She gave a little cry.
"With ME?"
"Yes, with you! Why not? Why don't you manage it? A beautiful woman like you could win the game in less than a week?"
She shook her head sorrowfully.
"You do not know him!" she said--"But--HE knows!"
"Knows what?"
She gave a despairing little gesture.
"That I love him!"
"Ah! That's a pity!" said Gwent--"Men are curious monsters in their love-appetites; they always refuse the offered dish and ask for something that isn't in the bill of fare. You should have pretended to hate him!"
"I could not pretend THAT!" said Manella, sadly--"But if I could, it would not matter. He does not want a woman."
"Oh, doesn't he?" Gwent was amused at her quaint way of putting it. "Well, he's the first man I ever heard of, that didn't! That's all bunkum, my good girl! Probably he's crying for the moon!"
"What is that?" she asked, wistfully.
"Crying for the moon? Just hankering after what can't be got. Lots of men are afflicted that way. But they've been known to give up crying and content themselves with something else."
"HE would never content himself!" she said--"If she--the woman that came here, is the moon, he will always want her. Even I want her!"
"You?" exclaimed Gwent, amazed.
"Yes! I want to see her again!" A puzzled look contracted her brows. "Since she spoke to me I have always thought of her,--I cannot get her out of my mind! She just HOLDS me--yes!--in one of her little white hands! There are few women like that I think!--women who hold the souls of others as prisoners till they choose to let them go!"
Mr. Senator Gwent was fairly nonplussed. This dark-eyed Spanish beauty with her romantic notions was almost too much for him. Had he met her in a novel he would have derided the author of the book for delineating such an impossible character,--but coming in contact with her in real life, he was at a loss what to say. Especially as he himself was quite aware of the mysterious "hold" exercised by Morgana Royal on those whom she chose to influence either near or at a distance. After a few seconds of deliberation he answered-"Yes--I should say there are very few women of that rather uncomfortable sort of habit,--the fewer the better, in my opinion. Now Miss Manella Soriso, remember what I say to you! Don't think about being 'held' by anybody except by a lover and husband! See? Play the game! With such looks as God has given you, it should be easy! Win your 'god' away from his thunderbolts before he begins havoc with them from his miniature Olympus. If he wants the 'moon' (and possibly he doesn't!) he won't say no to a star,--it's the next best thing. Seriously now,"--and Gwent threw away the end of his cigar and laid a hand gently on her arm--"be a good girl and think over what I've said to you. Marry him if you can!--it will be the making of him!"