Part 25 (2/2)
Morgana nodded.
”Exactly! If there had been no Valley of Diamonds there would have been no Eagle! But, all the same, this little female Sindbad is glad to get out of the valley!”
Lady Kingswood laughed.
”My dear child, if you are making a sort of allegory on your wealth, you are not 'out of the valley' nor are you likely to be!”
Morgana sighed.
”My vulgar wealth!” she murmured.
”What? Vulgar?”
”Yes. A man told me it was.”
”A vulgar man himself, I should imagine!” said Lady Kingswood, warmly.
Morgana shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
”Oh, no, he isn't. He's eccentric, but not vulgar. He's aristocratic to the tips of his toes--and English. That accounts for his rudeness.
Sometimes, you know--only sometimes--Englishmen can be VERY rude! But I'd rather have them so--it's a sort of well-bred clumsiness, like the manners of a Newfoundland dog. It's not the 'make-a-dollar' air of American men.”
”You are quite English yourself, aren't you?” queried her companion.
”No--not English in any sense. I'm pure Celtic of Celt, from the farthest Highlands of Scotland. But I hate to say I'm 'Scotch,' as slangy people use that word for whisky! I'm just Highland-born. My father and mother were the same, and I came to life a wild moor, among mists and mountains and stormy seas--I'm always glad of that! I'm glad my eyes did not look their first on a city! There's a tradition in the part of Scotland where I was born which tells of a history far far back in time when sailors from Phoenicia came to our sh.o.r.es,--men greatly civilised when we all were but savages, and they made love to the Highland women and had children by them,--then when they went away back to Egypt they left many traces of Eastern customs and habits which remain to this day. My father used always to say that he could count his ancestry back to Egypt!--it pleased him to think so and it did n.o.body any harm!”
”Have you ever been to the East?” asked Lady Kingswood.
”No--but I'm going! My 'White Eagle' will take me there in a very short time! But, as I've already told you, I must learn to fly alone.”
”What does the Marchese Rivardi say to that?”
”I don't ask him!” replied Morgana, indifferently--”What I may decide to do is not his business.” She broke off abruptly--then continued--”He is coming to luncheon,--and afterwards you shall see my air-s.h.i.+p. I won't persuade you to go up in it!”
”I COULDN'T!” said Lady Kingswood, emphatically--”I've no nerve for such an adventure.”
Morgana rose from her chair, smiling kindly.
”Dear 'd.u.c.h.ess' be quite easy in your mind!” she said--”I want you very much on land, but I shall not want you in the air! You will be quite safe and happy here in the Palazzo d'Oro”--she turned as she saw the shadow of a man's tall figure fall on the smooth marble pavement of the loggia--”Ah! Here is the Marchese! We were just speaking of you!”
”Tropp' onore!” he murmured, as he kissed the little hand she held out to him in the Sicilian fas.h.i.+on of gallantry--”I fear I am perhaps too early?”
”Oh no! We were about to go in to luncheon--I know the hour by the bell of the monastery down there--you hear it?”
A soft ”ting-ting tong”--rang from the olive and ilex woods below the Palazzo,--and Morgana, listening, smiled.
”Poor Don Aloysius!” she said--”He will now go to his soup maigre--and we to our poulet, sauce bechamel,--and he will be quite as contented as we are!”
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