+and dragons in this cave, for all she knew! But what matter? If the man
+she loved were actually in hell she "would be there"--as she had
+said!--and would surely find it Heaven! And so,--seeing the mere
+outline of his form moving ghost-like in the gloom, it was to her a
+guiding presence,--a light amid darkness,--and when,--after a minute or
+two--her straining eyes perceived him climbing steadily up the steep
+and perilous rocks, seeming about to disappear altogether,--she
+mastered the tremor of her nerves and crept cautiously step by step
+into the sombre vault, blindly feeling her way through the damp, thick
+murkiness, reckless of all danger, and only bent on following him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Of all the vagaries and humours of humanity when considered in crowds,
+there is nothing which appears more senseless and objectless than the
+way in which it congregates outside the door of a church at a
+fashionable or "society" wedding. The massed people pushing and shoving
+each other about have nothing whatever to do with either bride or
+bridegroom, the ceremony inside the sacred edifice has in most cases
+ceased to be a "sacrament"--and has become a mere show of dressed-up
+manikins and womenkins, many of the latter being mere OBJECT
+D'ART,--stands for the display of millinery. And yet--the crowds fight
+and jostle,--women scramble and scream,--all to catch a glimpse of the
+woman who is to be given to the man, and the man who has agreed to
+accept the woman. The wealthier the pair the wilder the frenzy to gaze
+upon them. Savages performing a crazy war-dance are decorous of
+behaviour in contrast with these "civilised" folk who tramp on each
+other's feet and are ready to squeeze each other into pulp for the
+chance of staring at two persons whom the majority of them have never
+seen before and are not likely to see again. The wedding of Miss Lydia
+Herbert with her "ancient mariner," a seventy-year-old millionaire
+reputed to be as wealthy as Rockefeller,--was one of these
+"sensations"--chiefly on account of the fact that every unmarried woman
+young and old, and every widow, had been hunting him in vain for fully
+five years. Miss Herbert had been voted "no chance," because she made
+no secret of her extravagant tastes in dress and jewels,--yet despite
+society croakers she had won the game. This in itself was
+interesting,--as the millionaire she had secured was known to be
+particularly close-fisted and parsimonious. Nevertheless he had shown
+remarkable signs of relaxing these tendencies; for he had literally
+showered jewels on his chosen bride, leaving no door open for any
+complaint in that quarter. Her diamonds were the talk of New York, and
+on the day of her wedding her gowns literally flashed like a firework
+with numerous dazzling points of light. "The Voice that breathed o'er
+Eden" had little to do with the magnificence of her attire, or with the
+brilliancy of the rose-wreathed bridesmaids, young girls of specially
+selected beauty and elegance who were all more or less disappointed in
+failing to win the millionaire themselves. For these youthful persons
+in their 'teens had social ambitions hidden in hearts harder than
+steel--"a good time" of self-indulgence and luxury was all they sought
+for in life--in fact, they had no conception of any higher ideal. The
+millionaire himself, though old, maintained a fairly middle-aged
+appearance--he was a thin, wiry, well-preserved man, his wizened and
+furrowed countenance chiefly showing the marks of Time's ploughshare.
+It would have been difficult to say why, out of all the feminine
+butterflies hovering around him, he had chosen Lydia Herbert,--but he
+was a shrewd judge of character in his way, and he had decided that as
+she was not in her first youth it would be more worth her while to
+conduct herself decorously as wife and housekeeper, and generally look
+after his health and comfort, than it would be for a less responsible
+woman. Then, she had "manner,"--her appearance was attractive and she
+wore her clothes well and stylishly. All this was enough for a man who
+wanted some one to attend to his house and entertain his friends, and
+he was perfectly satisfied with himself as he repeated after the
+clergyman the words, "With my body I thee worship, and with all my
+worldly goods I thee endow," knowing that "with his body" he had never
+worshipped anything, and that the "endowment" of his worldly goods was
+strictly limited to certain settlements. He felt himself to be superior
+to his old bachelor friend Sam Gwent, who supported him as "best man"
+at the ceremony, and who, as he stood, stiffly upright in immaculate
+"afternoon visiting attire" among the restlessly swaying,
+semi-whispering throng, was all the time thinking of the dusky
+night-gloom in the garden of the "Plaza" far away in California and a
+beautiful face set against the dark background of myrtle bushes
+exhaling rich perfume.
+
+"What a startling contrast she would be to these dolls of fashion!" he
+thought--"What a sensation she would make! There's not a woman here who
+can compare with her! If I were only a bit younger I'd try my
+luck!--anyway I'm younger than to-day's bridegroom!--but
+she--Manella--would never look at any other man than Seaton, who
+doesn't care a rap for her or any other woman!" Here his thoughts took
+another turn.
+
+"No," he repeated inwardly--"He doesn't care a rap for her or any other
+woman--except--perhaps--Morgana! And even if it were Morgana, it would
+be for himself and himself alone! While she--ah!--it would be a clever
+brain indeed that could worry out what SHE cares for! Nothing in this
+world, so far as I can see!"
+
+Here the organ poured the rich strains of a soft and solemn prelude
+through the crowded church--the "sacred" part of the ceremony was over,
+and bride and bridegroom made their way to the vestry, there to sign
+the register in the presence of a selected group of friends. Sam Gwent
+was one of these,--and though he had attended many such functions
+before, he was more curiously impressed than usual by the unctuous and
+barefaced hypocrisy of the whole thing--the smiling humbug of the
+officiating clergy,--the affected delight of the "society" toadies
+fluttering like wasps round bride and bride-groom as though they were
+sweet dishes specially for stinging insects to feed upon, and in his
+mind he seemed to hear the warm, passionate voice of Manella in frank
+admission of her love for Seaton.
+
+"It is good to love him!" she had said--"I am happy to love him. I wish
+only to serve him!"
+
+This was primitive passion,--the passion of primitive woman for her
+mate whom she admitted to be stronger than herself, to whom she
+instinctively looked for shelter and protection, and round whose
+commanding force she sought to rear the lovely fabric of "Home,"--a
+state of feeling as far removed from the sentiments of modern women as
+the constellation of Orion is removed from earth. And Sam Gwent's
+fragmentary reflections flitting through his brain were more
+serious--one might say more romantic, than the consideration of
+dollars, which usually occupied all his faculties. He had always
+thought that there was a good deal in life which he had missed somehow,
+and which dollars could not purchase; and a certain irate contempt
+filled him for the man who, unlike himself, was in the prime of
+strength, and who, with all the glories of Nature about him and the
+love and beauty of an exquisite womanhood at his hand for possession,
+could nevertheless devote his energies to the science of destruction
+and the compassing of death without compunction, on the lines Roger
+Seaton had laid down as the remedy against all war.
+
+"The kindest thing to think of him is that he's not quite sane,"--Gwent
+mused--"He has been obsessed by the horrible carnage of the Great War,
+and disgusted by the utter inefficiency of Governments since the
+armistice, and this appalling invention of his is the result."
+
+The crashing chords of the Bridal March from "Lohengrin" put an end to
+his thoughts for the moment,--people began to crush and push out of
+church, or stand back on each other's toes to stare at the bride's
+diamonds as she moved very slowly and gracefully down the aisle on the
+arm of her elderly husband. She certainly looked very well,--and her
+smile suggested entire satisfaction with herself and the world.
+Press-camera men clambered about wherever they could find a footing, to
+catch and perpetuate that smile, which when enlarged and reproduced in
+newspapers would depict the grinning dental display so much associated
+with Woodrow Wilson and the Prince of Wales,--though more suggestive of
+a skull than anything else. Skulls invariably show their teeth, we
+know--but it has been left to the modern press-camera man to insist on
+the death-grin in faces that yet live. The crowd outside the church was
+far denser than the crowd within, and the fighting and scrambling for
+points of view became terrific, especially when the wedding guests'
+motor-cars began to make their way, with sundry hoots and snorts,
+through the densely packed mob. Women screamed,--some fainted--but none
+thought of giving way to others, or retiring from the wild scene of
+contest. Gwent judged it wisest to remain within the church portal till
+the crowd should clear, and there, safely ensconced, he watched the
+maddened mass of foolish sight-seers, all of whom had plainly left
+their daily avocations merely to stare at a man and woman wedded, with
+whom, personally, they had nothing whatever to do.
+
+"People talk about unemployment!" he mused--"There's enough human
+material in this one street to make wealth for themselves and the whole
+community, yet they are idle by their own choice. If they had anything
+to do they wouldn't be here!"
+
+He laughed grimly,--the utter stodginess and stupidity of humanity EN
+MASSE had of late struck him very forcibly, and he found every excuse
+for the so-called incapacity of Governments, seeing the kind of folk
+they are called upon to govern. He realised, as we all who read
+history, must do, that we are no worse and no better than the peoples
+of the past,--we are just as hypocritical, fraudulent, deceptive and
+cruel as ever they were in legalised torture-times, and just as
+ineradicably selfish. The pagans practised a religion which they did
+not truly believe in, and so do we. All through the ages God has been
+mocked;--all through the ages Divine vengeance has fallen on the
+mockers and the mockery.
+
+"And after all," thought Gwent--"wars are as necessary as plagues to
+clear out a superabundant population, only most unfortunately Nature
+adopts such recklessness in her methods that it most often happens the
+best among us are taken, and the worst left. I tried to impress this on
+Seaton, whose system of destruction would involve the good as well as
+the bad--but these intellectual monsters of scientific appetite have no
+conscience and no sentiment. To prove their theories they would
+annihilate a continent."
+
+Here a sudden ugly rush of the crowd, dangerous to both life and limb,
+pushed him back against the church portal with the force of a tidal
+wave,--it was not concerned with the bridal pair who had already driven
+away in their automobile, nor with the wedding guests who were
+following them to the great hotel where the bride's reception was
+held--it was caused by the wild dash of half a dozen or so of unkempt
+men and boys who tore a passage for themselves through the swaying mob
+of sightseers, waving newspapers aloft and shouting loudly with voices
+deep and shrill, clear and hoarse--
+
+"Earthquake in California! Terrible loss of life! Thousands dead! Awful
+scenes! Earthquake in California!"
+
+The people swayed again--then stopped in massed groups,--some clutching
+at the newsboys as they ran and buying the papers as fast as they could
+be sold, while all the time above the muffled roar of the city they
+sent their cries aloft, echoing near and far--
+
+"Thousands dead! Awful scenes! Towns destroyed! Terrible Earthquake in
+California!"
+
+Sam Gwent stepped out from the church portal, elbowing his way through
+the confusion,--the yells of the news vendors rang sharply in his ears
+and yet for the moment he scarcely grasped their meaning; "California"
+was the one word that caught him, as it were, with a hammer
+stroke,--then "Thousands dead!" Finding at last an open passage through
+the dispersing crowd, he went at something of a run after one of the
+newsboys, and snatched the last paper he had to sell out of his hand.
+
+"What is it?" he demanded as he paid his money.
+
+"Dunno!" the boy replied, breathlessly--"'Xpect everybody's dead down
+California way!"
+
+Gwent unfolded the journal and stared at the great headlines, printed
+in fat black letters, still smelling strongly of printer's ink.
+
+Appalling Earthquake In California!--Mountain Upheaval!--Towns Wiped
+Out!--Plaza Hotel Engulfed!--Frightful Loss of Life!
