They left the dinner-table and went out into the wonder of a perfect Sicilian moonlight.

All the gardens were illumined and the sea beyond, with wide strands of silver spreading on all sides, falling over the marble pavements and steps of the loggia and glistening on certain white flowering shrubs with the smooth sheen of polished pearl.

The magical loveliness of the scene, made lovelier by the intense silence of the hour, held them as with a binding spell, and Morgana, standing by one of the slender columns which not only supported the loggia but the whole Palazzo d'Oro as with the petrified stems of trees, made a figure completely in harmony with her surroundings.
"Could anything be more enchantingly beautiful!" sighed Lady Kingswood--"One ought to thank God for eyes to see it!" "And many people with eyes would not see it at all,"-- said Don Aloysius--"They would go indoors, shut the shutters and play Bridge! But those who can see it are the happiest!" And he quoted-- "'On such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise,--on such a night Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents Where Cressid lay!'" "You know your Shakespeare!" said Rivardi.
"Who would not know him!" replied Aloysius--"One is not blind to the sun!" "Ah, poor Shakespeare!" said Morgana--"What a lesson he gives us miserable little moderns in the worth of fame! So great, so unapproachable,--and yet!--doubted and slandered and reviled three hundred years after his death by envious detractors who cannot write a line!" "But what does that matter ?" returned Aloysius.

"Envy and detraction in their blackness only emphasise his brightness, just as a star shines more brilliantly in a dark sky.

One always recognises a great spirit by the littleness of those who strive to wound it,--if it were not great it would not be worth wounding!" "Shakespeare might have imagined my air-ship!" said Morgana, suddenly--"He was perhaps dreaming vaguely of something like it when he wrote about--" 'A winged messenger of heaven When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air!' "The 'White Eagle' sails upon the bosom of the air!" "Quite true"-- said the Marchese Rivardi, looking at her as she stood, bathed in the moonlight, a nymph-like figure of purely feminine charm, as unlike the accepted idea of a "science" scholar as could well be imagined--"And the manner of its sailing is a mystery which you only can explain! Surely you will reveal this secret ?--especially when so many rush into the air-craft business without any idea of the scientific laws by which you uphold your great design?
Much has been said and written concerning new schemes for air-vessels moved by steam--" "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.