"Forgive me!" he said, in low uneven tones--"I--I did not mean it!"
She lifted her eyes to his, half proudly half appealingly.
"You did not mean it?" she asked, quietly.
An amazed scorn flashed into her face, clouding its former sweetness--then she smiled coldly, turned away and left him. In a kind of stupor he watched her go, her light figure disappearing by degrees, as she went up the ascending path from the sea to the house where gay music was still sounding for dancers not yet grown weary. And from that evening a kind of silence fell between them,--they were separated as by an ice-floe. They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless, manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,--so much so that he worked himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both as a student of science and a woman of wealth. And yet--and yet--he had almost loved her! And a thing that goaded him to the quick was that so far as scientific knowledge and attainment were concerned she was more than his equal. Irritated by his own quarrelsome set of sentiments which pulled him first this way and then that, he decided that the only thing possible for him was to put a "great divide" of distance between himself and her. This he had done--and to what purpose? Apparently merely to excite her ridicule!--and to prick her humor up to the mischievous prank of finding out where he had fled and following him! And she--even she--who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment on the seashore,--had discovered him on this lonely hill-side, and had taunted him with her light mockery--and actually said that "to kiss him would be like kissing a bunch of nettles!"--SHE said that!--she who for one wild moment he had held in his arms--bah!--he sprang up from his chair in a kind of rage with himself, as his thoughts crowded thick and fast one on the other--why did he think of her at all! It was as if some external commanding force compelled him to do so. Then--she had seen Manella, and had naturally drawn her own conclusions, based on the girl's rich beauty which was so temptingly set within his reach. He began to talk to himself aloud once more, picking up the thread of his broken converse where he had left it-"If it were Morgana it would be far worse than if it were Manella!" he said--"The one is too stupid--the other too clever. But the stupid woman would make the best wife--if I wanted one--which I do not; and the best mother, if I desired children,--which I do not. The question is,--what DO I want? I think I know--but supposing I get it, shall I be satisfied? Will it fulfil my life's desire? What IS my life's desire?"