+
+His eyes grew dim and dazzled--his brain swam,--he gazed up unseeingly
+at the blue sky, the tall "sky-scraper" houses, the sweep of human and
+vehicular traffic around him; and to his excited fancy the beautiful
+face of Manella came, like a phantom, between him and all else that was
+presented to his vision--that face warm and glowing with woman's
+tenderness--the splendid dark eyes aflame with love for a man whose
+indifference to her only strengthened her adoration and he seemed to
+hear the deep defiant voice of Roger Seaton ringing in his ears--
+
+"Annihilation! A holocaust of microbes! I would--and could--wipe them
+off the face of the earth in twenty-four hours!" He could--and would!
+
+"And by Heaven," said Gwent, within himself--"He's done it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Struck by the hand of God! So men say when, after denying God's
+existence ail their lives, the seeming solid earth heaves up like a
+ship on a storm-billow, dragging down in its deep recoil their lives
+and habitations. An earthquake! Its irresistible rise and fall makes
+human beings more powerless than insects,--their houses and possessions
+have less stability than the spider's web which swings its frail
+threads across broken columns in greater safety than any man-made
+bridge of stone,--and terror, mad, hopeless, helpless terror, possesses
+every creature brought face to face with the dire cruelty of natural
+forces, which from the very beginning have played havoc with struggling
+mankind. Struck by the hand of God!--and with a merciless blow! All the
+sunny plains and undulating hills of the beautiful stretch of land in
+Southern California, in the centre of which the "Plaza" hotel and
+sanatorium had stood, were now unrecognisable,--the earth was torn
+asunder and thrown into vast heaps--great rocks and boulders were
+tumbled over each other pell-mell in appalling heights of confusion,
+and, for miles around, towns, camps and houses were laid in ruins. The
+scene was one of absolute horror,--there was no language to express or
+describe it--no word of hope or comfort that could be fitly used to
+lighten the blackness of despair and loss. Gangs of men were at relief
+work as soon as they could be summoned, and these busied themselves in
+extricating the dead, and rescuing the dying whose agonised cries and
+moans reproached the Power that made them for such an end,--and perhaps
+as terrible as any other sound was the savage roar and rush of a
+loosened torrent which came tearing furiously down from the cleft hills
+to the lower land, through the great canon beyond the site where the
+Plaza had stood,--a canon which had become enormously widened by the
+riving and the rending of the rocks, thus giving free passage to wild
+waters that had before been imprisoned in a narrow gorge. The
+persistent rush of the flood filled every inch of space with sound of
+an awful, even threatening character, suggesting further devastation
+and death. The men engaged in their dreadful task of lifting crushed
+corpses from under the stones that had fallen upon them, were almost
+overcome and rendered incapable of work by the appalling clamour, which
+was sufficient to torture the nerves of the strongest; and some of
+them, sickened at the frightful mutilation of the bodies they found
+gave up altogether and dropped from sheer fatigue and exhaustion into
+unconsciousness, despite the heroic encouragement of their director, a
+man well used to great emergencies. Late afternoon found him still
+organising and administering aid, with the assistance of two or three
+Catholic priests who went about seeking to comfort and sustain those
+who were passing "the line between." All the energetic helpers were
+prepared to work all night, delving into the vast suddenly made grave
+wherein were tumbled the living with the dead,--and it was verging
+towards sunset when one of the priests, chancing to raise his eyes from
+the chaos of earth around him to the clear and quiet sky, saw what at
+first he took to be a great eagle with outspread wings soaring slowly
+above the scene of devastation. It moved with singular lightness and
+ease,--now and then appearing to pause as though seeking some spot
+whereon to descend,--and after watching it for a minute or two he
+called the attention of some of the men around him to its appearance.
+They looked up wearily from their gruesome task of excavating the dead.
+
+"That's an air-ship"--said one--"and a big thing, too!"
+
+"An air-ship!" echoed the priest amazedly,--and then was silent, gazing
+at the shining expanse of sky through which the bird-shaped vessel made
+its leisurely way like the vision of a fairy tale more than any
+reality. There was something weirdly terrible in the contrast it made,
+moving so tranquilly through clear space in apparent safety, while down
+below on the so-called "solid" earth, all nature had been convulsed and
+overthrown. The wonderful result of human ingenuity as measured with
+the remorseless action of natural forces seemed too startling to be
+real to the mind of a Spanish priest who, despite all the evidences of
+triumphant materialism, still clung to the Cross and kept his simple,
+faithful soul high above the waves that threatened to engulf it.
+Turning anew to his melancholy duties, he bent over a dying youth just
+lifted from beneath a weight of stones that had crushed him. The boy's
+fast glazing eyes were upturned to the sky.
+
+"See the angel coming?" he whispered, thickly--"Never used to believe
+in them!--but there's one sure enough! Glory--!" and his utterance
+ceased for ever.
+
+The priest crossed his hands upon his breast and said a prayer--then
+again looked up to where the air-ship floated in the darkening blue. It
+was now directly over the canon,--immediately above the huge rift made
+by the earthquake, through which the clamorous rush of water poured.
+While he watched it, it suddenly stood still, then dived slowly as
+though bent on descending into the very depths of the gully. He could
+not forbear uttering an exclamation, which made all the men about him
+look in the direction where his own gaze was fixed.
+
+"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one--"Nothing can save it
+if it takes to nose-diving down there!"
+
+They all stared amazed--but the dreadful work on which they were
+engaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter. The
+priest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound with
+a kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel was
+either purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawning
+black beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed to
+destruction. Whoever piloted it must surely be determined to invite
+this frightful end to its voyage, for nothing was ever steadier or more
+resolute than its downward movement towards the whirling waters that
+rushed through the canon. All suddenly it disappeared, whelmed as it
+seemed in darkness and the roaring flood, and the watching priest made
+the sign of the cross in air murmuring--
+
+"God have mercy on their souls!"
+
+Had he been able to see what happened he might have thought that the
+confused brain of the dying boy who had imagined the air-ship to be an
+angel, was not so far wrong, for no romancer or teller of wild tales
+could have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than the
+wonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds of
+spray flung from the seething mass of waters, while at her prow stood a
+woman fair as any fabled goddess--a woman reckless of all danger, and
+keenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and cranny
+that could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaring
+torrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called her
+instructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, had
+ventured on this journey at her command,--Rivardi and Gaspard.
+
+"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be here
+that we should seek!"
+
+In absolute silence they obeyed. Both had given themselves up for lost
+and were resigned and ready to meet death at any moment. From the first
+they had made no effort to resist Morgana's orders--she and they had
+left Sicily at a couple of hours' notice--and their three days' journey
+across the ocean had been accomplished without adventure or accident,
+at such a speed that it was hardly to be thought of without a thrill of
+horror. No information had been given them as to the object of their
+long and rapid aerial voyage,--and only now when the "White Eagle,"
+swooping over California, reached the scene of the terrific devastation
+wrought by the earthquake did they begin to think they had submitted
+their wills and lives to the caprice of a madwoman. However, there was
+no drawing back,--nothing for it but still to obey,--for even in the
+stress and terror naturally excited by their amazing position, they did
+not fail to see that the great air-ship was steadily controlled, and
+that whatever was the force controlling it, it maintained its level,
+its mysterious vibrating discs still throbbing with vital and incessant
+regularity. Apparently nothing could disturb its equilibrium or shatter
+its mechanism. And, according to its woman-designer's command, they
+lowered it gently till it was, so to say, almost immersed in the
+torrent and covered with spray--indeed Morgana's light figure itself at
+the prow looked like a fair spirit risen from the waters rather than
+any form of flesh and blood, so wreathed and transfigured it was by the
+dust of the ceaseless foam. She stood erect, bent on a quest that
+seemed hopeless, watching every eddying curve of water,--every
+flickering ripple,--her eyes, luminous as stars, searched the black and
+riven rocks with an eager passion of discovery,--when all suddenly as
+she gazed, a thin ray of light,--pure gold in colour,--struck sharply
+like a finger-point on a shallow pool immediately below her. She looked
+and uttered a cry, beckoning to Rivardi.
+
+"Come! Come!"
+
+He hurried to her side, Gaspard following. The pool on which her eyes
+were fixed was shallow enough to show the pebbly bed beneath the
+water--and there lay apparently two corpses--one of a man, the other of
+a woman whose body was half flung across that of the man.
+
+Morgana pointed to them.
+
+"They must be brought up here!" she said, insistently--"You must lift
+them! We have emergency ropes and pulleys--it is easily done! Why do
+you hesitate?"
+
+"Because you demand the impossible!" said Rivardi--"You send us to
+death to rescue the already dead!"
+
+She turned upon him with wrath in her eyes.
+
+"You refuse to obey me?"
+
+What a face confronted him! White as marble, and as terrible in
+expression as that of a Medusa, it had a paralysing effect on his
+nerves, and he shrank and trembled at her glance.
+
+"You refuse to obey me?" she repeated--"Then--if you do--I destroy this
+air-ship and ourselves in less than two minutes! Choose! Obey, and
+live!--disobey and die!"
+
+He staggered back from her in terror at her looks, which gave her a
+supernatural beauty and authority. The "fey" woman was "fey"
+indeed!--and the powers with which superstition endows the fairy folk
+seemed now to invest her with irresistible influence.
+
+"Choose!" she reiterated.
+
+Without another word he turned to Gaspard, who in equal silence got out
+the ropes and pulleys of which she had spoken. The air-ship stopped
+dead--suspended immovably over the wild waters and almost hidden in
+spray; and though the strange vibration of its multitudinous discs
+continued in itself it was fixed as a rock. A smile sweet as sunshine
+after storm changed and softened Morgana's features as she saw Rivardi
+swing over the vessel's side to the pool below, while Gaspard unwound
+the gear by which he would be able to lift and support the drowned
+creatures he was bidden to bring.
+
+"That's a true noble!" she exclaimed--"I knew your courage would not
+fail! Believe me, no harm shall come to you!"
+
+Inspirited by her words, he flung himself down--and raising the body of
+the woman first, was entangled by the wet thick strands of her long
+dark hair which, like sea-weed, caught about his feet and hands and
+impeded his movements. He had time just to see a face white as marble
+under the hair,--then he had enough to do to fasten ropes round the
+body and push it upward while Gaspard pulled--both men doubting whether
+the weight of it would not alter the balance of the air-ship despite
+its extraordinary fixity of position. Morgana, bending over from the
+vessel, watched every action,--she showed neither alarm nor impatience
+nor anxiety--and when Gaspard said suddenly--
+
+"It is easier than I thought it would be!" she merely smiled as if she
+knew. Another few moments and the drowned woman's body was hauled into
+the cabin of the ship, where Morgana knelt down beside it. Parting the
+heavy masses of dark hair that enshrouded it she looked--and saw what
+she had expected to see--the face of Manella Soriso. But it was the
+death-mask of a face--strangely beautiful--but awful in its white
+rigidity. Morgana bent over it anxiously, but only for a moment,
+drawing a small phial from her bosom she forced a few drops of the
+liquid it contained between the set lips, and with a tiny syringe
+injected the same at the pulseless wrist and throat. While she busied
+herself with these restorative measures, the second body,--that of the
+man,--was landed almost at her feet--and she found herself gazing in a
+sort of blank stupefaction at what seemed to be the graven image of
+Roger Seaton. No effigy of stone ever looked colder, harder, greyer
+than this inert figure of man,--uninjured apparently, for there were no
+visible marks of wounds or bruises upon his features, which appeared
+frozen into stiff rigidity, but a man as surely dead as death could
+make him! Morgana heard, as in a far-off dream, the Marchese Rivardi
+speaking--
+
+"I have done your bidding because it was you who bade,"--he said, his
+voice shaking with the tremor and excitement of his daring effort--"And
+it was not so very difficult. But it is a vain rescue! They are past
+recall."
