Naia looked down at her sandalless feet, high arched and pink of nail, "I will be frank," she went on. "I have been piqued because you delayed your coming." She glanced up with a little laugh.
"And I that I could not come the sooner," Croft blended his laughter with hers.
"You came in your car?"
"Yes."
"Tell me," she said, and laid a hand on his arm. "My father declares that Jadgor thinks you inspired of Zitu to make Tamarizia great. Tell me, about these moturs and your work."
Next to his love, these things were first in Croft's mind. For an hour he talked to the girl at his side. And he talked well. Her presence fired him, loosened his tongue. He painted for her a picture of Aphurian transportation transformed, of motors filling the highways, of motor-driven ships on river and sea, and swept on by his own conceptions spoke of motors as possible things of the air.
"Zitu!" she cried. "My lord would dare what none save the birds dare now?"
"Even so," said Croft. "So shall Aphur become strong—stronger than any other State of Tamarizia—strong enough to guard the western gate without another's aid."
He had made the remark of deliberate purpose, and now he heard the girl beside him catch her breath, and glancing toward her, found her eyes wide and very, very dark, with a strange light in their depths. "You—my Lord Jasor, you can do this thing?"