“Bellefonte, Pa,, November 16, 1928.
EE ———————————————
WINGS OF ADVENTURE
Heroic lady!....The world held its
breath waiting for the news of her
safety at the end of the adventure.
Suspense became unbearable when no
news came—intolerable even to peo-
ple who never had heard of her name
before it flamed into the newspapers
with portraits of her pretty face.
~ Men went to their clubs at lunch-
eon-time hoping to see good news
about her on the tape machine and
said, “What a darned shame!” and “I
wish to goodness they wouldn’t do
these things,” when there was no
news at all after the first false re-
ports which kept public emotion on
the rack. Heroic lady!
What courage! What carelsseness
of death! What smiling gallantry
to go off like that after so many trag-
edies ending in frightful silence!
They blamed the man for taking
her. They believed he had done it
for money and the publicity which
her name would give him. They said
it was the act of a cad, or, at best, a
recklessnesss which risked this girl's
life on a hair’s-breadth chance which
he had no right to let her take.
He was a dirty dog because he had
accepted her money, persuaded her to
finance this foolhardy adventure and
lied to her husband who had trusted
him. Then he had let her down by
losing his nerve—according to his
own men and those who saw them
start. Lady Barbara had gone off
gaily, like a schoolgirl on a joy-ride
—Ilooking boyish in her airman’s kit
—with a smiling courage, and the he-
roic spirit of so many modern young
women who seem ready to defy death
itself with a shrug of their slim
shoulders.
Well, I don’t want to deny the
courage of Barbara Lethbridge. I
had seen it in war-time when she
drove an ambulance under shell-fire
and took unnecessary risks when she
was too young, as all of us thought,
to be allowed anywhere near the fight-
ing zone. She had used her father’s
name and wealth to provide funds for
this hospital unit which worked be-
hind the Belgian army
days of the war when the wounded
often were left to die where they lay
owing to the woeful lack of am-
bulances.
The nominal leader of this volun-
teer ambulance column was an Amer-
ican doctor, and the driver and
stretcher bearers were a queer collen-
tion of adventurers and idealists.
But it was Barbara—Barbara Merri-
vale, then—who was really in com-
mand, partly because she paid for the
whole show, but mainly because she
had an irresistible spirit and utter
fearlessness.
She risked death many times—un-
til her volunteer ambulance column
was dishanded when the British R.
A. M. C. took command of the situa-
tion in Belgium and discouraged ama-
teurs and pretty ladies. No, no one,
and least of all myself, can deny the
courage of Barbara Lethbridge, as
afterwards we knew her.
But there are other qualities be-
sides courage, other virtue. Not that
1 want to moralize or write priggish-
ly about te private life of that lady.
I understand her temptation. I have
a tremendous pity of her. I don’t
blame her in any way.
But I must defend the honor of that
boy Douglas Merton who has been de-
nounced by the world as a “bad egg”
and accused, publicly, of having per-
suaded this lady to give him great
sums of money for an adventure in
which he afterwards showed the white
feather. I can’t leave it like that,
knowing the truth.
After the war I had seen Barbara
a few times in dance clubs and cab-
arets—those places of expensive fool-
ery in which a war-weary world tried
to get back to the gaiety of life, and
failed miserably. She was one of
those young women who after their
war service in hospitals and canteens
found peace objectless and dull, as
though all the meaning had gone cut
of life now that death no longer was
reaping its harvest of manhood.
I can understand that, though it
was a tragic phase of psychology.
From what I have heard she had had
one or two love episodes with boys
who were killed and then, after the
war, with a married man who was a
good-looking cad. Well, that needn't
be raked up now, except as a clue to
the history of her mind.
I had lost sight of her after her
marriage with Lethbridge, who had
made a fortune out of cotton and re-
ceived a peerage from Lloyd George
—2a man of fifty or thereabouts, with
a touch of gray about his temples and
a hard, masklike face with a stern
mouth—judging from his photo-
graphs in the illustrated papers. Oc-
casionally I saw her face also in the
weekly papers. There was a snap-
shot of her in the hunting field, tak-
ing a fence—one form o
thrill out of danger and testing her
nerve again.