+
+Morgana looked up from her awed contemplation of Seaton's rigid form.
+Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears.
+
+"I think not,"--she said--"There is life in them--yes, there is life,
+though for the time it is paralysed. But"--here she gave him the
+loveliest smile of tenderness--"You brave Giulio!--you are exhausted
+and wet through--attend to yourself first--then you can help me with
+these unhappy ones--and you Gaspard,--Gaspard!"
+
+"Here, Madama!"
+
+"You have done so well!" she said--"Without fear or failure!"
+
+"Only by God's mercy!" answered Gaspard--"If the rope had broken; if
+the ship had lost balance--"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"So many 'ifs' Gaspard? Have I not told you it CANNOT lose balance? And
+are not my words proved true? Now we have finished our rescue work we
+may go--we can start at once--"
+
+He looked at her.
+
+"There is more weight on board!" he said meaningly, "If we are to carry
+two dead bodies through the air, it may mean a heavenly funeral for all
+of us! The 'White Eagle' has not been tested for heavy transport."
+
+She heard him patiently,--then turned to Rivardi and repeated her
+words--
+
+"We can start at once. Steer upwards and onwards."
+
+Like a man hypnotised he obeyed,--and in a few moments the air-ship,
+answering easily to the helm, rose lightly as a bubble from the depths
+of the canon, through the fiercely dashing showers of spray tossed by
+the foaming torrent, and soared aloft, high and ever higher, as swiftly
+as any living bird born for long and powerful flight. Night was
+falling; and through the dense purple shadows of the Californian sky a
+big white moon rose, bending ghost-like over the scene of destruction
+and chaos, lighting with a pale glare the tired and haggard faces of
+the relief men at their terrible work of digging out the living and the
+dead from the vast pits of earth into which they had been suddenly
+engulfed,--while far, far above them flew the "White Eagle," gradually
+lessening in size through distance till it looked no bigger than a dove
+on its homeward way. Some priests watching by a row of lifeless men,
+women and children killed in the earthquake, chanted the "Nunc
+Dimittis" as the evening grew darker,--and the only one among them who
+had first seen the air-ship over the canon, where it fell, as it were
+in the deep gulf surrounded by flood and foam, now raised his eyes in
+wonderment as he perceived it once more soaring at liberty towards the
+moon.
+
+"Surely a miracle!" he ejaculated, under his breath--"An escape from
+destruction through God's mercy! God be praised!"
+
+And he crossed himself devoutly, joining in the solemn chanting of his
+brethren, kneeling in the moonlight, which threw a ghastly lustre on
+the dead faces of the victims of the earthquake,--victims not "struck
+by the hand of God" but by the hand of man! And he who was responsible
+for the blow lay unconscious of having dealt it, and was borne through
+the air swiftly and safely away for ever from the tragic scene of the
+ruin and desolation he had himself wrought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+A great silence pervaded the Palazzo d'Oro,--the strained silence of an
+intense activity weighted with suspense. Servants moved about here and
+there with noiseless rapidity,--Don Aloysius was seen constantly pacing
+up and down the loggia absorbed in anxious thought and prayer, and the
+Marchese Rivardi came and went on errands of which he alone knew the
+import. Overhead the sky was brilliantly blue and cloudless,--the sun
+flashed a round shield of dazzling gold all day long on the breast of
+the placid sea,--but within the house, blinds were drawn to shade and
+temper the light for eyes that perhaps might never again open to the
+blessing and glory of the day. A full week had passed since the "White
+Eagle" had returned from its long and adventurous flight over the vast
+stretches of ocean, bearing with it the two human creatures cast down
+to death in the deep Californian canon,--and only one of them had
+returned to the consciousness of life,--the other still stayed on the
+verge of the "Great Divide." Morgana had safely landed the heavy burden
+of seeming death her ship had carried,--and simply stating to Lady
+Kingswood and her household staff that it was a case of rescue from
+drowning, had caused the two corpses--(such as they truly appeared)--to
+be laid, each in a separate chamber, surrounded with every means that
+could be devised or thought of for their resuscitation. In an
+atmosphere glowing with mild warmth, on soft beds they were placed,
+inert and white as frozen clay, their condition being apparently so
+hopeless that it seemed mere imaginative folly to think that the least
+breath could ever again part their set lips or the smallest pulsation
+of blood stir colour through their veins. But Morgana never wavered in
+her belief that they lived, and hour after hour, day after day she
+watched with untiring patience, administering the mysterious balm or
+portion which she kept preciously in her own possession,--and not till
+the fifth day of her vigil, when Manella showed faint signs of
+returning consciousness, did she send to Rome for a famous scientist
+and physician with whom she had frequently corresponded. She entrusted
+the dispatch of this message to Rivardi, saying--
+
+"It is now time for further aid than mine. The girl will recover--but
+the man--the man is still in the darkness!"
+
+And her eyes grew heavy with a cloud of sorrow and regret which
+softened her delicate beauty and made it more than ever unearthly.
+
+"What are they--what is HE--to you?" demanded Rivardi jealously.
+
+"My friend, there was a time when I should have considered that
+question an impertinence from you!" she said, tranquilly--"But yours is
+the great share of the rescue--and your magnificent bravery wins you my
+pardon,--for many things!" And she smiled as she saw him flush under
+her quiet gaze--"What is this man to me, you ask? Why nothing!--not
+now! Once he was everything,--though he never knew it. Some quality in
+him struck the keynote of the scale of life for me,--he was the great
+delusion of a dream! The delusion is ended--the dream is over! But for
+that he WAS to me, though only in my own thoughts, I have tried to save
+his life--not for myself, but for the woman who loves him."
+
+"The woman we rescued with him?--the woman who is here?"
+
+She bent her head in assent. Rivardi's eyes dwelt on her with greater
+tenderness than he had ever felt before,--she looked so frail and
+fairy-like, and withal so solitary. He took her little hand and gently
+kissed it with courteous reverence.
+
+"Then--after all--you have known love!" he said in a low voice--"You
+have felt what it is,--though you have assumed to despise it?"
+
+"My good Giulio, I DO despise most heartily what the world generally
+understands as love"--she replied; "There is no baser or more selfish
+sentiment!--a sentiment made up half of animal desire and half of a
+personal seeking for admiration, appreciation and self-gratification!
+Yes, Giulio!--it is so, and I despise it for all these attributes--in
+truth it is not what I understand or accept as love at all--"
+
+"What DO you understand and accept?" he asked, softly.
+
+Her eyes shone kindly as she raised them to his face.
+
+"Not what you can ever give, Giulio!" she said--"Love--to my mind--is
+the spiritual part of our being--it should be the complete union of two
+souls that move as one,--like the two wings of a bird making the body
+subservient to the highest flights, even as far as heaven! The physical
+mating of man and woman is seldom higher than the physical mating of
+any other animals under the sun,--the animals know nothing beyond--but
+we--we ought to know something!" She paused, then went on--"There is
+sometimes a great loftiness even in the physical way of so-called
+'love'--such passion as the woman we have rescued has for the man she
+was ready to die with,--a primitive passion of primitive woman at her
+best. Such feeling is out of date in these days--we have passed that
+boundary line--and a great unexplored world lies open before us--who
+can say what we may find there! Perhaps we shall discover what all
+women have sought for from the beginning of things--"
+
+"And that is?" he asked.
+
+"Happiness!" she replied--"The perfect happiness of life in love!"
+
+He had held her hand till now, when he released it.
+
+"I wish I could give it to you!" he said.
+
+"You cannot, Giulio! I am not made for any man--as men go!"
+
+"It is a pity you think so"--he said--"For--after all--you are just--a
+woman!"
+
+"Am I?" she murmured,--and a strange flitting smile brightened her
+features--"Perhaps!--and yet--perhaps not! Who knows!"
+
+She left him puzzled and uneasy. Somehow she always managed to evade
+his efforts to become more intimate in his relations with her. Generous
+and kind-hearted as she was, she held him at a distance, and maintained
+her own aloof position inexorably. A less intelligent man than Rivardi
+would have adopted the cynic's attitude and averred that her rejection
+of love and marriage arose from her own unlovableness and
+unmarriageableness, but he knew better than that. He was wise enough to
+perceive the rareness and delicacy of her physical and mental
+organisation and temperament,--a temperament so finely strung as to
+make all other women seem gross and material beside her. He felt and
+knew her to be both his moral and intellectual superior,--and this very
+fact rendered it impossible that he could ever master her mind and tame
+it down to the subservience of married life. That dauntless spirit of
+hers would never bend to an inferior,--not even love (if she could feel
+it) would move her thus far. And the man she had adventured across
+ocean to rescue--what was he? She confessed that she had loved him,
+though that love was past. And now she had set herself to watch night
+and day by his dead body (for dead he surely was in Rivardi's opinion)
+sparing no pains to recover what seemed beyond recovery; while one of
+the greatest mysteries of the whole mysterious affair was just
+this--How had she known the man's life was in danger?
+
+All these questions Rivardi discussed with Don Aloysius, who listened
+to him patiently without committing himself to any reply. Whatever
+Morgana had confided to him--(and she had confided much)--he kept his
+own counsel.
+
+Within forty-eight hours of Morgana's summons the famous specialist
+from Rome, Professor Marco Ardini, noted all over the world for his
+miraculous cures of those whom other physicians had given up as past
+curing, arrived. He heard the story of the rescue of a man and woman
+from drowning with emotionless gravity, more taken for the moment by
+Morgana herself, whom he had never seen before, but with whom he had
+corresponded on current questions of scientific importance. From the
+extremely learned and incisive tone of her letters he had judged her to
+be an elderly woman of profound scholarship who had spent the greater
+part of her life in study, and his astonishment at the sight of the
+small, dainty creature who received him in the library of the Palazzo
+d'Oro was beyond all verbal expression,--in fact, he took some minutes
+to recover from the magnetic "shock" of her blue eyes and wistful smile.
+
+"I must be quite frank with you,"--she said, after a preliminary
+conversation with the great man in his own Italian tongue--"These two
+people have suffered their injuries by drowning--but not altogether.
+They are the victims of an earthquake,--and were thrown by the earth's
+upheaval into a deep chasm flooded by water--"
+
+The Professor interrupted her.
+
+"Pardon, Signora! There has been no recent earthquake in Europe."
+
+She gave a little gesture of assent.
+
+"Not in Europe--no! But in America--in California there has been a
+terrible one!"
+
+"In California!" he echoed amazedly-"Gran' Dio! You do not mean to say
+that you brought these people from California, across that vast extent
+of ocean?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"By air-ship--yes! Really nothing so very remarkable! You will not ask
+for further details just now, Professor!" and she laid her pretty hand
+coaxingly on his arm--"You and I both know how advisable it is to say
+as little as possible of our own work or adventures, while any subject
+is awaiting treatment and every moment counts! I will answer any
+question you may ask when you have seen my patients. The girl is a
+beautiful creature--she is beginning to regain consciousness--but the
+man I fear is past even YOUR skill. Come!"
+
+She led the way and Professor Ardini followed, marvelling at her
+ethereal grace and beauty, and more than interested in the "case" on
+which his opinion was sought. Entering a beautiful room glowing with
+light and warmth and colour, he saw, lying on a bed and slightly
+propped up by pillows, a lovely girl, pale as ivory, with dark hair
+loosely braided on either side of her head. Her eyes were closed, and
+the long black lashes swept the cheeks in a curved fringe,--the lips
+were faintly red, and the breath parted them slowly and reluctantly.
+The Professor bent over her and listened,--her heart beat slowly but
+regularly,--he felt her pulse.
+
+"She will live!"--he said--"There are no injuries?"
