"That is so like men!" interrupted Morgana, with a laugh--"They will think of steam power when they are actually in possession of electricity!--and they will stick to electricity without moving the one step further which would give them the full use of radio-activity! They will 'bungle' to the end!--and their bungling is always brought about by an ineffable conceit of their own so-called 'logical' conclusions! Poor dears!--they 'get there' at last--and in the course of centuries find out what they could have discovered in a month if they had opened their minds as well as their eyes!" "Well, then,--help them now," said Rivardi--"Give them the chance to learn your secret!" Morgana moved away from the column where she had leaned, and came more fully into the broad moonlight. "My dear Marchese Giulio!" she said, indulgently, "You really are a positive child in your very optimistic look-out on the world of to-day! Suppose I were to 'give them the chance,' as you suggest, to learn my secret, how do you think I should be received? I might go to the great scientific institutions of London and Paris and I might ask to be heard--I might offer to give a 'demonstration,'" here she began to laugh; "Oh dear!--it would never do for a woman to 'demonstrate' and terrify all the male professors, would it! No!--well, I should probably have to wait months before being 'heard,'--then I should probably meet with the chill repudiation dealt out to that wonderful Hindu scientist, Jagadis Bose, by Burdon Sanderson when the brilliant Indian savant tried to teach men what they never knew before about the life of plants. Not only that, I should be met with incredulity and ridicule--'a woman! a WOMAN dares to assume knowledge superior to ours!' and so forth. No, no! Let the wise men try their steam air-ships and spoil the skies by smoke and vapour, so that agriculture becomes more and more difficult, and sunshine an almost forgotten benediction!--let them go their own foolish way till they learn wisdom of themselves--no one could ever teach them what they refuse to learn, till they tumble into a bog or quicksand of dilemma and have to be forcibly dragged out." "By a woman?" hinted Don Aloysius, with a smile. She shrugged her shoulders carelessly.