Once or twice I came across photo- '
graphs of her sitting on shootin
sticks or walking round the paddoc
at Ascot, or in groups at Monte Carlo,
or at winter sports, or other gather- ;
ings of society pretending to amuse
itself. She didn’t look amused, I
thought.
arily charming in a portrait by Orpen
at the Royal Academy one year—re-
minding me of those days when she
drove an ambulance in war-time—but
there was, I thought, a discontent in
her eyes, a touch of scornfulness or
peevishness about her mouth.
Perhaps that was the painter's
fault—or his idea of her. It was not
the expression I had known when she
had driven over bridges under shell- |
fire.
Then at a reception in London I
saw her again. She touched me on
the arm, in fact, before I knew she :
was there.
“Was it a thousand years ago,” she
asked, “or the day before yesterday ?
Do you remember?....That day in
Dixmude. !”
She laughed at this remembrance
of a scene of war which had been ex-
Jemely unpleasant in its nearness to
eath.
in the early!
getting a .
But she looked extraordin- :
“Unforgetable,” I said. “I remem-
ber 1 had the wind up properly. And
{ you were very rash!
“The wind up!” she repeated. “How
' good to hear that old slang again!
We don’t talk that language now, do
we? There’s a new generation com-
ing along, and they think it bad form
{| —prehistoric—to mention a certain
little war that happened in the time
{of old fogies like you and me.”
| It was in 1914 that she had driven
i her ambulance into unpleasant places.
| She was twenty-two then, as far as
iI can remember. Twelve years had
passed. That would make her thirty-
| four—the best time of a woman’s life
| perhaps. But they had left their
marks, those years, almost imper-
| ceptible, or at least undefinable, yet
| with the touch of time that no face
ican escape. Behind that smile of
hers there was a look of discontent,
| restlessness, revolt against life itself
ior some unfair deal in the cards of
luck.
| “I feel as old as the rocks,” I told
her, “but you look the youngest thing
'in the room, and the most beautiful.”
“Kind and untruthful friend!” she
answered. “My mirror tells me the
‘tale of crow’s-feet and the approach
of haglike age. Get me some coffee,
‘and let’s talk of the war, where not
‘a soul can hear, and we'll whisper
about the boys who were killed, and
air raids, and strafed towgs, and the
, jolly old days.’
| “Lord!” I exclaimed.
idea of jollity ?”
* I brought her that coffee and we
sat in a corner of the crowded room
‘and talked “war stuff” for half an
hour or so.
| Once her husband came near and
i smiled at her when she raised her
hand to her forehead like a young
! subaltern saluting his superior officer.
; He was talking to some bearded for-
“eigner and went to the far end of the
room to stand against the mantelpiece
i and continue his conversation.
{ “My lord and master!” she said, and
jmade a comical grimace.
“He looks as though he liked you,”
I remarked lightly.
“Oh, he’s kind,” she admitted. “He
bought me with honest money and
| doesn’t shirk the expense, though I'm
YST3,, costly, I've no grudge against
im.”
“Is that your
minutes, and I saw that she was not
listening to a word I was saying.
i That Orpen look—the expression he
‘had caught in his portrait of her—
came into her face then. She stared
across the room, with its moving
crowd, with a look of dejection and
peevishness, and a kind of scornful
boredom.
“What’s the good of it all—this
life, I mean?” she asked presently.
i toa not too bad,” I said. “It’s
ife!
She shook her head. “It doesn’t
mean anything. There’s no thrill in
3 No purpose. It’s all so utterly
utile.’
| 1 laughed at her a little. “What do
you want?” asked. “Another
Armageddon, with lots of dead bodies
and heaps of wounded men for you to
rescue from burning towns? A mas-
sacre so that pretty ladies can show
their pluck?”
My irony was lost on her.
i “It did mean something—all that,”
she said. “Service for a tremendous
cause. A test of one’s quality. Com-
radeship and courage. An awareness
of danger which gives a zest to life. .
How I hate all these little creatures
who think that the ultimate object of
life is to vamp their weedy boys in
some overheated night club. Some-
times I would like a bomb to burst
in the middle of them.
air raid would do them good.”
“That’s morbid,” I told her.
She agreed, and laughed at herself.
“I know! That's how I feel some-
times. ...It’s because I miss some-
; thing in life. The thrill of adventure.
Some big purpose with a risk in it.
It’s no fun being the pampered lady
of a cotton king with nothing to do
but the eternal round from one bore-
dom to another. Who said life would
be endurable but for its pleasures?”
