Two or three hours later the "White Eagle" was high in air above the Palazzo d'Oro. Down below Lady Kingswood stood on the seashore by the aerodrome, watching the wonderful ship of the sky with dazzled, scared eyes--amazed at the lightning speed of its ascent and the steadiness of its level flight. She had seen it spread its great wings as by self-volition and soar out of the aerodrome with Morgana seated inside like an elfin queen in a fairy car--she had seen the Marchese Giulio Rivardi "take the helm" with the assistant Gaspard, now no longer a prey to fear, beside him. Up, up and away they had flown, waving to her till she could see their forms no longer--till the "White Eagle" itself looked no bigger than a dove soaring in the blue.
And while she waited, even this faint dove-image vanished! She looked in every direction, but the skies were empty. To her there was something very terrifying in this complete disappearance of human beings in the vast stretches of the air--they had gone so silently, too, for the "White Eagle's" flight made no sound, and though the afternoon was warm and balmy she felt chilled with the cold of nervous apprehension. Yet they had all assured her there was no cause for alarm,--they were only going on a short trial trip and would be back to dinner.
"Nothing more than a run in a motor-car!" Morgana said, gaily.
Nothing more,--but to Lady Kingswood it seemed much more. She belonged to simple Victorian days--days of quiet home-life and home affections, now voted "deadly dull!" and all the rushing to and fro and gadding about of modern men and women worried and distressed her, for she had the plain common sense to perceive that it did no good either to health or morals, and led nowhere. She looked wistfully out to sea,--the blue Sicilian sea so exquisite in tone and play of pure reflections,--and thought how happy a life lived after the old sweet ways might be for a brilliant little creature like Morgana, if she could win "a good man's love" as Shakespeare puts it. And yet--was not this rather harking back to mere sentiment, often proved delusive? Her own "good man's love" had been very precious to her,--but it had not fulfilled all her heart's longing, though she considered herself an entirely commonplace woman.
And what sort of a man would it be that could hold Morgana? As well try to control a sunbeam or a lightning flash as the restless vital and intellectual spirit that had, for the time being, entered into feminine form, showing itself nevertheless as something utterly different and superior to women as they are generally known. Some thoughts such as these, though vague and disconnected, passed through Lady Kingswood's mind as she turned away from the sea-shore to re-ascend the flower-bordered terraces of the Palazzo d'Oro,--and it was with real pleasure that she perceived on the summit of the last flight of grassy steps, the figure of Don Aloysius. He was awaiting her approach, and came down a little way to meet her.