+
+"None"--Morgana replied, as he put his questions--"Some few
+bruises--but no bones broken--nothing serious."
+
+"You have examined her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have no nurses?"
+
+"No. I and my house people are sufficient." Her tone became slightly
+peremptory. "There is no need for outside interference. Whatever your
+orders are, they shall be carried out."
+
+He looked at her. His face was a somewhat severe one, furrowed with
+thought and care,--but when he smiled, a wonderful benevolence gave it
+an almost handsome effect. And he smiled now.
+
+"You shall not be interfered with,"--he said--"You have done very well!
+Complete rest, nourishment and your care are all that this patient
+needs. She will be quite herself in a very short time. She is
+extraordinarily beautiful!"
+
+"I wish you could see her eyes!" said Morgana.
+
+Almost as if the uttered wish had touched some recess of her stunned
+brain, Manella's eyelids quivered and lifted,--the great dark glory of
+the stars of her soul shone forth for an instant, giving sudden
+radiance to the pallor of her features--then they closed again as in
+utter weariness.
+
+"Magnificent!" said Ardini, under his breath--"And full of the vital
+light,--she will live!"
+
+"And she will love!" added Morgana, softly.
+
+The Professor looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"The man she loves is in the next room"--she continued--"We rescued him
+with her--if it can be called a rescue. He is the worst case. Only you
+may be able to bring him back to consciousness,--I have done my best in
+vain. If YOU fail then we must give up hope."
+
+She preceded him into the adjoining chamber; as he entered it after her
+he paused--almost intimidated, despite his long medical and surgical
+experience, by the stone-like figure of man that lay before him. It was
+as if one should have unearthed a statue, grey with time--a statue
+nobly formed, with a powerful head and severe features sternly
+set,--the growth of beard revealing, rather than concealing, the
+somewhat cruel contour of mouth and chin. The Professor walked slowly
+up to the bed and looked at this strange effigy of a human being for
+many minutes in silence,--Morgana watching him with strained but quiet
+suspense. Presently he touched the forehead--it was stone-cold--then
+the throat, stone-cold and rigid--he bent down and listened for the
+heart's pulsations,--not a flutter--not a beat! Drawing back from this
+examination he looked at Morgana,--she met his eyes with the query in
+her own which she emphasised by the spoken word--
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"No!"--he answered--"I think not. It is very difficult for a man of
+this type to die at all. Granted favourable conditions--and barring
+accidents caused by the carelessness of others--he ought to be one of
+those destined to live for ever. But"--here he hesitated--"if I am
+right in my surmise,--of course it is only a first opinion--death would
+be the very best thing for him."
+
+"Oh, why do you say that?" she asked, pitifully.
+
+"Because the brain is damaged--hopelessly! This man--whoever he is--has
+been tampering with some chemical force he does not entirely
+understand,--his whole body is charged with its influence, and this it
+is that gives his form its unnatural appearance which, though
+death-like, is not death. If I leave him alone and untouched he will
+probably expire unconsciously in a few days,--but if--after what I have
+just told you--you wish me to set the life atoms going again,--even as
+a clock is wound up,--I can relax the tension which now paralyses the
+cells, muscles and nerves, and he will live--yes!--like most people
+without brains he will live a long time--probably too long!"
+
+Morgana moved to the bedside and gazed with a solemn earnestness at the
+immobile, helpless form stretched out before her as though ready for
+burial. Her heart swelled with suppressed emotion,--she thought with
+anguish of the brilliant brain, the strong, self-sufficient nature
+brought to such ruin through too great an estimate of human capability.
+Tears rushed to her eyes--
+
+"Oh, give him life!" she whispered--"Give him life for the sake of the
+woman who loves him more than life!"
+
+The Professor gave her a quick, keen glance.
+
+"You?"
+
+She shivered at the question as though struck by a cold wind,--then
+conquering the momentary weakness, answered--
+
+"No. The girl you have just seen. He is her world!"
+
+Ardini's brows met in a saturnine frown.
+
+"Her world will be an empty one!" he said, with an expressive
+gesture--"A world without fruit or flower,--without light or song! A
+dreary world! But such as it is,--such as it is bound to be,--it can
+live on,--a life-in-death."
+
+"Are you quite sure of this?" Morgana asked--"Can any of us, however
+wise, be quite sure of anything?"
+
+His frown relaxed and his whole features softened. He took her hand and
+patted it kindly.
+
+"Signora, you know as well as I do, that the universe and all within it
+represents law and order. A man is a little universe in himself--and if
+the guiding law of his system is destroyed, there is chaos and
+darkness. We scientists can say 'Let there be light,' but the fulfilled
+result 'and there was light' comes from God alone!"
+
+"Why should not God help in this case?" she suggested.
+
+"Ah, why!" and Ardini shrugged his shoulders--"How can I tell? My long
+experience has taught me that wherever the law has been broken God does
+NOT help! Who knows whether this frozen wreck of man has obeyed or
+disobeyed the law? I can do all that science allows--"
+
+"And you will do it!" interrupted Morgana eagerly, "You will use your
+best skill and knowledge--everything you wish shall be at your
+service--name whatever fee your merit claims--"
+
+He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture.
+
+"Money does not count with me, Signora!" he said--"Nor with you. The
+point with both of us in all our work is--success! Is it not so? Yes!
+And it is because I do not see a true success in this case that I
+hesitate; true success would mean the complete restoration of this man
+to life and intelligence,--but life without intelligence is no triumph
+for science. I can do all that science will allow--"
+
+"And you WILL do this 'all'"--said Morgana, eagerly--"You will forego
+triumph for simple pity!--pity for the girl who would surely die if he
+were dead!--and perhaps after all, God may help the recovery!"
+
+"It shall be as you wish, Signora! I must stay here two or three days--"
+
+"As long as you find it necessary"--said Morgana--"All your orders
+shall be obeyed."
+
+"Good! Send me a trustworthy man-servant who can help to move and
+support the patient, and we can get to work. I left a few necessary
+appliances in your hall--I should like them brought into this room--and
+then--" here he took her hand and pressed it kindly--"you can leave us
+to our task, and take some rest. You must be very tired."
+
+"I am never tired"--she answered, gently--"I thank you in advance for
+all you are going to do!"
+
+She left the room then, with one backward glance at the inert stiff
+figure on the bed,--and went to arrange matters with her household that
+the Professor's instructions should be strictly carried out. Lady
+Kingswood, deeply interested, heard her giving certain orders and
+asked--
+
+"There is hope then? These two poor creatures will live?"
+
+"I think so"--answered Morgana, with a thrill of sadness in her sweet
+voice--"They will live--pray God their lives may be worth living!"
+
+She watched the man-servant whom she had chosen to wait on Ardini
+depart on his errand--she saw him open the door of the room where
+Seaton lay, and shut it--then there was a silence. Oppressed by a
+sudden heaviness of heart she thought of Manella, and entered her
+apartment softly to see how she fared. The girl's beautiful dark eyes
+were wide open and full of the light of life and consciousness. She
+smiled and stretched out her arms.
+
+"It is my angel!" she murmured faintly--"My little white angel who came
+to me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!"
+
+Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking her
+outstretched arms put them round her own neck.
+
+"Manella!" she said, tenderly--"Dear, beautiful Manella! Do you know
+me?"
+
+The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and pleasure.
+
+"Indeed I know you!" and Manella's voice, weak as that of a sick child,
+sounded ever so far away--"The little white lady of my dreams! Oh, I
+have wanted you!--wanted you so much! Why did you not come back sooner?"
+
+Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidly
+recurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her with
+tender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle to rise
+from the bed.
+
+"I must go!" she cried--"He is calling me! I must follow him--yes, even
+if he kills me for it--he is in danger!"
+
+Morgana held her close and firmly.
+
+"Hush, hush, dear!" she murmured--"Be quite still! He is safe--believe
+me! He is near you--in the next room!--out of all danger."
+
+"Oh, no, it is not possible!" and the girl's eyes grew wild with
+terror--"He cannot be safe!--he is destroying himself! I have followed
+him every step of the way--I have watched him,--oh!--so long!--and he
+came out of the hut this morning--I was hidden among the trees--he
+could not see me--" she broke off, and a violent trembling shook her
+whole body. Morgana tried to calm her into silence, but she went on
+rambling incoherently. "There was something he carried as though it was
+precious to him--something that glittered like gold,--and he went away
+quickly--quickly to the canyon,--I followed him like a dog, crawling
+through the brushwood--I followed him across the deep water--to the
+cave where it was all dark--black as midnight!" She paused--then
+suddenly flung her arms round Morgana crying--"Oh, hold me!--hold
+me!--I am in this darkness trying to find him!--there!--there!--he
+turns and sees me by the light of a lamp he carries; he knows I have
+followed him, and he is angry! Oh, dear God, he is angry--he raises his
+arm to strike me!" She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morgana
+in a kind of frenzy. "No mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters in
+his hand--it frightens me--what is it? I kneel to him on the cold
+stones--I pray him to forgive me--to come with me--but his arm is still
+raised to strike--he does not care--!"
+
+Here a pale horror blanched her features--she drew herself away from
+Morgana's hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture of
+one who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana,
+alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held her
+tenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her distraught
+movements ceased.
+
+"What is this?"--she asked--then murmured--"My little white lady, how
+did you come here? How could you cross the flood?--unless on wings?
+Ah!--you are a fairy and you can do all you wish to do--but you cannot
+save HIM!--it is too late! He will not save himself--and he does not
+care,--he does not care--neither for me nor you!"
+
+She drooped her head against Morgana's shoulder and her eyes closed in
+utter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows, and
+pouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of which
+she had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it to her
+lips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that she was
+being cared for. But she was still restless, and presently she sat up
+in a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.
+
+"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone--"Thunder! Do you hear it? God
+speaks!"
+
+She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The hours
+passed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana, patiently
+watchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up, wide-eyed and
+alert.
+
+"What was that?" she cried--"I heard him call!"
+
+Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed--listening.
+The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and defiantly--
+
+"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Master
+of the World!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the Palazzo
+d'Oro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of purest blue
+shimmered with millions of tiny silver ripples brushed on its surface
+by a light wind as delicate as a bird's wing. Morgana stood in her
+rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness at the beauty
+of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini, scientist, surgeon and
+physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing, his whole thought being
+concentrated on the "case" with which he had been dealing.
+
+"It is exactly as I at first told you,"--he said--"The man is strong in
+muscle and sinew,--but his brain is ruined. It can no longer control or
+command the body's mechanism,--therefore the body is practically
+useless. Power of volition is gone,--the poor fellow will never be able
+to walk again or to lift a hand. A certain faculty of speech is
+left,--but even this is limited to a few words which are evidently the
+result of the last prevailing thoughts impressed on the brain-cells. It
+is possible he will repeat those words thousands of times!--the oftener
+he repeats them the more he will like to say them."
+
+"What are they?" Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion.
+
+"Strange enough for a man in his condition"--replied Ardini--"And
+always the same. 'THERE SHALL BE NO MORE WARS! THERE CAN BE NONE! I SAY
+IT!--_I_ ONLY! IT IS MY GREAT SECRET! _I_ AM MASTER OF THE WORLD!' Poor
+devil! What a 'master of the world' is there!"
+
+Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant
+sunshine.
+
+"Does he say nothing else?" she murmured--"Is there no name--no
+place--that he seems to remember?"
+
+"He remembers nothing--he knows nothing"--answered Ardini--"He does not
+even realize me as a man--I might be a fish or a serpent for all his
+comprehension. One glance at his moveless eyes is enough to prove that.
