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.