"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 Kingswood--"How can you say such a thing!"
"Only because I feel it"--replied Morgana--"I dare say my life is not more valueless than other lives--they are all without ultimate meaning. If I knew, quite positively, that I was all in all to some ONE being who would be unhappy without me,--to whom I could be helper and inspirer, I dare say I should value my life more,--but unfortunately I have seen too much of the modern world to believe in the sincerity of even that 'one' being, could I find him--or her. I am very positively alone in life,--no woman was ever more alone than I!"
"But--is not that your own fault?" suggested Don Aloysius, gently.
"Quite!" she answered, smiling--"I fully admit it. I am what they call 'difficult' I know,--I do not like 'society' or its amusements, which to me seem very vulgar and senseless,--I do not like its conversation, which I find excessively banal and often coarse--I cannot set my soul on tennis or golf or bridge--so I'm quite an 'outsider.' But I'm not sorry!--I should not care to be INside the human menagerie. Too much barking, biting, scratching, and general howling among the animals!--it wouldn't suit me!"
She laughed lightly, and continued,-"That's why I say my life is valueless to anyone but myself. And that's why I'm not afraid to risk it in flying the 'White Eagle' alone."
Her hearers were silent. Indeed there was nothing to be said. Whatever her will or caprice there was no one with any right to gainsay it. Rivardi was inwardly seething with suppressed irritation--but his handsome face showed no sign of annoyance save in an extreme pallor and gravity of expression.
"I think,"--said Don Aloysius, after a pause--"I think our hostess will do us the grace of believing that whatever she has experienced of the world in general, she has certainly won the regard and interest of those whom she honours with her company at the present moment!"--and his voice had a thrill of irresistible kindness--"And whatever she chooses to do, and however she chooses to do it, she cannot avoid involving such affection and interest as those friends represent--"