A mere nothing--the incident.
Yet it brought (or hastened) a change into the atmosphere of that arbour where, under the giant glowworms of lights swinging above them, two young people sat at ease together without speaking.
For Gwenna, envious, thought, "Leslie can make a man think of nothing but her, even when she"s "not in the mood!" I can"t. Yet I believe I could, but for one thing. Even now I don"t know that he isn"t thinking about That Other----"
"That Other" was her rival, that machine of his that Gwenna had not mentioned all the evening....
It had come, she knew, that duel between the Girl and the Aeroplane for the first place in the heart of a Flying Man. A duel as old as the world, between the thing a man greatly loves, and that which he loves more greatly still. She thought of Lovelace who "_loved Honour more_."
She thought of the cold Sea that robs the patient, warm-hearted women ash.o.r.e, of the icy Pole whose magnetism drew men from their wives. The work that drew the thoughts of her Airman was that Invention that was known already as his _Fiancee_....
"Leslie says it"s not as bad as if it were another woman, but I see her as a woman," thought the silent, fanciful girl, "I see her as a sort of winged dragon with a figure-head--aeroplanes don"t have figure-heads, but this one seems to me to have, just like some of those vessels that come into the harbour at Aberdovey. Or like those pictures of harps that are half a woman. Smooth red hair she has, and a long neck stretched out, and a rather thin, pale, don"t-care sort of face like that girl called Muriel. And--and eagle"s talons for hands. That"s how I see that _Fiancee_ of his, with claws for hands that won"t, _won"t_ ever let him go...."
A puff of wind knocked one of the lanterns above their heads softly against the other; the willows rustled silkily outside. Gwenna sat motionless, holding her breath. Suddenly her reverie had broken off with an abrupt, unspoken--"but it"s me he"s thinking of _now_...."
Paul Dampier had been lightly amused by that pa.s.sing of the other couple. That friend of hers, Miss Long, was more than a bit of a flirt, he considered. This Little Thing wasn"t. Couldn"t imagine _her_ giving a kiss as some girls give a dance; or even to "soften" a refusal.... Her mouth, he found himself noticing, was full and curly and exactly the colour of the buds of those fox-gloves that grew all over the shop at her place in Wales. It was probably softer than those curls of hers that he would (also) like to touch.
Idiotic idea, though----
But an idea which is transmittable.
Gwenna, thrilled by this message which she had caught by a method older and less demonstrable than Marconi"s, realised: "He heard _that_, just now; that boy wanting to kiss Leslie.... He"s thinking, now, that he might kiss me."
The boy scarcely at arm"s length from her thought a little confusedly, "I say, though.... Rotten thing to do...."
The girl thought, "He would like to. _What_ is he waiting about? We shall have to go directly----"
For the sky outside had been swiftly paling. Now that pure pallor was changing to the glow of Abyssinian gold. Dawn! From the marquee came a louder blare of music; two long cornet notes and then a rollicking tune--The old "Post Horn" Galop--the last dance. Presently a distant noise of clapping and calls for "Extra"! There would be no time for extras, she"d heard. They would have to go after this. People were beginning to go. Already they had heard the noise of a car. His chair creaked as he moved a little sidewards.
He told himself, more emphatically, "Beastly rotten thing to do. This Little Thing would never speak to me again----"
And the girl sat there, without stirring, without glancing at him. Yet every curve of her little body, every eyelash, every soft breath she drew was calling him, was set upon "making" him. What could she do more to make herself, as Leslie called it, a magnet? Love and innocent longing filled her to the eyes, the tender fox-glove buds of lips that could have asked for nothing better. Even if this _were_ the only time!
Even if she never saw him again!
Wasn"t he going to set the crown upon her wonderful dream of a summer night?
"No, look _here_," the boy remonstrated silently with something in himself; something that seemed to mock him. He lifted his fair head with a gleam of that pride that goes so often before a fall. "Dash it all----"
"He will!" the girl thought breathlessly. And with her thought she seemed to cast all of her heart into the spell....
And then, quite suddenly, something happened whereby that spell was snapped. Even as she thought "_he will_," he rose from his chair.
He took a step to the entrance of their arbour, his shoulders blotting out the glowing light.
"Listen," he said.
And Gwenna, rising too, listened, breathlessly, angrily. He would _not_--she had been cheated. What was it that had--_interfered_?
Presently she heard it, she heard what she would have taken for the noise of another of the departing motors.
Through the clatter from the last galop it was like, yet unlike, the noise of a starting car. But there was in it an _angrier_ note than that.
It is angry for want of any help but its own. A motor-car has solid earth against which to drive; a steamship has dense water. But the Machine that caused this noise was beating her metal thews against invisible air.
It was an aeroplane.
"Look!" said Paul Dampier.
Far away over the still benighted land she rose, and into that glory of Abyssinian gold beyond the river. Gwenna, moving out on to the path, watched the flight. Before, she had wondered that these soaring things didn"t come down. Now, she would have wondered if they had done so.
Steady as if running on rails, the aeroplane came on overhead; her sound as she came now loud, now soft, but always angry, harsh--harshness like that of a woman who lives to herself and her strivings, with no comradeship of Earth on which to lean. Against the sky that was her playground she showed as a slate-coloured dragonfly--a purple Empress of the Air soaring on and on into the growing dazzle of the day.
"Oh, it _is_ beautiful, though," cried the girl on the path, looking up, and losing for that moment the angry sense that had fallen upon her of pleasure past, of the end of the song. "It is wonderful."
"Pooh, that old horse-bus," laughed Paul Dampier above her shoulder, and mentioned the names of the machine, the flyer in her. He could pick them out of the note of her angry song.
"That will be nothing to my P.D.Q.," he declared exultantly as they walked on up the path towards the marquee. "You wait until I"ve got my aeroplane working! That"ll be something new in aviation, you know.
Nearest thing yet to the absolute ident.i.ty of the Man with the Machine."
He yawned a little with natural sleepiness, but his interest was wide-awake. He could have gone on until breakfast-time explaining some fresh point about his invention, while the girl in those little silver-heeled shoes paced slowly up the path beside him.... He was going on.
"Make all those other types, English or foreign, as clumsy as the old-fashioned bone-shake bicycle. Fact," he declared. "Now, take the Taube--Hullo----"
"_Bitte_," said a voice.
The German word came across a pile of plates deftly balanced upon a young man"s forearm. That arm was clad in the sleeve of a trim white jacket, b.u.t.toned over a thick and compact little chest. The waiter"s hair was a short, upright golden stubble, and another little stubble of gold sprouted upon his steady upper lip. He had come up, very softly, behind them.
He spoke again in excellent English.
"By your leave, sir."
Dampier made way for him, and he pa.s.sed. Gwenna, with a little shiver, looked after him. The sight of the young waiter whom she had noticed at the beginning of the evening had given her an unreasonable little chill.... Perhaps it was because his softly-moving, white figure against those willows had loomed so like a ghost....
Dampier said, "Rotten job for a man, I always think, hanging about and picking up things for other people like that."
"Yes," said Gwenna, absently, sadly. It _was_ the end now. Quite the end. They"d got to go home. Back to everyday life. The Club, the Works.
Nothing to live for, except--Ah, yes! His promise that he _would_ take her flying, soon....
Above in the glowing sky the aeroplane was dwindling--to disappear. The waiter, turning a corner of the dark shrubbery, had also disappeared as they pa.s.sed. From behind the shelter of the branches he was watching, watching....
He was looking after Paul Dampier, the Airman--the inventor of the newest aeroplane.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FLYING DREAM