“People always ridicule things they don’t grasp or understand. Their minds are too small to comprehend your father’s greatness,” Edward said truthfully. He could feel his shortcomings next to her father. He was a good orator, he knew that. But what had he done for himself besides that? “Do you know about Galileo? He was hanged by the Church for saying that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way round.”
A faint smiled crossed Ariadne’s lips. “My father taught me of all the great inventors of our world, of our time and before. Galileo’s name was the first to come up.”
“So you see,” Edward said, leaning back on the rickety chair. “Greatness isn’t achieved by the popular favor. There will always be people who stand against you.”
Ariadne looked away, her fingers clenching. “The whole world seems to be against me.”
“Why do you say so?” Edward asked. She had alluded to it before but then didn’t speak about it again. He had the chance to make her confess. One step closer to her truth, one step closer to Ariadne herself.
She was silent for a few beats before she stood up from her chair. She then walked to one of the drawers on the side and pulled something out of it. When she turned around, Edward noticed that it was a lantern. “This is the first thing that I worked on without my father and I managed to complete it. And then—” She gave a short rundown of the events that followed as she decided to get it patented. At the end of it, Edward was enraged.
“How dare they insult you like that?” he said. He wanted to box something, preferably the jaws of the clerks.
Ariadne smiled faintly. “Unfortunately this is the way of my world. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” She kept the lamp back inside the drawer before he could ask her about it any further. “My father created this lamp in hopes that it would save many lives but we need a special license, the entire treasury, and other departments and anyone else involved with the procedure of acquiring a patent. They also require a lot of money.”
“I’m sorry, Ariadne,” Edward said. That’s all he could offer right then. He felt the weight of her hopelessness. No wonder she was angry at him. He was the very face of the injustice that she had to put up with every day and then he had further insulted her by laughing at her. “I shouldn’t have made light of your work that day. What you do is important, irrespective of your sex.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let us talk about things that can actually change. Small things,” she stressed. “For example, the drainage system of the slums is especially bad and how diseases are spread in the first place.” Edward knew what she meant. Flies, maggots, and worse crawled through the sewage and was probably the primary source of all illness in the neighborhood.
“Did your father have something for that?” Edward asked, the thought suddenly occurring to him.
“As a matter of fact he did,” Ariadne said. She walked up to the notebook, turned some pages, and then handed it to Edward. “It works as a shovel but you don’t need to use it manually. The wheel attached to the system here…” she pointed out on the page, “is rotated for the shovel to work and pick up things as you like. The exceeding weight is yet to be tested under working conditions.”
“Was your father able to make it?” Edward asked.
“He was but it’s incomplete.” Ariadne looked beyond her at the pile of objects lying stacked against the wall. “Nobody wants these.”
“What if I can help you convince them to change their mind?” Edward asked.
“What do you mean?” Ariadne said in confusion.
“The patent for the shovel. You can get one for it.”
“I already told you. I don’t have the money for it.”
“Not yet,” Edward said. A faint thread of an idea was already brewing in his head. “But what if you can help use this invention of your father’s to help people around you?”
Ariadne sighed. “People want nothing to do with my father’s inventions.”
“Then we will convince them,” Edward said. He stood up from his chair and walked toward Ariadne. It was impossible not to look at her inviting lips which had turned red as she bit down on them. “I can help you get the patent and the royalty shall be deposited in your father’s name.”
“I can’t accept such kindness from you,” she said, fiddling with her thumbs. Edward wanted to grab her nimble fingers and lay a kiss to her knuckles one by one. “I have no means to pay you back.”
“You’re already helping me,” Edward pointed out, his voice soft. She looked up at him and for the first time, he saw some deep emotion in her eyes. Maybe she wasn’t as aloof to him as he had initially thought.
“My mother always used to tell me that men need something else in return for their kindness.” She didn’t meet his gaze when she spoke.
“I don’t want your money,” Edward protested.
She looked up now, her eyes flashing. “I wasn’t talking about money.”Oh, the heat of realization almost made him choke on his own words. She meantthosekinds of favors.
“Is that what you think of me?” Edward asked, more in jest than anything else.
Ariadne shook her head, blushing. “Not that I think that you will do such a thing, my…Edward.”
Edward was momentarily distracted when she said his name. He didn’t think he would ever get tired of that. He wanted to explain further but knew that he hadn’t the faintest idea how one went about acquiring a patent. He would have to pull a lot of strings, that was for sure. Edward didn’t want to give her unnecessary hope in case he failed so he kept his mouth shut. “I see,” was all he said.
“Did I offend you?” she asked, worrying her lip again. Was she realizing what she was doing or the effect she was having on him by the simple action? She didn’t seem to be aware.