to women,--and I've no intention of adding myself to the list of
victims! Men ARE brutes! They were born brutes, and brutes they will
remain!"

"Then you don't like him?" persisted Lydia, moved, in spite of
herself, by curiosity, and also by a vague wonder at the strange
brilliancy of complexion and eyes which gave to Morgana a beauty
quite unattainable by features only--"You're not set on him?"

Morgana held up a finger.

"Listen!" she said--"Isn't that a lovely valse? Doesn't the music
seem to sweep round and tie us all up in a garland of melody! How
far, far above all these twirling human microbes it is!--as far as
heaven from earth! If we could really obey the call of that music we
should rise on wings and fly to such wonderful worlds!--as it is, we
can only hop round and round like motes in a sunbeam and imagine we
are enjoying ourselves for an hour or two! But the music means so
much more!" She paused, enrapt;--then in a lighter tone went on--
"And you think I would marry? I would not marry an emperor if there
were one worth having--which there isn't!--and as for Roger Seaton,
I certainly am not 'set' on him as you so elegantly put it! And he's
not 'set' on me. We're both 'set' on something else!"

She was standing near an open window as she spoke, and she looked up
at the dark purple sky sprinkled with stars. She continued slowly,
and with emphasis--

"I might--possibly I might--have helped him to that something else--
if I had not discovered something more!"