“A cynic,” I told her. “That old
scoundrel Rochefoucauld.”
“A wise old bird,” she retorted. She
stood up from her gilt-backed chair
and smiled at me. “Well, I've enjoy-
ed my morbidity! Thanks for listen-
ing. Now I must go and make pretty
faces to my husband’s friends. Oh,
I do my duty!”
She moved away and joined that
square-jowled husband, and soon af-
terwards I walked back to my club.
“A dangerous lady,” I thought. “I
shouldn’t like to be her middle-aged
proprietor. She’s out for adventure,
some tremendous thrill in life. Not
all his money can buy her that.”
There I was wrong in a way. It
was money anyhow—her own or her
hushand’s—which enabled her to
adopt a new hobby, providing her with
plenty of adventure and that tre-
‘mendous thrill for which she craved
It was through the newspapers again
that I heard of her activities. There
was a paragraph one day in the
Morning Post which caught my eye:
Among the well-known women
who are taking up aviation is Lady
| Barbara Lethbridge, the beautiful
wife of the great cotton manufac-
turer. She has already obtained her
pilot’s certificate at Hendon on a
“Moth” machine, and yesterday she
flew with her pilot instructor, Mr.
Douglas Merton, from Hendon to
Bournemouth, making a skillful
landing at the aerodrome at 4:30
p. m. Interviewed by our corres-
pondent, Mr. Merton (who, it will
be remembered, flew recently from
Croydon to Cape Town on a record
flight) expressed the opinion that
Lady Barbara Lethbridge had a
perfect touch and wonderful nerve.
“She takes to the air like a bird,”
he said with a laugh. Lady Bar-
bara is the danghter of Viscount
Merrivale, now commanding at Gib-
raltar. Her portrait by Sir Wil-
Liz Orpen was in the Academy of
1026.
|
“A risky game,” I thought, after b
|
reading this paragraph. “One crash
and that’s the end of it, without a
miracle of luck.”
i _ But after that conversation of ours
I could see the psychological neces-
sity, as it were, of this form of ad-
venture to a girl of that character.
Risk, danger, an outlet for nervous
She sat there silently for a few
A jolly good |
: energy was her only remedy for bore-
dom and futility. It was somethi
thing ‘ask Mrs. Armitage to sing one
in her blood—an ancestry of soldiers
and sailors—which made her impa-
tient of the social life of peace. That,
and her war experience with its un-
setting remembrance.
One item in that newspaper para-
graph interested me a good deal. It
was the fact that young Douglas Mer-
ton had been her instructor. I knew
his people—his father was Mowbray
Merton the etcher, who had a studio
in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and his
mother was rather well-known as a
miniature painter.
I had known the boy too when he
was at Westminster, before he went
up to Oxford, and I remembered him
as a shy lad who wanted to go into
the army rather against his people’s
wishes. He had taken up flying and
had been a lieutenant in the R. A. F.
before getting this job with the
“Moth” people. He had been too
young for the war, and as far as I
could reckon he would be about twen-
ty-four now—ten years younger than
Barbara Lethbridge.
Somehow, foolishly, as it seemed
then, I had a kind of uneasy intuition
about that difference of age. “Just
the age of the young officers she used
to know in war-time,” I thought. “If
I were that square-jowled husband of
hers ” Then I rebuked myself as
a suspicious ass with unpleasant
ideas.
“Ridiculous!” I said aloud,
one of the club waiters.
It must have been a few days af-
terwards that I met the lady in Pic-
cadilly and we had a few words.
“How’s flying?” I asked.
“Great and good !” she answered
with enthusiasm. “It has saved my
life. I should have died of boredom
without this way of escape.”
Certainly her face had lost the look
that Orpen had seen in it. Her eyes
were brighter and more vivid. There
Jos no line of peevishness about her
ips.
“Take care you don’t die of rash-
ness,” I said. “It’s the next thing to
suicide in my opinion.”
“Pooh!” she laughed. “It’s safer
than crossing the road at Picadilly.
Besides, why play for safety ? That’s
a poor way of living.”
“Safety first,” I insisted. “Any-
how, don’t go leading your baby in-
structor into any wild-goose chase, or
risk his life in a nose-dive by pulling
the wrong handle. That boy Doug-
las has a very charming mother who
dotes on him.”
