Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (124 page)

Crane remonstrated in vain. His protests against Seaton’s incessant work had no effect. Seaton insisted that he
must
fix firmly just a few more points before they eluded him, and stuck doggedly to his task.

Finally, Crane laid his work aside and went to call upon the girl. He found her just leaving home, and fell into step beside her. For awhile she tried to rouse herself to be entertaining, or at least friendly, but the usual ease with which she chatted had deserted her, and her false gayety did not deceive the keen-minded Crane for an instant. Soon the two were silent as they walked along together. Crane’s thoughts were on the beautiful girl beside him, and on the splendid young genius under his roof, so deeply immersed in his problem that he was insensible to everything else.

* * * *

“I have just left Dick,” Crane said suddenly, and paying no attention to her startled glance. “Did you ever in your life see anyone with his singleness of purpose? With all his brilliance, one idea at a time is all that he seems capable of—though that is probably why he is such a genius. He is working himself insane. Has he told you about leaving the Bureau?”

“No. Has he? Has it anything to do with what happened that day at the laboratory? I haven’t seen him since the accident, or discovery, whichever it was, happened. He came to see me at half-past ten, when he was invited for dinner—oh, Martin, I had been so angry!—and he told such a preposterous story, I’ve been wondering since if I didn’t dream it.”

“No, you didn’t dream it, no matter how wild it sounded. He said it, and it is all true. I cannot explain it to you; Dick himself cannot explain it, even to me. But I can give you an idea of what we both think it may come to.”

“Yes, do.”

“Well, he has discovered something that makes copper act mighty queer—knocks it off its feet, so to speak. That day a piece went up and never did come down.”

“Yes, that is what is so preposterous!”

“Just a moment, please,” replied the imperturbable Crane. “You should know that nothing ordinary can account for Dick’s behavior, and after what I have seen this last week I shall never again think anything preposterous. As I said, this piece of copper departed,
via
the window, for scenes unknown. As far as a pair of good binoculars could follow it, it held to a perfectly straight course toward those scenes. We intend to follow it in some suitable vehicle.”

He paused, looking at his companion’s face, but she did not speak.

“Building the conveyance is where I come in,” he continued in his matter-of-fact voice. “As you know, I happen to have almost as much money as Dick has brains, and some day, before the summer is over, we expect to go somewhere. We do not know where, but it will be a long way from this earth.”

There was a silence, then Dorothy said, helplessly:

“Well, go on.… I can’t understand.…”

“Neither can I. All I know is that Dick wants to build a heavy steel hull, and he is going to put something inside it that will take us out into space. Only occasionally do I see a little light as he tries to explain the mechanism of the thing to me.”

After enjoining upon her the strictest secrecy he repeated the story that Seaton had told him, and informed her as to the present condition of affairs.

“It’s no wonder the other chemists thought he was crazy, is it, Martin?”

“No, especially after the failure of his demonstration the next morning. You see, he tried to prove to the others that he was right, and nothing happened. He has found out since that an electrical machine in another room, which was not running that morning, played a very important part. When the copper refused to act as it had the night before they all took the snap judgment that he had suffered an attack of temporary insanity, and that the solution was worthless. They called him ‘Nobody Holme’.”

“It almost fits, at that!” exclaimed Dorothy, laughing.

“But if he thought of that,” she added, thoughtfully, “if he was brilliant enough to build up such a wonderful theory…think out such a thing as actually traveling to the stars…all on such a slight foundation of fact…I wonder why he couldn’t have told me?”

She hadn’t meant to utter the last thought. Nobody must know how being left out of it had hurt her, and she would have recalled the words if she could. Crane understood, and answered loyally.

“He will tell you all about it very soon, never fear. His is the mind of a great scientist, working on a subject of which but very few men have even an inkling. I am certain that the only reason he thought of me is that he could not finance the investigation alone. Never think for an instant that his absorption implies a lack of fondness for you. You are his anchor, his only hold on known things. In fact, it was about this that I came to see you. Dick is working himself at a rate that not even a machine can stand. He eats hardly anything, and if he sleeps at all, I have never caught him at it. That idea is driving him day and night, and if he goes on the way he is going, it means a breakdown. I do not know whether you can make him listen to reason or not—certainly no one else can. If you think you can do it, that is to be your job, and it will be the biggest one of the three.”

