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!"
A laugh, clear and cold as a sleigh-bell on a frosty night rang out on the silence.
"Why did you run away from me?"
He replied at once, and brusquely.
"Because I was tired of you!"
She laughed again. A strange white elf as she looked In the spreading moonbeams she was woman to the core, and the disdainful movement of her small uplifted head plainly expressed her utter indifference to his answer.
"I followed you"—she said—"I knew I should find you! What are you doing up here? Shamming to be ill?"
"Precisely! 'Sham' is as much in my line as yours. I have to 'pretend' in order to be real!"
"Paradoxical as usual!" and she shrugged her shoulders—"Anyway you've chosen a good place to do your shamming in. It's quite lovely up here,—much better than the Plaza. I am at the Plaza."
"Automobile and all I suppose!" he said, sarcastically—"How many servants?—how many boxes with how many dresses?"
She laughed again.
"That's no concern of yours!" she replied—"I am my own mistress."
"More's the pity!" he retorted.
They faced each other. The moon, now soaring high in clear space, shed a luminous rain of silver over all the visible breadth of wild country, and their two figures looked mere dark silhouettes half drowned in the pearly glamour.
"It's worth travelling all the long miles to see!" she declared, stretching her arms out with an enthusiastic gesture—"Oh, beautiful big moon of California! I'm glad I came!"
He was silent.
"You are not glad!" she continued—"You are a bear-man in hiding, and the moon says nothing to you!"
"It says nothing because it IS nothing"—he answered, impatiently—"It is a dead planet without heart,—a mere shell of extinct volcanoes where fire once burned, and its light is but the reflection of the sun on its barren surface. It is like all women,—but mostly like YOU!"
She made him a sweeping curtsy so exquisitely graceful that the action resembled nothing so much as the sway of a lily in a light wind.
"Thanks, gentle Knight!—flower of chivalry!" she said—"I see you love me in spite of yourself!"
He made a quick stride towards her,—then stopped. "Love you!" he echoed,—then laughed loudly and derisively-"Great God! Love you? YOU? If I did I should be mad! When will you learn the truth of me?—that women are less in my estimation than the insects crawling on a blade of grass or spawning in a stagnant pond?—that they have no power to move me to the smallest pulse of passion or desire?—and that you, of all your sex, seem to my mind the most—"
"Hateful?" she suggested, smilingly.
"No—the most complete and unmitigated bore!"
"Dreadful!" and she made a face at him like that of a naughty child,—then she sank down on the sun-baked turf in an easy half-reclining attitude—"It's certainly much worse to be a bore than to be hated. Hate is quite a live sentiment,—besides it always means, or HAS meant—love! You can't hate anything that is quite indifferent to you, but of course you CAN be bored! YOU are bored by me and I am bored by YOU!—and we are absolutely indifferent to each other! What a comedy it is! Isn't it?"
He stood still and sombre, gazing down at the figure resting on the ground at his feet, its white garments gathering about it as though they were sentiently aware that they must keep the line of classic beauty in every fold.
"Boredom is the trouble"—she went on—"No one escapes it. The very babies of to-day are bored. We all know too much. People used to be happy because they were ignorant—they had no sort of idea why they were born, or what they came into the world for. Now they've learned the horrid truth that they are only here just as the trees and flowers are here—to breed other trees and flowers and then go out of it—for no purpose, apparently. They are 'disillusioned.' They say 'what's the use?' To put up with so much trouble and labour for the folks coming after us whom we shall never see,—it seems perfectly foolish and futile. They used to believe in another life after this—but that hope has been knocked out of them. Besides it's quite open to question whether any of us would care to live again. Probably it might mean more boredom. There's really nothing left. That's why so many of us go reckless—it's just to escape being bored."
He listened in cold silence. After a pause—
"Have you done?" he said.
She looked up at him. The moonbeams set tiny frosty sparkles in her eyes.
