"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, p.r.o.nouncing 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 a.s.sume--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 a.s.sistant 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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER V

That evening at sunset Manella made her way towards the hill and the "House of the Dying," moved by she knew not what strange impulse. She had no excuse whatever for going; she knew that the man living up there in whom she was so much interested had as much food for three days as he asked for or desired, and that he was likely to be vexed at the very sight of her. Yet she had an eager wish to tell him something about the wonderful little creature with lightning eyes who had left the Plaza that morning and had told her, Manella, that she was "quite beautiful."

Pride, and an innocent feminine vanity thrilled her; "if another woman thinks so, it must be so,"--she argued, being aware that women seldom admire each other. She walked swiftly, with head bent,--and was brought to a startled halt by meeting and almost running against the very individual she sought, who in his noiseless canvas shoes and with his panther-like tread had come upon her unawares. Checked in her progress she stood still, her eyes quickly lifted, her lips apart. In her adoration of the strength and magnificent physique of the stranger whom she knew only as a stranger, she thought he looked splendid as a G.o.d descending from the hill. Far from feeling G.o.d-like, he frowned as he saw her.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, brusquely.

The rich colour warmed her cheeks to a rose-red that matched the sunset.

"I was going--to see if you--if you wanted anything"--she stammered, almost humbly.

"You know I do not"--he said--"You can spare yourself the trouble."

She drew herself up with a slight air of offence.

"If you want nothing why do you come down into the valley?" she asked.

"You say you hate the Plaza!"

"I do!" and he spoke almost vindictively--"But, at the moment, there's some one there I want to see."

Her black eyes opened inquisitively.

"A man?"