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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3831-h.zip b/3831-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..57bd26b --- /dev/null +++ b/3831-h.zip diff --git a/3831-h/3831-h.htm b/3831-h/3831-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7724b2f --- /dev/null +++ b/3831-h/3831-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15678 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +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: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET POWER *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE SECRET POWER +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +MARIE CORELLI +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF +<BR> + "God's Good Man" "The Master Christian" "Innocent,"<BR> + "The Treasure of Heaven," etc.<BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">CHAPTER XX</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#lenvoi">L'Envoi</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE SECRET POWER +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Well! So you've come after all! Yesterday you said you wouldn't." +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not wish you to starve." +</P> + +<P> +"Very kind of you! But nothing can starve me." +</P> + +<P> +"If you had no food—" +</P> + +<P> +"I should find some"—he said—"Yes!—I should find some,—somewhere! I +want very little." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She counted them over as he gave them to her—bit one with her strong +white teeth and nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't pay ME"—she said, emphatically—"It's the Plaza you pay." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"It is more comfortable than this"—she said, with a disparaging glance +at his log dwelling. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt. +</P> + +<P> +"No! I only pretend to be!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you pretend?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He nodded with mock solemnity. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"You make fun of the Plaza"—said Manella, biting her lips +vexedly—"And of me, too. I am nothing to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely nothing, dear! But why should you be any thing?" +</P> + +<P> +A warm flush turned her sunburnt skin to a deeper tinge. +</P> + +<P> +"Men are often fond of women"—she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Often? Oh, more than often! Too often! But what does that matter?" +</P> + +<P> +She twisted the ends of her rose-coloured neckerchief nervously with +one hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a man"—she replied, curtly—"You should have a woman." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed—a deep, mellow, hearty laugh of pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +"Should I? You really think so? Wonderful Manella? Come here!—come +quite close to me!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She stamped her foot suddenly and impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"I have none!" she said—"And you know it! But you do not care!" +</P> + +<P> +He shook a reproachful forefinger at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Manella, Manella, you are naughty! Temper, temper! Of course I do not +care! Be reasonable! Why should I?" +</P> + +<P> +She pressed both hands tightly against her bosom, seeking to control +her quick, excited breathing. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you? I do not know! But <I>I</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!" +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +Her head drooped, she avoided his steady, searching gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Here he gently took her two hands away from their tightly folded +position on her bosom and held them in his own. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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!" +</P> + +<P> +She drew her hands quickly from his grasp. There were tears in her +splendid dark eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Something sinister and cruel in his look startled her,—she made the +sign of the cross on her bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"A devil?" she murmured—"a devil—?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"After all, I think you must be a wicked man!" she said—"You have no +heart! You are not worthy to be loved!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Bore?" she echoed—"What is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Her big eyes opened more widely than their wont in piteous perplexity. +</P> + +<P> +"But how?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She flushed an angry crimson. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He released her and put her gently away from him. Then, as he saw her +eyes still uplifted questioningly to his face, he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you wouldn't," interrupted Manella, suddenly and sharply—"only +one woman." +</P> + +<P> +"Only one? You?" +</P> + +<P> +She sighed, and moved impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no! Not me. A stranger." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her with a touch of inquisitiveness. +</P> + +<P> +"An invalid?" +</P> + +<P> +"She may be. I don't know. She has golden hair." +</P> + +<P> +He gave a gesture of dislike. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop a minute, Manella!" +</P> + +<P> +She obeyed. +</P> + +<P> +"Golden hair, you said?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Old or young?" +</P> + +<P> +"She might be either"—and Manella gazed dreamily at the darkening +sky—"There is nobody old nowadays—or so it seems to me." +</P> + +<P> +"An invalid?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think so. She looks quite well. She arrived at the Plaza only +yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him, surprised at his harsh tone. He shook his forefinger +at her. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +But Manella paused, meditatively. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't try it if I were you"—he answered, with visible +impatience—"Off you go! Good-night!" +</P> + +<P> +She gave him one lingering glance; then, turning abruptly picked up her +empty milk pail and started down the hill at a run. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Entirely for effect!" he said, "Well planned and quite worthy of you! +All for effect!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P> +A laugh, clear and cold as a sleigh-bell on a frosty night rang out on +the silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you run away from me?" +</P> + +<P> +He replied at once, and brusquely. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I was tired of you!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I followed you"—she said—"I knew I should find you! What are you +doing up here? Shamming to be ill?" +</P> + +<P> +"Precisely! 'Sham' is as much in my line as yours. I have to 'pretend' +in order to be real!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Automobile and all I suppose!" he said, sarcastically—"How many +servants?—how many boxes with how many dresses?" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again. +</P> + +<P> +"That's no concern of yours!" she replied—"I am my own mistress." +</P> + +<P> +"More's the pity!" he retorted. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"You are not glad!" she continued—"You are a bear-man in hiding, and +the moon says nothing to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks, gentle Knight!—flower of chivalry!" she said—"I see you love +me in spite of yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hateful?" she suggested, smilingly. +</P> + +<P> +"No—the most complete and unmitigated bore!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He listened in cold silence. After a pause— +</P> + +<P> +"Have you done?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him. The moonbeams set tiny frosty sparkles in her +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never dine," he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Really! Don't you eat and drink at all?" +</P> + +<P> +"I live simply,"—he said—"Bread and milk are enough for me, and I +have these." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed and clapped her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +With angry impetus he bent over her reclining figure and seized her two +hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Get up!" he said harshly—"Don't lie there like a fallen angel!" +</P> + +<P> +She yielded to his powerful grasp as he pulled her to her feet—then +looked at him still laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"Plenty of muscle!" she said—"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +He held her hands still and gripped them fiercely. She gave a little +cry. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't! You forget my rings,—they hurt!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent pouting her under-lip like a spoilt child, and rubbing +one finger where a ring had dinted her flesh. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you come here for?" he asked, abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"To pick up a bankrupt nobleman!" he suggested. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better leave such things alone!" he said, angrily—"Women have +no business with science." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He gave an impatient gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do YOU?" he enquired, sarcastically. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He gave her a glance of cool contempt. +</P> + +<P> +"You should have been on the stage!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"'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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—they all do it!" he repeated, mechanically. +</P> + +<P> +"They don't 'love' you know!" she went on—"Love is too much of a bore. +YOU would find it so!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, surely no woman would want to kiss you!" she exclaimed—"Never! +THAT would be too much of a good thing!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" he ejaculated fervently. +</P> + +<P> +"And don't worry yourself"—she continued, airily—"I shall not stay +long at the Plaza." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God again!" he interpolated. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He checked her movement by a quick, imperious gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait!" he said—"Before you go I want you to know a bit of my mind—" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it necessary?" she queried. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Too difficult!" she declared—"I can look at nothing with your eyes +any more than you can with mine!" +</P> + +<P> +"Madam—" +</P> + +<P> +She uttered a little laughing "Oh!" and put her hand to her ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Not 'Madam' for heaven's sake!" she exclaimed; "It sounds as if I were +either a queen or a dressmaker!" +</P> + +<P> +His sombre eyes had no smile in them. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at the clear dark sky where the moon hung like a huge +silver air-ball. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I suppose not!" she replied—"The old English word was 'Mistress.' +So quaint and pretty, don't you think?" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Oh mistress mine, where are you roaming?<BR> + Oh stay and hear! your true love's coming!'<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"My God, I could shake the life out of you!" he said, fiercely—"I +wonder you are not afraid of me!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed, careless of his grasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I be? You couldn't kill me if you tried—and if you could—" +</P> + +<P> +"If I could—ah, if I could!" he muttered, fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"Why then there would be another murderer added to the general world of +murderers!" she said—"That's all! It's not worth it!" +</P> + +<P> +Still he held her in his grip. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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. +</P> + +<P> +"NOW?—well! What NOW?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +She lifted one hand and pointed upwards. Her face in the moonbeams +looked austere and almost spectral in outline. +</P> + +<P> +"Now—the Change!" she answered—"The Change when all things shall be +made new!" +</P> + +<P> +A silence followed her words,—a strange and heavy silence. +</P> + +<P> +It was broken by her voice hushed to an extreme softness, yet clearly +audible. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night!—good-bye!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned impatiently away to avoid further leave-taking—then, on a +sudden impulse, his mood changed. +</P> + +<P> +"Morgana!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P> +"She left New York several weeks ago,—didn't you know it? Dear me!—I +thought everybody was convulsed at the news!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what it is?" +</P> + +<P> +He paused before replying. +</P> + +<P> +"Well,—hardly! But I have a guess!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so? Then I'll admit you're cleverer than I am!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thats a great compliment! But even Miss Lydia Herbert, brilliant woman +of the world as she is, doesn't know EVERYTHING!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Sam Gwent folded up his newspaper, flattened it into a neat parcel, +and put it in his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Herbert opened her brown, rather insolent eyes wide at this and +laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He surveyed her with a kind of admiring sarcasm. +</P> + +<P> +"No. I'm only an uncle,"—he said—"Uncle of the boy that shot himself +this morning for her sake!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Herbert uttered a sharp cry. She was startled and horrified. +</P> + +<P> +"What!... Jack?... Shot himself?... Oh, how dreadful!—I'm—I'm +sorry—!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She sprang up from her rocking chair in a blaze of indignation. +</P> + +<P> +"You are brutal!" she exclaimed, with a half sob—"Positively brutal!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But—didn't he LOVE her?" Lydia Herbert put the question almost +imperatively. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"Then—then—you mean to tell me Jack was only after the money—?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Cute butterfly!" interjected Miss Herbert. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see. Anyway Jack's game is finished." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent gazed at her with an unrevealing placidity. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Herbert still surveyed the scenery. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You're not very polite!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"If I'm careful?" she echoed, questioningly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Here endeth the first lesson!" she said. "Thanks, preacher Gwent! I +guess I'll worry through!" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you will!"—he answered, slowly. "I wish I was as certain of +anything in the world as I am of THAT!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you actually HAVE a heart?" she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He puffed two or three rings of smoke into the clear air. +</P> + +<P> +"You know where she's gone?" he asked, suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Morgana?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +Lydia Herbert hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"I THINK I know," she replied at last—"But I'm not sure." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Then she's in California?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certain!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gwent took another puff at his cigar. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"I know! I was there. But a man who has set his soul on science doesn't +want a wife." +</P> + +<P> +"And what about a woman who has set her soul in the same direction?" he +asked. +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent smiled sourly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's perfectly lovely!" declared Miss Herbert—"You've no taste in +literature, Mr. Gwent!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"The tragedy of a lost gamble for money!" she said, with a scornful +uplift of her eyebrows. +</P> + +<P> +He nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"That's so! It upsets the mental balance of a man more than a lost +gamble for love!" +</P> + +<P> +And he walked away. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How should I know?" she replied—"I am not his keeper?" +</P> + +<P> +"But—but—you are interested in him?" Lydia suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"And are you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana held up a finger. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"I might—possibly I might—have helped him to that something else—if +I had not discovered something more!" +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her hand with a commanding gesture as though +unconsciously,—then let it drop at her side. Lydia Herbert looked at +her perplexedly. +</P> + +<P> +"You talk so very strangely!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"What is fey?" interrupted Miss Herbert. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You like him though! I can see you like him!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And, swinging herself round lightly like a bell-flower in a breeze she +danced off alone and vanished in the crowd of her guests. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing in her!" had declared New York society generally—"Except her +money! And her hair—but not even that unless she lets it down!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"All your own?" she had gasped. +</P> + +<P> +And with a twinkling smile, and comic hesitation of manner Morgana had +answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I THINK it is! It seems so! I don't believe it will come off unless +you pull VERY hard!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—-?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +"Why do you stare at me? You have such big eyes!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Such big eyes!" she repeated—"Like great head-lamps flaring out of +that motor-brain of yours! What do you see in me?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella's brown skin flushed crimson. +</P> + +<P> +"Something I have never seen before!" she answered—"You are so small +and white! Not like a woman at all!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed merrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Not like a woman! Oh dear! What am I like then?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella's eyes grew darker than ever in the effort to explain her +thought. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Did it fly away?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. Very soon! And an hour or so after it had flown, the scarlet +flower where it had rested was dead." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know what I am! I do everything I am asked to do as well as I +can." +</P> + +<P> +"Obliging creature! And are you well paid?" +</P> + +<P> +"As much as I want"—Manella answered, indifferently. "But there is no +pleasure in the work." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there pleasure in ANY work?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Not bad!" she commented—"Did you make it?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella nodded, and went on talking at random. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"You quaint, handsome thing! What do you know about it? What, in your +opinion, IS my class?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella pulled nervously at the ends of the bright coloured kerchief +she wore knotted across her bosom, and hesitated a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana paused in the act of pouring out a second cup of coffee, and +her face dimpled with amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"Buy me a man!" she echoed—"You think it would?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana buttered her little breakfast roll very delicately. +</P> + +<P> +"The man who lives in the consumption hut on the hill!" she repeated, +slowly, and with a smile—"What man is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana raised her eyes, glittering with the "fey" light in them that +often bewildered and rather scared her friends. +</P> + +<P> +"You would be his woman? You are in love with him?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Something in her look checked Manella's natural impulse to confide in +one of her own sex. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I am not!"—she answered coldly—"I have said too much." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana smiled, and stretching out her small white hand, adorned with +its sparkling rings, laid it caressingly on the girl's brown wrist. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella drew a quick soft breath. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The smile flitted away from Morgana's lips, and her expression became +almost sorrowful. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Manella." +</P> + +<P> +"Manella—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Manella Soriso"—the girl answered—"I am Spanish by both +parents,—they are dead now. I was born at Monterey." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana began to hum softly— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Under the walls of Monterey<BR> + At dawn the bugles began to play<BR> + Come forth to thy death<BR> + Victor Galbraith."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +She broke off,—then said— +</P> + +<P> +"You have not seen many men?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed—a little laugh sweet and cold as rain tinkling on +glass. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again, and tripped lightly to the looking-glass. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, are you going?" and Manella gave a little cry of pain—"I am +sorry! I do want you to stay!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana's eyes flashed mingled humour and disdain. "You quaint +creature! Why should I stay? There's nothing to stay for!" +</P> + +<P> +"If there's nothing to stay for, why did you come?" +</P> + +<P> +This was an unexpected question, the result of a subconscious +suggestion in Manella's mind which she herself could not have explained. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana seemed amused. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then why not see more of it?" persisted Manella. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" Manella replied with sudden sharpness—"No! I would not like you +to see him! He would either hate you or love you!" +</P> + +<P> +The grey-blue lightning flash glittered in Morgana's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you come away with me?" said Morgana—"I'll take you at once if +you like!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella stared in a kind of child-like wonderment,—her big dusky eyes +grew brilliant,—then clouded with a sombre sadness. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +A little smile, dreamy and mysterious, crept round Morgana's lips. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"We go on to-day, Madame?" he enquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—we go on"—she replied—"as quickly and as far as possible. Just +fetch my valise—it's ready packed in my room." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Come and see me off!" she said—"Take a look at my car and see how +you'd like to travel in it!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella pursed her lips and shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather not!" she murmured—"It's no use looking at what one can +never have!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so?" drawled a sallow-faced man, reclining in an invalid +chair—"She's not much to look at!" +</P> + +<P> +And he yawned expansively. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you going?" he demanded, brusquely. +</P> + +<P> +The rich colour warmed her cheeks to a rose-red that matched the sunset. +</P> + +<P> +"I was going—to see if you—if you wanted anything"—she stammered, +almost humbly. +</P> + +<P> +"You know I do not"—he said—"You can spare yourself the trouble." +</P> + +<P> +She drew herself up with a slight air of offence. +</P> + +<P> +"If you want nothing why do you come down into the valley?" she asked. +"You say you hate the Plaza!" +</P> + +<P> +"I do!" and he spoke almost vindictively—"But, at the moment, there's +some one there I want to see." +</P> + +<P> +Her black eyes opened inquisitively. +</P> + +<P> +"A man?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Strange to say, a woman." +</P> + +<P> +A sudden light flashed on her mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I know!" she exclaimed—"But you will not see her! She has gone!" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" he asked, impatiently—"What do you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He stood looking at her with an amused, half scornful expression. +</P> + +<P> +"Hate is too strong a word"—he answered—"She isn't worth hating!" +</P> + +<P> +Her brows contracted in a frown. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not believe THAT!"—she said—"You are not speaking truly. More +likely it is, I think, you love her!" +</P> + +<P> +He caught her roughly by the arm. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She shrank away from him. Her lips quivered, and tears welled through +her lashes. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me! ... oh, forgive!" she murmured, pleadingly—"I am +sorry!..." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Step by step Manella drew nearer, her eyes blazing. +</P> + +<P> +"She went to see you?—She did THAT!—In the darkness?—like a thief or +a serpent!" +</P> + +<P> +He laughed aloud. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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'—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +The colour had fled from Manella's face,—she was pale and rigid. +</P> + +<P> +"She will come back," she said stiffly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +But Manella was silent. Her dark, passionate eyes rested upon him with +a world of scorn and sorrow in their glowing depths. +</P> + +<P> +"Come!" he repeated—"Don't stare at me as if I were some new sort of +reptile!" +</P> + +<P> +"I think you are!" she said, coldly—"You seem to be a man, but you +have not the feelings of a man!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I did not think you were German," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"YOU will not stroke it so!" said Manella, disdainfully. +</P> + +<P> +"No?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Never again!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"You want to know?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella gave an impatient gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Amused?" he echoed. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—amused. She laughed,—she looks very pretty when she laughs. +And—and she seemed to fancy—" +</P> + +<P> +He lifted himself upright in a sitting posture. +</P> + +<P> +"Seemed to fancy? ... what?—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He smiled—a smile that was more like a sneer. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella sprang up from the turf where she had been sitting. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke, he rose, stretching and shaking him self like a forest +animal. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"She IS!" exclaimed Manella—"<I>I</I> think her so!" He looked down upon +her from his superior height with a tolerant amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella looked bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot understand!" she said—"A woman lives for husband and +children!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Manella gave a slight disdainful movement of her head. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +A sudden red flush of anger coloured his brow. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned from her abruptly and began the ascent that led to his +solitary retreat. Once he looked back— +</P> + +<P> +"Don't let me see you for two days at least!" he called—"I've more +than enough food to keep me going." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never quickly enough for my mind!" she answered—"The whole world +moves too slowly for me!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +She interrupted him. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"For women to love in!" he said, with a sudden warmth in his dark eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again and rising, gave him her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold that!" she said—"And while you hold it, tell me of my other +palace—the one with wings!" +</P> + +<P> +He clasped her small white fingers in his own sun-browned palm and +walked beside her bare-headed. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon me!—I did not mean—" he stammered. +</P> + +<P> +In a second her mood changed, and she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again,—a laugh of real enjoyment,—then went on— +</P> + +<P> +"Now tell me—what of my White Eagle?—what movement?—what speed?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Brave souls!" said Morgana, and now she withdrew her hand from his +grasp—"So you went up alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Giulio Rivardi gazed at her wonderingly,—his dark deep Southern eyes +expressed admiration with a questioning doubt commingled. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely you will not keep it to yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She walked on, gathering a flower here and there, and he kept pace +beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She broke off and was silent for a moment, then laying her hand lightly +on his arm, she added— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"And what is the use of it all?" he suddenly demanded. +</P> + +<P> +She opened her deep blue eyes in amaze. +</P> + +<P> +"The use of it?... You ask the use of it?—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She raised her delicate eyebrows in a little surprise,—a faint smile +was on her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"I should love you if you were quite poor!" he interposed vehemently. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +His brows knitted involuntarily. +</P> + +<P> +"Then there IS some man you like?" he asked, stiffly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"And so—he may outstrip you?" And the Marchese's eyes glittered with +sudden anger—"He may claim YOUR discovery as his own?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She passed, smiling, into the house, and he followed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana turned her lovely eyes indolently towards him over the top of +the soft feather fan she was waving lightly to and fro. +</P> + +<P> +"One thing? What is that?" she queried. +</P> + +<P> +"A husband!" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Boyd laughed heartily. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't always think so!" he said—"Such a charming little woman +must have a heart somewhere!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, dear!" chimed in his fragile invalid wife, "I am sure you +have a heart!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana raised herself on her cushions to a sitting posture and looked +round her with a curious little air or defiance. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a good impulse"—said Colonel Boyd, still smiling broadly—"It +founds families and continues the race!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes! But I often wonder why the race should be continued at all!" +said Morgana—"The time is ripe for a new creation!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes"—he continued—"you have realised your vision of loveliness, have +you not? Our friend Giulio Rivardi has carried out all your plans?" +</P> + +<P> +"Everything is perfect!" said Morgana—"Or will be when it is finished. +The workmen still have things to do." +</P> + +<P> +"All workmen always have things to do!" said Don Aloysius, +tranquilly—"And nothing is ever finished! And you, dear child!—you +are happy?" +</P> + +<P> +She flushed and paled under his deep, steady gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I think so!" she murmured—"I ought to be!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I ought to be happy"—she said—"And of course I am—or I shall be!" +</P> + +<P> +"'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." +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius looked round with a questioning glance. +</P> + +<P> +"What does she herself think about it?" he asked, mildly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But will such 'friends' care for YOU or YOUR happiness?" suggested the +Marchese, pointedly. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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'!" +</P> + +<P> +"You will only find deeper depths!" said Don Aloysius, slowly—"And in +the very deepest depth of all is God!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a sudden hush as he spoke. He went on in gentle accents. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Another pause ensued. Then Morgana spoke, in a very quiet and +submissive tone. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Aloysius raised a deprecating hand. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius smiled indulgently. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +A general chorus of protest from all present assured him of their +eagerness to hear. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +You ARE small, physically"—said Don Aloysius—Do you mind that? Small +things are always sweetest!" +</P> + +<P> +She flushed, and turned her head away as she caught the Marchese +Rivardi's eyes fixed upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"You should not make pretty compliments to a woman, reverend father!" +she said, lightly—"It is not your vocation!" +</P> + +<P> +His grave face brightened and he laughed with real heartiness. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Each one looked at the other enquiringly, but with no responsive result. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's a fine story if true!" said Colonel Boyd— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana had listened intently,—her eyes were brilliant. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not so sure of that!" put in the Marchese Rivardi—"With youth +nothing could become tiresome—youth knows no ennui." +</P> + +<P> +Some of the other listeners to the conversation laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But I think even a soul may grow tired!" said Morgana, suddenly—"so +tired that even the Highest Good may seem hardly worth possessing!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Povera figlia!" murmured Aloysius, hardly above his breath,—but she +caught the whisper, and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The Marchese flushed hotly under the quiet gaze of the priest's steady +dark eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The Marchese raised his eyebrows expressively with the slightest shrug +of his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"Aye! God alone knows! And God alone will decide what to give them!" +</P> + +<P> +"It must be something more 'sensational' than husband and children!" +said Rivardi a trifle bitterly—"Only a primitive woman will care for +these!" +</P> + +<P> +The priest laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He uttered the last words slowly and with emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi gave him a quick searching glance. +</P> + +<P> +"You seem to know that as a certainty"—he said, "How and why do you +know it?" +</P> + +<P> +Aloysius raised his eyes and looked straight ahead of him with a +curious, far-off, yet searching intensity. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Giulio Rivardi had listened with surprised attention. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He smiled, resting his hand on the Marchese's shoulder with easy +familiarity. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +His voice had a strange thrill in it, and Giulio looked at him +curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"You admire her very much, my father!" he said, with a touch of +delicate irony in his tone. +</P> + +<P> +"I do, my son!" responded Aloysius, composedly, "But only as a poor +priest may—at a distance!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How can I tell!" he replied, to all interrogations. "The secret is the +secret of a woman!" +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And are they pleased?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +A streak of rose and silver flared through the sky flushing the pallor +of Morgana's face as she lifted it towards him, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi gave an almost imperceptible shrug. +</P> + +<P> +"Never?" he queried. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her, moved as he often was by a thrill of admiration and +wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"It is for you to decide"—he answered—"You know best the +possibilities-and the risks—-" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you so sure?" he said—"Will you not risk your life in this +attempt?" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"That remains to be proved"—said Rivardi—"With all our work we may +not have entirely carried out your plan." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +A small, dark, intelligent looking man, in evident command of the rest, +smiled and shrugged his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"With God all things are possible!" quoted the Marchese Rivardi—"But +with man—" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You are satisfied?" asked Rivardi, at last—"It is as you planned?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned towards Gaspard with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Madama, I think as I have always thought!—a body without soul!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Madama!" stammered Gaspard—"I am not prepared—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Too far!" said Gaspard, nervously—"Madama, if we go too far we may +also go too high—we may not be able to breathe!..." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"But, Madama"—ventured Gaspard—"that composition or essence of +Life!—what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +There was an instant's silence. Every man's head craned forward eagerly +to hear the reply. Morgana smiled strangely. +</P> + +<P> +"That," she said—"is MY secret!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P> +"And now you have attained your object, what is the use of it?" said +Don Aloysius. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana stopped abruptly in her walk beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Aloysius resumed his slow walk to and fro, and she kept quiet pace with +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever thought what happiness is?" he asked, then—"Have you +ever felt it for a passing moment?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes"—she answered quickly—"But only at rare intervals—oh so rare!..." +</P> + +<P> +"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'?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Interval one!" he said, playfully—"What was this little lady's first +experience of happiness? When she played with her dolls?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, oh no!" cried Morgana, with sudden energy—"That was anything but +happiness! I hated dolls!—abominable little effigies!" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius raised his eyebrows in surprise and amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> never +had any 'maternal instinct'!—and real babies have always seemed to me +as uninteresting as sham ones!" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear child, you were a baby yourself once!"—said Aloysius gently. +</P> + +<P> +A shadow swept over her face. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius turned to look at her, but said nothing. She laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you believe in heaven?" asked Aloysius, suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"And you have lost them now?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little gesture of resignation. +</P> + +<P> +"They left me"—she answered—"I did not lose them. They simply went." +</P> + +<P> +He was silent. His fine, calm features expressed a certain grave +patience, but nothing more. +</P> + +<P> +She resumed— +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" and Don Aloysius returned her smile. "If old Alison has +anything to do with your happiness I should like to hear." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And do you understand it now?" asked Aloysius. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her eyes to his, and a little sigh came from her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"She is alive still?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! I often fancy she will never die!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How beautiful they are!" she said—"And they seem to serve no purpose +save that of simple beauty!" +</P> + +<P> +"That is enough for many of God's creatures"—said Aloysius—"To give +joy and re-create joy is the mission of perfection." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him wistfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Alas, poor me!" she sighed—"I can neither give joy nor create it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not even with all your wealth?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! There is one man!" said Aloysius, with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"You loved this man?" and the priest's grave eyes dwelt on her +searchingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Over the priest's face there passed a quiver as of sudden pain. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +He paused, abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana raised her eyes,—the blue lightning gleam flashed in their +depths. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes!" she half whispered—"I know I have THAT power!" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius rose to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Then,—if you know it,—in God's name do not exercise it!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her eyes again and fixed them on him. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mine?" he echoed amazedly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She smiled at him, sweetly—tenderly, +</P> + +<P> +"Very little!" she said—"So little that it is not worth a regret! +Good-bye! But not for long! Come and see me soon!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +When urged to explain what he conceived as this "something else," he +would answer— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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"! +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello—o!" called this individual. "Not dead yet?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"No,—not dead yet!" he said—"You insolent young monkey! Who are you?" +</P> + +<P> +The boy wriggled in his captor's clutch, and tried to squirm himself +out of it. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm—I'm Jake—they calls me Irish Jake"—he gasped—"O Blessed +Mary!—my breath! I clean the knives at the Plaza—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll clean knives for you presently!" remarked Seaton, with a +threatening gesture—"Yes, Irish Jake, I will! Who sent you here?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton let go the handful of shirt he had held. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> say, +or there'll be trouble! And"—here he made a mock solemn bow—"My +compliments to Miss Soriso!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Seaton looked after him with an air of contemptuous amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me!" he said, in low uneven tones—"I—I did not mean it!" +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her eyes to his, half proudly half appealingly. +</P> + +<P> +"You did not mean it?" she asked, quietly. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What! Manella!" he exclaimed—"I thought you were too busy to come!" +</P> + +<P> +She hung her head a little shamefacedly. +</P> + +<P> +"I HAD to come"—she answered—"There was no one else ready to bring +this—for you." +</P> + +<P> +She held out a telegram. He opened and read it. It was very +brief—"Shall be with you to-morrow. Gwent." +</P> + +<P> +He folded it and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to Manella, +smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Very good of you to bring this!" he said—"Why didn't you send Irish +Jake?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is taking luggage down from the rooms," she answered—"Many people +are going away to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that why you are 'so busy'"? he asked, the smile still dancing in +his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little toss of her head but said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged her shoulders expressively— +</P> + +<P> +"For you!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked straight at him. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +A triumphant glory flashed in her eyes—her red lips parted in a +ravishing smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He bent his eyes upon her gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"I have always known it—yes!"—he said, then paused—"Dear child, +beauty is nothing—" +</P> + +<P> +She made a swift step towards him and laid a hand on his arm. Her +ardent, glowing face was next to his. +</P> + +<P> +"You speak not truly!" and her voice was tremulous—"To a man it is +everything!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"It has it without asking!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"So he doesn't live here after all,"—he said—"Then where's he to be +found?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Air? Lungs?"—Gwent sniffed contemptuously. "There's very little the +matter with his lungs if he's the man <I>I</I> know! Where's this hut of the +dying? Can I get there straight?" +</P> + +<P> +The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared. Gwent stared +openly. Here—if "prize beauties" were anything—was a real winner! +</P> + +<P> +"This gentleman wants Mr. Seaton"—said the bookkeeper—"Just show him +the way up the hill." +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy not +common to his manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most ravishing +way—"The path is quite easy to follow." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Better, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! Much better!" +</P> + +<P> +"And is that why Mr. Seaton lives in the hut? On account of the air?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture of +indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so! How should I know? He is here for his health." +</P> + +<P> +Sam Gwent uttered a curious inward sound, something between a grunt and +a cough. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! I should like to know how long he's been ill!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella again gave her graceful gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely you DO know if you are a friend of his?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +He looked keenly at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Are YOU a friend of his?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled—almost laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"I? I am only a help in the Plaza—I take him his food—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella gazed at him with reproachful soft eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent cut her description short. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, thank you for showing me the way, Senora or Senorita, whichever +you are—I think you must be Spanish—" +</P> + +<P> +"Senorita"—she said, with gentle emphasis—"I am not married. You are +right that I am Spanish." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"You will not!" +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because he will not come!" +</P> + +<P> +She turned away, back towards the Hotel, and Gwent started to ascend +the hill alone. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Half-way up the hill he paused to rest, and saw Seaton striding down at +a rapid pace to meet him. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo, Gwent!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo!" +</P> + +<P> +The two men shook hands. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"But I sent you a reply wire?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes—that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinch +business. Yours arrived last night." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent—"It was addressed +to the Plaza Hotel—not to a hut on a hill!" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly—"And I can't +make out why you pretend to be one!" +</P> + +<P> +Again Seaton laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +They walked up the hill slowly, side by side. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton stopped in his walk. +</P> + +<P> +"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail. +</P> + +<P> +"Had she led him on?" +</P> + +<P> +"Rather! She leads all men 'on'—or they think she does. She led YOU on +at one time!" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement. +</P> + +<P> +"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a fool +of ME!" +</P> + +<P> +Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity. +</P> + +<P> +"Well! Washington thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied your +luck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you—" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you talk of something else?" interposed Seaton, impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +Gwent gave him an amused side-glance. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, of course I can!" he responded—"But I thought I'd tell you about +Jack—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry!" said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lacking +in sympathy—"He was your heir, I believe?" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He pointed to the hut which they had almost reached. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton made no reply, but led the way into his dwelling, offering his +visitor a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent made a wry face. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not a good subject for primitive nourishment"—he said—"I've been +weaned too long for it to agree with me!" +</P> + +<P> +He sat down. His eyes were at once attracted by the bowl of restless +fluid on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Roger Seaton smiled enigmatically. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"If that's so, your fortune's made"—said Gwent, "Give your discovery, +or recipe, or whatever it is, to the world—-" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton moved impatiently, but said nothing, +</P> + +<P> +"You're a bit on the fidgets"—resumed Gwent, placidly—"You want me to +come to business—and I will. May I smoke?" +</P> + +<P> +His companion nodded, and he drew out his cigar-case, selecting from it +a particularly fragrant Havana. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Gwent puffed slowly at his cigar. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a bit puzzling!"—he said—"When and where should it be used?" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton stretched out a hand argumentatively. +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent drew his cigar from his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Annihilation!" he murmured—"Annihilation? For one or both!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Sam Gwent, holding his cigar between his fingers and looking +meditatively at its glowing end, smiled shrewdly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"War is inhumanity"—said Seaton—"The use of my discovery would be no +worse than war." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent shrugged his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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—" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton laughed heartily, pushing back with a ruffling hand the thick +hair from his broad open brow. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> call love!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! May I have your definition?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Again, Gwent was silent for some minutes. Then he said— +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent smiled a grim smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not begin with the newspaper offices?" suggested Gwent—"The +purlieus of cheap journalism are the breeding-places of the human +malaria-mosquito." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"War does that,"—said Seaton, curtly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton's brow clouded into a frown. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Gwent smoked leisurely, regarding his companion with unfeigned interest. +</P> + +<P> +"Apparently you haven't much respect for life?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop there!" interrupted Gwent—"You believe in God?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, of course!" and Seaton smiled—"The question is superfluous!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What of the inhumanity of war?" asked Seaton. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton, still standing erect, bent his eyes on the lean hard features +of his companion with eloquent scorn. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, we talk"—interrupted Gwent—"But we don't mean what we say!—we +should never think of meaning it!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'" quoted Seaton with passionate +emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +"Just so! The Lord Christ said it two thousand years ago, and it's true +to-day! We haven't improved!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks!" and Seaton nodded curtly—"I can use it myself!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"What IS there to be made out of it?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!-happiness—the physical pleasure of living—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"How about leaving that to the Supreme Intelligence?" interposed Gwent. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The last ash of Gwent's cigar fell to the floor, and Gwent himself rose +from his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You will, if you gamble with the lives of nations!" said Gwent. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"War against what?—against whom?" asked Seaton. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't got one!" replied Seaton, briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"What! Haven't got one! Why, how do you make your stuff?" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Finished, is it?" queried Gwent, abstractedly—"And you have it +here?—in a finished state?" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton nodded affirmatively. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I suppose"—said Gwent with a nervous laugh—"you could 'finish' +ME, if it suited your humour?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks! Much obliged!" said Gwent—"I won't trouble you this morning! +I rather enjoy being alive." +</P> + +<P> +"So do I!" declared Seaton, still smiling—"I only state what I COULD +do." +</P> + +<P> +Gwent stood at the door of the hut and surveyed the scenery. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Would YOU?" asked Seaton, amused. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!—perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her +eyes are the finest I've ever seen." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton made no comment. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Unfortunately there was no business doing!" said Gwent—"Sorry I +couldn't take it on." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be +impressive. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly—"But it wouldn't be missed! +Come,—I'll walk with you half way down the hill." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You found your friend well?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, indeed!" replied Gwent, promptly—"In fact, I never knew he +was ill!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of +her many fascinating gestures. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not ill"—she said—"He only pretends! That is all! He has some +reason for pretending. I think it is love!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a bit of it! He's the last man in the world to worry himself about +love!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent pricked up his ears and stood at attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? Really? You don't say so! 'A little fairy woman'? Sounds like a +story!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent listened with close interest. +</P> + +<P> +"And I presume she found him?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella nodded, and a sigh escaped her. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You seem to be a very observant young woman," said Gwent, +smiling—"One would think you were in love with him yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +She raised her large dark eyes to his with perfect frankness. +</P> + +<P> +"I am!" she said—"I see no shame in that! He is a fine man—it is good +to love him!