The Secret Power Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  That evening at sunset Manella made her way towards the hill and the"House of the Dying," moved by she knew not what strange impulse. Shehad no excuse whatever for going; she knew that the man living up therein whom she was so much interested had as much food for three days ashe asked for or desired, and that he was likely to be vexed at the verysight of her. Yet she had an eager wish to tell him something about thewonderful little creature with lightning eyes who had left the Plazathat morning and had told her, Manella, that she was "quite beautiful."Pride, and an innocent feminine vanity thrilled her; "if another womanthinks so, it must be so,"--she argued, being aware that women seldomadmire each other. She walked swiftly, with head bent,--and was broughtto a startled halt by meeting and almost running against the veryindividual she sought, who in his noiseless canvas shoes and with hispanther-like tread had come upon her unawares. Checked in her progressshe stood still, her eyes quickly lifted, her lips apart. In heradoration of the strength and magnificent physique of the stranger whomshe knew only as a stranger, she thought he looked splendid as a goddescending from the hill. Far from feeling god-like, he frowned as hesaw her.

  "Where are you going?" he demanded, brusquely.

  The rich colour warmed her cheeks to a rose-red that matched the sunset.

  "I was going--to see if you--if you wanted anything"--she stammered,almost humbly.

  "You know I do not"--he said--"You can spare yourself the trouble."

  She drew herself up with a slight air of offence.

  "If you want nothing why do you come down into the valley?" she asked."You say you hate the Plaza!"

  "I do!" and he spoke almost vindictively--"But, at the moment, there'ssome one there I want to see."

  Her black eyes opened inquisitively.

  "A man?"

  "No. Strange to say, a woman."

  A sudden light flashed on her mind.

  "I know!" she exclaimed--"But you will not see her! She has gone!"

  "What do you mean?" he asked, impatiently--"What do you know?"

  "Oh, I know nothing!" and there was a sobbing note of pathos in hervoice--"But I feel HERE!"--and she pressed her hands against herbosom--"something tells me that you have seen HER--the little wonderfulwhite woman, sweetly perfumed like a rose,--with her silks and jewelsand her fairy car!--and her golden hair... ah!--you said you hated awoman with golden hair! Is that the woman you hate?"

  He stood looking at her with an amused, half scornful expression.

  "Hate is too strong a word"--he answered--"She isn't worth hating!"

  Her brows contracted in a frown.

  "I do not believe THAT!"--she said--"You are not speaking truly. Morelikely it is, I think, you love her!"

  He caught her roughly by the arm.

  "Stop that!" he exclaimed, angrily--"You are foolish and insolent!Whether I love or hate anybody or anything is no affair of yours! Howdare you speak to me as if it were!"

  She shrank away from him. Her lips quivered, and tears welled throughher lashes.

  "Forgive me! ... oh, forgive!" she murmured, pleadingly--"I amsorry!..."

  "So you ought to be!" he retorted--"You--Manella--imagine yourself inlove with me ... yes, you do!--and you cannot leave me alone! Noamorous man ever cadged round for love as much or as shamelessly as anamorous woman! Then you see another woman on the scene, and thoughshe's nothing but a stray visitor at the Plaza where you help wash upthe plates and dishes, you suddenly conceive a lot of romantic fooleryin your head and imagine me to be mysteriously connected with her! Oh,for God's sake don't cry! It's the most awful bore! There's nothing tocry for. You've set me up like a sort of doll in a shrine and you wantto worship me--well!--I simply won't be worshipped. As for your 'littlewonderful white woman sweetly perfumed like a rose,' I don't mindsaying that I know her. And I don't mind also telling you that she cameup the hill last night to ferret me out."

  Step by step Manella drew nearer, her eyes blazing.

  "She went to see you?--She did THAT!--In the darkness?--like a thief ora serpent!"

  He laughed aloud.

  "No thief and no serpent in it!" he said--"And no darkness, but in thefull light of the moon! Such a moon it was, too! A regular stage moon!A perfect setting for such an actress, in her white gown and her ropeof gold hair! Yes--it was very well planned!--effective in its way,though it left me cold!"

  "Ah, but it did NOT leave you cold!" cried Manella; "Else you would nothave come down to see her to-day! You say she went 'to ferret youout'--"

  "Of course she did"--he interrupted her--"She would ferret out any manshe wanted for the moment. Forests could not hide him,--caves could notcover him if she made up her mind to find him. I had hoped she wouldnot find ME--but she has--however,--you say she has gone--"

  The colour had fled from Manella's face,--she was pale and rigid.