A faint wave of color crept into her
cheeks and she raised her eyebrows.
“Do you know his people? Aren't
they dears! He took me home to tea
one day. Douglas reminds me of all
those boys who died like flies in the
startling
war. It’s nice to meet their type
again. I thought it had gone out,
somehow.”
5 she called him Douglas, I notic-
ed.
“Come to dinner one night,” she
suggested. “Tomorrow, if you can.
My husband would like to meet you.”
I didn’t want to meet her husba
very much, but I accepted her invita.
tion for the pleasure of talking with
her. She remained in my remem-
brance for that war work of hers—
her gallantry.
At dinner the next evening I did
not have much chance of talking with
her. I was at her husband’s end of the
table, and he made himself very civfl
in a heavy-going way. I noticed that
his eyes strayed now and again
towards his wife and that he watched
her—rather wistfully, I thought—as
she talked vivaciously to a young
man.
ton came into the drawing-room
rather late—after some stunt at Croy-
don, he explained—and Barbara greet-
ed him with her military salute. He
hadn’t changed much since I had
seen him. At least he was as shy as
ever, fingering his white tie and = ac-
tually blushing when he was introduc-
ed to one of the ladies. He was good
enough to remember me and a day
on which I had stood treat at Ascot.
“Since then,” I told him, “you have
become a famous man. Croydon to
Cape Town, eh? Magnificent!”
He shrugged his shoulders but
looked pleased. “Lots of luck,” he
explained. “It was the machine that
did the trick. No trouble from start
to finish. One of these days——"
He didn’t finish that sentence aid
looked at Barbara with a quick nerv-
ous laugh, ;
“Yes,” she said. “Why not?”
It was some secret between them-.-
some adventure he had planned, but
I didn’t ask him to reveal it. An at-
tractive type and, as Barbara Leth-
bridge had said, exactly like those
boys who had died like flies in the
great war. Good to meet again. ...
Later in the evening Lethbridge
took ne into his study to see some
old I rench prints, and after I had
looked at them he noticed my gaze
stray to a photograph of his wife on
a small table-by his desk. She was in
her flying-kit, standing by an aero-
plane, and looked very brave and
pretty.
“Yes,” he said, as though in an-
swer to my thoughts. “Devilish risky
I wish to heaven she wouldn’t do it!
It knocks my nerves to pieces.”
“She has wonderful courage,” I re-
marked. “I was with her when she
drove an ambulance under shell-fire.
She didn’t understand the meaning of
fear.”
“No,” he answered. “It was that
war stuff that makes her so——*
He checked himself, as though
afraid of revealing too much. I sup-
pose he meant restless and dissatis-
fied with all his wealth, and out for
dangerous adventure. “Let’s go back
to the drawing-room,” he suggested.
We went back to the drawing-room
and I noticed that Barbara was sit-
ting in the window-seat with young
Merton standing in front of her, while
the other guests were listening to a
girl who was playing the piano. The
music stopped and there was a mur-
mur of applause, but I heard Bar-
ara’s voice clear and distinct above
this general demonstration. 5
“It’s the greatest adventure in the
world.” Suddenly she put her hand
on young Merton's sleeve and I heard
her next words. “You can count on
me, my dear.”
“Barbara,” said Lethbridge, rather
sternly, I thought, “I’m afraid you’re
After dinner young Douglas Mer- '
on Rn,
neglecting your guests. Won't you
of her
charming songs?”
Barbara sprang up with a laughing
apology. “We were talking shop.
Sorry! ....And please, Mrs. Armi-
tage, do sing something won't you?
One of those delightful Hebridean
things!” »
She was playing the perfect host-
ess, but L could see that Lethbridge
was annoyed. From beginning to end
of the Svening I did not see him say
a single word to young Merton, and
I could understand the reason of it.
He associated this boy with his wife’s
flying adventures which he said
knocked his nerves to pieces.
I suppose it was this meeting again
with young Merton which prompted
me to call on his people in Chelsea
one day. I had not seen them for
three or four years. having been liv-
ing in the country and traveling
abroad a good deal, but they welcom-
ed me as though only a week or two
had passed since my last visit. Mow-
bray Merton showed me some of his
latest etchings and then left me for
some work he had to finish in his
studio while I had tea with his wife.
