Part 55 (2/2)

Never had the word ”epoch,” such as Fleet Street loves, been better used. It was such a moment that those who made the secret journey, and witnessed the capabilities of the vessel which had been built at the Dorby yards, were flung back from all preconceived convictions of maritime affairs, established during the war, to imaginative speculation upon the vista of progress now opened up.

Not a man of them, from the Prime Minister of England down to the junior lieutenant upon the vainly striving fleet of war-vessels, but realized a picture of the doom of the magnificent and costly super-Dreadnought as the pillar of might upon which naval power must rest. Its proud office gone, it appeared to them as little greater than a means of defence against the landing of hostile man power upon Britain's vulnerable sh.o.r.es. The proud queens of the sea must pa.s.s from their exalted thrones to a lesser degree in naval armaments.

Nor was the realization without pity and regret. How could it be otherwise in the human heart which ever wors.h.i.+ps the actual display of might? It almost seemed as if the world had been suddenly given over to topsy-turveydom.

The facts, however, were irrefutable. As in the dim past the troublous surface of the seas had been conquered by the intrepid and skilful mariner, now at last the devious submarine channels had been turned into an almost equally secure highway of traffic by the inventor. The march of progress was continuing. It was invention triumphant. The world's sea-borne commerce was secured. It was held safe from enemy war-craft in the future. Therefore the doom of the proud battles.h.i.+p had been sounded.

Some day, perhaps, a new weapon would be achieved. Some day, perhaps, even the channels of the dark waters would be rendered insecure by the hand that had now made them safe. For the present, however, and probably for years to come, the sea-borne food supplies of Britain stood in no position of jeopardy.

It was well past midnight. The house in Smith Square quite suddenly displayed renewed signs of life. A closed motor had driven up, paused, and then pa.s.sed on. Then appeared many lights behind the small-paned Georgian windows.

Ruxton Farlow had returned home with his wife after a strenuous and exciting day; and with them was their devoted Yorks.h.i.+re father, burning with the sense of a great triumph for his beloved son, and his almost equally beloved daughter.

Their journey from Gravesend earlier in the evening had been broken that they might attend an informal dinner-party at Downing Street. It was a function entirely in honor of the masters of Dorby; and it had been arranged that Ruxton's colleagues in the country's Cabinet might tender their sincere congratulations and thanks for the work which he, and his father, and his wife had achieved privately in their country's cause.

It was over; and all three were relieved and thankful. But the note of triumph surging through their hearts was still dominant. Scarcely a word had pa.s.sed between them in the brief run from Downing Street to Smith Square. Their hearts were as yet too full, and the memory of the words addressed to them by Sir Meeston and his colleagues was still too poignant to permit of normal conditions. Vita had leant back in the car, with her husband's arm linked through hers, and one of his powerful hands clasped in hers. She sat thus with thought teeming, and a heart thrilling with an unspeakable joy, and happiness, and triumph, all for the man at her side. Her own share in the events through which they had pa.s.sed was entirely forgotten by her. This man at her side filled her whole focus. He was all in all to her, as she felt he was all in all to the cause in which they had worked.

It was perhaps the profoundest and proudest moment of her life. It was a moment of perfect happiness. All she had ever dreamed of was hers; and the hand of the man she wors.h.i.+pped was even now, warm and strong, clasped tightly in her own. Hers to keep; hers to lean on; hers never to yield so long as their lives should last.

In the house they pa.s.sed up into the small drawing-room, and, for a few moments, they sat there before retiring. Slowly the spell of the day's events fell from them. It was finally Sir Andrew who released them from it.

He gazed across at Vita with twinkling eyes. His smile was full of kindly tenderness.

”Now, perhaps, I shall have time to appreciate the fact that at last I am the happy possessor of a beautiful daughter as well as a headstrong son,” he said. Then, after the briefest hesitation: ”Vita, my dear,” he went on, in his old-fas.h.i.+oned manner, while his gaze took in the radiant beauty turned abruptly towards him, ”it seems to me that the most wonderful thing in the world has happened to me. The long, lonely life seems to have entirely pa.s.sed. I mean the loneliness which only a man can feel who is deprived for all time of the a.s.sociation of his own womankind. Now at last I can draw deep comfort from the reflection of Ruxton's happiness. Now, however slight my claim, I can nevertheless _claim_ something of a woman's filial regard. The grey of life has been tinted for me since you have chosen to make my boy happy, and as time goes on I can see that tint develop into the roseate hue of a happiness I somehow never thought to feel again. Bless you, my dear, for coming into an old man's life; and you, too, my boy,” he went on, turning to the smiling Ruxton, ”for having given me such a daughter. I feel this is the moment for saying this. The work is done now in workmanlike fas.h.i.+on, and the little triumph of it all makes me want to tell you of this thing that I feel.”

Vita impulsively left her husband's side. She rose from the settee and crossed over to her second father and held out both her hands.

”You have made it difficult for me to say a word----” she began, smiling down upon him with her glorious eyes. Then she seemed to become speechless.

The oriflamme of her red-gold hair shone with a delicious burnish under the shaded electric light. Her flushed oval cheek glowed with a suggestion of thrilling happiness. The old man caught and held her hands, and, the next moment, she had bent her slimly graceful body and impressed upon his rugged cheek a kiss of deep affection.

Still she remained speechless, and she turned and glanced with dewy eyes in appeal to the great husband looking on.

”Won't you help me?” she demanded wistfully.

Ruxton laughed happily.

”Help?” he said quickly. Then he shook his head. ”No, no. You don't need any help. Just tell him what you once told me. You remember.” His eyes became serious. ”You said 'I love him almost as if he were really my own father.' He won't need more.”

And Vita obeyed him, reciting the words almost like some child. But she meant them, and felt them, and at the last word her glance was full of a whimsical light as she added of her own initiative--

”And aren't you two dears going to smoke?”

Half an hour later the two men were sitting alone in Ruxton's study.

The smoke of their cigars hung heavily upon the air of the room. There had come a moment of profound silence between them. They had talked of the happenings of that day: of the test of their new submersible: its simple triumph, and all it meant in the cause of humanity, of that progress towards a lasting peace among nations which mankind was yearning to achieve.

Each man had offered his own view-point for discussion, and it seemed as if the last word had at length been spoken. But they sat on in silence, and Sir Andrew watched the reflective eyes of his idealist son. He was speculating as to what deep thought still lay unvoiced behind them, and he urged him.

”Well, boy? It has been a long day. Is it bed? Or are you going to put into words that dream I see moving behind your eyes?”

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