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I know!" she said—"He is a god!" +</P> + +<P> +Sam Gwent almost jumped. A god! Oh, these women! Of what fantastic +exaggerations they are capable! +</P> + +<P> +"A god!" she repeated, nodding again, complacently; "He can do +anything! I feel that all the time. He could rule the whole world!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Soriso," finished Manella, gently—"Manella Soriso." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You say that? But—are you not his friend?" +</P> + +<P> +Her tone was reproachful. +</P> + +<P> +But Gwent was now nearly his normal business self again. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" exclaimed Manella—"That is the name of the fairy woman who came +here!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent went on without heeding her. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Manella snapped her fingers as though they were castanets. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent began to feel impatient with this irrepressible "prize" beauty. +</P> + +<P> +"I came to see him at his own request on business;" he answered +curtly—"The business is concluded and I go away to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +Manella was silent. The low chirping of a cicada hidden in the myrtle +thicket made monotonous sweetness on the stillness. +</P> + +<P> +Moved by some sudden instinct which he did not attempt to explain to +himself, Gwent decided to venture on a little paternal advice. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella's great bright eyes opened wide like stars in the darkness. +</P> + +<P> +"Dangerous?—How?—I do not understand—-!" +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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—-" +</P> + +<P> +Here he paused, checked by the sudden terror in the beautiful eyes that +stared at him. +</P> + +<P> +"His life!" and Manella's voice trembled—"You think he is here to kill +himself—-" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella nodded—her lips trembled, and she clasped her hands nervously +across her bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little cry. +</P> + +<P> +"With ME?" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head sorrowfully. +</P> + +<P> +"You do not know him!" she said—"But—HE knows!" +</P> + +<P> +"Knows what?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a despairing little gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"That I love him!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I could not pretend THAT!" said Manella, sadly—"But if I could, it +would not matter. He does not want a woman." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is that?" she asked, wistfully. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"HE would never content himself!" she said—"If she—the woman that +came here, is the moon, he will always want her. Even <I>I</I> want her!" +</P> + +<P> +"You?" exclaimed Gwent, amazed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella gazed about her in the darkness, bewildered. A glittering +little mob of fire-flies danced above her head like a net of jewels. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you talk so strangely!" she said—"You forget!—I am a poor +girl—I have no money—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She clasped her hands nervously. A little gasping sigh came from her +lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!—Santa Madonna!—to save his life!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a hopeless gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"He will not—he thinks nothing of me—nothing!—no!—though he says I +am beautiful!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he says that, does he?" and Gwent smiled—"Well, he'd be a fool if +he didn't!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Beauty does not move him!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent uttered a sound between a grunt and a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Manella's beautiful eyes expressed bewilderment. +</P> + +<P> +"Killing women? Is that what they do?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"YOU would kill a woman?" Manella's voice was a horrified whisper. +</P> + +<P> +Gwent laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I am not clever!" sighed Manella. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"You will not write of me in that letter!" interrupted the girl, +hastily. "No—you must not—you could not!—-" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent raised a deprecating hand. +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no!"—she said at once, with proud frankness; "I would not doubt +your word!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Come along! Let us get in!" and Gwent caught Manella's hand—"Run!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Storm!" observed a long-faced invalid man in a rocking-chair, looking +at them as they hurried in. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! Storm it is!" responded Gwent, releasing the hand of his +companion—"Good-night, Miss Soriso!" +</P> + +<P> +She inclined her head graceful, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, Senor!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +At that moment Morgana came slowly up the steps cut in the grass +bordered on either side by flowers, and approached her. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood took the roses with a smile, touching Morgana's cheek +playfully with one of the paler pink buds. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana nodded her golden head approvingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"More than pretty—it's a perfect paradise!" declared Lady Kingswood, +emphatically. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood controlled her first instinctive movement of surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Really?" she said—"That seems a pity as you only arrived so +recently—" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana gave a wistful glance round her at the beautiful gardens and +blue sea beyond. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood opened her eyes, surprised and amused. +</P> + +<P> +"What does it feel like? My dear—?" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"'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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood looked at her with interested, kind eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"But then, what WOULD suit you?" she queried—"You know you mustn't +expect the impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +"What the world calls the impossible is always the possible"—said +Morgana—"And only the impossible appeals to me!" +</P> + +<P> +This was going beyond the boundary-line of Lady Kingswood's brain +capacity, so she merely remained agreeably quiescent. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood laughed outright. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +As she said this her voice trembled a little and she sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood's eyes were sorrowful. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana lifted her eyes. The "fey" light was glittering in them. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +This was the usual panacea which the excellent lady offered for all +troubles, and Morgana smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> want—and marriage without it would be +worse than any imagined hell. So I shall not marry." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood's face expressed a mild tolerance. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"YOU are quite alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but I am an old woman, my dear! I have lived my day!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"A very welcome little boat!" said Lady Kingswood, with feeling—"A +rescue in the nick of time!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +She was interrupted by a gay little peal of laughter from Morgana. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Beautiful things made new<BR> + For the surprise of the sky-children.'<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"My vulgar wealth!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"What? Vulgar?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. A man told me it was." +</P> + +<P> +"A vulgar man himself, I should imagine!" said Lady Kingswood, warmly. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana shrugged her shoulders carelessly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"You are quite English yourself, aren't you?" queried her companion. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever been to the East?" asked Lady Kingswood. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What does the Marchese Rivardi say to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I COULDN'T!" said Lady Kingswood, emphatically—"I've no nerve for +such an adventure." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana rose from her chair, smiling kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +A soft "ting-ting tong"—rang from the olive and ilex woods below the +Palazzo,—and Morgana, listening, smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana gave him a keen glance. +</P> + +<P> +"You think he has really found it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think so,—yes! He has faith in God—a great support that has given +way for most of the peoples of this world." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood looked pained. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry to hear you say that!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi was surprised at the passionate energy she threw into these +words. +</P> + +<P> +"You feel that deeply?" he said—"And yet—pardon me!—you do not +assume to be religious?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And so—being Nothing—you still made your air-ship possible!" said +Rivardi, smiling indulgently at her fantastic speech. +</P> + +<P> +She answered him with unmoved and patient gravity. +</P> + +<P> +"It is as you say,—being Nothing myself, and owning myself to be +Nothing; the Force that is Everything made my air-ship possible!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing more than a run in a motor-car!" Morgana said, gaily. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, she has gone!" sighed Lady Kingswood—"and the Marchese with her, +and one assistant. Her 'nerve' is simply astonishing!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely none!" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood looked at him in bewildered amazement. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely there MUST be danger?" she said—"The terrible accidents that +happen every day to these flying machines—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"It made no sound?" +</P> + +<P> +"None." +</P> + +<P> +"Then how did its engines move, if it HAD engines?" pursued +Aloysius—"Had you no curiosity about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I hadn't—I was really too nervous! Morgana begged me to go +inside, but I could not!" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +A slight sigh escaped him, and Lady Kingswood looked at his fine, +composed features with deep interest. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think God meant us to be happy?" she asked, gently. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And surely that is best!" said Lady Kingswood, "and surely you have +found happiness, or what is nearest to happiness, in your beautiful +Faith?" +</P> + +<P> +His eyes were shadowed by deep gravity. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He uttered these words with passionate eloquence and added— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood's lips trembled; there were tears in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"As every one was in the 'Cities of the Plain,'"—he said, "and we may +well expect another rain of fire!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood looked where he pointed. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely that is not the air-ship?" she said—"It is too small!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How long have they been gone?" asked Aloysius then. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Kingswood glanced at her watch. +</P> + +<P> +"Barely two hours." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm glad you've come back all right"—said Lady Kingswood—"It's +a great relief! I certainly was afraid—-" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Altro! She is impossible!" he said irritably—"Wild as the +wind!—uncontrollable! She will kill herself!—but she does not care!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well! You think that nothing? I tell you it is very serious—very +foolhardy. She knows nothing of aerial navigation—" +</P> + +<P> +"Was her steering faulty?" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius gave a sudden start. +</P> + +<P> +"No!—not possible!" he said—"She will not pursue a phantasm,—a +dream!" +</P> + +<P> +He spoke nervously, and his face paled. Rivardi looked at him curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"There is no such place then?" he asked—"It is only a legend?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Can we say that anything is undiscoverable?" suggested Rivardi. +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius thought a moment before replying. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi gave a resigned gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius laughed gently. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"It is good of you to think it valuable,"—and her wonderful blue eyes +were suddenly shadowed with sadness—"To me it is valueless." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear!" exclaimed Lady Kingswood—"How can you say such a thing!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"But—is not that your own fault?" suggested Don Aloysius, gently. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed lightly, and continued,— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana's eyes flashed up, then drooped under their white lids fringed +with gold. +</P> + +<P> +"You think so?" she murmured—"To me, love leads nowhere!" +</P> + +<P> +"Except to Heaven!" said Aloysius. +</P> + +<P> +There followed a silence. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Could anything be more enchantingly beautiful!" sighed Lady +Kingswood—"One ought to thank God for eyes to see it!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And he quoted— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "'On such a night as this,<BR> + When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees<BR> + And they did make no noise,—on such a night<BR> + Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls<BR> + And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents<BR> + Where Cressid lay!'"