"--he said, gently. "Of course one cannot
but marvel that your brain should have grasped in so short a time what
men all over the world are still trying to discover--"

"Men are slow animals!" she said, lightly. "They spend years in talking
instead of in doing. Then again, when one of them really does
something, all the rest are up in arms against him, and more years are
wasted in trying to prove him right or wrong. I, as a mere woman, ask
nobody for an opinion--I risk my own existence--spend my own money--and
have nothing to do with governments. If I succeed I shall be sought
after fast enough!--but I do not propose to either give or sell my
discovery."

"Surely you will not keep it to yourself?"

"Why not? The world is too full of inventions as it is--and it is not
the least grateful to its inventors or explorers. It would make the
fool of a film a three-fold millionaire--but it would leave a great
scientist or a noble thinker to starve. No, no! Let It swing on its own
round--I shall not enlighten it!"

She walked on, gathering a flower here and there, and he kept pace
beside her.

"The men who are working here"--he at last ventured to say--"are deeply
interested. You can hardly expect them not to talk among each other and
in the outside clubs and meeting-places of the wonderful mechanism on
which they have been engaged. They have been at it now steadily for
fifteen months."

"Do I not know it?" And she turned her head to him, smiling, "Have I
not paid their salaries regularly?--and yours? I do not care how they
talk or where,--they have built the White Eagle, but they cannot make
her fly!--not without ME! You were as brave as I thought you would be
when you decided to fly alone, trusting to the means I gave you and
which I alone can give!"

She broke off and was silent for a moment, then laying her hand lightly
on his arm, she added--

"I thank you for your confidence in me! As I have said, you were
brave!--you must have felt that you risked your life on a
chance!--nevertheless, for once, you allowed yourself to believe in a
woman!"

"Not only for once but for always would I so believe!--in SUCH a
woman--if she would permit me!" he answered in a low tone of intense
passion. She smiled.

"Ah! The old story! My dear Marchese, do not fret your intellectual
perception uselessly! Think what we have in store for us!--such wonders
as none have yet explored,--the mysteries of the high and the low--the
light an