+They are like pebbles in his head--without cognisance or expression. He
+mutters the words 'Great Secret' over and over again, and tacks it on
+to the other phrase of 'No more wars' in a semi-conscious sort of
+gabble,--this is, of course, the disordered action of the brain working
+to catch up and join together hopelessly severed fragments."
+
+Morgana lifted her sea-blue eyes and looked with grave appeal into the
+severely intellectual, half-frowning face of the great Professor.
+
+"Is there no hope of an ultimate recovery?" she asked--"With time and
+rest and the best of unceasing care, might not this poor brain right
+itself?"
+
+"Medically and scientifically speaking, there is no hope,--none
+whatever"--he replied--"Though of course we all know that Nature's
+remedial methods are inexhaustible, and often, to the wisest of us,
+seem miraculous, because as yet we do not understand one tithe of her
+processes. But--in this case,--this strange and terrible case"--and he
+uttered the words with marked gravity,--"It is Nature's own force that
+has wrought the damage,--some powerful influence which the man has been
+testing has proved too much for him--and it has taken its own
+vengeance."
+
+Morgana heard this with strained interest and attention.
+
+"Tell me just what you mean,"--she said--"There is something you do not
+quite express--or else I am too slow to understand--"
+
+Ardini took a few paces up and down the loggia and then halted, facing
+her in the attitude of a teacher preparing to instruct a pupil.
+
+"Signora,"--he said--"When you began to correspond with me some years
+ago from America, I realised that I was in touch with a highly
+intelligent and cultivated mind. I took you to be many years older than
+you are, with a ripe scientific experience. I find you young,
+beautiful, and pathetic in the pure womanliness of your nature, which
+must be perpetually contending with an indomitable power of
+intellectuality and of spirituality,--spirituality is the strongest
+force of your being. You are not made like other women. This being so I
+can say to you what other women would not understand. Science is my
+life-subject, as it is yours,--it is a window set open in the universe
+admitting great light. But many of us foolishly imagine that this light
+emanates from ourselves as a result of our own cleverness, whereas it
+comes from that Divine Source of all things, which we call God. We
+refuse to believe this,--it wounds our pride. And we use the
+discoveries of science recklessly and selfishly--without gratitude,
+humbleness or reverence. So it happens that the first tendency of
+godless men is to destroy. The love of destruction and torture shows
+itself in the boy who tears off the wing of an insect, or kills a bird
+for the pleasure of killing. The boy is father of the man. And we come,
+after much ignorant denial and obstinacy, back to the inexorable truth
+that 'they who take the sword shall perish with the sword.' If we
+consider the 'sword' as a metaphor for every instrument of destruction,
+we shall see the force of its application--the submarine, for example,
+built for the most treacherous kind of sea-warfare--how often they that
+undertake its work are slain themselves! And so it is through the whole
+gamut of scientific discovery when it is used for inhuman and unlawful
+purposes. But when this same 'sword' is lifted to put an end to
+torture, disease, and the manifold miseries of life, then the Power
+that has entrusted it to mankind endows it with blessing and there are
+no evil results. I say this to you by way of explaining the view I am
+forced to take of this man whose strange case you ask me to deal
+with,--my opinion is that through chance or intention he has been
+playing recklessly with a great natural force, which he has not
+entirely understood, for some destructive purpose, and that it has
+recoiled on himself."
+
+Morgana looked him steadily in the eyes.
+
+"You may be right,"--she said--"He is--or was--one of the most
+brilliant of our younger scientists. You know his name--I have sent you
+from New York some accounts of his work--He is Roger Seaton, whose
+experiments in the condensation of radioactivity startled America some
+four or five years ago--"
+
+"Roger Seaton!" he exclaimed--"What! The man who professed to have
+found a new power which would change the face of the world? ...
+He,--this wreck?--this blind, deaf lump of breathing clay? Surely he
+has not fallen on so horrible a destiny!"
+
+Tears rushed to Morgana's eyes,--she could not answer. She could only
+bend her head in assent.
+
+Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with sympathetic
+reverence.
+
+"Signora," he said--"This is indeed a tragedy! You have saved this life
+at I know not what risk to yourself--and as I am aware what a life of
+great attainment it promised to be, you may be sure I will spare no
+pains to bring it back to normal conditions. But frankly I do not think
+it will be possible. There is the woman who loves him--her influence
+may do something--"
+
+"If he ever loved her--yes"--and Morgana smiled rather sadly--"But if
+he did not--if the love is all on her side--"
+
+Ardini shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"A great love is always on the woman's side,"--he said--"Men are too
+selfish to love perfectly. In this case, of course, there is no
+emotion, no sentiment of any sort left in the mere hulk of man. But
+still I will continue my work and do my best."
+
+He left her then,--and she stood for a while alone, gazing far out to
+the blue sea and sunlight, scarcely seeing them for the
+half-unconscious tears that blinded her eyes. Suddenly a Ray, not of
+the sun, shot athwart the loggia and touched her with a deep gold
+radiance. She saw it and looked up, listening.
+
+"Morgana!"
+
+The Voice quivered along the Ray like the touched string of an aeolian
+harp. She answered it in almost a whisper--
+
+"I hear!"
+
+"You grieve for sorrows not your own," said the Voice--"And we love you
+for it. But you must not waste your tears on the errors of others. Each
+individual Spirit makes its own destiny, and no other but Itself can
+help Itself. You are one of the Chosen and Beloved!--You must fulfil
+the happiness you have created for your own soul! Come to us soon!" A
+thrill of exquisite joy ran through her.
+
+"I will!" she said--"When my duties here are done."
+
+The golden Ray decreased in length and brilliancy, and finally died
+away in a fine haze mingling with the air. She watched it till it
+vanished,--then with a sense of relief from her former sadness, she
+went into the house to see Manella. The girl had risen from her bed,
+and with the assistance of Lady Kingswood, who tended her with motherly
+care, had been arrayed in a loose white woollen gown, which, carelessly
+gathered round her, intensified by contrast the striking beauty of her
+dark eyes and hair, and ivory pale skin. As Morgana entered the room
+she smiled, her small even teeth gleaming like tiny pearls in the faint
+rose of her pretty mouth, and stretched out her hand.
+
+"What has he said to you?" she asked--"Tell me! Is he not glad to see
+you?--to know he is with you?--safe with you in your home?"
+
+Morgana sat down beside her.
+
+"Dear Manella"--she answered, gently and with tenderest pity--"He does
+not know me. He knows nothing! He speaks a few words,--but he has no
+consciousness of what he is saying."
+
+Manella looked at her wonderingly--
+
+"Ah, that is because he is not himself yet"--she said--"The crash of
+the rocks--the pouring of the flood--this was enough to kill him--but
+he will recover in a little while and he will know you!--yes, he will
+know you, and he will thank God for life to see you!"
+
+Her unselfish joy in the idea that the man she loved would soon
+recognise the woman he preferred to herself, was profoundly touching,
+and Morgana kissed the hand she held.
+
+"Dear, I am afraid he will never know anything more in this world"--she
+said, sorrowfully--"Neither man nor woman! Nor can he thank God for a
+life which will be long, living death! Unless YOU can help him!"
+
+"I?" and Manella's eyes dilated with brilliant eagerness; "I will give
+my life for his! What can I do?"
+
+And then, with patient slowness and gentleness, little by little,
+Morgana told her all. Lady Kingswood, sitting in an arm-chair near the
+window, worked at her embroidery, furtive tears dropping now and again
+on the delicate pattern, as she heard the details of the tragic verdict
+given by one of Europe's greatest medical scientists on the
+hopelessness of ever repairing the damage wrought by the shock which
+had shaken a powerful brain into ruins. But it was wonderful to watch
+Manella's face as she listened. Sorrow, pity, tenderness, love, all in
+turn flashed their heavenly radiance in her eyes and intensified her
+beauty, and when she had heard all, she smiled as some lovely angel
+might smile on a repentant soul. Her whole frame seemed to vibrate with
+a passion of unselfish emotion.
+
+"He will be my care!" she said--"The good God has heard my prayers and
+given him to me to be all mine!" She clasped her hands in a kind of
+ecstasy, "My life is for him and him alone! He will be my little
+child!--this big, strong, poor broken man!--and I will nurse him back
+to himself,--I will watch for every little sign of hope!--he shall
+learn to see through my eyes--to hear through my ears--to remember all
+that he has forgotten!..." Her voice broke in a half sob. Morgana put
+an arm about her.
+
+"Manella, Manella!" she said--"You do not know what you say--you cannot
+understand the responsibility--it would make you a prisoner for life--"
+
+"Oh, I understand!" and Manella shook back her dark hair with the
+little proud, decisive gesture characteristic of her
+temperament--"Yes!--and I wish to be so imprisoned! If we had not been
+rescued by you, we should have died together!--now you will help us to
+live together! Will you not? You are a little white angel--a
+fairy!--yes!--to me you are!--your heart is full of unspent love! You
+will let me stay with him always--always?--As his nurse?--his
+servant?--his slave?"
+
+Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her eagerness
+and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement which gave a
+roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her eyes. All
+ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's malignity and cruel
+misjudgments, how could it be explained to her that a woman of such
+youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone with a man, even if the
+man were a hopeless paralytic, would make herself the subject of
+malicious comment and pitiless scandal! Some reflection of this feeling
+showed itself in the expression of Morgana's face while she hesitated
+to answer, holding the girl's hand in her own and stroking it
+affectionately the while. Manella, gazing at her as a worshipper might
+gaze at a sacred picture, instinctively divined her thought.
+
+"Ah? I know what you would say!" she exclaimed, "That I might bring
+shame to him by my companionship--always--yes!--that is
+possible!--wicked people would talk of him and judge him wrongly--"
+
+"Oh, Manella, dear!" murmured Morgana--"Not him--not him--but YOU!"
+
+"Me?" She tossed back her wealth of hair, and smiled--"What am I? Just
+a bit of dust in his path! I am nothing at all! I do not care what
+anybody says or thinks of ME!--what should it matter! But see!--to save
+HIM--let me be his wife!"
+
+"His wife!" Morgana repeated the words in amazement, and Lady
+Kingswood, laying down her work, gazed at the two beautiful women, the
+one so spiritlike and fair, the other so human and queenly, in a kind
+of stupefaction, wondering if she had heard aright.
+
+"His wife! Yes!"...  Manella spoke with a thrill of exultation in her
+voice,--and she caught Morgana's hand and kissed it fondly--"His wife!
+It is the only way I can be his slave-woman! Let me marry him while he
+knows nothing, so that I may have the right to wait upon him and care
+for him! He shall never know! For--if he comes to himself again--please
+God he will!--as soon as that happens I will go away at once. He will
+never know!--he shall never learn who it is that has cared for him! You
+see? I shall never be really his wife--nor he my husband--only in name.
+And then--when he comes out of the darkness--when he is strong and well
+once more, he will go to YOU!--you whom he loves--"
+
+Morgana silenced her by a gesture which was at once commanding and
+sweetly austere.
+
+"Dear girl, he never loved me!" she said, gently--"He has always loved
+himself. Yes!--you know that as well as I do! Once--I fancied I loved
+HIM--but now I know my way of love is not his. Let us say no more of
+it! You wish to be his wife? Do you think what that means? He will
+never know he is your husband--never recognise you,--your life will be
+sacrificed to a helpless creature whose brain is gone--who will be
+unconscious of your care and utterly irresponsive. Oh, sweet, TOO
+loving Manella!--you must not pledge the best years of your youth and
+beauty to such a destiny!"
+
+Manella's dark eyes flashed with passionate ardour and enthusiasm.