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"You know your Shakespeare!" said Rivardi. +</P> + +<P> +"Who would not know him!" replied Aloysius—"One is not blind to the +sun!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Shakespeare might have imagined my air-ship!" said Morgana, +suddenly—"He was perhaps dreaming vaguely of something like it when he +wrote about—" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'A winged messenger of heaven<BR> + When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds<BR> + And sails upon the bosom of the air!'<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"The 'White Eagle' sails upon the bosom of the air!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then,—help them now," said Rivardi—"Give them the chance to +learn your secret!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana moved away from the column where she had leaned, and came more +fully into the broad moonlight. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"By a woman?" hinted Don Aloysius, with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged her shoulders carelessly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"But you might benefit the human race"—said Rivardi—"Would not that +thought weigh with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana looked at him, vaguely surprised by his tone and manner. +</P> + +<P> +"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'!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—it is a lovely night,—for Sicily,"—she said. "But it would be +lovelier in California!" +</P> + +<P> +"In California!" echoed Rivardi—"Why California?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Just then the soft slow tolling of a bell struck through the air and +Don Aloysius prepared to take his leave. +</P> + +<P> +"The 'beyond' calls to me from the monastery," he said, smiling—"I +have been too long absent. Will you walk with me, Giulio?" +</P> + +<P> +"Willingly!" and the Marchese bowed over Lady Kingswood's hand as he +bade her "Good night." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"What it would be if one were young once more!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, Morgana, between her two escorts stepped lightly along, +playfully arguing with them both on their silence. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Madama, I think of your safety,"—he said, curtly. +</P> + +<P> +"It is kind of you! But if I do not care for my safety?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do!" he said, decisively. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"True!" she said—"And you would save this phantom from vanishing into +air utterly?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She caught his hand and impulsively kissed it. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +The two men looked at each other in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"You will not succeed by thwarting her!"—said Aloysius, warningly. +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi gave an impatient gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"And you?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"No, because she is not an 'ordinary' woman," said Rivardi, +quickly—"More's the pity I think—for HER!" +</P> + +<P> +"And for you!" added Aloysius, meaningly. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed to herself and looked up at the splendid moon, round as a +golden shield in heaven. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + +<P> +"So the man from Washington told you to bring this to me?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder what it's all about? Do you know?" +</P> + +<P> +Manella shrugged her shoulders with a charming air of indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"I? How should I know? He is your friend I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"You are wrong!" said Manella, flushing up suddenly—"You are wrong and +unjust! He is an ugly old man, but he is very kind." +</P> + +<P> +Seaton threw back his head and laughed heartily with real enjoyment. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella gazed at him seriously—her lovely eyes gleaming like jewels +under her long black lashes. +</P> + +<P> +"You mock at everything,"—she said—"It is a pity!" +</P> + +<P> +Her tone was faintly reproachful. He smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Afraid of what?" asked Manella, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What is that?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing for me to write or for you to post"—he repeated, +abstractedly—"and how satisfactory that is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then you are pleased?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You always don't? That sounds very droll! You will be unlike every man +in the world, then,—they all marry!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do they? You know all about it? Wise Manella!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not understand!" she said, plaintively—"What is steak and +onions?—how do they make a marriage? You say such strange things!" +</P> + +<P> +He laughed again, thoroughly amused. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He touched her hair gently, putting back a stray curl that had fallen +across her forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She tossed her head back, and her eyes flashed almost angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The struggling emotion in her found utterance. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and going to the door of the hut looked out. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him in a kind of sorrowful perplexity. +</P> + +<P> +"You have much talk"—she said—"and no doubt you are clever. But I +think you are all wrong!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She spoke, breathing quickly, and trembling with suppressed emotion. He +smiled,—and, rising, saluted her with a profound bow. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> WANT HER!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—-" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah yes, dear!" he interrupted, with a smile—"That would be so easy!" +</P> + +<P> +The touch of satire in these words was lost on her,—she took them +quite literally, and a sudden softness sweetened her anger. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!—quite easy!" she said—"And you would be pleased! You would do +as you wished with me—men like to rule women!" +</P> + +<P> +"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— +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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!" +</P> + +<P> +She met his eyes with a resolved look in her own. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, Manella?" he demanded, imperatively—"Do you expect +to find me dead?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded vehemently. Tears were in her eyes and she turned her head +away that he might not see them. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +But Manella, yielding to her inward excitement, pointed a hand at him +with a warning air of a tragedy queen. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And with a wild, sobbing cry she rushed away from him down the hill +before he could move or utter a word. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled,—and in her smiling expressed a lovely sweetness. Rivardi +raised his eyes from his steering gear. +</P> + +<P> +"You are not tired, Madama?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Tired? No, indeed! How can I be tired with so short a journey!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard looked up from his place at the end of the ship. +</P> + +<P> +"About two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles an hour,"—he +said—"One does not realise it in the movement." +</P> + +<P> +"But you realise that the flight is as safe as it is quick?" said +Morgana—"Do you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi consulted the chart which was spread open in his steering-cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard moved uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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"— +</P> + +<P> +"But—what do you expect to see, Madama?" enquired Gaspard, with lively +curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed again as she met Rivardi's keen glance. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Are we not flying too high? Have you altered the course?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Madama," he replied at once—"We are on the same level." +</P> + +<P> +She turned towards him. Her face was very pale. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Madama, you jest! We are trillions upon trillions of miles distant +from any great constellation—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Look! Look!" she exclaimed—"We have found it! The Brazen City!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Do not try to steer. You cannot proceed." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Why are you afraid? For you there is nothing to fear!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is it that speaks to me?" she asked, faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"One from the city below,"—was the instant reply given in full clear +accents—"I am speaking on the Sound Ray." +</P> + +<P> +She held her breath in mute wonder, listening. The voice went on, +equably— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"You tell me I cannot proceed,"—she said—"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The warm gentleness of the voice thrilled her with a sudden sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"That was kind!" she said, and smiled. Some one smiled in response—or +she thought so. Presently she spoke again— +</P> + +<P> +"Then you hold me here a prisoner?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. You can return the way you came, quite freely." +</P> + +<P> +"May I not come down and see your city?" "No." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you are not one of us." The Voice hesitated. "And because you +are not alone." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana glanced at the prostrate and unconscious forms of Rivardi and +Gaspard with a touch of pity. +</P> + +<P> +"My companions are half dead!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"But not wholly!" was the prompt reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it that force you speak of—the force which guards your city—that +has struck them down?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why was I not also struck down?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you are what you are!" Then—after a silence—"You are +Morgana!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know me?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"As we all know you,"—came the answer—"Even as YOU have known the +inside of a sun-ray!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"You are speaking to me in English. Are you all English folk in your +city?" +</P> + +<P> +A faint quiver as of laughter vibrated through the "Sound Ray." +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed! We have no nationality." +</P> + +<P> +"No nationality?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know it is not my manner of life?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Look again and see!" answered the Voice—"Convince yourself!—do not +be deceived! You are not dreaming—Look and make yourself sure!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"It is beautiful!" she said—"It seems true—it seems real—" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Can I never enter it?" she asked, appealingly—"Will you never let me +in?" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—if you come alone!" +</P> + +<P> +These words sounded so close to her ear that she felt sure the speaker +must be standing beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"I will come!" she said, impulsively—"Somehow—some way!—no matter +how difficult or dangerous! I will come!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +A thrill ran through her blood. +</P> + +<P> +"I must stay!" she echoed—"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"With all my soul I care to hear!" she said—"But where do you speak +from? And who are you that speak?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Here was an overwhelming mystery—but, nothing daunted, Morgana pursued +her enquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why have you gone so soon?" she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could I forget anyone so beautiful!" she said, with passionate +enthusiasm. +</P> + +<P> +This time the Sound Ray conveyed a vibration of musical laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She stretched out her hands appealingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if I could only come to you now!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She drew a quick breath. What could these words mean? +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you attack and destroy all strangers so?" she asked—"Is that your +rule?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am a woman of to-day,"—said Morgana. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"When will be that hour?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause. Then, with an exceeding sweetness and solemnity the +Voice replied— +</P> + +<P> +"If He will that we tarry till He come, what is that to thee?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The Voice spoke again— +</P> + +<P> +"We are releasing you from the barrier. You are free to depart." +</P> + +<P> +She sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"I have no wish to go!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Quickly she sprang to the steering-gear—she felt the "White Eagle" +moving, and lifting its vast wings for flight. +</P> + +<P> +"Farewell!" she cried, with a sense of tears in her throat—"Farewell!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not farewell!" came the reply, spoken softly and with tenderness—"We +shall meet again soon! I will speak to you in Sicily!" +</P> + +<P> +"In Sicily!" she exclaimed, joyfully—"You will speak to me there?" +</P> + +<P> +"There and everywhere!" answered the Voice—"The Sound Ray knows no +distance. I shall speak—and you shall hear—whenever you will!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"A thousand pardons, Madama!" he stammered—"I shall never forgive +myself! I have been asleep!