him? Had
I invaded some long-planned scheme? It was evident he did not like me,
that in some way I spoilt the world for him. She returned to Bedley
Corner, and for some weeks she was flitting about me, and never once
could I have talk with her alone. When she came to my sheds Carnaby was
always with her, jealously observant. (Why the devil couldn't she send
him about his business?) The days slipped by and my anger gathered.

All this mingles with the making of Lord Roberts B. I had resolved upon
that one night as I lay awake at Bedley Corner; I got it planned out
before the bandages were off my face. I conceived this second navigable
balloon in a grandiose manner. It was to be a second Lord Roberts A,
only more so; it was to be three times as big, large enough to carry
three men, and it was to be an altogether triumphant vindication of my
claims upon the air. The framework was to be hollow like a bird's bones,
airtight, and the air pumped in or out, and the weight of fuel I carried
changed. I talked much and boasted to Cothope--whom I suspected
of scepticisms about this new type--of what it would do, and it
progressed--slowly. It progressed slowly because I was restless and
uncertain. At times I would go away to London to snatch some chance of
seeing Beatrice there, at times nothing but a day of gliding and hard
and dangerous exercise would satisfy me. And now in the newspapers, in
conversation, in everything about me, arose a new invader of my mental
states. Something was happening to the great schemes of my uncle's
affairs; people were beginning to doubt, to question. It was the first
quiver of his tremendous insecurity, the first wobble of that gigantic
credit top he had kept spinning so long.

There were comings and goings, November and December slipped by. I
had two unsatisfactory meetings with Beatrice, meetings that had no
privacy--in which we said things of the sort that need atmosphere,
baldly and furtively. I wrote to her several times and she wrote back
notes that I would sometimes respond to altogether, sometimes condemn as
insincere evasions. "You don't understand. I can't just now explain. Be
patient with me. Leave things a little while to me." She wrote.

I would talk aloud to these notes and wrangle over them in my
workroom--while the plans of Lord Roberts B waited.

"You don't give me a chance!" I would say. "Why don't you let me
know the secret? That's what I'm for--to settle difficulties! to tell