+
+"I must--I must!" she said--"It is the work God gives me to do! Do you
+not see how it is with me? It is my one love--the best of my
+heart!--the pulse of my life! Youth and beauty!--what are they without
+him? Ill or well, he is all I care for, and if I may not care for him I
+will die! It is quite easy to die--to make an end!--but if there is any
+youth or beauty to spend, it will be better to spend it on love than in
+death! My white angel, listen and be patient with me! You ARE patient
+but still be more so!--you know there will be none in the world to care
+for him!--ah!--when he was well and strong he said that love would
+weary him--he did not think he would ever be helpless and ill!--ah,
+no!--but a broken brain is put away--out of sight--to be forgotten like
+a broken toy! He was at work on some wonderful invention--some great
+secret!--it will never be known now--not a soul will ever ask what has
+become of it or of him! The world does not care what becomes of
+anyone--it has no sympathy. Only those who love greatly have any pity!"
+
+She clasped her hands and lifted them in an attitude of prayer, laying
+them against Morgana's breast.
+
+"You will let me have my way--surely you will?" she pleaded--"You are a
+little angel of mercy, unlike any other woman I ever saw--so white and
+pure and sweet!--you understand it all! In his dreadful weakness and
+loneliness, God gives him to ME!--happy me, who am young and strong
+enough to care for him and attend upon him. I have no money,--perhaps
+he has none either, but I will work to keep him,--I am clever at my
+needle--I can embroider quite well--and I will manage to earn enough
+for us both." Her voice broke in a sob, and Morgana, the tears falling
+from her own eyes, drew her into a close embrace.
+
+And she murmured plaintively again--
+
+"His wife!--I must be his wife,--his serving-woman--then no one can
+forbid me to be with him! You will find some good priest to say the
+marriage service for us and give us God's benediction--it will mean
+nothing to him, because he cannot know or understand,--but to me it
+will be a holy sacrament!"
+
+Then she broke down and wept softly till the pent-up passion of her
+heart was relieved, and Morgana, mastering her own emotion, had soothed
+her into quietude. Leaning back from her arm-chair where she had rested
+since rising from her bed, she looked up with an anxious appeal in her
+lovely eyes.
+
+"Let me tell you something before I forget it again"--she said--"It is
+something terrible--the earthquake."
+
+"Yes, yes, do not think of it now"--said Morgana, hastily, afraid that
+her mind would wander into painful mazes of recollection--"That is all
+over."
+
+"Ah, yes! But you should know the truth! It was NOT an earthquake!" she
+persisted--"It was not God's doing! It was HIS work!"
+
+And she indicated by a gesture the next room where Roger Seaton lay.
+
+A cold horror ran through Morgana's blood. HIS work!--the widespread
+ruin of villages and townships,--the devastation of a vast tract of
+country--the deaths of hundreds of men, women and little children--HIS
+work? Could it be possible? She stood transfixed,--while Manella went
+on--
+
+"I know it was his work!" she said--"I was warned by a friend of his
+who came to 'la Plaza' that he was working at something which might
+lose him his life. And so I watched. I told you how I followed him that
+morning--how I saw him looking at a box full of shining things that
+glittered like the points of swords,--how he put this box in a case and
+then in a basket, and slung the basket over his shoulder, and went down
+into the canon, and then to the cave where I found him. I called
+him--he heard, and held up a miner's lamp and saw me!--then--then, oh,
+dear God!--then he cursed me for following him,--he raised his arm to
+strike me, and in his furious haste to reach me he slipped on the wet,
+mossy stones. Something fell from his hand with a great crash like
+thunder--and there was a sudden glare of fire!--oh, the awfulness of
+that sound and that flame!--and the rocks rose up and split
+asunder--the ground shook and broke under me--and I remember no
+more--no more till I found myself here!--here with you!"
+
+Morgana roused herself from the stupefaction of horror with which she
+had listened to this narration.
+
+"Do not think of it any more!" she said in a low sad voice--"Try to
+forget it all. Yes, dear!--try to forget all the mad selfishness and
+cruelty of the man you love! Poor, besotted soul!--he has a bitter
+punishment!"
+
+She could say no more then,--stooping, she kissed the girl on the white
+forehead between the rippling waves of dark hair, and strove to meet
+the searching eyes with a smile.
+
+"Dear, beautiful angel, you will help me?" Manella pleaded--"You will
+help me to be his wife?"
+
+And Morgana answered with pitiful tenderness.
+
+"I will!"
+
+And with a sign to Lady Kingswood to come nearer and sit by the girl as
+she lay among her pillows more or less exhausted, she herself left the
+room. As she opened the door on her way out, the strong voice of Roger
+Seaton rang out with singularly horrible harshness--
+
+"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say it! My great
+secret! I am master of the world!"
+
+Shuddering as she heard, she pressed her hands over her ears and
+hurried along the corridor. Her thoughts paraphrased the saying of
+Madame Roland on Liberty--"Oh, Science! what crimes are committed in
+thy name!" She was anxious to see and speak with Professor Ardini, but
+came upon the Marchese Rivardi instead, who met her at the door of the
+library and caught her by both hands.
+
+"What is all this?" he demanded, insistently--"I MUST speak to you! You
+have been weeping! What is troubling you?"
+
+She drew her hands gently away from his.
+
+"Nothing, Giulio!" and she smiled kindly--"I grieve for the griefs of
+others--quite uselessly!--but I cannot help it!"
+
+"There is no hope, then?" he said.
+
+"None--not for the man"--she replied--"His body will live,--but his
+brain is dead."
+
+Rivardi gave an expressive gesture.
+
+"Horrible! Better he should die!"
+
+"Yes, far better! But the girl loves him. She is an ardent Spanish
+creature--warm-hearted and simple as a child,--she believes"--and
+Morgana's eyes had a pathetic wistfulness--"she believes,--as all women
+believe when they love for the first time,--that love has a divine
+power next to that of God!--that it will work miracles of recovery when
+all seems lost. The disillusion comes, of course, sooner or later,--but
+it has to come of itself--not through any other influence. She--Manella
+Soriso--has resolved to be his wife."
+
+"Gran' Dio!" Rivardi started back in utter amazement--"His wife?--That
+girl? Young, beautiful? She will chain herself to a madman? Surely you
+will not allow it!"
+
+Morgana looked at him with a smile.
+
+"Poor Giulio!" she said, softly--"You are a most unfortunate descendant
+of your Roman ancestors as far as we women are concerned! You fall in
+love with me--and you find I am not for you!--then you see a perfectly
+lovely woman whom you cannot choose but admire--and a little stray
+thought comes flying into your head--yes!--quite involuntarily!--that
+perhaps--only perhaps--her love might come your way! Do not be angry,
+my friend!--it was only a thought that moved you when you saw her the
+other day--when I called you to look at her as she recovered
+consciousness and lay on her bed like a sleeping figure of the
+loveliest of pagan goddesses! What man could have seen her thus without
+a thrill of tenderness!--and now you have to hear that all that beauty
+and warmth of youthful life is to be sacrificed to a stone idol!--(for
+the man she worships is little more!) ah, yes!--I am sorry for you,
+Giulio!--but can do nothing to prevent the sacrifice,--indeed, I have
+promised to assist it!"
+
+Rivardi had alternately flushed and paled while she spoke,--her keen,
+incisive probing of his most secret fancies puzzled and vexed him,--but
+with a well-assumed indifference he waved aside her delicately pointed
+suggestions as though he had scarcely heard them, and said--
+
+"You have promised to assist? Can you reconcile it to your conscience
+to let this girl make herself a prisoner for life?"
+
+"I can!" she answered quietly--"For if she is opposed in her desire for
+such imprisonment she will kill herself. So it is wisest to let her
+have her way. The man she loves so desperately may die at any moment,
+and then she will be free. But meanwhile she will have the consolation
+of doing all she can for him, and the hope of helping him to recover;
+vain hope as it may be, there is a divine unselfishness in it. For she
+says that if he is restored to health she will go away at once and
+never let him know she is his wife."
+
+Rivardi's handsome face expressed utter incredulity.
+
+"Will she keep her word I wonder?"
+
+"She will!"
+
+"Marvellous woman!" and there was bitterness in his tone--"But women
+are all amazing when you come to know them! In love? in hate, in good,
+in evil, in cleverness and in utter stupidity, they are wonderful
+creatures! And you, amica bella, are perhaps the most wonderful of them
+all! So kind and yet so cruel!"
+
+"Cruel?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes! To me!"
+
+She looked at him and smiled. That smile gave such a dreamy, spiritlike
+sweetness to her whole personality that for the moment she seemed to
+float before him like an aerial vision rather than a woman of flesh and
+blood, and the bold desire which possessed him to seize and clasp her
+in his arms was checked by a sense of something like fear. Her eyes
+rested on his with a full clear frankness.
+
+"If I am cruel to you, my friend"--she said, gently, "it is only to be
+more kind!"
+
+She left him then and went out. He saw her small, elfin figure pass
+among the chains of roses which at this season seemed to tie up the
+garden in brilliant knots of colour, and then go down the terraces, one
+by one, towards the monastic retreat half buried among pine and olive,
+where Don Aloysius governed his little group of religious brethren.
+
+He guessed her intent.
+
+"She will tell him all"--he thought--"And with his strange
+semi-religious, semi-scientific notions, it will be easy for her to
+persuade him to marry the girl to this demented creature who fills the
+house with his shouting 'There shall be no more wars!' I should never
+have thought her capable of tolerating such a crime!"
+
+He turned to leave the loggia,--but paused as he perceived Professor
+Ardini advancing from the interior of the house, his hands clasped
+behind his back and his furrowed brows bent in gloomy meditation.
+
+"You have a difficult case?" he queried.
+
+"More than difficult!" replied Ardini--"Beyond human skill! Perhaps not
+beyond the mysterious power we call God."
+
+Rivardi shrugged his shoulders. He was a sceptic of sceptics and his
+modern-world experiences had convinced him that what man could not do
+was not to be done at all.
+
+"The latest remedy proposed by the Signora is--love!" he said,
+carelessly--"The girl who is here,--Manella Soriso--has made up her
+mind to be the wife of this unfortunate--"
+
+Ardini gave an expressive gesture.
+
+"Altro! If she has made up her mind, heaven itself will not move her!
+It will be a sublime sacrifice of one life for another,--what would
+you? Such sacrifices are common, though the world does not hear of
+them. In this instance there is no one to prevent it."
+
+"You approve--you tolerate it?" exclaimed Rivardi angrily.
+
+"I have no power to approve or to tolerate"--replied the scientist,
+coldly--"The matter is not one in which I have any right to interfere.
+Nor,--I think,--have YOU!--I have stated such facts as exist--that the
+man's brain is practically destroyed--but that owing to the strength of
+the life-centres he will probably exist in his present condition for a
+full term of years. To keep him so alive will entail considerable care
+and expense. He will need a male nurse--probably two--food of the best
+and absolutely tranquil surroundings. If the Signora, who is rich and
+generous, guarantees these necessities, and the girl who loves him
+desires to be his wife under such terrible conditions, I do not see how
+anyone can object to the marriage."
+
+"Then he poor devil of a man will be married without his knowledge, and
+probably (if he had his senses) against his will!" said Rivardi.
+
+Ardini bent his brows yet more frowningly.
