That evening Morgana was in one of her most bewitching moods--even the old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant variations from grave to gay, from gay to romantic, and from romantic to a kind of humorous-satiric vein which moved her to utter quick little witticisms which might have seemed barbed with too sharp a point were they not so quickly covered with a sweetness of manner which deprived them of all malice.
She looked her best, too,--she had robed herself in a garment of pale shimmering blue which shone softly like the gleam of moonbeams through crystal--her wonderful hair was twisted up in a coronal held in place by a band of diamonds,--tiny diamonds twinkled in her ears, and a star of diamonds glittered on her breast. Her elfin beauty, totally unlike the beauty of accepted standards, exhaled a subtle influence as a lily exhales fragrance--and the knowledge she had of her own charm combined with her indifference as to its effect upon others gave her a dangerous attractiveness. As she sat at the head of her daintily adorned dinner-table she might have posed for a fairy queen in days when fairies were still believed in and queens were envied,--and Giulio Rivardi's thoughts were swept to and fro in his brain by cross-currents of emotion which were not altogether disinterested or virtuous.
For years his spirit had been fretted and galled by poverty,--he, the descendant of a long line of proud Sicilian nobles, had been forced to earn a precarious livelihood as an art decorator and adviser to "newly rich" people who had neither taste nor judgment, teaching them how to build, restore or furnish their houses according to the pure canons of art, in the knowledge of which he excelled,--and now, when chance or providence had thrown Morgana in his way,--Morgana with her millions, and an enchanting personality,--he inwardly demanded why he should not win her to have and to hold for his own? He was a personable man, nobly born, finely educated,--was it possible that he had not sufficient resolution and force of character to take the precious citadel by storm? These ideas flitted vaguely across his mind as he watched his fair hostess talking, now to Don Aloysius, now to Lady Kingswood, and sometimes flinging him a light word of badinage to rally him on what she chose to call his "sulks."
"He can't get over it!" she declared, smiling--"Poor Marchese Giulio! That I should have dared to steer my own air-ship was too much for him, and he can't forgive me!"