"But who"s talking about war?" asked the bewildered Million.
"I am," said the young American.
"War?" repeated his cousin. "But gracious alive! Where is there any, nowadays?"
The glimpse of English landscape outside the window seemed to echo her question.
There seemed to be no memory of such a terrible and strenuous thing as war among those gently sloping Suss.e.x Downs, where the white chalk showed in patches through the close turf, and where the summer haze, dancing above that chalk, made all the distances deceptive.
From the top of those downs the country, I knew, must look flat as coloured maps. They lay spread out, those squares and oblongs of pearl-grey chalk, of green corn, of golden hay, with "the King"s peace over all, dear boys, the King"s peace over all," as Kipling said.
The whole country seemed as if the events that had come and gone since the reign, say, of King John had left no more impression upon it than the cloud shadows that had rolled and pa.s.sed, rolled and pa.s.sed. As it was in the beginning, so it was in the late June of Nineteen Fourteen.
And so it looked as if it must ever remain.
Yet----Here was an extraordinarily unexpected young man bringing into the midst of all this sun-lit peace the talk of war! War as it had never yet been waged; war not only on the land and under the waves, but war that dropped death from the very clouds themselves!
"I think you"re talking silly," said Miss Million severely. "No doubt there"s always a certain amount of warring and fighting going on in India, where poor dad was. Out-of-the-way places like that, where there aren"t any only black people to fight with, anyhow.... But any other sort of fighting came to an end with the Bo"r War, where dad was outed.
"And I don"t see what it"s got to do with you, or why you should think it so fearfully important to go inventing your bomb-droppers and what-nots for things what--what aren"t going to happen!"
The young American smiled in a distant sort of way.
"So you"re one of the people that think war isn"t going to happen again?
Well! I guess you aren"t lonely. Plenty think as you do," he told his cousin. "Others think as I do. They calculate that sooner or later it"s bound to come. And that if it comes fortune will favour those that have prepared for the idea of it. Aren"t you a soldier"s daughter, Cousin Nellie?"
The little dark head of Sergeant Million"s orphan went up proudly.
"Rather!"
"Well, then, you"ll take a real live interest," said her cousin, "in something that might make all the difference in the world to your country, supposing she did come to grips with another country. That"s the difference that would be made by machines like mine. Not that there is another machine just like my own, I guess. Let me tell you about her----"
Again he went on talking about his new bomb-dropper in words that I don"t pretend to understand.
I understood the tone, though.
That was unmistakable. It was the rapt and utterly serious tone which a person speaks in of something that fills his whole heart. I suppose a painter would speak thus of his beloved art, or a violinist of his music, or a mother of her adored and only baby boy. I saw the young American"s face light up until it was even as something inspired.
This machine of his, for dropping bombs from the clouds upon the heads of some enemy that existed if only in his imagination was "his subject."
This was his all. This he lived for. Yes, that was plain to both of us.
I saw Miss Million give an understanding nod of her little dark head as she said: "Yes, you haven"t half set your mind on this thing, have you?"
"I guess you"ve hit it," said the American. Then Miss Million asked: "And where does the money part of it come in?"
Then he explained to us that, having invented the thing (it was all a pure joy apparently), now began the hard work. He had to sell the machine! He had to get it "taken up," to have it experimented with. All this would run him into more money than he had got.
He concluded simply: "That"s where the Million dollars would come in so useful! And, Cousin Nellie, I am simply bound to try and get them!"
I watched my mistress"s face as he made this announcement. Miss Million, I saw, was so interested that for the moment she had forgotten her own obsession, her infatuation for the Honourable Jim Burke. As well as the interest, though, there was "fight" in the grey eyes of the soldier"s orphan who used to wear a blue-print uniform frock and a black straw hat with a scarlet ribbon about it.
She said: "I see what you mean. Me give you my money to play with! And what if I don"t hold with investing any of uncle"s money in this harum-scarum idea of yours? I am none so sure that I do hold----"
"Maybe I might have to do a little of the holding myself, Cousin Nellie," broke in the quiet, firm voice of her American cousin. "See here! What if I were to put up a tussle to get all that money away from you, whether you wanted to give it up to me to play with it or not?"
And then he began quickly to explain to her what he had explained to me coming down in the car. He went over the possibilities of his contesting Mr. Samuel Million"s will.
I don"t think I shall ever forget that funny little scene in the bungalow-furnished room with all those theatrical photographs papering the walls, and with the windows opening on to the Suss.e.x garden where the bees boomed in the roses, and the lazy sound mingled with the chirping of the starlings, and with the shriller chatter of two of the "Refuge" girls lying in deck-chairs in the shadow of the lilacs.
Inside, these two cousins, young American and young Englishwoman, who might be going to fight for a fortune, stared at each other with a measuring glance that was not at all unfriendly. In the eyes of both I read the same question.
"Now, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?"
After a pause Miss Million said: "Well, this"ll mean a lot of worry and noosance, I suppose. Going to Lawr! Never thought I should come to that sort of thing. Courts, and lawyers, an" all that----"
She looked straight at the young American, who nodded.
"Yes, I guess that"s what fighting this thing out will mean," he agreed.
Miss Million knit her brows.
"Lawr," she said reflectively, voicing the sentiment of our whole s.e.x on this vexed subject. "Lawr always seems to be ser _silly_! It lets a whole lot o" things go on that you"d think ought to "a" been stopped hundreds of years ago by Ack of Parliament. Then again, it drops on you like one o" them bombs of yours for something that doesn"t make twopennyworth of difference to anybody, and there you are with forty shillings fine, at least. An" as for getting anything done with going to Lawr about it, well, it"s like I used to say to the butcher"s boy at Putney when he used to ask me to give him time to get that joint brought round: "Time! It isn"t time you want, it"s Eternity!"
"Going to Lawr! What does it mean? Paying away pots o" money to a lot o"
good-for-nothing people for talking to you till you"re silly, and writing letters to you that you can"t make head nor tail of, and then nothing settled until you"re old and grey. If then!"
"That"s quite an accurate description of my own feelings towards the business," said the other candidate for Miss Million"s fortune. "I"m not breaking my neck or straining myself any to hand over to the lawyers any of the precious dollars that I want for the wedding-portion of my machine."
"Go to law----No, that"s not a thing I want to do," repeated the present owner of the precious dollars. "Same time, I"m not going to lose any of the money that"s mine by right if I can possibly keep hold on it--that"s only sense, that is!"
And she turned to me, while again I felt as if I were a referee. "What do you say, Smith?"
I was deadly puzzled.
I ventured: "But if you"ve both made up your minds you must have the money, there doesn"t seem anything for it but to go to law, does there?"
"Wait awhile," said the young American slowly. "There does appear to me to be an alternative. Now, see here----"
He leant towards Miss Million. He held out his hand, as if to point out the alternative. He said: "There is another way of fixing it, I guess.
We needn"t fight. I"d feel real mean, fighting a dear little girl like you----"
"You won"t get round me," said Miss Million, quite as defensively as if she were addressing a tradesman"s boy on a doorstep. "No getting round me with soft soap, young man!"
"I wasn"t meaning it that way," he said, "The way I meant would let us share the money and yet let"s both have the dollars and the glory of the invention and everything else!"
"I don"t know how you mean," declared Miss Million.
I, sitting there in my corner, had seen what was coming.
But I really believe Miss Million herself received the surprise of her life when her cousin gave his quiet reply.