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX +</H3> + +<P> +At almost the same moment Gaspard stumbled to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Asleep—asleep!" he exclaimed—"<I>Mon Dieu!</I>—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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana, quietly steering the "White Eagle," smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +But Rivardi was white with anger and self-reproach. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana watched him closely, her hand on her air-vessel's helm. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard threw out his hands with a half defiant gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi, smarting under a sense of loss and incompetency, went up to +her. +</P> + +<P> +"Give me the helm!" he said, almost sharply—"You have done enough!" +</P> + +<P> +She resigned her place to him, smiling at his irritation. +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure you are quite rested?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"You do not answer me—" interrupted Rivardi with impatience—"What of +your search for the Brazen City?" +</P> + +<P> +She raised her lovely, mysterious eyes and looked full at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you believe it exists?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He gave a gesture of annoyance. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Still she kept her eyes upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely it was the motive of your flight here?" he demanded, +imperatively. +</P> + +<P> +Her brows drew together in a slight frown. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But—not even to wait for the full daylight!" he expostulated—"You +could not see it by night even if it existed!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard, busy with some mechanical detail, looked up. +</P> + +<P> +"Then why not make a search for it while we are here?" he said—"You +evidently believe in it!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The Marchese Rivardi looked at her with something of defiance in his +glance. +</P> + +<P> +"I will adventure in search of the legendary city myself, alone!" he +said. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana laughed, her clear little cold laugh of disdain. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He paled with anger and annoyance,—she still smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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'!" +</P> + +<P> +"We are to make straight for Sicily?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—straight for Sicily." +</P> + +<P> +She retired into her sleeping-cabin and disappeared. The Marchese +Rivardi looked at Gaspard questioningly. +</P> + +<P> +"We must obey her, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"We could not think of disobeying!" returned Gaspard. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard shook his finger warningly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi flushed red. +</P> + +<P> +"I know!" he said, curtly—"I never forget it. But money is not +everything." +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard's mobile French face lit up with a mirthful smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Beauty?" Rivardi queried. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I should not wonder," ventured Gaspard, presently—"if—while we +slept—she had seen her 'Brazen City'!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi uttered something like an oath. +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible!" he exclaimed—"She would have awakened us!" +</P> + +<P> +"If she could, no doubt!" agreed Gaspard—"But if she could not, how +then?" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Rivardi looked puzzled,—then he dismissed his companion's +suggestion with a contemptuous shrug. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"We certainly heard bells"—said Gaspard. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Her powers are not limitless!" said Rivardi—"She is only a woman +after all!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gaspard lifted his eyes towards her where she stood like a little white +Madonna in a shrine. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Madama, it is proved!" he said—"But the secret of its proving?—" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfully as Rivardi seated himself +opposite to her at table. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, <I>I</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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You read the modern Press"—he said—"A pity you do!" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"The Press is chiefly to blame for it"—declared Rivardi. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Tired?" echoed Rivardi—"In what way?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Poor orphans of nothing—alone on that lonely shore,<BR> + Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you are one of 'those who see'?—" said Rivardi, incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"We shall do more in time"—he said—"The advance of one step leads to +another." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "This precious stone set in the silver sea<BR> + Which serves it in the office of a wall,<BR> + Or as a moat defensive to a house<BR> + Against the envy of less happy lands."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"WE have seen nothing"—said Rivardi meaningly, as he assisted her to +alight—"The seeing is all with YOU!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Or woman'd?" suggested Rivardi. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"IF you like! But I only steered while you slept. That is nothing! Good +night!" +</P> + +<P> +She left them, running up the garden path lightly like a child +returning from a holiday, and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +"But that which she calls nothing"—said Gaspard as he watched her +go—"is everything!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"He has called several times"—replied Lady Kingswood—"and I think he +has been very much disappointed not to be received." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor reverend Father!" and Morgana smiled—"He should not bother his +mind about a woman! Well! I'm going to see him now." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"So you have come to me at last!" he said—"I have not merited your +confidence till now! Why?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +A tremor shook him—gently he put her hand aside. +</P> + +<P> +"You think I know!" he replied—"You imagine—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"And you found it?" he interrupted, quickly—"You found it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know I did!" she replied—"Why ask the question? Messages on a +Sound-Ray can reach YOU, as well as me!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped her by a gesture, rising from where he sat and extending a +hand of warning and authority. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"We?" queried Morgana, softly—"WE—of the Church?—or of the Brazen +City?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana moved close to him, and looked up at his grave, dark face +beseechingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He smiled down into the jewel-blue of her clear eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +She interrupted him by the uplifting of a hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I was told"—she said slowly—"by a Voice that spoke to me—that if I +went there I should have to stay there!" +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt!" he answered—"For love would keep you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Love!" she echoed. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"But YOU—you—if you were in the Brazen City—" +</P> + +<P> +"If!" he repeated, emphatically. +</P> + +<P> +"If—yes! if"—she said—"If you were there, love did not hold YOU?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She sprang to him impulsively and caught his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you must help me!" she cried—"You must teach me—I want to know +what YOU know!—" +</P> + +<P> +He held her gently and with reverent tenderness. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Here he released her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"And—the Brazen City?" she queried. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Do YOU hear from it?" she asked, pointedly. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"I may not speak of what I hear"—he answered. "Nor may you!" +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a space—then looked up at him appealingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"And for you?" she asked impulsively. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Why think of me?" he said, gently—"I am nothing in your life—" +</P> + +<P> +"You are!" she replied—"You are more than you imagine. I begin to +realise—" +</P> + +<P> +He held up his hand with a warning gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" he said—"There are things of which we must not speak!" +</P> + +<P> +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,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Angelus Domini nuntiavit Maria Et concepit de Spiritu sancto."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"There must be beautiful music in the Golden City!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Don Aloysius smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"There is! And when the other things of life give you pause to listen, +you will often hear it!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you hear me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she replied at once, with equal softness. +</P> + +<P> +"Then, listen! I have a message for you!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +She rose at once from her knees, alert and ready for action—her face +was pale, her lips set, her eyes luminous. +</P> + +<P> +"I must not hesitate"—she said—"If I can save him I will!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI +</H3> + +<P> +"There shall be no more wars!—there CAN be none!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Seaton left off reading and thrust the letter again in his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"What will the world be worth?" he soliloquised—"Why, nothing!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Death is the end of life; ah, why<BR> + Should life all labour be?<BR> + Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast<BR> + And in a little while our lips are dumb,<BR> + Let us alone. What is it that will last?<BR> + All things are taken from us and become<BR> + Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past,<BR> + Let us alone. What pleasure can we have<BR> + To war with evil? Is there any peace<BR> + In ever climbing up the climbing wave?"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +There was no fatalism,—no fixed destiny in this; only the force of +Will was implied—the Will to learn,—the Will to know. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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,— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I said I would die for him!" she thought—"and I will!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"It is good to love him!" she had said—"I am happy to love him. I wish +only to serve him!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Earthquake in California! Terrible loss of life! Thousands dead! Awful +scenes! Earthquake in California!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Thousands dead! Awful scenes! Towns destroyed! Terrible Earthquake in +California!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" he demanded as he paid his money. +</P> + +<P> +"Dunno!" the boy replied, breathlessly—"'Xpect everybody's dead down +California way!" +</P> + +<P> +Gwent unfolded the journal and stared at the great headlines, printed +in fat black letters, still smelling strongly of printer's ink. +</P> + +<P> +Appalling Earthquake In California!—Mountain Upheaval!—Towns Wiped +Out!—Plaza Hotel Engulfed!—Frightful Loss of Life! +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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! +</P> + +<P> +"And by Heaven," said Gwent, within himself—"He's done it!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That's an air-ship"—said one—"and a big thing, too!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one—"Nothing can save it +if it takes to nose-diving down there!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"God have mercy on their souls!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be here +that we should seek!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Come! Come!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Morgana pointed to them. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you demand the impossible!" said Rivardi—"You send us to +death to rescue the already dead!" +</P> + +<P> +She turned upon him with wrath in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You refuse to obey me?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Choose!" she reiterated. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a true noble!" she exclaimed—"I knew your courage would not +fail! Believe me, no harm shall come to you!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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— +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana looked up from her awed contemplation of Seaton's rigid form. +Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Here, Madama!" +</P> + +<P> +"You have done so well!" she said—"Without fear or failure!" +</P> + +<P> +"Only by God's mercy!" answered Gaspard—"If the rope had broken; if +the ship had lost balance—" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She heard him patiently,—then turned to Rivardi and repeated her +words— +</P> + +<P> +"We can start at once. Steer upwards and onwards." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Surely a miracle!" he ejaculated, under his breath—"An escape from +destruction through God's mercy! God be praised!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV +</H3> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"It is now time for further aid than mine. The girl will recover—but +the man—the man is still in the darkness!" +</P> + +<P> +And her eyes grew heavy with a cloud of sorrow and regret which +softened her delicate beauty and made it more than ever unearthly. +</P> + +<P> +"What are they—what is HE—to you?" demanded Rivardi jealously. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"The woman we rescued with him?—the woman who is here?