“How well you understand him,” Dorothy said, after a pause. “You make me feel ashamed, Martin. I should have known without being told. Then I wouldn’t have had these nasty little doubts about him.”

“I should call them perfectly natural, considering the circumstances,” he answered. “Men with minds like Dick’s are rare. They work on only one track. Your part will be hard. He will come to you, bursting with news and aching to tell you all about his theories and facts and calculations, and you must try to take his mind off the whole thing and make him think of something else. It looks impossible to me.”

* * * *

The smile had come back to Dorothy’s face. Her head, graced by its wealth of gleaming auburn hair, was borne proudly, and glancing mischief lit her violet eyes.

“Didn’t you just tell me nothing is impossible? You know, Martin, that I can make Dicky forget everything, even interstellar—did I get that word right?—space itself, with my violin.”

“Trying to beguile a scientist from his hobby is comparable only to luring a drug addict away from his vice…but I would not be surprised if you could do it,” he slowly replied.

For he had heard her play. She and Seaton had been caught near his home by a sudden shower while on horseback, and had dashed in for shelter. While the rain beat outside and while Shiro was preparing one of his famous suppers, Crane had suggested that she pass the time by playing his “fiddle.” Dorothy realized, with the first sweep of the bow, that she was playing a Stradivarius, the like of which she had played before only in her dreams. She forgot her listeners, forgot the time and the place, and poured out in her music all the beauty and tenderness of her nature. Soft and full the tones filled the room, and in Crane’s vision there rose a home filled with happy work, with laughter and companionship, with playing children who turned their faces to their mother as do flowers to the light. Sensing the girl’s dreams as the music filled his ears, he realized as never before in his busy, purposeful life how beautiful a home with the right woman could be. No thought of love for Dorothy entered his mind, for he knew that the love existing between her and his friend was of the kind that nothing could alter, but he felt that she had unwittingly given him a great gift. Often thereafter in his lonely hours he had imagined that dream-home, and nothing less than its perfection would ever satisfy him.

For a time they walked on in silence. On Dorothy’s face was a tender look, the reflection of her happy thoughts, and in Crane’s mind floated again the vision of his ideal home, the home whose central figure he was unable to visualize. At last she turned and placed her hand on his arm.

“You have done a great deal for me—for us,” she said simply. “I wish there were something I could do for you in return.”

“You have already done much more than that for me, Dorothy,” he answered, more slowly even than usual. “It is hard for me to express just what it is, but I want you to know that you and Dick mean much to me.… You are the first real woman I have ever known, and some day, if life is good to me, I hope to have some girl as lovely care for me.”

Dorothy’s sensitive face flushed warmly. So unexpected and sincere was his praise that it made her feel both proud and humble. She had never realized that this quiet, apparently unimaginative man had seen all the ideals she expressed in her music. A woman expects to appear lovely to her lover, and to the men who would be her lovers if they could, but here was a man who neither sought nor expected any favors, saying that he wanted some girl as lovely for his own. Truly it was a compliment to be cherished.

After they had returned to the house and Crane had taken his departure, Dorothy heard the purr of a rapidly approaching motorcycle, and her heart leaped as she went to the door to welcome her lover.

“It seems like a month since I saw you last, sweetheart!” he exclaimed, as he lifted her clear from the floor in a passionate embrace and kissed in turn her lips, her eyes, the tip of her nose, the elusive dimple in her cheek, and the adorable curve of her neck.

“It seems longer than that to me, Dicky. I was perfectly miserable until Martin called this afternoon and explained what you have been doing.”

“Yes, I met him on the way over. But honestly, Dottie, I simply couldn’t get away. I wanted to, the worst way, but everything went so slow.…”

“Slow? When you have a whole laboratory installed in a week? What would you call speed?”

