Giulio Rivardi gazed at her wonderingly,--his dark deep Southern eyes expressed admiration with a questioning doubt commingled.
"You are very sure of yourself"--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.