"Hold that!" she said—"And while you hold it, tell me of my other palace—the one with wings!"
He clasped her small white fingers in his own sun-browned palm and walked beside her bare-headed.
"Ah!" And he drew a deep breath—"That is a miracle! What we called your 'impossible' plan has been made possible! But who would have thought that a woman—"
"Stop there!" she interrupted—"Do not repeat the old gander-cackle of barbaric man, who, while owing his every comfort as well as the continuance of his race, to woman, denied her every intellectual initiative! 'Who would have thought that a woman'—could do anything but bend low before a man with grovelling humility saying 'My lord, here am I, the waiting vessel of your lordship's pleasure!—possess me or I die!' We have changed that beggarly attitude!"
Her eyes flashed,—her voice rang out—the little fingers he held, stiffened resolutely in his clasp. He looked at her with a touch of anxiety.
"Pardon me!—I did not mean—" he stammered.
In a second her mood changed, and she laughed.
"No!—Of course you 'did not mean' anything, Marchese! You are naturally surprised that my 'idea' which was little more than an idea, has resolved itself into a scientific fact—but you would have been just as surprised if the conception had been that of a man instead of a woman. Only you would not have said so!"
She laughed again,—a laugh of real enjoyment,—then went on—
"Now tell me—what of my White Eagle?—what movement?—what speed?"