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"What DO you understand and accept?" he asked, softly. +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes shone kindly as she raised them to his face. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"And that is?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Happiness!" she replied—"The perfect happiness of life in love!" +</P> + +<P> +He had held her hand till now, when he released it. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could give it to you!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot, Giulio! I am not made for any man—as men go!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a pity you think so"—he said—"For—after all—you are just—a +woman!" +</P> + +<P> +"Am I?" she murmured,—and a strange flitting smile brightened her +features—"Perhaps!—and yet—perhaps not! Who knows!" +</P> + +<P> +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? +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor interrupted her. +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon, Signora! There has been no recent earthquake in Europe." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little gesture of assent. +</P> + +<P> +"Not in Europe—no! But in America—in California there has been a +terrible one!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"She will live!"—he said—"There are no injuries?" +</P> + +<P> +"None"—Morgana replied, as he put his questions—"Some few +bruises—but no bones broken—nothing serious." +</P> + +<P> +"You have examined her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"You have no nurses?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you could see her eyes!" said Morgana. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Magnificent!" said Ardini, under his breath—"And full of the vital +light,—she will live!" +</P> + +<P> +"And she will love!" added Morgana, softly. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor looked at her enquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Dead?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why do you say that?" she asked, pitifully. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, give him life!" she whispered—"Give him life for the sake of the +woman who loves him more than life!" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor gave her a quick, keen glance. +</P> + +<P> +"You?" +</P> + +<P> +She shivered at the question as though struck by a cold wind,—then +conquering the momentary weakness, answered— +</P> + +<P> +"No. The girl you have just seen. He is her world!" +</P> + +<P> +Ardini's brows met in a saturnine frown. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you quite sure of this?" Morgana asked—"Can any of us, however +wise, be quite sure of anything?" +</P> + +<P> +His frown relaxed and his whole features softened. He took her hand and +patted it kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should not God help in this case?" she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"It shall be as you wish, Signora! I must stay here two or three days—" +</P> + +<P> +"As long as you find it necessary"—said Morgana—"All your orders +shall be obeyed." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"I am never tired"—she answered, gently—"I thank you in advance for +all you are going to do!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"There is hope then? These two poor creatures will live?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"It is my angel!" she murmured faintly—"My little white angel who came +to me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!" +</P> + +<P> +Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking her +outstretched arms put them round her own neck. +</P> + +<P> +"Manella!" she said, tenderly—"Dear, beautiful Manella! Do you know +me?" +</P> + +<P> +The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana held her close and firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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—!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone—"Thunder! Do you hear it? God +speaks!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What was that?" she cried—"I heard him call!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed—listening. +The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and defiantly— +</P> + +<P> +"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Master +of the World!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What are they?" Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion. +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</I> ONLY! IT IS MY GREAT SECRET! <I>I</I> AM MASTER OF THE WORLD!' Poor +devil! What a 'master of the world' is there!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant +sunshine. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he say nothing else?" she murmured—"Is there no name—no +place—that he seems to remember?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana lifted her sea-blue eyes and looked with grave appeal into the +severely intellectual, half-frowning face of the great Professor. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana heard this with strained interest and attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me just what you mean,"—she said—"There is something you do not +quite express—or else I am too slow to understand—" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Morgana looked him steadily in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Tears rushed to Morgana's eyes,—she could not answer. She could only +bend her head in assent. +</P> + +<P> +Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with sympathetic +reverence. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"If he ever loved her—yes"—and Morgana smiled rather sadly—"But if +he did not—if the love is all on her side—" +</P> + +<P> +Ardini shrugged his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Morgana!" +</P> + +<P> +The Voice quivered along the Ray like the touched string of an aeolian +harp. She answered it in almost a whisper— +</P> + +<P> +"I hear!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"I will!" she said—"When my duties here are done." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana sat down beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Manella looked at her wonderingly— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I?" and Manella's eyes dilated with brilliant eagerness; "I will give +my life for his! What can I do?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Manella, Manella!" she said—"You do not know what you say—you cannot +understand the responsibility—it would make you a prisoner for life—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Manella, dear!" murmured Morgana—"Not him—not him—but YOU!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana silenced her by a gesture which was at once commanding and +sweetly austere. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Manella's dark eyes flashed with passionate ardour and enthusiasm. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She clasped her hands and lifted them in an attitude of prayer, laying +them against Morgana's breast. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +And she murmured plaintively again— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me tell you something before I forget it again"—she said—"It is +something terrible—the earthquake." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And she indicated by a gesture the next room where Roger Seaton lay. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana roused herself from the stupefaction of horror with which she +had listened to this narration. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear, beautiful angel, you will help me?" Manella pleaded—"You will +help me to be his wife?" +</P> + +<P> +And Morgana answered with pitiful tenderness. +</P> + +<P> +"I will!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say it! My great +secret! I am master of the world!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What is all this?" he demanded, insistently—"I MUST speak to you! You +have been weeping! What is troubling you?" +</P> + +<P> +She drew her hands gently away from his. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, Giulio!" and she smiled kindly—"I grieve for the griefs of +others—quite uselessly!—but I cannot help it!" +</P> + +<P> +"There is no hope, then?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"None—not for the man"—she replied—"His body will live,—but his +brain is dead." +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi gave an expressive gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Horrible! Better he should die!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana looked at him with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"You have promised to assist? Can you reconcile it to your conscience +to let this girl make herself a prisoner for life?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Rivardi's handsome face expressed utter incredulity. +</P> + +<P> +"Will she keep her word I wonder?" +</P> + +<P> +"She will!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Cruel?" she echoed. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! To me!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"If I am cruel to you, my friend"—she said, gently, "it is only to be +more kind!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +He guessed her intent. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You have a difficult case?" he queried. +</P> + +<P> +"More than difficult!" replied Ardini—"Beyond human skill! Perhaps not +beyond the mysterious power we call God." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Ardini gave an expressive gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"You approve—you tolerate it?" exclaimed Rivardi angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +Ardini bent his brows yet more frowningly. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVI +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Gently Aloysius laid his hand on her bent head. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +He stroked her shining hair with a careful tenderness as one might +stroke the soft plumage of a bird. +</P> + +<P> +"And you?" he said, in a low tone—"What of you?" +</P> + +<P> +She raised her eyes to his. A light of heaven's own radiance shone in +those blue orbs—an angelic peace beyond all expression. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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>I</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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She turned to go. +</P> + +<P> +"And your own Palazzo d'Oro?—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +He bent his head. +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing shall!" he answered. +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Magna opera Domini; exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +But at his words she sprang up, her eyes glowing with a great joy. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Morgana put an arm about her. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am +Master of the World!" +</P> + +<P> +She shrank and shivered, and a faint sobbing cry escaped her. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"You will keep that as a souvenir of this strange marriage?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought so"—Gwent answered, cautiously—"And he with her! But—one +never knows—" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Marriage isn't everything," said Gwent—"To some it may be +heaven,—but to others—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—I wonder!" Gwent responded vaguely,—and the subject dropped. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And she meant it, having no predominant idea in her mind save that of +making her elect beloved happy. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"I said it was a place for love!" he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"You were right! And love inhabits it—love of the purest, most +unselfish nature—" +</P> + +<P> +"Love that is a cruel martyrdom!" he interposed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled and gave him her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Giulio!—you are quite a romancist!—you talk of angels without +believing in them!" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe in them when I look at YOU!" he said, with all an Italian's +impulsive gallantry. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is not a compliment"—he declared, vehemently; "It is a truth!" +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes dwelt on him with a wistful kindness. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +She paused, smiling at his moody expression. "And you say everything is +ready?—the 'White Eagle' is prepared for flight?" +</P> + +<P> +"She will leave the shed at a moment's touch"—he answered—"when YOU +supply the motive power!" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded comprehensively, and thought a moment. "Come to me the day +after to-morrow"—she said—"You will then have your orders." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it to be a long flight this time?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so long as to California!" she answered—"But long enough!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Morganna!" he cried in a desperate voice—"Morganna!" +</P> + +<P> +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? +</P> + +<P> +"Morgana!" he cried again, stretching out his arms in despair—"She has +gone! And alone!" +</P> + +<P> +Even as he spoke the dove-like shape was lost to sight beyond the +shining of the evening star. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="lenvoi"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +L'Envoi +</H3> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +The End +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET POWER *** + +***** This file should be named 3831-h.htm or 3831-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/3/3831/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET POWER *** + +***** This file should be named 3831.txt or 3831.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/3/3831/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. 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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 coining 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 coma 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 I" 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 Etext of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli + diff --git a/old/scrtp10.zip b/old/scrtp10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef6757d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/scrtp10.zip |