The Secret Power | Page 5

log dwelling.
"How do YOU know?" and he laughed again--"What have YOU ever
experienced in the line of hotels? You are employed at the Plaza to
fetch and carry;--to wait on the wretched invalids who come to
California for a 'cure' of diseases incurable--"
"YOU are not an invalid!" she said with a slight accent of contempt.

"No! I only pretend to be!"
"Why do you pretend?"
"Oh, Manella! What a question! Why do we all pretend?--all!--every
human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not
face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with
flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb
of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should go mad!"
Manella knitted her black brows perplexedly.
"I do not understand you"--she said--"Why do you talk nonsense about
the sun? I suppose you ARE ill after all,--you have an illness of the
head."
He nodded with mock solemnity.
"That's it! You're a wise woman, Manella! That's why I'm here. Not
tubercles on the lungs,--tubercles on the brain! Oh, those tubercles!
They could never stand the Plaza!--the gaiety, the brilliancy--the--the
all-too dazzling social round!. . ." he paused, and a gleam of even white
teeth under his dark moustache gave the suggestion of a smile--"That's
why I stay up here."
"You make fun of the Plaza"--said Manella, biting her lips vexedly--
"And of me, too. I am nothing to you!"
"Absolutely nothing, dear! But why should you be any thing?"
A warm flush turned her sunburnt skin to a deeper tinge.
"Men are often fond of women"--she said.
"Often? Oh, more than often! Too often! But what does that matter?"
She twisted the ends of her rose-coloured neckerchief nervously with
one hand.

"You are a man"--she replied, curtly--"You should have a woman."
He laughed--a deep, mellow, hearty laugh of pleasure.
"Should I? You really think so? Wonderful Manella? Come
here!--come quite close to me!"
She obeyed, moving with the soft tread of a forest animal, and, face to
face with him, looked up. He smiled kindly into her dark fierce eyes,
and noted with artistic approval the unspoiled beauty of natural lines in
her form, and the proud poise of her handsome head on her full throat
and splendid shoulders.
"You are very good-looking, Manella"--he then remarked, lazily--
"Quite the model for a Juno. Be satisfied with yourself. You should
have scores of lovers!"
She stamped her foot suddenly and impatiently.
"I have none!" she said--"And you know it! But you do not care!"
He shook a reproachful forefinger at her.
"Manella, Manella, you are naughty! Temper, temper! Of course I do
not care! Be reasonable! Why should I?"
She pressed both hands tightly against her bosom, seeking to control
her quick, excited breathing.
"Why should you? I do not know! But I care! I would be your woman!
I would be your slave! I would wait upon you and serve you faithfully!
I would obey your every wish. I am a good servant,--I can cook and
sew and wash and sweep--I can do everything in a house and you
should have no trouble. You should write and read all day,-- I would
not speak a word to disturb you. I would guard you like a dog that loves
his master!"
He listened, with a strange look in his eyes,--a look of wonder and
something of compassion. There was a pause. The silence of the hills

was, or seemed more intense and impressive--the great white cloud still
spread itself in large leisure along the miles of slowly darkening sky.
Presently he spoke. "And what wages, Manella? What wages should I
have to pay for such a servant?--such a dog?"
Her head drooped, she avoided his steady, searching gaze.
"What wages, Manella? None, you would say, except--love! You tell
me you would be my woman,--and I know you mean it. You would be
my slave--you mean that, too. But you would want me to love you!
Manella, there is no such thing as love!--not in this world! There is
animal attraction,--the magnetism of the male for the female, the
female for the male,--the magnetism that pulls the opposite sexes
together in order to keep this planet supplied with an ever new crop of
fools,--but love! No, Manella! There is no such thing!"
Here he gently took her two hands away from their tightly folded
position on her bosom and held them in his own.
"No such thing, my dear!" he went on, speaking softly and soothingly,
as though to a child--"Except in the dreams of poets, and
you--fortunately!--know nothing about poetry! The wild animal in you
is attracted to the tame, ruminating animal in me,--and you would be
my woman, though I would not be your man. I