r--she seems, at certain moments, to withdraw
herself from all the interests of mere humanity. To-day, for instance,
she looked down from the air-ship on the swarming crowds in the streets
of Naples and said 'Poor little microbes! How sad it is to see them
crawling about and festering down there! What IS the use of them! I
wish I knew!' Then, when I ventured to suggest that possibly they were
more than 'microbes,'--they were human beings that loved and worked and
thought and created, she looked at me with those wonderful eyes of hers
and answered--'Microbes do the same--only we don't take the trouble to
think about them! But if we knew their lives and intentions, I dare say
we should find they are quite as clever in their own line as we are in
ours!' What is one to say to a woman who argues in this way?"

Don Aloysius laughed gently.

"But she argues quite correctly after all! My son, you are like the
majority of men--they grow impatient with clever women,--they prefer
stupid ones. In fact they deliberately choose stupid ones to be the
mothers of their children--hence the ever increasing multitude of
fools!" He moved towards the open doors of the beautiful lounge-hall of
the Palazzo, Rivardi walking at his side. "But you will grant me a
measure of wisdom in the advice I gave you the other day-the little
millionairess is unlike other women--she is not capable of loving,--not
in the way loving is understood in this world,--therefore do not seek
from her what she cannot give!--As for her 'flying alone'--leave that
to the fates!--I do not think she will attempt it."

They entered the Palazzo just as a servant was about to announce to
them that dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour, and their
talk, for the time being, ended. But the thoughts of both men were
busy; and unknown to each other, centered round the enigmatical
personality of one woman who had become more interesting to them than
anything else in the world,--so much so indeed that each in his own
private mind wondered what life would be worth without her!

CHAPTER XVI

That evening Morgana was in one of her most bewitching moods--even the
old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant
variations from grave to gay, from gay to romantic, and from romantic
to a kind of humorous-satiric vein which moved her to utter quick
little witticisms which might have seemed barbed with too sharp a point
were they not so quickly covered with a