person through the crowd of her guests with all the gliding grace of
a fairy vision in white draperies showered with diamonds, but gave
no hint of special favour or attention to any man, not even to Roger
Seaton, the scientist in question, who stood apart from the dancing
throng, in a kind of frowning disdain, looking on, much as one might
fancy a forest animal looking at the last gambols of prey It
purposed to devour. He had taken the first convenient interval to
disappear, and as he did not return, Miss Herbert had asked her
hostess what had become of him? Morgana, her cheeks flushed prettily
by a just-finished dance, smiled in surprise at the question.

"How should I know?" she replied--"I am not his keeper?"

"But--but--you are interested in him?" Lydia suggested.

"Interested? Oh, yes! Who would not be interested in a man who says
he can destroy half the world if he wants to! He assumes to be a
sort of deity, you know!--Jove and his thunderbolts in the shape of
a man in a badly cut suit of modern clothes! Isn't it fun!" She gave
a little peal of laughter. "And every one in the room to-night
thinks I am going to marry him!"

"And are you not?"

"Can you imagine it! ME, married? Lydia, Lydia, do you take me for a
fool!" She laughed again--then grew suddenly serious. "To think of
such a thing! Fancy ME!--giving my life into the keeping of a
scientific wizard who, if he chose, could reduce me to a little heap
of dust in two minutes, and no one any the wiser! Thank you! The
sensational press has been pretty full lately of men's brutalities