"Then--then--you mean to tell me Jack was only after the money--?"
"What else should he be after? The woman? There are thousands of women,--all to be had for the asking--they pitch themselves at men headlong--no hesitation or modesty about them nowadays! Jack"s asking would never have been refused by any one of them. But the millions of Morgana Royal are not to be got every day!"
Miss Herbert"s rather thin lips tightened into a close line,--she 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.
"You see," pursued Gwent, in his cold, deliberate accents, "Jack 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,--she certainly led him on. He thought he had her,--then--just as he was about to pin the b.u.t.terfly to his specimen card, away it flew!"
"Cute b.u.t.terfly!" interjected Miss Herbert.
"Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see. Anyway Jack"s game is finished."
"And I suppose this is why, as you say, Morgana has gone off "in the midst of many social duties"? Was Jack one of her social duties?"
Gwent gazed at her with an unrevealing placidity.
"No. Not exactly," he replied--"I give her credit for not knowing anything of his intention to clear out. Though I don"t think she would have tried to alter his intention if she had."
Miss Herbert still surveyed the scenery.
"Well,--I don"t feel so sorry for him now you tell me it was only the money he was after"--she said--"I thought he was a finer character--"
"You"re talking "Middle Ages" again,"--interrupted Gwent--"Who wants fine characters nowadays? The object of life is to LIVE, isn"t it? And to "live" means to get all you can for your own pleasure and profit,--take care of Number One!--and let the rest of the world do as it likes. It"s quite YOUR method,--though you pretend it isn"t!"
"You"re not very polite!" she said.
"Now, why should I be?" he pursued, argumentatively--"What"s politeness worth unless you want to flatter something for yourself out of somebody? I never flatter, and I"m never polite. I know just how you feel,--you haven"t got as much money as you want and you"re looking about for a fellow who HAS. Then you"ll marry him--if you can. You, as a woman, are doing just what Jack did as a man. But,--if you miss your game, I don"t think you"ll commit suicide. You"re too well-balanced for that. And I think you"ll succeed in your aims--if you"re careful!"
"If I"m careful?" she echoed, questioningly.
"Yes--if you want a millionaire. Especially the old rascal you"re after. Don"t dress too "loud." Don"t show ALL your back--leave some for him to think about. Don"t paint your face,--let it alone. And be, or pretend to be, very considerate of folks" feelings. That"ll do!"
"Here endeth the first lesson!" she said. "Thanks, preacher Gwent! I guess I"ll worry through!"
"I guess you will!"--he answered, slowly. "I wish I was as certain of anything in the world as I am of THAT!"
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.
"I must go and fix up the funeral business"--he said, "Jack has gone, and his remains must be disposed of. That"s my affair. Just now his mother"s crying over him,--and I can"t stand that sort of thing. It gets over me."
"Then you actually HAVE a heart?" she suggested.
"I suppose so. I used to have. But it isn"t the heart,--that"s only a pumping muscle. I conclude it"s the head."
He puffed two or three rings of smoke into the clear air.
"You know where she"s gone?" he asked, suddenly.
"Morgana?"
"Yes."
Lydia Herbert hesitated.
"I THINK I know," she replied at last--"But I"m not sure."
"Well, I"M sure"--said Gwent--"She"s after the special quarry that has given her the slip,--Roger Seaton. He went to California a month ago."
"Then she"s in California?"
"Certain!"
Mr. Gwent took another puff at his cigar.
"You must have been in Washington when every one thought that he and she were going to make a matrimonial tie of it"--he went on--"Why, nothing else was talked of!"
She nodded.
"I know! I was there. But a man who has set his soul on science doesn"t want a wife."
"And what about a woman who has set her soul in the same direction?" he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, that"s all popcorn! Morgana is not a scientist,--she"s hardly a student. She just "imagines" she can do things. But she can"t."
"Well! I"m not so sure!" and Gwent looked ruminative--"She"s got a smart way of settling problems while the rest of us are talking about them."
"To her own satisfaction only"--said Miss Herbert, ironically,--"Certainly not to the satisfaction of anybody else! She talks the wildest nonsense about controlling the world! Imagine it! A world controlled by Morgana!" She gave an impatient little shake of her skirts. "I do hate these sorts of mysterious, philosophising women, don"t 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!"
Gwent smiled sourly.
"They never WERE possible!" he retorted--"Dante was, like all poets, a regular humbug. Any peg served to hang his stuff on,--from a child of nine to a girl of eighteen. The stupidest thing ever written is what he called his "New Life" or "Vita Nuova." I read it once, and it made me pretty nigh sick. Think of all that twaddle about Beatrice "denying him her most gracious salutation"! That any creature claiming to be a man could drivel along in such a style beats me altogether!"
"It"s perfectly lovely!" declared Miss Herbert--"You"ve no taste in literature, Mr. Gwent!"
"I"ve no taste for humbug"--he answered--"That"s so! I guess I know the difference between tragedy and comedy, even when I see them side by side." He flicked a long burnt ash from his cigar. "I"ve had a bit of comedy with you this morning--now I"m going to take up tragedy! I tell you there"s more written in Jack"s dead face than in all Dante!"
"The tragedy of a lost gamble for money!" she said, with a scornful uplift of her eyebrows.
He nodded.
"That"s so! It upsets the mental balance of a man more than a lost gamble for love!"
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 "Four Hundred" were a.s.sembled, 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.
"How should I know?" she replied--"I am not his keeper?"