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Title: The Secret Power

Author: Marie Corelli

Release Date: March, 2003  [Etext #3831]
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[The actual date this file first posted = 10/01/01]

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THE SECRET POWER


BY MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF

"God's Good Man" "The Master Christian" "Innocent,"
"The Treasure of Heaven," etc.







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 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