"Have I done?" she echoed—"No,—not quite! I love talking—and it's a new and amusing sensation for me to talk to a man in his shirt-sleeves on a hill in California by the light of the moon! So wild and picturesque you know! All the men I've ever met have been dressed to death! Have you had your dinner?"
"I never dine," he replied.
"Really! Don't you eat and drink at all?"
"I live simply,"—he said—"Bread and milk are enough for me, and I have these."
She laughed and clapped her hands.
"Like a baby!" she exclaimed—"A big bearded baby! It's too delicious! And you're doing all this just to get away from ME! What a compliment!"
With angry impetus he bent over her reclining figure and seized her two hands.
"Get up!" he said harshly—"Don't lie there like a fallen angel!"
She yielded to his powerful grasp as he pulled her to her feet—then looked at him still laughing.
"Plenty of muscle!" she said—"Well?"
He held her hands still and gripped them fiercely. She gave a little cry.
"Don't! You forget my rings,—they hurt!"
At once he loosened his hold, and gazed moodily at her small fingers on which two or three superb diamond circlets glittered like drops of dew.
"Your rings!" he said—"Yes—I forgot them! Wonderful rings!—emblems of your inordinate vanity and vulgar wealth—I forgot them! How they sparkle in this wide moonlight, don't they? Just a drifting of nature's refuse matter, turned into jewels for women! Strange ordinance of strange elements! There!" and he let her hands go free—"They are not injured, nor are you."
She was silent pouting her under-lip like a spoilt child, and rubbing one finger where a ring had dinted her flesh.
"So you actually think I have come here to get away from YOU?" he went on—"Well for once your ineffable conceit is mistaken. You think yourself a personage of importance—but you are nothing,—less than nothing to me, I never give you a thought—I have come here to study—to escape from the crazy noise of modern life—the hurtling to and fro of the masses of modern humanity,—I want to work out certain problems which may revolutionise the world and its course of living—"
"Why revolutionise it?" she interrupted—"Who wants it to be revolutionised? We are all very well as we are—it's a breeding place and a dying place—voila tout!"
She gave a French shrug of her shoulder and waved her hands expressively. Then she pushed back her flowing hair,—the moonbeams trickled like water over it, making a network of silver on gold.
"What did you come here for?" he asked, abruptly.
"To see you!" she answered smilingly—"And to tell you that I'm 'on the war-path' as they say, taking scalps as I go. This means that I'm travelling about,—possibly I may go to Europe—"
"To pick up a bankrupt nobleman!" he suggested.
She laughed.
"Dear, no! Nothing quite so stupid! Neither noblemen nor bankrupts attract me. No! I'm doing a scientific 'prowl,' like you. I believe I've discovered something with which I could annihilate you—so!" and she made a round O of her curved fingers and blew through it—"One breath!—from a distance, too! and hey presto!—the bear-man on the hills of California eating bread and milk is gone!—a complete vanishing trick—no more of him anywhere!" The bear-man, as she called him, gloomed upon her with a scowl.
"You'd better leave such things alone!" he said, angrily—"Women have no business with science."
"No, of course not!" she agreed—"Not in men's opinion. That's why they never mention Madame Curie without the poor Monsieur! SHE found radium and he didn't,—but 'he' is always first mentioned."
He gave an impatient gesture.
"Enough of all this!" he said—"Do you know it's nearly ten o'clock at night?—I suppose you do know!—and the people at the Plaza—"
"THEY know!"—she interrupted, nodding sagaciously—"They know I am rich—rich—rich! It doesn't matter what I do, because I am rich! I might stay out all night with a bear-man, and nobody would say a word against me, because I am rich! I might sit on the roof of the Plaza and swing my legs over the visitors' windows and it would be called 'charming' because I am rich! I can appear at the table d'hote in a bath-wrap and eat peas with a hair-pin if I like—and my conduct will be admired, because I am rich! When I go to Europe my photo will be in all the London pictorials with the grinning chorus-girls, because I am rich! And I shall be called 'the beautiful,' 'the exquisite'—'the fascinating' by all the unwashed penny journalists because I am rich! O-ooh!" and she gave a comic little screw of her mouth and eyes—"It's great fun to be rich if you know what to do with your riches!"
