The last ash of Gwent’s cigar fell to the floor, and Gwent himself rose from his chair.
“Well, I suppose we’ve had our talk out” — he said; “I came here prepared to offer you a considerable sum for your discovery — but I can’t go so far as a Government pledge. So I must leave you to it. You know” — here he hesitated— “you know a good many people would consider you mad—”
Seaton laughed.
“Oh, that goes without saying! Did you ever hear of any scientist possessing a secret drawn from the soul of nature that was not called ‘mad’ at once by his compeers and the public? I can stand THAT accusation! Pray Heaven I never get as mad as a Wall Street gambler!”
“You will, if you gamble with the lives of nations!” said Gwent.
“Let the nations beware how they gamble with their own lives!” retorted Seaton— “You say war is a method of money-making — let them take heed how they touch money coined in human blood! I — one man only, — but an instrument of the Supreme Intelligence, — I say and swear there shall be no more wars!”
As he uttered these words there was something almost supernatural in the expression of his face — his attitude, proudly erect, offered a kind of defiance to the world, — and involuntarily Gwent, looking at him, thought of the verse in the Third Psalm —
“I laid me down and slept; I awaked for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about.”
“No — he would not be afraid!” Gwent mused— “He is a man for whom there is no such thing as fear! But — if it knew — the world might be afraid of HIM!”
Aloud he said— “Well, you may put an end to war, but you will never put an end to men’s hatred and envy of one another, and if they can’t ‘let the steam off’ in fighting, they’ll find some other way which may be worse. If you come to consider it, all nature is at war with itself, — it’s a perpetual struggle to live, and it’s evident that the struggle was intended and ordained as universal law. Life would be pretty dull without effort — and effort means war.”
“War against what? — against whom?” asked Seaton.
“Against whatever or whoever opposes the effort,” replied Gwent, promptly— “There must be opposition, otherwise effort would be unnecessary. My good fellow, you’ve got an idea that you can alter the fixed plan of things, but you can’t. The cleverest of us are only like goldfish in a glass bowl — they see the light through, but they cannot get to it. The old ship of the world will sail on its appointed way to its destined port, — and the happiest creatures are those who are content to sail with it in the faith that God is at the helm!” He broke off, smiling at his own sudden eloquence, then added— “By-the-by, where is your laboratory?”
“Haven’t got one!” replied Seaton, briefly.
“What! Haven’t got one! Why, how do you make your stuff?”
Seaton laughed.
“You think I’m going to tell you? Mr. Senator Gwent, you take me for a greater fool than I am! My ‘stuff’ needs neither fire nor crucible, — the formula was fairly complete before I left Washington, but I wanted quiet and solitude to finish what I had begun. It is finished now. That’s why I sent for you to make the proposition which you say you cannot carry through.”
“Finished, is it?” queried Gwent, abstractedly— “And you have it here? — in a finished state?”
Seaton nodded affirmatively.
“Then I suppose” — said Gwent with a nervous laugh— “you could ‘finish’ ME, if it suited your humour?”
“I could, certainly!” and Seaton gave him quite an encouraging smile— “I could reduce Mr. Senator Gwent into a small pinch of grey dust in about forty seconds, without pain! You wouldn’t feel it I assure you! It would be too swift for feeling.”
“Thanks! Much obliged!” said Gwent— “I won’t trouble you this morning! I rather enjoy being alive.”
“So do I!” declared Seaton, still smiling— “I only state what I COULD do.”
Gwent stood at the door of the hut and surveyed the scenery.
“You’ve a fine, wild view here” — he said— “I think I shall stay at the Plaza a day or two before returning to Washington. There’s a very attractive girl there.”
“Oh, you mean Manella” — said Seaton, carelessly; “Yes, she’s quite a beauty. She’s the maid, waitress or ‘help’ of some sort at the hotel.”
“She’s a good ‘draw’ for male visitors” — said Gwent— “Many a man I know would pay a hundred dollars a day to have her wait upon him!”
“Would YOU?” asked Seaton, amused.
“Well! — perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her eyes are the finest I’ve ever seen.”
Seaton made no comment.
“You’ll come and dine with me to-night, won’t you?” went on Gwent— “You can spare me an hour or two of your company?”
“No, thanks” — Seaton replied— “Don’t think me a churlish brute — but I don’t like hotels or the people who frequent them. Besides — we’ve done our business.”
“Unfortunately there was no business doing!” said Gwent— “Sorry I couldn’t take it on.”
“Don’t be sorry! I’ll take it on myself when the moment comes. I would have preferred the fiat of a great government to that of one unauthorised man — but if there’s no help for it then the one man must act.”
Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be impressive.
“Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!” he said— “If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very planet we live on, some day!”
“Very possible!” answered Seaton, lightly— “But it wouldn’t be missed! Come, — I’ll walk with you half way down the hill.”
