Twelve Stories and a Dream | Page 8

attitude astonished,
then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was
incidentally killed. Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal
compliment. He stood up and stared as his invention swooped out of
sight and reach of him. His long, white hands still gripped his useless
apparatus. The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an
apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop. Then came the crash and
the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve Filmer's tension. "My
God!" he whispered, and sat down. Every one else almost was staring
to see where the machine had vanished, or rushing into the house. The

making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this.
Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful
in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His
care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious.
The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part
could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of
these delays, which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary.
Banghurst magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New Paper,
and reviled it bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant,
approved Filmer's wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said
MacAndrew. "He's perfectly well advised." And whenever an
opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and MacAndrew
just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be controlled
and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, and even
more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through the
skies. Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage to
define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line in the matter
of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful ordeal quite easily. If
he had had it clearly in his mind he could have done endless things. He
would surely have found no difficulty with a specialist to demonstrate a
weak heart, or something gastric or pulmonary, to stand in his
way--that is the line I am astonished he did not take,--or he might, had
he been man enough, have declared simply and finally that he did not
intend to do the thing. But the fact is, though the dread was hugely
present in his mind, the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy
that all through this period he kept telling himself that when the
occasion came he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just
gripped by a great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and
expects to be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of
the machine, and let the assumption that he was going to fly it take root
and flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted anticipatory
compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret squeamishness,
there can be no doubt he found all the praise and distinction and fuss he
got a delightful and even intoxicating draught. The Lady Mary
Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated for him. How THAT
began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. Probably in
the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him with that impartial

partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, standing out
conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, he had a
distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow they
must have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great
Discoverer a moment of sufficient courage for something just a little
personal to be mumbled or blurted. However it began, there is no doubt
that it did begin, and presently became quite perceptible to a world
accustomed to find in the proceedings of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a
matter of entertainment. It complicated things, because the state of love
in such a virgin mind as Filmer's would brace his resolution, if not
sufficiently, at any rate considerably towards facing a danger he feared,
and hampered him in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise be
natural and congenial. It remains a matter for speculation just how the
Lady Mary felt for Filmer and just what she thought of him. At
thirty-eight one may have gathered much wisdom and still be not
altogether wise, and the imagination still functions actively enough in
creating glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before her
eyes as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers,
unique powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance
with the model had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation,
and women have ever displayed