"Do YOU?" he enquired, sarcastically.
"I think so!" here she put her head on one side like a meditative bird and her wonderful hair fell aslant like a golden wing—"I amuse myself—as much as I can. I learn all that can be done with greedy, stupid humanity for so much cash down! I would,"—here she paused, and with a sudden feline swiftness of movement came close up to him—"I would have married YOU!—if you would have had me! I would have given you all my money to play with,—you could have got everything you want for your inventions and experiments, and I would have helped you,—and then—then—you could have blown up the world and me with it, so long as you gave me time to look at the magnificent sight! And I wouldn't have married you for love, mind you!—only for curiosity!"
He withdrew from her a couple of paces,—a glimmer of white teeth between his dark moustache and beard gave his face the expression of a snarl more than a smile.
"For curiosity!" she repeated, stretching out a hand and touching his arm—"To see what the thing that calls itself a man is made of! I did my very best with you, didn't I?—uncouth as you always were and are!—but I did my best! And all Washington thought it was settled! Why wouldn't you do what Washington expected?"
The light of the moon fell full on her upturned face. It was a wonderful face,—not beautiful according to the monotonous press-camera type, but radiant with such a light of daring intelligence as to make beauty itself seem cheap and meretricious in comparison with its glowing animation. He moved away from her another step, and shook his arm free from her touch.
"Why wouldn't you?" she reiterated softly; then with a sudden ripple of laughter, she clasped her hands and uplifted them in an attitude of prayer—"Why wouldn't he? Oh, big moon of California, why? Oh, pagan gods and goddesses and fauns and fairies, tell me why? Why wouldn't he?"
He gave her a glance of cool contempt.
"You should have been on the stage!" he said.
"'All the world's a stage,'" she quoted, letting her upraised arms fall languidly at her sides—"And ours is a real comedy! Not 'As You Like It' but 'As You Don't Like It!' Poor Shakespeare!—he never imagined such characters as we are! Now, suppose you had satisfied the expectations of all Washington City and married me, of course we should have bored each other dreadfully—but with plenty of money we could have run away from each other whenever we liked—they all do it nowadays!"
"Yes—they all do it!" he repeated, mechanically.
"They don't 'love' you know!" she went on—"Love is too much of a bore. YOU would find it so!"
"I should, indeed!" he said, with sudden energy—"It would be worse than any imaginable torture!—to be 'loved' and looked after, and watched and coddled and kissed—"
"Oh, surely no woman would want to kiss you!" she exclaimed—"Never! THAT would be too much of a good thing!"
And she gave a little peal of laughter, merry as the lilt of a sky-lark in the dawn. He stared at her angrily, moved by an insensate desire to seize her and throw her down the hill like a bundle of rubbish.
"To kiss YOU," she said, "one would have to wear a lip-shield of leather! As well kiss a bunch of nettles! No, no! I have quite a nice little mouth—soft and rosy! I shouldn't like to spoil it by scratching it against yours! It's curious how all men imagine women LIKE to kiss them! They never grasp an idea of the frequent unpleasantness of the operation! Now I'm going!"
"Thank God!" he ejaculated fervently.
"And don't worry yourself"—she continued, airily—"I shall not stay long at the Plaza."
"Thank God again!" he interpolated.
"It would be too dull,—especially as I'm not shamming to be ill, like you. Besides, I have work to do!—wonderful work! and I don't believe in doing it shut up like a hermit. Humanity is my crucible! Good-night,—good-bye!"
He checked her movement by a quick, imperious gesture.
"Wait!" he said—"Before you go I want you to know a bit of my mind—"
"Is it necessary?" she queried.
"I think so," he answered—"It will save you the trouble of ever trying to see me again, which will be a relief to me, if not to you. Listen!—and look at yourself with MY eyes—"
"Too difficult!" she declared—"I can look at nothing with your eyes any more than you can with mine!"