  "She will come back," she said stiffly.

  "I hope not!" And he threw himself carelessly down on the turf torest--"Come and sit beside me here and tell me what she said to you!"

  But Manella was silent. Her dark, passionate eyes rested upon him witha world of scorn and sorrow in their glowing depths.

  "Come!" he repeated--"Don't stare at me as if I were some new sort ofreptile!"

  "I think you are!" she said, coldly--"You seem to be a man, but youhave not the feelings of a man!"

  "Oh, have I not!" and he gave a light gesture of indifference--"I havethe feelings of a modern man,--the 'Kultur' of a perfect super-German!Yes, that is so! Sentiment is the mere fly-trap of sensuality--thefeeler thrust out to scent the prey, but once the fly is caught, thetrap closes. Do you understand? No, of course you don't! You are adreadfully primitive woman!"

  "I did not think you were German," she said.

  "Nor did I!" and he laughed--"Nor am I. I said just now that I had the'Kultur' of a super-German--and a super-German means something aboveevery other male creature except himself. He cannot get away fromhimself--nor can I! That's the trouble! Come, obey me, Manella! Sitdown here beside me!"

  Very slowly and very reluctantly she did as he requested. She sat onthe grass some three or four paces off. He stretched out a hand totouch her, but she pushed it back very decidedly. He smiled.

  "I mustn't make love to you this morning, eh?" he queried. "All right!I don't want to make love--it doesn't interest me--I only want to putyou in a good temper! You are like a rumpled pussy-cat--your fur mustbe stroked the right way."

  "YOU will not stroke it so!" said Manella, disdainfully.

  "No?"

  "No. Never again!"

  "Oh, dire tragedy!" And he stretched himself out on the turf with hisarms above his head--"But what does it matter! Give me your news, sillychild! What did the 'little wonderful white woman' say to you?"

  "You want to know?"

  "I think so! I am conscious of a certain barbaric spirit of curiosity,like that of a savage who sees a photograph of himself for the firsttime! Yes! I want to know what the modern feminine said to theprimitive!"

  Manella gave an impatient gesture.

  "I do not understand all your fine words"--she said--"But I will answeryou. I told her about you--how you had come to live in the hut for thedying on the hill rather than at the Plaza--and how I took to you allthe food you asked for, and she seemed amused--"

  "Amused?" he echoed.

  "Yes--amused. She laughed,--she looks very pretty when she laughs.And--and she seemed to fancy--"

  He lifted himself upright in a sitting posture.

  "Seemed to fancy? ... what?--"

  "That I was not bad to look at--" and Manella, gathering suddenboldness, lifted her dark eyes to his face--"She said I could tell youthat she thinks me quite beautiful! Yes!--quite beautiful!"

  He smiled--a smile that was more like a sneer.

  "So you are! I've told you so, often. 'There needs no ghost come fromthe grave' to emphasise the fact. But she--the purring cat!--she toldyou to repeat her opinion to me, because--can you guess why?"


  "No!"

  "Simpleton! Because she wishes you to convey to me the message that sheconsiders me your lover and that she admires my taste! Now she'll goback to New York full of the story! Subtle little devil! But I am notyour lover, and never shall be,--not even for half an hour!"

  Manella sprang up from the turf where she had been sitting.

  "I know that!" she said, and her splendid eyes flashed prouddefiance--"I know I have been a fool to let myself care for you! I donot know why I did--it was an illness! But I am well now!"

  "You are well now? Good! O let us be joyful! Keep well, Manella!--andbe 'quite beautiful'--as you are! To be quite beautiful is a finething--not so fine as it used to be in the Greek period--still, it hasits advantages! I wonder what you will do with your beauty?"

  As he spoke, he rose, stretching and shaking him self like a forestanimal.

  "What will you do with it?" he repeated--"You must give it to somebody!You must transmit it to your offspring! That's the old law ofnature--it's getting a bit monotonous, still it's the law! Now she--thewonderful white woman--she's all for upsetting the law! Fortunatelyshe's not beautiful--"

  "She IS!" exclaimed Manella--"_I_ think her so!" He looked down uponher from his superior height with a tolerant amusement.

