"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!