The Secret Power by Marie Corelli (dark academia books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Marie Corelli
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âButâdidnât he LOVE her?â Lydia Herbert put the question almost imperatively.
Mr. Sam Gwent raised his eyebrows quizzically. âI guess you came out of the Middle Ages!â he observedââWhatâs âloveâ? Did you ever know a woman with millions of money who got âlovedâ? Not a bit of it! Her MONEY is lovedâbut not herself. Sheâs the encumbrance to the cash.â
âThenâthenâyou mean to tell me Jack was only after the moneyâ?â
âWhat else should he be after? The woman? There are thousands of women,âall to be had for the askingâthey pitch themselves at men headlongâno hesitation or modesty about them nowadays! Jackâs asking would never have been refused by any one of them. But the millions of Morgana Royal are not to be got every day!â
Miss Herbertâs rather thin lips tightened into a close line,âshe flicked some light tear-drops away from her eyes with a handkerchief as fine as a cobweb delicately perfumed, and stood silently looking out on the view from the verandah.
âYou see,â pursued Gwent, in his cold, deliberate accents, âJack was ruined financially. And he has all but ruined ME. Now he has taken himself out of the way with a pistol shot, and left me to face the music for him. Morgana Royal was his only chance. She led him on,â she certainly led him on. He thought he had her,âthenâjust as he was about to pin the butterfly to his specimen card, away it flew!â
âCute butterfly!â interjected Miss Herbert.
âMaybe. Maybe not. We shall see. Anyway Jackâs game is finished.â
âAnd I suppose this is why, as you say, Morgana has gone off âin the midst of many social dutiesâ? Was Jack one of her social duties?â
Gwent gazed at her with an unrevealing placidity.
âNo. Not exactly,â he repliedââI give her credit for not knowing anything of his intention to clear out. Though I donât think she would have tried to alter his intention if she had.â
Miss Herbert still surveyed the scenery.
âWell,âI donât feel so sorry for him now you tell me it was only the money he was afterââshe saidââI thought he was a finer characterââ
âYouâre talking âMiddle Agesâ again,ââinterrupted GwentââWho wants fine characters nowadays? The object of life is to LIVE, isnât it? And to âliveâ means to get all you can for your own pleasure and profit,âtake care of Number One!âand let the rest of the world do as it likes. Itâs quite YOUR method,âthough you pretend it isnât!â
âYouâre not very polite!â she said.
âNow, why should I be?â he pursued, argumentativelyââWhatâs politeness worth unless you want to flatter something for yourself out of somebody? I never flatter, and Iâm never polite. I know just how you feel,âyou havenât got as much money as you want and youâre looking about for a fellow who HAS. Then youâll marry himâif you can. You, as a woman, are doing just what Jack did as a man. But,â if you miss your game, I donât think youâll commit suicide. Youâre too well-balanced for that. And I think youâll succeed in your aims- -if youâre careful!â
âIf Iâm careful?â she echoed, questioningly.
âYesâif you want a millionaire. Especially the old rascal youâre after. Donât dress too âloud.â Donât show ALL your backâleave some for him to think about. Donât paint your face,âlet it alone. And be, or pretend to be, very considerate of folksâ feelings. Thatâll do!â
âHere endeth the first lesson!â she said. âThanks, preacher Gwent! I guess Iâll worry through!â
âI guess you will!ââhe answered, slowly. âI wish I was as certain of anything in the world as I am of THAT!â
She was silent. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as though she sought to conceal a smile. She watched her companion furtively as he took a cigar from a case in his pocket and lit it.
âI must go and fix up the funeral businessââhe said, âJack has gone, and his remains must be disposed of. Thatâs my affair. Just now his motherâs crying over him,âand I canât stand that sort of thing. It gets over me.â
âThen you actually HAVE a heart?â she suggested.
âI suppose so. I used to have. But it isnât the heart,âthatâs only a pumping muscle. I conclude itâs the head.â
He puffed two or three rings of smoke into the clear air.
âYou know where sheâs gone?â he asked, suddenly.
âMorgana?â
âYes.â
Lydia Herbert hesitated.
âI THINK I know,â she replied at lastââBut Iâm not sure.â
âWell, IâM sureââsaid GwentââSheâs after the special quarry that has given her the slip,âRoger Seaton. He went to California a month ago.â
âThen sheâs in California?â
âCertain!â
Mr. Gwent took another puff at his cigar.
âYou must have been in Washington when every one thought that he and she were going to make a matrimonial tie of itââhe went onââWhy, nothing else was talked of!â
She nodded.
âI know! I was there. But a man who has set his soul on science doesnât want a wife.â
âAnd what about a woman who has set her soul in the same direction?â he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
âOh, thatâs all popcorn! Morgana is not a scientist,âsheâs hardly a student. She just âimaginesâ she can do things. But she canât.â
âWell! Iâm not so sure!â and Gwent looked ruminativeââSheâs got a smart way of settling problems while the rest of us are talking about them.â
âTo her own satisfaction onlyââsaid Miss Herbert, ironically,â âCertainly not to the satisfaction of anybody else! She talks the wildest nonsense about controlling the world! Imagine it! A world controlled by Morgana!â She gave an impatient little shake of her skirts. âI do hate these sorts of mysterious, philosophising women, donât you? The old days must have been ever so much better! When it was all poetry and romance and beautiful idealism! When Dante and Beatrice were possible!â
Gwent smiled sourly.
âThey never WERE possible!â he retortedââDante was, like all poets, a regular humbug. Any peg served to hang his stuff on,âfrom a child of nine to a girl of eighteen. The stupidest thing ever written is what he called his âNew Lifeâ or âVita Nuova.â I read it once, and it made me pretty nigh sick. Think of all that twaddle about Beatrice âdenying him her most gracious salutationâ! That any creature claiming to be a man could drivel along in such a style beats me altogether!â
âItâs perfectly lovely!â declared Miss HerbertââYouâve no taste in literature, Mr. Gwent!â
âIâve no taste for humbugââhe answeredââThatâs so! I guess I know the difference between tragedy and comedy, even when I see them side by side.â He flicked a long burnt ash from his cigar. âIâve had a bit of comedy with you this morningânow Iâm going to take up tragedy! I tell you thereâs more written in Jackâs dead face than in all Dante!â
âThe tragedy of a lost gamble for money!â she said, with a scornful uplift of her eyebrows.
He nodded.
âThatâs so! It upsets the mental balance of a man more than a lost gamble for love!â
And he walked away.
Lydia Herbert, left to herself, played idly with the leaves of the vine that clambered about the high wooden columns of the verandah where she stood, admiring the sparkle of her diamond bangle which, like a thin circlet of dewdrops, glittered on her slim wrist. Now and then she looked far out to the sea gleaming in the burning sun, and allowed her thoughts to wander from herself and her elegant clothes to some of the social incidents in which she had taken part during the past couple of months. She recalled the magnificent ball given by Morgana Royal at her regal home, when all the fashion and frivolity of the noted âFour Hundredâ were assembled, and when the one whispered topic of conversation among gossips was the possibility of the marriage of one of the richest women in the world to a shabbily clothed scientist without a penny, save what he earned with considerable difficulty. Morgana herself played the part of an enigma. She laughed, shook her head, and moved her daintily attired person through the crowd of her guests with all the gliding grace of a fairy vision in white draperies showered with diamonds, but gave no hint of special favour or attention to any man, not even to Roger Seaton, the scientist in question, who stood apart from the dancing throng, in a kind of frowning disdain, looking on, much as one might fancy a forest animal looking at the last gambols of prey It purposed to devour. He had taken the first convenient interval to disappear, and as he did not return, Miss Herbert had asked her hostess what had become of him? Morgana, her cheeks flushed prettily by a just-finished dance, smiled in surprise at the question.
âHow should I know?â she repliedââI am not his keeper?â
âButâbutâyou are interested in him?â Lydia suggested.
âInterested? Oh, yes! Who would not be interested in a man who says he can destroy half the world if he wants to! He assumes to be a sort of deity, you know!âJove and his thunderbolts in the shape of a man in a badly cut suit of modern clothes! Isnât it fun!â She gave a little peal of laughter. âAnd every one in the room to-night thinks I am going to marry him!â
âAnd are you not?â
âCan you imagine it! ME, married? Lydia, Lydia, do you take me for a fool!â She laughed againâthen grew suddenly serious. âTo think of such a thing! Fancy ME!âgiving my life into the keeping of a scientific wizard who, if he chose, could reduce me to a little heap of dust in two minutes, and no one any the wiser! Thank you! The sensational press has been pretty full lately of menâs brutalities to women,âand Iâve no intention of adding myself to the list of victims! Men ARE brutes! They were born brutes, and brutes they will remain!â
âThen you donât like him?â persisted Lydia, moved, in spite of herself, by curiosity, and also by a vague wonder at the strange brilliancy of complexion and eyes which gave to Morgana a beauty quite unattainable by features onlyââYouâre not set on him?â
Morgana held up a finger.
âListen!â she saidââIsnât that a lovely valse? Doesnât the music seem to sweep round and tie us all up in a garland of melody! How far, far above all these twirling human microbes it is!âas far as heaven from earth! If we could really obey the call of that music we should rise on wings and fly to such wonderful worlds!âas it is, we can only hop round and round like motes in a sunbeam and imagine we are enjoying ourselves for an hour or two! But the music means so much more!â She paused, enrapt;âthen in a lighter tone went onâ âAnd you think I would marry? I would not marry an emperor if there were one worth havingâwhich there isnât!âand as for Roger Seaton, I certainly am not âsetâ on him as you so elegantly put it! And heâs not âsetâ on me. Weâre both âsetâ on something else!â
She was standing near an open window as she spoke, and she looked up at the dark purple sky sprinkled with stars. She continued slowly, and with emphasisâ
âI mightâpossibly I mightâhave helped him to that something elseâ if I had not discovered something more!â
She lifted her hand with a commanding gesture as though unconsciously,âthen let it drop at her side. Lydia Herbert looked at her perplexedly.
âYou talk so very strangely!â she said.
Morgana smiled.
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