"Perhaps not!"--he said, at last--"Our life all through is a voyage of discovery wherein we have no certainty of the port of arrival. The puzzling part of it is that we often 'discover' what has been discovered before in past ages where the discoverers seemed to make no use of their discoveries!--and so we lose ourselves in wonder--and often in weariness!" He sighed,--then added--"Had we not better go in and prepare to meet our hostess at dinner? And Giulio!--unbend your brows!--you must not get angry with your charming benefactress! If you do not let her have HER way, she will never let you have YOURS!" Rivardi gave a resigned gesture. "Oh, MINE! I must give up all hope--she will never think of me more than as a workman who has carried out her design. There is something very strange about her--she seems, at certain moments, to withdraw herself from all the interests of mere humanity. To-day, for instance, she looked down from the air-ship on the swarming crowds in the streets of Naples and said 'Poor little microbes! How sad it is to see them crawling about and festering down there! What IS the use of them! I wish I knew!' Then, when I ventured to suggest that possibly they were more than 'microbes,'--they were human beings that loved and worked and thought and created, she looked at me with those wonderful eyes of hers and answered--'Microbes do the same--only we don't take the trouble to think about them! But if we knew their lives and intentions, I dare say we should find they are quite as clever in their own line as we are in ours!' What is one to say to a woman who argues in this way?" Don Aloysius laughed gently. "But she argues quite correctly after all! My son, you are like the majority of men--they grow impatient with clever women,--they prefer stupid ones. In fact they deliberately choose stupid ones to be the mothers of their children--hence the ever increasing multitude of fools!" He moved towards the open doors of the beautiful lounge-hall of the Palazzo, Rivardi walking at his side. "But you will grant me a measure of wisdom in the advice I gave you the other day-the little millionairess is unlike other women--she is not capable of loving,--not in the way loving is understood in this world,--therefore do not seek from her what she cannot give!--As for her 'flying alone'--leave that to the fates!--I do not think she will attempt it." They entered the Palazzo just as a servant was about to announce to them that dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour, and their talk, for the time being, ended. But the thoughts of both men were busy; and unknown to each other, centered round the enigmatical personality of one woman who had become more interesting to them than anything else in the world,--so much so indeed that each in his own private mind wondered what life would be worth without her! CHAPTER XVI