The Secret Power by Marie Corelli (the reading strategies book txt) 📕

Rivardi flushed red.

“I know!” he said, curtly—“I never forget it. But money is not everything.”

Gaspard’s mobile French face lit up with a mirthful smile.

“It is most things!” he replied—“Without it even science is crippled. And this lady has so much of it!—it seems without end! Again,—it is seldom one meets with money and brains and beauty—all together!”

“Beauty?” Rivardi queried.

“Why, yes!—beauty that only flashes out at moments—of all beauty the most fascinating! A face that is always beautiful is fatiguing,- it is the changeful face with endless play of expression that enthralls,-or so it is to me!” And Gaspard gave an eloquent gesture—“This lady we both work for seems to have no lovers—but if she had, not one of them could ever forget her!”

Rivardi was silent.

“I should not wonder,” ventured Gaspard, presently—“if—while we slept—she had seen her ‘Brazen City’!”

Rivardi uttered something like an oath.

“Impossible!” he exclaimed—“She would have awakened us!”

“If she could, no doubt!” agreed Gaspard—“But if she could not, how then?”

For a moment Rivardi looked puzzled,—then he dismissed his companion’s suggestion with a contemptuous shrug.

“Basta! There is no ‘Brazen City’! When she heard the old tradition she was like a child with a fairy tale—a child who, reading of strawberries growing in the winter snow, goes out forthwith to find them—she did not really believe in it—but it pleased her to imagine she did. The mere sight of the arid empty desert has been enough for her.”

“We certainly heard bells”—said Gaspard.

“In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for a long while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. I have heard on the ‘wireless,’ sounds that do not seem of this world at all.”

“So have I”—said Gaspard—“And though it may be my own brain talking, I’m not so obstinate in my own knowledge as to doubt a possible existing means of communication between one continent and another apart from OUR special ‘wireless.’ In fact I’m sure there is something of the kind,—though where it comes from and how it travels I cannot say. But certain people get news of occurring events somehow, from somewhere, long before it reaches Paris or London. I dare say the lady we are with could tell us something about it.”

“Her powers are not limitless!” said Rivardi—“She is only a woman after all!”

Gaspard said no more, and there followed a silence,—a silence all the more tense and deep because of the amazing swiftness with which the “White Eagle” kept its steady level flight, making no sound despite the rapidity of its movement. Very gradually the darkness of night lifted, as it were, one corner of its sable curtain to show a grey peep-hole of dawn, and soon it became apparent that the ship was already far away from the mysterious land of Egypt—“The land shadowing with wings”—and was flying over the sea. There was something terrific in the complete noiselessness with which it sped through the air, and Rivardi, though now he had a good grip on his nerves, hardly dared allow himself to think of the adventurous business on which he was engaged. A certain sense of pride and triumph filled him, to realise that he had been selected from many applicants for the post he occupied—and yet with all his satisfaction there went a lurking spirit of envy and disappointed ambition. If he could win Morgana’s love—if he could make the strange elfin creature with all her genius and inventive ability his own,—why then!—what then? He would share in her fame,—aye, more than share it, since it is the way of the world to give its honour to no woman whose life is connected with that of a man. The man receives the acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserve it, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, and prefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have their hardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands. When Roger Seaton confessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend and subdue Morgana’s intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, not only for himself but for all men. Absolutely disinterested love for a brilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any male nature,—men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior. Thus women who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability have to choose one of two alternatives— love, or what is called love, and child-bearing,—or fame, and lifelong loneliness.

The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic, had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana’s complex character such as it appeared to him,—and had almost come to the conclusion that if he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her that wifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman’s happiness than all the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment. He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,—but he chose to forget that women’s mental outlook has, in these modern days, been greatly widened,—whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy to say. Even for men “much knowledge increaseth sorrow,”—and it may be hinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggerated sentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax the brain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of the calm which is essential to health. Though it has to be admitted that married life is less peaceful than hard study—and the bright woman who recently said, “A husband is more trying than any problem in Euclid,” no doubt had good cause for the remark. Married or single, woman both physically and mentally is the greatest sufferer in the world—her time of youth and unthinking joy is brief, her martyrdom long—and it is hardly wonderful that she goes so often “to the bad” when there is so little offered to attract her towards the good.

Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition, pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and as mother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoring his once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its former renown. He saw no reason why this should not be,—yet— even while he indulged in his thoughts of her, he knew well enough that behind her small delicate personality there was a powerful intellectual “lens,” so to speak, through which she examined the ins and outs of character in man or woman; and he felt that he was always more or less under this “lens,” looked at as carefully as a scientist might study bacteria, and that as a matter of fact it was as unlikely as the descent of the moon-goddess to Endymion that she would ever submit herself to his possession. Nevertheless, he argued, stranger things had happened!

The grey peep of dawn widened into a silver rift, and the silver rift streamed into a bar of gold, and the gold broke up into long strands of blush pink and pale blue like festal banners hanging in heaven’s bright pavilion, and the “White Eagle” flew on swiftly, steadily, securely, among all the glories of the dawn like a winged car for the conveyance of angels. And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far from the realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the door of her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white, her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.

“What a perfect morning!” she exclaimed—“All things seem new! And I have had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean—surely we are over the sea?”

“We are some fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean”— answered Rivardi, looking at her as he spoke with unconcealed admiration;—never, he thought, had she seemed so charming, youthful and entirely lovable—“I am glad you have rested—you look quite refreshed and radiant. After all, it is a test of endurance—this journey to Egypt and back.”

“Do you think so?” and Morgana smiled—“It should be nothing—it really is nothing! We ought to be quite ready and willing to travel like this for a week on end! But you and Gaspard are not yet absolutely sure of our motive power!—you cannot realise that as long as we keep going so long will our ‘going’ force be generated without effort—yet surely it is proved!”

Gaspard lifted his eyes towards her where she stood like a little white Madonna in a shrine.

“Yes, Madama, it is proved!” he said—“But the secret of its proving?—”

“Ah! That, for the present, remains locked up in the mystery box— here!” and she tapped her forehead with her finger—“The world is not ready for it. The world is a destructive savage, loving evil rather than good, and it would work mischief more than usefulness with such a force—if it knew! Now I will dress, and give you breakfast in ten minutes.”

She waved a hand to them and disappeared, returning after a brief interval attired in her “aviation” costume and cap. Soon she had prepared quite a tempting breakfast on the table.

“Thermos coffee!” she said, gaily—“All hot and hot! We could have had Thermos tea, but I think coffee more inspiriting. Tea always reminds me of an afternoon at a country vicarage where good ladies sit round a table and talk of babies and rheumatism. Kind,—but so dull! Come—you must take it in turns—you, Marchese, first, while Gaspard steers—and Gaspard next—just as you did last night at what we called dinner, before you fell asleep! Men DO fall asleep after dinner you know!—it’s quite ordinary. Married men especially!—I think they do it to avoid conversation with their wives!”

She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfully as Rivardi seated himself opposite to her at table.

“Well, I am not married”—he said, rather petulantly—“Nor is Gaspard. But some day we may fall into temptation and NOT be delivered from evil.”

“Ah yes!” and Morgana shook her fair head at him with mock dolefulness—“And that will be very sad! Though nowadays it will not bind you to a fettered existence. Marriage has ceased to be a sacrament,—you can leave your wives as soon as you get tired of them,—or—they can leave YOU!”

Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes.

“You read the modern Press”—he said—“A pity you do!”

“Yes—it’s a pity anyone reads it!”—she answered—“But what are we to read? If low-minded and illiterate scavengers are employed to write for the newspapers instead of well-educated men, we must put up with the mud the scavengers collect. We know well enough that every journal is more or less a calendar of lies,—all the same we cannot blind ourselves to the great change that has come over manners and morals—particularly in relation to marriage. Of course the Press always chronicles the worst items bearing on the subject—

”

“The Press is chiefly to blame for it”—declared Rivardi.

“Oh, I think not!” and Morgana smiled as she poured out a second cup of coffee—“The Press cannot create a new universe. No—I think human nature alone is to blame—if blame