"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.