The Secret Power, Marie Corelli [good romance books to read .TXT] 📗

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