s--amazed at the lightning speed of its ascent and the steadiness of
its level flight. She had seen it spread its great wings as by
self-volition and soar out of the aerodrome with Morgana seated inside
like an elfin queen in a fairy car--she had seen the Marchese Giulio
Rivardi "take the helm" with the assistant Gaspard, now no longer a
prey to fear, beside him. Up, up and away they had flown, waving to her
till she could see their forms no longer--till the "White Eagle" itself
looked no bigger than a dove soaring in the blue. And while she waited,
even this faint dove-image vanished! She looked in every direction, but
the skies were empty. To her there was something very terrifying in
this complete disappearance of human beings in the vast stretches of
the air--they had gone so silently, too, for the "White Eagle's" flight
made no sound, and though the afternoon was warm and balmy she felt
chilled with the cold of nervous apprehension. Yet they had all assured
her there was no cause for alarm,--they were only going on a short
trial trip and would be back to dinner.

"Nothing more than a run in a motor-car!" Morgana said, gaily.

Nothing more,--but to Lady Kingswood it seemed much more. She belonged
to simple Victorian days--days of quiet home-life and home affections,
now voted "deadly dull!" and all the rushing to and fro and gadding
about of modern men and women worried and distressed her, for she had
the plain common sense to perceive that it did no good either to health
or morals, and led nowhere. She looked wistfully out to sea,--the blue
Sicilian sea so exquisite in tone and play of pure reflections,--and
thought how happy a life lived after the old sweet ways might be for a
brilliant little creature like Morgana, if she could win "a good man's
love" as Shakespeare puts it. And yet--was not this rather harking back
to mere sentiment, often proved delusive? Her own "good man's love" had
been very precious to her,--but it had not fulfilled all her heart's
longing, though she considered herself an entirely commonplace woman.
And what sort of a man would it be that could hold Morgana? As well try
to control a sunbeam or a lightning flash as the restless vital and
intellectual spirit that had, for the time being, entered into feminine
form, showing itself nevertheless as something utterly different and
superior to women as they are generally known. Some thoughts such as
these, though vague and disconnected, passed th