"Madam—"
She uttered a little laughing "Oh!" and put her hand to her ears.
"Not 'Madam' for heaven's sake!" she exclaimed; "It sounds as if I were either a queen or a dressmaker!"
His sombre eyes had no smile in them.
"How should you be addressed?" he demanded, "A woman of such wealth and independence as you possess can hardly be called 'Miss' as if she were in parental leading-strings!"
She looked up at the clear dark sky where the moon hung like a huge silver air-ball.
"No, I suppose not!" she replied—"The old English word was 'Mistress.' So quaint and pretty, don't you think?"
'Oh mistress mine, where are you roaming?
Oh stay and hear! your true love's coming!'
She sang the two lines in a deliciously entrancing voice, full of youth and tenderness. With one quick stride he advanced upon her and caught her by the shoulders.
"My God, I could shake the life out of you!" he said, fiercely—"I wonder you are not afraid of me!"
She laughed, careless of his grasp.
"Why should I be? You couldn't kill me if you tried—and if you could—"
"If I could—ah, if I could!" he muttered, fiercely.
"Why then there would be another murderer added to the general world of murderers!" she said—"That's all! It's not worth it!"
Still he held her in his grip.
"See here!" he said—"Before you go I want yon to know a thing or two,—you may as well learn once for all my views on women. They're brief, but they're fixed. And they're straight! Women are nothing—just necessary for the continuation of the race—no more. They may be beautiful or homely—it's all one—they serve the same purpose. I'm under no delusions about them. Without men they are utterly useless,—mere waste on the wind! To idealise them is a stupid mistake. To think that they can do anything original, intellectual or imaginative is to set one's self down an idiot. YOU,—you the spoilt only child of one of the biggest rascal financiers in New York,—YOU, left alone in the world with a fortune so vast as to be almost criminal—you think you are something superlative in the way of women,—you play the Cleopatra,—you are convinced you can draw men after you—but it's your money that draws them,—not YOU! Can't you see that?—or are you too vain to see it? And you've no mercy on them,—you make them believe you care for them and then you throw them over like empty nutshells! That's your way! But you never fooled ME,—and you never will!"
He released her as suddenly as he had grasped her,—she drew her white draperies round her shoulders with a statuesque grace, and lifted her head, smiling.
"Empty nutshells are a very good description of men who come after a woman for her money"—she observed, placidly—"and it's quite natural that the woman should throw them over her shoulder. There's nothing in them—not even a flavour! No—never fooled you,—you fooled yourself—you are fooling yourself now, only you don't know it. But there!—let's finish talking! I like the romance of the situation—you in your shirt-sleeves on a hill in California, and I in silken stuff and diamonds paying you a moonlight visit—it's really quite novel and charming!—but it can't go on for ever! Just now you said you wanted me to know a thing or two, and I presume you have explained yourself. What you think or what you don't think about women doesn't interest me. I'm one of the 'wastes on the wind!' I shall not aid in the continuation of the race,—heaven forbid! The race is too stupid and too miserable to merit continuance. Everything has been done for it that can be done, over and over again, from the beginning—till now,—and now—NOW!" She paused, and despite himself the tone of her voice sent a thrill through his blood of something like fear.
"NOW?—well! What NOW?" he demanded.
She lifted one hand and pointed upwards. Her face in the moonbeams looked austere and almost spectral in outline.
"Now—the Change!" she answered—"The Change when all things shall be made new!"
A silence followed her words,—a strange and heavy silence.
It was broken by her voice hushed to an extreme softness, yet clearly audible.
"Good-night!—good-bye!"
He turned impatiently away to avoid further leave-taking—then, on a sudden impulse, his mood changed.
"Morgana!"
The call echoed through emptiness. She was gone. He called again,—the long vowel in the strange name sounding like "Mor-ga-ar-na" as a shivering note on the G string of a violin may sound at the conclusion of a musical phrase. There was no reply. He was—as he had desired to be,—alone.
"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.