The Secret Power. Marie Corelli
said, emphatically—"It's the Plaza you pay."
"How many times will you remind me of that!" he replied, with a laugh—"Of course I know I don't pay YOU! Of course I know I pay the Plaza!—that amazing hotel and 'sanatorium' with a tropical garden and no comfort—"
"It is more comfortable than this"—she said, with a disparaging glance at his log dwelling.
"How do YOU know?" and he laughed again—"What have YOU ever experienced in the line of hotels? You are employed at the Plaza to fetch and carry;—to wait on the wretched invalids who come to California for a 'cure' of diseases incurable—"
"YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt.
"No! I only pretend to be!"
"Why do you pretend?"
"Oh, Manella! What a question! Why do we all pretend?—all!—every human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should go mad!"
Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly.
"I do not understand you"—she said—"Why do you talk nonsense about the sun? I suppose you ARE ill after all,—you have an illness of the head."
He nodded with mock solemnity.
"That's it! You're a wise woman, Manella! That's why I'm here. Not tubercles on the lungs,—tubercles on the brain! Oh, those tubercles! They could never stand the Plaza!—the gaiety, the brilliancy—the—the all-too dazzling social round!..." he paused, and a gleam of even white teeth under his dark moustache gave the suggestion of a smile—"That's why I stay up here."
"You make fun of the Plaza"—said Manella, biting her lips vexedly—"And of me, too. I am nothing to you!"
"Absolutely nothing, dear! But why should you be any thing?"
A warm flush turned her sunburnt skin to a deeper tinge.
"Men are often fond of women"—she said.
"Often? Oh, more than often! Too often! But what does that matter?"
She twisted the ends of her rose-coloured neckerchief nervously with one hand.
"You are a man"—she replied, curtly—"You should have a woman."
He laughed—a deep, mellow, hearty laugh of pleasure.
"Should I? You really think so? Wonderful Manella? Come here!—come quite close to me!"
She obeyed, moving with the soft tread of a forest animal, and, face to face with him, looked up. He smiled kindly into her dark fierce eyes, and noted with artistic approval the unspoiled beauty of natural lines in her form, and the proud poise of her handsome head on her full throat and splendid shoulders.
"You are very good-looking, Manella"—he then remarked, lazily—"Quite the model for a Juno. Be satisfied with yourself. You should have scores of lovers!"
She stamped her foot suddenly and impatiently.
"I have none!" she said—"And you know it! But you do not care!"
He shook a reproachful forefinger at her.
"Manella, Manella, you are naughty! Temper, temper! Of course I do not care! Be reasonable! Why should I?"
She pressed both hands tightly against her bosom, seeking to control her quick, excited breathing.
"Why should you? I do not know! But I care! I would be your woman! I would be your slave! I would wait upon you and serve you faithfully! I would obey your every wish. I am a good servant,—I can cook and sew and wash and sweep—I can do everything in a house and you should have no trouble. You should write and read all day,—I would not speak a word to disturb you. I would guard you like a dog that loves his master!"
He listened, with a strange look in his eyes,—a look of wonder and something of compassion. There was a pause. The silence of the hills was, or seemed more intense and impressive—the great white cloud still spread itself in large leisure along the miles of slowly darkening sky. Presently he spoke. "And what wages, Manella? What wages should I have to pay for such a servant?—such a dog?"
Her head drooped, she avoided his steady, searching gaze.
"What wages, Manella? None, you would say, except—love! You tell me you would be my woman,—and I know you mean it. You would be my slave—you mean that, too. But you would want me to love you! Manella, there is no such thing as love!—not in this world! There is animal attraction,—the magnetism of the male for the female, the female for the male,—the magnetism that pulls the opposite sexes together in order to keep this planet supplied with an ever new crop of fools,—but love! No, Manella! There is no such thing!"
Here he gently took her two hands away from their tightly folded position on her bosom and held them in his own.
"No such thing, my dear!" he went on, speaking softly and soothingly, as though to a child—"Except in the dreams of poets, and you—fortunately!—know nothing about poetry! The wild animal in you is attracted to the tame, ruminating animal in me,—and you would be my woman, though I would not be your man. I quite believe that it is the natural instinct of the female to select her mate,—but, though the rule may hold good in the forest world, it doesn't always work among the human herd. Man considers that he has the right of selection—quite a mistake of his I'm sure, for he has no real sense of beauty or fitness, and generally selects most vilely. All the same he is an obstinate brute, and sticks to his brutish ideas as a snail sticks to its shell. I am an obstinate brute!—I am absolutely convinced that I have the right to choose my own woman, if I want one—which I don't,—or if ever I do want one—which I never shall!"
She drew her hands quickly from his grasp. There were tears in her splendid dark eyes.
"You talk, you talk!" she said, with a kind of sob in her voice—"It is all talk with you—talk which I cannot understand! I don't WANT to understand!—I am only a poor, ignorant girl. I cannot talk—but I can love! Ah yes, I can love! You say there is no such thing as love! What is it then, when one prays every night and morning for a man?—when one would work one's fingers to the bone for him?—when one would die to keep him from sickness and harm? What do you call it?"
He smiled.
"Self-delusion, Manella! The beautiful self-delusion of every nature-bred woman when her fancy is attracted by a particular sort of man. She makes an ideal of him in her mind and imagines him to be a god, when he is nothing but a devil!"
Something sinister and cruel in his look startled her,—she made the sign of the cross on her bosom.
"A devil?" she murmured—"a devil—?"
"Ah, now you are frightened!" he said, with a flash of amusement in his eyes—"You are a good Catholic, and you believe in devils. So you make the sign of the cross as a protection. That's right! That's the way to defend yourself from my evil influence! Wise Manella!"
The light mockery of his tone roused her pride,—that pride which had been suppressed in her by the force of a passionate emotion she could not restrain. She lifted her head and regarded him with an air of sorrow and scorn.
"After all, I think you must be a wicked man!" she said—"You have no heart! You are not worthy to be loved!"
"Quite true, Manella! You've hit the bull's eye in the very middle three times! I am a wicked man,—I have no heart,—I'm not worthy to be loved. No I'm not. I should find it a bore!"
"Bore?" she echoed—"What is that?"
"What is that? It is itself, Manella! 'Bore' is just 'bore.' It means tiredness—worn-out-ness—a state in which you wish yourself in a hot bath or a cold one, so that nobody can come near you. To be 'loved' would finish me off in a month!"