"How can I tell!" he replied, to all interrogations. "The secret is the secret of a woman!"
A woman! Man's pretty toy!--man's patient slave! How should a woman master any secret! Engineers and mechanics laughed scornfully and shrugged their shoulders--yet--yet--the great airship stared them in the face as a thing created,--a thing of such power and possibility as seemed wholly incredible. And now the creator,--the woman--had arrived,--the woman whose rough designs on paper had been carefully followed and elaborated into actual shape;--and there was a tense state of expectation among all the workers awaiting her presence.
Meanwhile the lantern-gleam in the sky broadened and the web of mist which veiled the sea began to lift and Giulio Rivardi, pacing to and fro, halted every now and then to look in the direction of a path winding downward from the mainland to the shore, in watchful expectation of seeing an elfin figure, more spiritlike than mortal, floating towards him through the dividing vapours of the morning. The words of Don Aloysius haunted him strangely, though his common sense sharply rejected the fantastic notions to which they had given rise. She,--Morgana Royal,--was "not capable" of love, the priest had implied,--and yet, at times--only at times,--she seemed eminently lovable. At times,--again, only at times--he was conscious of a sweeping passion of admiration for her that well-nigh robbed him of his self-control. But a strong sense of honour held him in check--he never forgot that he was her paid employe, and that her wealth was so enormous that any man presuming too personally upon her indulgence could hardly be exonerated from ulterior sordid aims. And while he mused, somewhat vexedly, on all the circumstances of his position, the light widened in the heavens, showing the very faintest flush of rose in the east as an indication of the coming sun. He lifted his eyes....
"At last!" he exclaimed, with relief, as he saw a small gliding shadow among shadows approaching him,--he figure of Morgana so wrapped in a grey cloak and hood as to almost seem part of the slowly dispersing mists of the morning. She pushed back the hood as she came near, showing a small eager white face in which the eyes glittered with an almost unearthly brightness.
"I have slept till now,"--she said--"Imagine!--all night through without waking! So lazy of me!--but the long rest has done me good and I'm ready for anything! Are you? You look very solemn and morose!--like a warrior in bronze! Anything gone wrong?"