"Amazing!" and the Marchese lowered his voice to almost a whisper--"I hardly dare speak of it!--it is like something supernatural! We have carried out your instructions to the letter--the thing is LIVING, in all respects save life. I made the test with the fluid you gave me--I charged the cells secretly--none of the mechanics saw what I did--and when she rose in air they were terrified--" "Brave souls!" said Morgana, and now she withdrew her hand from his grasp--"So you went up alone?" "I did. The steering was easy--she obeyed the helm,--it was as though she were a light yacht in a sea,--wind and tide in her favour. But her speed outran every air-ship I have ever known--as also the height to which she ascends." "We will take a trip in her to-morrow pour passer le temps"--said Morgana, "You shall choose a place for us to go. Nothing can stop us--nothing on earth or in the air!--and nothing can destroy us. I can guarantee that!" 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--