He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing sun, for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that afforded by the two men, — the conventionally clothed, stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their appearance in her own special way.
“Poof!” she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air— “He is so ugly! — that one man — so dry and yellow and old! But the other — he is a god!”
And she snapped her fingers again, — then kissed them towards the object of her adoration, — an object as unconscious and indifferent as any senseless idol ever worshipped by blind devotees.
CHAPTER XIII
On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors in the dining-room, and Gwent imagined he knew the reason why. Her beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and admiration of men, whose open attentions were likely to be embarrassing to her, and annoying to her employers. She was therefore kept very much out of the way, serving on the upper floors, and was only seen flitting up and down the staircase or passing through the various corridors and balconies. However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat made even the hotel lounge, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play, almost unbearable, Gwent, strolling forth into the garden, found her there standing near a thick hedge of myrtle which exhaled a heavy scent as if every leaf were being crushed between invisible fingers. She looked up as she saw him approaching and smiled.
“You found your friend well?” she said.
“Very well, indeed!” replied Gwent, promptly— “In fact, I never knew he was ill!”
Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of her many fascinating gestures.
“He is not ill” — she said— “He only pretends! Th
at is all! He has some reason for pretending. I think it is love!”
Gwent laughed.
“Not a bit of it! He’s the last man in the world to worry himself about love!”
Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air.
“Ah, perhaps you do not know!” And she waved her hands expressively. “There was a wonderful lady came here to see him some weeks ago — she stole up the hill at night, like a spirit — a little, little fairy woman with golden hair—”
Gwent pricked up his ears and stood at attention.
“Yes? Really? You don’t say so! ‘A little fairy woman’? Sounds like a story!”
“She wore the most lovely clothes” — went on Manella, clasping her hands in ecstasy— “She stayed at the Plaza one night — I waited upon her. I saw her in her bed — she had skin like satin, and eyes like blue stars — her hair fell nearly to her ankles — she was like a dream! And she went up the hill by moonlight all by herself, to find HIM!”
Gwent listened with close interest.
“And I presume she found him?”
Manella nodded, and a sigh escaped her.
“Oh, yes, she found him! He told me that. And I am sure — something tells me HERE” and she pressed one hand against her heart— “by the way he spoke — that he loves her!”
“You seem to be a very observant young woman,” said Gwent, smiling— “One would think you were in love with him yourself!”
She raised her large dark eyes to his with perfect frankness.
“I am!” she said— “I see no shame in that! He is a fine man — it is good to love him!”
Gwent was completely taken aback. Here was primitive passion with a vengeance! — passion which admitted its own craving without subterfuge. Manella’s eyes were still uplifted in a kind of childlike confidence.
“I am happy to love him!” she went on— “I wish only to serve him. He does not love ME — oh, no! — he loves HER! But he hates her too — ah!” and she gave a little shivering movement of her shoulders— “There is no love without hate! — and when one loves and hates with the same heart-beat, THAT is a love for life and death!” She checked herself abruptly — then with a simplicity which was not without dignity added— “I am saying too much, perhaps? But you are his friend — and I think he must be very lonely up there!”
Mr. Senator Gwent was perplexed. He had not looked to stumble on a romantic episode, yet here was one ready made to his hand. His nature was ill attuned to romance of any kind, but he felt a certain compassion for this girl, so richly dowered with physical beauty, and smitten with love for a man like Roger Seaton who, according to his own account, had no belief in love’s existence. And the “fairy woman” she spoke of — who could that be but Morgana Royal? After his recent interview with Seaton his thoughts were rather in a whirl, and he sought for a bit of commonplace to which he could fasten them without the risk of their drifting into greater confusion. Yet that bit of commonplace was hard to find with a woman’s lovely passionate eyes looking straight into his, and the woman herself, a warm-blooded embodiment of exquisite physical beauty, framed like a picture among the scented myrtle boughs under the dusky violet sky, where glittered a few stars with that large fiery brilliance so often seen in California. He coughed — it was a convenient thing to cough — it cleared the throat and helped utterance.
“I — I — well! — I hardly think he is lonely” — he said at last, hesitatingly— “Perhaps you don’t know it — but he’s a very clever man — an inventor — a great thinker with new ideas—”
He stopped. How could this girl understand him? What would she know of “inventors” — and “thinkers with new ideas”? A trifle embarrassed, he looked at her. She nodded her dark head and smiled.
“I know!” she said— “He is a god!”
Sam Gwent almost jumped. A god! Oh, these women! Of what fantastic exaggerations they are capable!
“A god!” she repeated, nodding again, complacently; “He can do anything! I feel that all the time. He could rule the whole world!”
Gwent’s nerves “jumped” for the second time. Roger Seaton’s own words— “I’ll be master of the world” knocked repeatingly on his brain with an uncomfortable thrill. He gathered up the straying threads of his common sense and twisted them into a tough string.