+
+"Just so!" he answered--"But he has neither knowledge nor will--nor is
+he likely ever to have them again. These great attributes of the god in
+man have been taken from him. Power and Will!--Will and Power!--the two
+wings of the Soul!--they are gone, probably for ever. Science can do
+nothing to bring them back, but I will not deny the possibility of
+other forces which might work a remedy on this ruin of a 'master of the
+world' as he calls himself! Therefore I say let the love-woman try her
+best!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Don Aloysius sat in his private library,--a room little larger than a
+monastic cell, and at his feet knelt Morgana like a child at prayer.
+The rose and purple glow of the sunset fell aslant through a high oriel
+window of painted glass, shedding an aureole round her golden head, and
+intensified the fine, dark intellectual outline of the priest's
+features as he listened with fixed attention to the soft pure voice,
+vibrating with tenderness and pity as she told him of the love that
+sought to sacrifice itself for love's sake only.
+
+"In your Creed and in mine,"--she said--"there is no union which is
+real or binding save the Spiritual,--and this may be consummated in
+some way beyond our knowledge when once the sacred rite is said. You
+need no explanation from me,--you who are a member and future denizen
+of the Golden City,--you, who are set apart to live long after these
+poor human creatures have passed away with the unthinking millions of
+the time--and you can have no hesitation to unite them as far as they
+CAN be united, so that they may at least be saved from the malicious
+tongues of an always evil-speaking world. You once asked me to tell you
+of the few moments of real happiness I have known,--this will be one of
+the keenest joys to me if I can satisfy this loving-hearted girl and
+aid her to carry out her self-chosen martyrdom. And you must help me!"
+
+Gently Aloysius laid his hand on her bent head.
+
+"It will be indeed a martyrdom!" he said, slowly, "Long and torturing!
+Think well of it!--a woman, youthful and beautiful, chained to a mere
+breathing image of man,--a creature who cannot recognise either persons
+or objects, who is helpless to move, and who will remain in that
+pitiable state all his life, if he lives!--dear child, are you
+convinced there is no other way?"
+
+"Not for her!" Morgana replied--"She has set her soul to try if God
+will help her to restore him,--she will surround him with the constant
+influence of a perfectly devoted love. Dare we say there shall be no
+healing power in such an influence?--we who know so much of which the
+world is ignorant!"
+
+He stroked her shining hair with a careful tenderness as one might
+stroke the soft plumage of a bird.
+
+"And you?" he said, in a low tone--"What of you?"
+
+She raised her eyes to his. A light of heaven's own radiance shone in
+those blue orbs--an angelic peace beyond all expression.
+
+"What should there be of me except the dream come true?" she responded,
+smiling--"You know my plans,--you also know my destiny, for I have told
+you everything! You will be the controller of all my wealth, entrusted
+to carry out all my wishes, till it is time either for you to come
+where I am, or for me to return hither. We never know how or when that
+may be. But it has all seemed plain sailing for me since I saw the city
+called 'Brazen' but which WE know is Golden!--and when I found that you
+belonged to it, and were only stationed here for a short time, I knew I
+could give you my entire confidence. It is not as if we were of the
+passing world or its ways--we are of the New Race, and time does not
+count with us."
+
+"Quite true," he said--"But for these persons in whom you are
+interested, time is still considered--and for the girl it will be long!"
+
+"Not with such love as hers!" replied Morgana. "Each moment, each hour
+will be filled with hope and prayer and constant vigilance. Love makes
+all things easy! It is useless to contend with a fate which both the
+man and woman have made for themselves. He is--I should say he was a
+scientist, who discovered the means of annihilating any section of
+humanity at his own wish and will--he played with the fires of God and
+brought annihilation on himself. MY discovery--the force that moves my
+air-ship--the force that is the vital element of all who live in the
+Golden City--is the same as his!--but _I_ use it for health and
+movement, progress and power--not for the destruction of any living
+soul! By one single false step he has caused the death and misery of
+hundreds of helpless human creatures--and this terror has recoiled on
+his own head. The girl Manella has no evil thought in her--she simply
+loves!--her love is ill placed, but she also has brought her own
+destiny on herself. You have worked--and so have I--WITH the universal
+force, not as the world does, AGAINST it,--and we have made OURSELVES
+what we are and what we SHALL BE. There is no other way either forward
+or backward,--you know there is not!" Here she rose from her knees and
+confronted him, a light aerial creature of glowing radiance and elfin
+loveliness--"And you must fulfil her wish--and mine!"
+
+He rose also and stood erect, a noble figure of a man with a dignified
+beauty of mien and feature that seemed to belong to the classic age
+rather than ours.
+
+"So be it!" he said--"I will carry out all your commands to the letter!
+May I just say that your generosity to Giulio Rivardi seems almost
+unnecessary? To endow him with a fortune for life is surely too
+indulgent! Does he merit such bounty at your hands?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Dear Father Aloysius, Giulio has lost his heart to me!" she said--"Or
+what he calls his heart! He should have some recompense for the loss!
+He wants to restore his old Roman villa--and when I am gone he will
+have nothing to distract him from this artistic work,--I leave him the
+means to do it! I hope he will marry--it is the best thing for him!"
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"And your own Palazzo d'Oro?--"
+
+"Will become the abode of self-sacrificing love," she replied--"It
+could not be put to better use! It was a fancy of mine;--I love it and
+its gardens--and I should have tried to live there had I not found out
+the secret of a large and longer life!" She paused--then
+added--"To-morrow morning you will come?"
+
+He bent his head.
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+With a salute of mingled reverence and affection she left him. He
+watched her go,--and hearing the bell begin to chime in the chapel for
+vespers, he lifted his eyes for a moment in silent prayer. A light
+flashed downward, playing on his hands like a golden ripple,--and he
+stood quietly expectant and listening. A Voice floated along the
+Ray--"You are doing well and rightly!" it said--"You will release her
+now from the strain of seeming to be what she is not. She is of the New
+Race, and her spirit is advanced too far to endure the grossness and
+materialism of the Old generation. She deserves all she has studied and
+worked for,--lasting life, lasting beauty, lasting love! Nothing must
+hinder her now!"
+
+"Nothing shall!" he answered.
+
+The Ray lessened in brilliancy and gradually diminished till it
+entirely vanished,--and Don Aloysius, with the rapt expression of a
+saint and visionary, entered the chapel where his brethren were already
+assembled, and chanted with them--
+
+     "Magna opera Domini; exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus!"
+
+The next morning, all radiant with sunshine, saw the strangest of
+nuptial ceremonies,--one that surely had seldom, if ever, been
+witnessed before in all the strange happenings of human chance. Manella
+Soriso, pale as a white arum lily, her rich dark hair adorned with a
+single spray of orange-blossom gathered from the garden, stood
+trembling beside the bed where lay stretched out the immobile form of
+the once active, world-defiant Roger Seaton. His eyes, wide open and
+staring into vacancy, were, like dull pebbles, fixed in his head,--his
+face was set and rigid as a mask of clay--only his regular breathing
+gave evidence of life. Manella's pitiful gazing on this ruin of the man
+to whom she had devoted her heart and soul, her tender sorrow, her
+yearning beauty, might have almost moved a stone image to a thrill of
+response,--but not a flicker of expression appeared on the frozen
+features of that terrible fallen pillar of human self-sufficiency.
+Standing beside the bed with Manella was Marco Ardini, intensely
+watchful and eager to note even a quiver of the flesh or the tremor of
+a muscle,--and near him was Lady Kingswood, terrified yet enthralled by
+the scene, and anxious on behalf of Morgana, who looked statuesque and
+pensive like a small attendant angel close to Don Aloysius. He, in his
+priestly robes, read the marriage service with soft and impressive
+intonation, himself speaking the responses for the bride-groom,--and
+taking Manella's hand he placed it on Seaton's, clasping the two
+together, the one so yielding and warm, the other stiff as marble, and
+setting the golden marriage ring which Morgana had given, on the
+bride's finger. As he made the sign of the cross and uttered the final
+blessing, Manella sank on her knees and covered her face. There
+followed a tense silence--Aloysius laid his hand on her bent head--
+
+"God help and bless you!" he said, solemnly--"Only the Divine Power can
+give you strength to bear the burden you have taken on yourself!"
+
+But at his words she sprang up, her eyes glowing with a great joy.
+
+"It is no burden!" she said--"I have prayed to be his slave--and now I
+am his wife! That is more than I ever dared to dream of!--for now I
+have the right to care for him, to work for him, and no one can
+separate me from him! What happiness for me! But I will not take a mean
+advantage of this--ah, no!--no good, Father! Listen!--I swear before
+you and the holy Cross you wear, that if he recovers he shall never
+know!--I will leave him at once without a word--he shall think I am a
+servant in his employ--or rather he shall not think at all about me for
+I will go where he can never find me, and he will be as free as ever he
+was! Yes, truly!--by the blessed Madonna I swear it! I will kill myself
+rather than let him know!"
+
+She looked regally beautiful, her face flushed with the pride and love
+of her soul,--and in her newly gained privilege as a wife she bent down
+and kissed the pallid face that lay like the face of a corpse on the
+pillow before her.
+
+"He is a poor wounded child just now!" she murmured, tenderly--"But I
+will care for him in his weakness and sorrow! The doctor will tell me
+what to do--and it shall all be done! I will neglect nothing--as for
+money, I have none--but I will work--"
+
+Morgana put an arm about her.
+
+"Dear, do not think of that!" she said--"For the present you will stay
+here--I am going on a journey very soon, and you and Lady Kingswood
+will take care of my house till I return. Be quite satisfied!--You will
+have all you want for him and for yourself. Professor Ardini will talk
+to you now and tell you everything--come away--"
+
+But Manella was gazing intently at the figure on the bed--she saw its
+grey lips move. With startling suddenness a harsh voice smote the air--
+
+"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am
+Master of the World!"
+
+She shrank and shivered, and a faint sobbing cry escaped her.
+
+"Come!" said Morgana again,--and gently led her away. The spray of
+orange-blossom fell from her hair as she moved, and Don Aloyslus,
+stooping, picked it up. Marco Ardini saw his action.
+
+"You will keep that as a souvenir of this strange marriage?" he said.
+
+"No,--" and Don Aloysius touched the white fragrant flower with his
+crucifix--"I will lay it as a votive offering on the altar of the
+Eternal Virgin!"
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+About a fortnight later life at the Palazzo d'Oro had settled into
+organised lines of method and routine. Professor Ardini had selected
+two competent men attendants, skilled in surgery and medicine to watch
+Seaton's case with all the care trained nursing could give, and himself
+had undertaken to visit the patient regularly and report his condition.
+Seaton's marriage to Manella Soriso had been briefly announced in the
+European papers and cabled to the American Press, Senator Gwent being
+one of the first who saw it thus chronicled, much to his amazement.
+
+"He has actually become sane at last!" he soliloquised, "And beauty has
+conquered science! I gave the girl good advice--I told her to marry him
+if she could,--and she's done it! I wonder how they escaped that
+earthquake? Perhaps that brought him to his senses! Well, well! I
+daresay I shall be seeing them soon over here--I suppose they are
+spending their honeymoon with Morgana. Curious affair! I'd like to know
+the ins and outs of it!"
+
+"Have you seen that Roger Seaton is married?" was the question asked of
+him by every one he knew, especially by the flashing society butterfly
+once Lydia Herbert, who in these early days of her marriage was getting
+everything she could out of her millionaire--"And NOT to Morgana! Just
+think! What a disappointment for her!--I'm sure she was in love with
+him!"
+
+"I thought so"--Gwent answered, cautiously--"And he with her! But--one
+never knows--"
+
+"No, one never does!" laughed the fair Lydia--"Poor Morgana! Left on
+the stalk! But she's so rich it won't matter. She can marry anybody she
+likes."