  "Really! YOU think her so! And SHE thinks you so! Quite a mutualadmiration society! And both of you obsessed by the same one man! Ipity that man! The only thing for him to do is to keep out of it! No,Manella!--think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE beautiful.But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God for that! SHEis outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her cleverness makesher see the sham of life all through; the absurdity of birth that endsin death--the freakishness of civilisation to no purpose--and she's outfor something else. She wants some thing newer than sex-attraction andfamily life. A husband would bore her to extinction--the care ofchildren would send her into a lunatic asylum!"

  Manella looked bewildered.

  "I cannot understand!" she said--"A woman lives for husband andchildren!"

  "SOME women do!" he answered--"Not all! There are a good few who don'twant to stay on the animal level. Men try to keep them there--but it'sa losing game nowadays. ('Foxes have holes and birds of the air havenests'--but we cannot fail to see that when Mother Fox has reared herpuppies she sends them off about their own business and doesn't knowthem any more--likewise Mother Bird does the same. Nature has nosentiment.) We have, because we cultivate artificial feelings--weimagine we 'love,' when we only want something that pleases us for themoment. To live, as you say, for husband and children would make awoman a slave--a great many women are slaves--but they are beginning toget emancipated--the woman with the gold hair, whom you so much admire,is emancipated."

  Manella gave a slight disdainful movement of her head.

  "That only means she is free to do as she likes"--she said--"To marryor not to marry--to love or not to love. I think if she loved at all,she would love very greatly. Why did she go so secretly in the eveningto see you? I suppose she loves you!"

  A sudden red flush of anger coloured his brow.

  "Yes"--he answered with a kind of vindictive slowness--"I suppose shedoes! You, Manella, are after me as a man merely--she is after me as aBrain! You would steal my physical liberty,--she would steal myinnermost thought! And you will both be disappointed! Neither my bodynor my brain shall ever be dominated by any woman!"

  He turned from her abruptly and began the ascent that led to hissolitary retreat. Once he looked back--

  "Don't let me see you for two days at least!" he called--"I've morethan enough food to keep me going."

  He strode on, and Manella stood watching him, her tall handsome figuresilhouetted against the burning sky. Her dark eyes were moist withsuppressed tears of shame and suffering,--she felt herself to bewronged and slighted undeservedly. And beneath this personal emotioncame now a smarting sense of jealousy, for in spite of all he had said,she felt that there was some secret between him and "the littlewonderful white woman," which she could not guess and which wasprobably the reason of his self-sought exile and seclusion.

  "I wish now I had gone with her!" she mused--"for if I am 'quitebeautiful,' as she said, she might have helped me in the world,--Imight have become a lady!"

  She walked slowly and dejectedly back to the Plaza, knowing in herheart that lady or no lady, her rich beauty was useless to her,inasmuch as it made no effect on the one man she had elected to carefor, unwanted and unasked. Certain physiologists teach that the law ofnatural selection is that the female should choose her mate, but thedifficulty along this line of argument is that she may choose where herchoice is unwelcome and irresponsive. Manella was a splendid type ofprimitive womanhood,--healthy, warm-blooded and full of hymenealpassion,--as a wife she would have been devoted,--as a mother superb inher tenderness; but, measured by modern standards of advanced andrestless femininity she was a mere drudge, without the ability to thinkfor herself or to analyse subtleties of emotion. Intellectuality had nopart in her; most people's talk was for her meaningless, and she hadnot the patience to listen to any conversation that rose above the foodand business of the day. She was confused and bewildered by everythingthe strange recluse on the hill said to her,--she could not follow himat all,--and yet, the purely physical attraction he exercised over hernature drew her to him like a magnet and kept her in a state offeverish craving for a love she knew she could never win. She wouldhave gladly been his servant on the mere chance and hope that possiblyin some moment of abandonment he might have yielded to the importunityof her tenderness; Adonis himself in all the freshness of his youthnever exercised a more potent spell upon enamoured Venus than thisplain, big bearded man over the lonely, untutored Californian girl withthe large loveliness of a goddess and the soul of a little child. Whatwas the singular fascination which like the "pull" of a magnetic stormon telegraph wires, forced a woman's tender heart under the carelessfoot of a rough creature as indifferent to it as to a flower hetrampled in his path? Nature might explain it in some unguarded momentof self-betrayal,--but Nature is jealous of her secrets,--they have tobe coaxed out of her in the slow course of centuries. And with all thecoaxing, the subtle work of her woven threads between the Like and theUnlike remains an unsolved mystery.