“That’s all nonsense!” he said, as gruffly as he could— “He’s not a god by any means! I’m afraid you think too much of him, Miss — Miss — er—”
“Soriso,” finished Manella, gently— “Manella Soriso.”
“Thank you!” and Gwent sought for a helpful cigar which he lit— “You have a very charming name! Yes — believe me, you think too much of him!”
“You say that? But — are you not his friend?”
Her tone was reproachful.
But Gwent was now nearly his normal business self again.
“No, — I am scarcely his friend” — he replied—”’Friend’ is a big word, — it implies more than most men ever mean. I just know him — I’ve met him several times, and I know he worked for a while under Edison — and — and that’s about all. Then I THINK” — he was cautious here— “I THINK I’ve seen him at the house of a very wealthy lady in New York — a Miss Royal—”
“Ah!” exclaimed Manella— “That is the name of the fairy woman who came here!”
Gwent went on without heeding her.
“She, too, is very clever, — she is also an inventor and a scientist — and if it was she who came here — (I daresay it was!) it was probably because she wished to ask his advice and opinion on some of the difficult things she studies—”
Manella snapped her fingers as though they were castanets.
“Ah — bah!” she exclaimed— “Not at all! No difficult thing takes a woman out by moonlight, all in soft white and diamonds to see a man! — no difficult thing at all, except to tempt him to love! Yes! That is the way it is done! I begin to learn! And you, if you are not his friend, what are you here for?”
Gwent began to feel impatient with this irrepressible “prize” beauty.
“I came to see him at his own request on business;” he answered curtly— “The business is concluded and I go away to-morrow.”
Manella was silent. The low chirping of a cicada hidden in the myrtle thicket made monotonous sweetness on the stillness.
Moved by some sudden instinct which he did not attempt to explain to himself, Gwent decided to venture on a little paternal advice.
“Now don’t you fly off in a rage at what I’m going to say,” — he began, slowly— “You’re only a child to me — so I’m just taking the liberty of talking to you as a child. Don’t give too much of your time or your thought to the man you call a ‘god.’ He’s no more a god than I am. But I tell you one thing — he’s a dangerous customer!”
Manella’s great bright eyes opened wide like stars in the darkness.
“Dangerous? — How? — I do not understand — !”
“Dangerous!” — repeated Gwent, shaking his head at her— “Not to you, perhaps, — for you probably wouldn’t mind if he killed you, so long as he kissed you first! Oh, yes, I know the ways of women! God made them trusting animals, ready to slave all their lives for the sake of a caress. YOU are one of that kind — you’d willingly make a door-mat of yourself for Seaton to wipe his boots on. I don’t mean that he’s dangerous in that way, because though I might think him so, YOU wouldn’t. No, — what I mean is that he’s dangerous to himself — likely to run risks of his life—”
Here he paused, checked by the sudden terror in the beautiful eyes that stared at him.
“His life!” and Manella’s voice trembled— “You think he is here to kill himself—”
“No, no — bless my soul, he doesn’t INTEND to kill himself” — said Gwent, testily— “He’s not such a fool as all that! Now look here! — try and be a sensible girl! The man is busy with an invention — a discovery — which might do him harm — I don’t say it
WILL — but it MIGHT. You’ve heard of bombs, haven’t you? — timed to explode at a given moment?”
Manella nodded — her lips trembled, and she clasped her hands nervously across her bosom.
“Well! — I believe — I won’t say it for certain, — that he’s got something worse than that!” said Gwent, impressively— “And that’s why he was chosen to live up on that hill in the ‘hut of the dying’ away from everybody. See? And — of course — anything may happen at any moment. He’s plucky enough, and is not the sort of man to involve any other man in trouble — and that’s why he stays alone. Now you know! So you can put away your romantic notions of his being ‘in love’! A very good thing for him if he were! It might draw him away from his present occupation. In fact, the best that could happen to him would be that you should make him fall in love with YOU!”
She gave a little cry.
“With ME?”
“Yes, with you! Why not? Why don’t you manage it? A beautiful woman like you could win the game in less than a week?”
She shook her head sorrowfully.
“You do not know him!” she said— “But — HE knows!”
“Knows what?”
She gave a despairing little gesture.
“That I love him!”
“Ah! That’s a pity!” said Gwent— “Men are curious monsters in their love-appetites; they always refuse the offered dish and ask for something that isn’t in the bill of fare. You should have pretended to hate him!”
“I could not pretend THAT!” said Manella, sadly— “But if I could, it would not matter. He does not want a woman.”
“Oh, doesn’t he?” Gwent was amused at her quaint way of putting it. “Well, he’s the first man I ever heard of, that didn’t! That’s all bunkum, my good girl! Probably he’s crying for the moon!”
“What is that?” she asked, wistfully.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 879