sweetness of manner which
deprived them of all malice. She looked her best, too,--she had robed
herself in a garment of pale shimmering blue which shone softly like
the gleam of moonbeams through crystal--her wonderful hair was twisted
up in a coronal held in place by a band of diamonds,--tiny diamonds
twinkled in her ears, and a star of diamonds glittered on her breast.
Her elfin beauty, totally unlike the beauty of accepted standards,
exhaled a subtle influence as a lily exhales fragrance--and the
knowledge she had of her own charm combined with her indifference as to
its effect upon others gave her a dangerous attractiveness. As she sat
at the head of her daintily adorned dinner-table she might have posed
for a fairy queen in days when fairies were still believed in and
queens were envied,--and Giulio Rivardi's thoughts were swept to and
fro in his brain by cross-currents of emotion which were not altogether
disinterested or virtuous. For years his spirit had been fretted and
galled by poverty,--he, the descendant of a long line of proud Sicilian
nobles, had been forced to earn a precarious livelihood as an art
decorator and adviser to "newly rich" people who had neither taste nor
judgment, teaching them how to build, restore or furnish their houses
according to the pure canons of art, in the knowledge of which he
excelled,--and now, when chance or providence had thrown Morgana in his
way,--Morgana with her millions, and an enchanting personality,--he
inwardly demanded why he should not win her to have and to hold for his
own? He was a personable man, nobly born, finely educated,--was it
possible that he had not sufficient resolution and force of character
to take the precious citadel by storm? These ideas flitted vaguely
across his mind as he watched his fair hostess talking, now to Don
Aloysius, now to Lady Kingswood, and sometimes flinging him a light
word of badinage to rally him on what she chose to call his "sulks."

"He can't get over it!" she declared, smiling--"Poor Marchese Giulio!
That I should have dared to steer my own air-ship was too much for him,
and he can't forgive me!"

"I cannot forgive your putting yourself into danger," said
Rivardi--"You ran a great risk--you must pardon me if I hold your life
too valuable to be lightly lost."

"It is good of you to think it valuable,"--and her wonderful blue eyes
were suddenly shadowed with sadness--"To me it is valueless."

"My dear!" exclaimed Lady Kings