+
+"Marriage isn't everything," said Gwent--"To some it may be
+heaven,--but to others--"
+
+"The worser place!"--agreed Lydia--"And Morgana is not like ordinary
+women. I wonder what she's doing, and when we shall see her again?"
+
+"Yes--I wonder!" Gwent responded vaguely,--and the subject dropped.
+
+They might have had more than ordinary cause to "wonder" had they been
+able to form even a guess as to the manner and intentions of life held
+by the strange half spiritual creature whom they imagined to be but an
+ordinary mortal moved by the same ephemeral aims and desires as the
+rest of the grosser world. Who,--even among scientists, accustomed as
+they are to study the evolution of grubs into lovely rainbow-winged
+shapes, and the transformation of ordinary weeds into exquisite flowers
+of perfect form and glorious colour, goes far enough or deep enough to
+realise similar capability of transformation in a human organism
+self-trained to so evolve and develop itself? Who, at this time of
+day,--even with the hourly vivid flashes kindled by the research lamps
+of science, reverts to former theories of men like De Gabalis, who held
+that beings in process of finer evolution and formation, and known as
+"elementals," nourishing their own growth into exquisite existence,
+through the radio-force of air and fire, may be among us, all
+unrecognised, yet working their way out of lowness to highness,
+indifferent to worldly loves, pleasures and opinions, and only bent on
+the attainment of immortal life? Such beliefs serve only as material
+for the scoffer and iconoclast,--nevertheless they may be true for all
+that, and may in the end confound the mockery of materialism which in
+itself is nothing but the deep shadow cast by a great light.
+
+The strangest and most dramatic happenings have the knack of settling
+down into the commonplace,--and so in due course the days at the
+Palazzo d'Oro went on tranquilly,--Manella being established there and
+known as "la bella Signora Seaton" by the natives of the little
+surrounding villages, who were gradually brought to understand the
+helpless condition of her husband and pitied her accordingly. Lady
+Kingswood had agreed to stay as friend and protectress to the girl as
+long as Morgana desired it,--indeed she had no wish to leave the
+beautiful Sicilian home she had so fortunately found, and where she was
+treated with so much kindness and consideration.
+
+There was no lack or stint of wealth to carry out every arranged plan,
+and Manella was too simple and primitive in her nature to question
+anything that her "little white angel" as she called her, suggested or
+commanded. Intensely grateful for the affectionate care bestowed upon
+her, she acquiesced in what she understood to be the methods of
+possible cure for the ruined man to whom she had bound her life.
+
+"If he gets well--quite, quite well"--she said, lifting her splendid
+dark eyes to Morgana's blue as "love-in-a-mist" "I will go away and
+give him to you!"
+
+And she meant it, having no predominant idea in her mind save that of
+making her elect beloved happy.
+
+Meanwhile Morgana announced her intention of taking another aerial
+voyage in the "White Eagle"--much to the joy of Giulio Rivardi.
+Receiving his orders to prepare the wonderful air-ship for a long
+flight, he and Gaspard worked energetically to perfect every detail.
+Where he had previously felt a certain sense of fear as to the
+capabilities of the great vessel, controlled by a force of which
+Morgana alone had the secret, he was now full of certainty and
+confidence, and told her so.
+
+"I am glad"--he said--"that you are leaving this place where you have
+installed people who to me seem quite out of keeping with it. That
+terrible man who shouts 'I am master of the world'!--ah, cara
+Madonna!--I did not work at your fairy Palazzo d'Oro for such an
+occupant!"
+
+"I know you did not;"-=she answered, gently--"Nor did I intend it to be
+so occupied. I dreamed of it as a home of pleasure where I should
+dwell--alone! And you said it would be lonely!--you remember?"
+
+"I said it was a place for love!" he replied.
+
+"You were right! And love inhabits it--love of the purest, most
+unselfish nature--"
+
+"Love that is a cruel martyrdom!" he interposed.
+
+"True!" and her eyes shone with a strange brilliancy--"But love--as the
+world knows it--is never anything else! There, do not frown, my friend!
+You will never wear its crown of thorns! And you are glad I am going
+away?"
+
+"Yes!--glad that you will have a change"--he said--"Your constant care
+and anxiety for these people whom we rescued from death must have tired
+you out unconsciously. You will enjoy a free flight through space,--and
+the ship is in perfect condition; she will carry you like an angel in
+the air!"
+
+She smiled and gave him her hand.
+
+"Good Giulio!--you are quite a romancist!--you talk of angels without
+believing in them!"
+
+"I believe in them when I look at YOU!" he said, with all an Italian's
+impulsive gallantry.
+
+"Very pretty of you!" and she withdrew her hand from his too fervent
+clasp,--"I feel sorry for myself that I cannot rightly appreciate so
+charming a compliment!"
+
+"It is not a compliment"--he declared, vehemently; "It is a truth!"
+
+Her eyes dwelt on him with a wistful kindness.
+
+"You are what some people call 'a good fellow,' Giulio!" she said--"And
+you deserve to be very happy. I hope you will be so! I want you to
+prosper so that you may restore your grand old villa to its former
+beauty,--I also want you to marry--and bring up a big family"--here she
+laughed a little--"A family of sons and daughters who will be grateful
+to you, and not waste every penny you give them--though that is the
+modern way of sons and daughters."
+
+She paused, smiling at his moody expression. "And you say everything is
+ready?--the 'White Eagle' is prepared for flight?"
+
+"She will leave the shed at a moment's touch"--he answered--"when YOU
+supply the motive power!"
+
+She nodded comprehensively, and thought a moment. "Come to me the day
+after to-morrow"--she said--"You will then have your orders."
+
+"Is it to be a long flight this time?" he asked.
+
+"Not so long as to California!" she answered--"But long enough!"
+
+With that she left him. And he betook himself to the air-shed where the
+superb "White Eagle" rested all a-quiver for departure, palpitating, or
+so it seemed to him, with a strange eagerness for movement which struck
+him as unusual and "uncanny" in a mere piece of mechanism.
+
+The next day moved on tranquilly. Morgana wrote many letters--and
+varied this occupation by occasionally sitting in the loggia to talk
+with Manella and Lady Kingswood, both of whom now seemed the natural
+inhabitants of the Palazzo d'Oro. She spoke easily of her intended
+air-trip,--so that they accepted her intention as a matter of course,
+Manella only entreating--"Do not be long away!" her lovely, eloquent
+eyes emphasising her appeal. Now and again the terrible cries of "There
+shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am Master
+of the World!" rang through the house despite the closed doors,--cries
+which they feigned not to hear, though Manella winced with pain, as at
+a dagger thrust, each time the sounds echoed on the air.
+
+And the night came,--mildly glorious, with a full moon shining in an
+almost clear sky--clear save for little delicate wings of snowy cloud
+drifting in the east like wandering shapes of birds that haunted the
+domain of sunrise. Giulio Rivardi, leaning out of one of the richly
+sculptured window arches of his half-ruined villa, looked at the sky
+with pleasurable anticipation of the morrow's intended voyage in the
+"White Eagle."
+
+"The weather will be perfect!" he thought--"She will be pleased. And
+when she is pleased no woman can be more charming! She is not
+beautiful, like Manella--but she is something more than beautiful--she
+is bewitching! I wonder where she means to go!"
+
+Suddenly a thought struck him,--a vivid impression coming from he knew
+not whence--an idea that he had forgotten a small item of detail in the
+air-ship which its owner might or might not notice, but which would
+certainly imply some slight forgetfulness on his part. He glanced at
+his watch,--it was close on midnight. Acting on a momentary impulse he
+decided not to wait till morning, but to go at once down to the shed
+and see that everything in and about the vessel was absolutely and
+finally in order. As he walked among the perfumed tangles of shrub and
+flower in his garden, and out towards the sea-shore he was impressed by
+the great silence everywhere around him. Everything looked like a
+moveless picture--a study in still life. Passing through a little olive
+wood which lay between his own grounds and the sea, he paused as he
+came out of the shadow of the trees and looked towards the height
+crowned by the Palazzo d'Oro, where from the upper windows twinkled a
+few lights showing the position of the room where the "master of the
+world" lay stretched in brainless immobility, waited upon by medical
+nurses ever on the watch, and a wife of whom he knew nothing, guarding
+him with the fixed devotion of a faithful dog rather than of a human
+being. Going onwards in a kind of abstract reverie, he came to a halt
+again on reaching the shore, enchanted by the dreamy loveliness of the
+scene. In an open stretch of dazzling brilliancy the sea presented
+itself to his eyes like a delicate network of jewels finely strung on
+swaying threads of silver, and he gazed upon it as one might gaze on
+the "fairy lands forlorn" of Keats in his enchanting poesy. Never
+surely, he thought, had he seen a night so beautiful,--so perfect in
+its expression of peace. He walked leisurely,--the long shed which
+sheltered the air-ship was just before him, its black outline
+silhouetted against the sky--but as he approached it more nearly,
+something caused him to stop abruptly and stare fixedly as though
+stricken by some sudden terror--then he dashed off at a violent run,
+till he came to a breathless halt, crying out--"Gran' Dio! It has gone!"
+
+Gone! The shed was empty! No air-ship was there, poised trembling on
+its own balance all prepared for flight,--the wonderful "White Eagle"
+had unfurled its wings and fled! Whither? Like a madman he rushed up
+and down, shouting and calling in vain--it was after midnight and there
+was no one about to hear him. He started to run to the Palazzo d'Oro to
+give the alarm--but was held back--held by an indescribable force which
+he was powerless to resist. He struggled with all his might,--uselessly.
+
+"Morganna!" he cried in a desperate voice--"Morganna!"
+
+Running down to the edge of the sea he gazed across it and up to the
+wonderful sky through which the moon rolled lazily like a silver ball.
+Was there nothing to be seen there save that moon and the moon-dimmed
+stars? With eager straining eyes he searched every quarter of the
+visible space--stay! Was that a white dove soaring eastwards?--or a
+cloud sinking to its rest?
+
+"Morgana!" he cried again, stretching out his arms in despair--"She has
+gone! And alone!"
+
+Even as he spoke the dove-like shape was lost to sight beyond the
+shining of the evening star.
+
+
+
+L'Envoi
+
+Several months ago the ruin of a great air-ship was found on the
+outskirts of the Great Desert so battered and broken as to make its
+mechanism unrecognisable. No one could trace its origin,--no one could
+discover the method of its design. There was no remnant of any engine,
+and its wings were cut to ribbons. The travellers who came upon its
+fragments half buried in the sand left it where they found it, deciding
+that a terrible catastrophe had overtaken the unfortunate aviators who
+had piloted it thus far. They spoke of it when they returned to Europe,
+but came upon no one who could offer a clue to its possible origin.
+These same travellers were those who a short time since filled a
+certain section of the sensational press with tales of a "Brazen City"
+seen from the desert in the distance, with towers and cupolas that
+shone like brass or like "the city of pure gold," revealed to St. John
+the Divine, where "in the midst of the street of it" is the Tree of
+Life. Such tales were and are received with scorn by the world's
+majority, for whom food and money constitute the chief interest of
+existence,--nevertheless tradition sometimes proves to be true, and
+dreams become realities. However this may be, Morgana lives,--and can
+make her voice heard when she will along the "Sound Ray"--that
+wonderful "wireless" which is soon to be declared to the world. For
+there is no distance that is not bridged by light,--and no separation
+of sounds that cannot be again brought into unison and harmony. "There
+are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
+philosophy,"--and the "Golden City" is one of those things! "Masters of
+the world" are poor creatures at best,--but the secret Makers of the
+New Race are the gods of the Future!
+
+
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli
+
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