“About two days. And then, there were a lot of little ideas that had to be nailed down before they got away from me. This is a horribly big job, Dottie, and when a fellow gets into it he can’t quit. But you know that I love you just the same, even though I do appear to neglect you,” he continued with fierce intensity. I love you with everything there is in me. “I love you, mind, body and spirit; love you as a man should love the one and only woman. For you are the only woman, there never was and never will be another. I love you morally, physically, intellectually, and every other way there is, for the perfect little darling that you are.”

She moved in his embrace and her arms tightened about his neck.

“You are the nearest thing to absolute perfection that ever came into this imperfect world,” he continued. “Just to think of a girl of your sheer beauty, your ability, your charm, your all-round perfection, being engaged to a thing like me, makes me dizzy—but I sure do love you, little girl of mine. I will love you as long as we live, and afterward, my soul will love your soul throughout eternity. You know that, sweetheart girl.”

“Oh, Dick!” she whispered, her soul shaken with response to his love. “I never dreamed it possible for a woman to love as I love you. ‘Whither thou goest.…’“

Her voice failed in the tempest of her emotion, and they clung together in silence.

They were finally interrupted by Dorothy’s stately and gracious mother, who came in to greet Seaton and invite him to have dinner with them.

“I knew that Dot would forget such an unimportant matter,” she said, with a glint of Dorothy’s own mischief in her eyes.

* * * *

As they went into the dining-room Dorothy was amazed to see the changes that six days had wrought in Seaton. His face looked thin, almost haggard. Fine lines had made their appearance at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, and faint but unmistakable blue rings encircled his eyes.

“You have been working too hard, boy,” she reproved him gravely.

“Oh, no,” he rejoined lightly. “I’m all right, I never felt better. Why, I could whip a rattlesnake right now, and give him the first bite!”

She laughed at his reply, but the look of concern did not leave her face. As soon as they were seated at the table she turned to her father, a clean-cut, gray-haired man of fifty, known as one of the shrewdest attorneys in the city.

“Daddy,” she demanded, “what do you mean by being elected director in the Seaton-Crane Company and not telling me anything about it?”

“Daughter,” he replied in the same tone, “what do you mean by asking such a question as that? Don’t you know that it is a lawyer’s business to get information, and to give it out only to paying clients? However, I can tell you all I know about the Seaton-Crane Company without adding to your store of knowledge at all. I was present at one meeting, gravely voted ‘aye’ once, and that is all.”

“Didn’t you draw up the articles of incorporation?”

“I am doing it, yes; but they don’t mean anything. They merely empower the Company to do anything it wants to, the same as other large companies do.” Then, after a quick but searching glance at Seaton’s worn face and a warning glance at his daughter, he remarked:

“I read in the
Star
this evening that Enright and Stanwix will probably make the Australian Davis Cup team, and that the Hawaiian with the unpronounceable name has broken three or four more world’s records. What do you think of our tennis chances this year, Dick?”

Dorothy flushed, and the conversation, steered by the lawyer into the safer channels, turned to tennis, swimming, and other sports. Seaton, whose plate was unobtrusively kept full by Mr. Vaneman, ate such a dinner as he had not eaten in weeks. After the meal was over they all went into the spacious living-room, where the men ensconced themselves in comfortable Morris chairs with long, black cigars between their teeth, and all four engaged in a spirited discussion of various topics of the day. After a time, the older couple left the room, the lawyer going into his study to work, as he always did in the evening.

“Well, Dicky, how’s everything?” Dorothy asked, unthinkingly.

The result of this innocent question was astonishing. Seaton leaped to his feet. The problem, dormant for two hours, was again in complete possession of his mind.

“Rotten!” he snapped, striding back and forth and brandishing his half-smoked cigar. “My head is so thick that it takes a thousand years for an idea to filter into it. I should have the whole thing clear by this time, but I haven’t. There’s something, some little factor, that I can’t get. I’ve almost had it a dozen times, but it always gets away from me. I know that the force is there and I can liberate it, but I can’t work out a system of control until I can understand exactly why it acts the way it does.” Then, more slowly, thinking aloud rather than addressing the girl: