"I have all I want!"--she said softly aloud,--"All!--all that money can buy--more than money has ever bought!--and yet--the unknown quantity called happiness is not in the bargain. What is it? Why is it? I am like the princess in the 'Arabian Nights' who was quite satisfied with her beautiful palace till an old woman came along and told her that it wanted a roc's egg to make it perfect. And she became at once miserable and discontented because she had not the roc's egg! I thought her a fool when I read that story in my childhood--but I am as great a fool as she to-day. I want that roc's egg!" She laughed to herself and looked up at the splendid moon, round as a golden shield in heaven. "How the moon shone that night in California!" she murmured--"And Roger Seaton--bear-man as he is--would have given worlds to hold me in his arms and kiss me as he did once when he 'didn't mean it!' Ah! I wonder if he ever WILL mean it! Perhaps--when it is too late!" And there swept over her mind the memory of Manella--her rich, warm, dark beauty--her frank abandonment to passions purely primitive,--and she smiled, a cold little weird smile. "He may marry her,"--she said--"And yet--I think not! But--if he does marry her he will never love her--as he loves ME! How we play at cross-purposes in our lives!--he is not a marrying man--I am not a marrying woman--we are both out for conquest on other lines,--and if either of us wins our way, what then? Shall we be content to live on a triumph of power,--without love?" CHAPTER XVII "So the man from Washington told you to bring this to me?" Roger Seaton asked the question of Manella, twirling in his hand an unopened letter she had just given him. She nodded in the affirmative. He looked at her critically, amused at the evident pains she had taken with her dress and general appearance. He twirled the letter again like a toy in his fingers. "I wonder what it's all about? Do you know?" Manella shrugged her shoulders with a charming air of indifference. "I? How should I know? He is your friend I suppose?" "Not a bit of it!" and Roger stretched himself lazily and yawned--"He's the friend of nobody who is poor. But he's the comrade of everybody with plenty of cash. He's as hard as a dried old walnut, without the shred of a heart--" "You are wrong!" said Manella, flushing up suddenly--"You are wrong and unjust! He is an ugly old man, but he is very kind." Seaton threw back his head and laughed heartily with real enjoyment. "Manella, oh, Manella!" he exclaimed--"What has he said or done to you to win your good opinion? Has he made you some pretty compliments, and told you that you are beautiful? Every one can tell you that, my dear! It does not need Mr. Senator Gwent's assurance to emphasise the fact! That you find him an ugly old man is natural--but that you should also think him 'very kind' DOES surprise me!" Manella gazed at him seriously--her lovely eyes gleaming like jewels under her long black lashes.