"We certainly heard bells"—said Gaspard.
"In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for a long while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. I have heard on the 'wireless,' sounds that do not seem of this world at all."
"So have I"—said Gaspard—"And though it may be my own brain talking, I'm not so obstinate in my own knowledge as to doubt a possible existing means of communication between one continent and another apart from OUR special 'wireless.' In fact I'm sure there is something of the kind,—though where it comes from and how it travels I cannot say. But certain people get news of occurring events somehow, from somewhere, long before it reaches Paris or London. I dare say the lady we are with could tell us something about it."
"Her powers are not limitless!" said Rivardi—"She is only a woman after all!"
Gaspard said no more, and there followed a silence,—a silence all the more tense and deep because of the amazing swiftness with which the "White Eagle" kept its steady level flight, making no sound despite the rapidity of its movement. Very gradually the darkness of night lifted, as it were, one corner of its sable curtain to show a grey peep-hole of dawn, and soon it became apparent that the ship was already far away from the mysterious land of Egypt—"The land shadowing with wings"—and was flying over the sea. There was something terrific in the complete noiselessness with which it sped through the air, and Rivardi, though now he had a good grip on his nerves, hardly dared allow himself to think of the adventurous business on which he was engaged. A certain sense of pride and triumph filled him, to realise that he had been selected from many applicants for the post he occupied—and yet with all his satisfaction there went a lurking spirit of envy and disappointed ambition. If he could win Morgana's love—if he could make the strange elfin creature with all her genius and inventive ability his own,—why then!—what then? He would share in her fame,—aye, more than share it, since it is the way of the world to give its honour to no woman whose life is connected with that of a man. The man receives the acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserve it, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, and prefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have their hardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands. When Roger Seaton confessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend and subdue Morgana's intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, not only for himself but for all men. Absolutely disinterested love for a brilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any male nature,—men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior. Thus women who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability have to choose one of two alternatives—love, or what is called love, and child-bearing,—or fame, and lifelong loneliness.
The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic, had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana's complex character such as it appeared to him,—and had almost come to the conclusion that if he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her that wifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman's happiness than all the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment. He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,—but he chose to forget that women's mental outlook has, in these modern days, been greatly widened,—whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy to say. Even for men "much knowledge increaseth sorrow,"—and it may be hinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggerated sentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax the brain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of the calm which is essential to health. Though it has to be admitted that married life is less peaceful than hard study—and the bright woman who recently said, "A husband is more trying than any problem in Euclid," no doubt had good cause for the remark. Married or single, woman both physically and mentally is the greatest sufferer in the world—her time of youth and unthinking joy is brief, her martyrdom long—and it is hardly wonderful that she goes so often "to the bad" when there is so little offered to attract her towards the good.
Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition, pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and as mother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoring his once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its former renown. He saw no reason why this should not be,—yet—even while he indulged in his thoughts of her, he knew well enough that behind her small delicate personality there was a powerful intellectual "lens," so to speak, through which she examined the ins and outs of character in man or woman; and he felt that he was always more or less under this "lens," looked at as carefully as a scientist might study bacteria, and that as a matter of fact it was as unlikely as the descent of the moon-goddess to Endymion that she would ever submit herself to his possession. Nevertheless, he argued, stranger things had happened!
The grey peep of dawn widened into a silver rift, and the silver rift streamed into a bar of gold, and the gold broke up into long strands of blush pink and pale blue like festal banners hanging in heaven's bright pavilion, and the "White Eagle" flew on swiftly, steadily, securely, among all the glories of the dawn like a winged car for the conveyance of angels. And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far from the realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the door of her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white, her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.
"What a perfect morning!" she exclaimed—"All things seem new! And I have had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean—surely we are over the sea?"
"We are some fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean"—answered Rivardi, looking at her as he spoke with unconcealed admiration;—never, he thought, had she seemed so charming, youthful and entirely lovable—"I am glad you have rested—you look quite refreshed and radiant. After all, it is a test of endurance—this journey to Egypt and back."