The Secret Power | Page 7

of staying at the 'Plaza.' You think
I'm a rich Englishman. I'm not. No Englishman is ever rich,-- not up to
his own desires. He wants the earth and all that therein is--does the
Englishman, and of course he can't have it. He rather grudges America
her large slice of rich plum-pudding territory, forgetting that he could
have had it himself for the price of tea. But I don't grudge anybody
anything--America is welcome to the whole bulk as far as I'm
concerned--Britain ditto,--let them both eat and be filled. All I want is
to be left alone. Do you hear that, Manella? To be left alone!
Particularly by women. That's one reason why I came here. This cabin
is supposed to be a sort of tuberculosis 'shelter,' where a patient in
hopeless condition comes with a special nurse to die. I don't want a
nurse, and I'm not going to die. Tubercles don't touch me--they don't
flourish on my soil. So this solitude just suits me. If I were at the 'Plaza'
I should have to meet a lot of women--"
"No, you wouldn't," interrupted Manella, suddenly and sharply--"only
one woman."
"Only one? You?"
She sighed, and moved impatiently.
"Oh, no! Not me. A stranger."
He looked at her with a touch of inquisitiveness.
"An invalid?"
"She may be. I don't know. She has golden hair."
He gave a gesture of dislike.
"Dreadful! That's enough! I can imagine her,--a die-away creature with
a cough and a straw-coloured wig. Yes!--that will do, Manella! You'd
better go and wait upon her. I've got all I want for a couple of days at

least." He seated himself and took up his note-book. She turned away.
"Stop a minute, Manella!"
She obeyed.
"Golden hair, you said?"
She nodded.
"Old or young?"
"She might be either"--and Manella gazed dreamily at the darkening
sky--"There is nobody old nowadays--or so it seems to me."
"An invalid?"
"I don't think so. She looks quite well. She arrived at the Plaza only
yesterday."
"Ah! Well, good-night, Manella! And if you want to know anything
more about me, I don't mind telling you this,--that there's nothing in the
world I so utterly detest as a woman with golden hair! There!"
She looked at him, surprised at his harsh tone. He shook his forefinger
at her.
"Fact!" he said--"Fact as hard as nails! A woman with golden hair is a
demon--a witch--a mischief and a curse! See? Always has been and
always will be! Good-night!"
But Manella paused, meditatively.
"She looks like a witch," she said slowly--"One of those creatures they
put in pictures of fairy tales,--small and white. Very small,-- I could
carry her."
"I wouldn't try it if I were you"--he answered, with visible
impatience--"Off you go! Good-night!"

She gave him one lingering glance; then, turning abruptly picked up her
empty milk pail and started down the hill at a run.
The man she left gave a sigh, deep and long of intense relief. Evening
had fallen rapidly, and the purple darkness enveloped him in its warm,
dense gloom. He sat absorbed in thought, his eyes turned towards the
east, where the last stretches of the afternoon's great cloud trailed filmy
threads of woolly black through space. His figure seemed gradually
drawn within the coming night so as almost to become part of it, and
the stillness around him had a touch of awe in its impalpable heaviness.
One would have thought that in a place of such utter loneliness, the
natural human spirit of a man would instinctively desire
movement,--action of some sort, to shake off the insidious depression
which crept through the air like a creeping shadow, but the solitary
being, seated somewhat like an Aryan idol, hands on knees and face
bent forwards, had no inclination to stir. His brain was busy; and half
unconsciously his thoughts spoke aloud in words--
"Have we come to the former old stopping place?" he said, as though
questioning some invisible companion; "Must we cry 'halt!' for the
thousand millionth time? Or can we go on? Dare we go on? If actually
we discover the secret--wrapped up like the minutest speck of a kernel
in the nut of an electron,--what then? Will it be well or ill? Shall we
find it worth while to live on here with nothing to do?--nothing to
trouble us or compel us to labour? Without pain shall we be conscious
of health?--without sorrow shall we understand joy?"
A sudden whiteness flooded the dark landscape, and a full moon leaped
to the edge of the receding cloud. Its rising had been veiled in the drift
of black woolly vapour, and its silver glare, sweeping through the
darkness flashed over the land with astonishing abruptness. The man
lifted his eyes.
"One would think that done for effect!" he