Needless to say, her son's name
cropped up quickly in our conversa-
tion, and I made some allusion to his
friendship with Barbara.
I was surprised to see that Mrs.
Merton looked rather distressed at
these words and was silent for a few
minutes while she poured out tea.
Then in her frank way she revealed
the cause of her trouble.
“I wish to goodness he had never
met that young woman. She has a
bad influence on him. I'm getting—
well—nervous.”
“Do you mean they are falling in
love with each other?” I asked with
the candor of an old friend.
Mrs. Merton sat back with a little
jerk. “Bless the man! Whoever sug-
gested that idea? Good heavens, no!
Douglas is already engaged to a nice
girl—Patty Irwin, the little actress
who plays so charmingly at the Lyr-
ic.
I had made what the French call
a gaffe, and felt rather embarassad.
“Well, why are you nervous?” I
asked. “If he’s immune from Lady
Barbara’s blandishments, what's
wrong anyhow ?”
It seemed that Mrs. Merton's trou-
ble was of quite a different kind.
“She wants him to set the Thames
on fire,” she told me rather myster-
iously. “She keeps prodding him
about some wild idea of another rec-
ord flight. She tells him he mustn't
rest on his laurels and degenerate n-
to an instructor of amateur aviators.
She’s all for ‘fame, ‘glory,’ adven-
ture,” and nonsense like that.
“If only she knew what I suffered
when he set out for Africa! I wish
flying had never been invented.
“Well,” 1 said, “most of the rec-
ords have been made, and I should
advise young Douglas to leave the
game and glory to 1indbergh and the
others. What we want now is a focl-
proof plane for short distances. Since
they crossed the Atlantic—”
“From west to east,” said Mrs.
Merton quietly. “Nobody has gone the
other way ecept those poor dears who
went into the great silence.”
It was before the flight of those
two Germans and Fitzmaurice the
Irishman.
“Good Lord!” I exc'amed, very
much startled by the tone of voice in
which she spoke these words. “Do
you mean to say——"’
Mrs. Merton looked anxiously to-
wards the door as though we might
be overheard by a servant or some-
one.
“Hush!” she said. “It’s a secret.
Douglas blurted it out one night. He's
just mad about it. It’s that lip-stick-
ed lady who put the idea into his head.
She wants her husband to provide the
money. Fortunately I don’t think he
will. It’s my only hope.”
“It’s a new form of suicide,” I said.
“Those Atlantic flights ought to be
stopped by law.”
“Who can stop the spirit of adven-
ture?” asked Mrs. Merton simply.
“Douglas looks as shy as a schoolgirl,
but when adventure calls nothing
holds him back. Not all my prayers
nor all my tears.”
There were tears in her eyes now,
just for a moment. But I could see
where young Merton had got his cour-
age. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she
pretended to smile.
“I ought not to have told you a
word about this. But we are such old
friends, and you know that girl Bar-
bara. Tell her not to ask her husband
for that money. Tell h~t that I shall
hate her if she encoui. es Douglas
in that mad idea. After all it’s his
life that will be risked. Not hers.”
“There’s nothing that I can do
about it,” I protested. “I’m not inti-
mate with the lady.”
“Hush !” suid Mrs. Merton.
The door opened and it was her son
who came in with a charming girl
whom I knew afterwards as Patty
Irwin. She played singing parts at
the Lyric, and I remembered seeing
her in the “Beggars’ Opera.”
“Hullo, Mother !” said young Mer-
ton. “Pat and I met on the door-
step.”
He kissed his mother on the cheek,
and was civil to me. But somehow
it seemed to me that his behavior to
Miss Irwin was not that of an ardent
lover who was going to marry her in
August. They were more like brother
and sister, I thought, in their casual
way of conversation, and amusing
banter, at the teatable.
This story, which must be told for
young Merton’s sake, gets into deep
waters at this point—the dark waters
of human psychology. Now that
Lord Lethbridge is dead—last year—
there is no great harm, as far as he is .
concerned, in revealing his part in the
drama that excited the whole world.
The man gave himself away to me
one night, and it is curious and pitiful
that he should have done so, consider-
ing his position and his long training
in self-control. But there is a break-
ing point for most men, and he had
reached it that night, or before.
I had gone there to dinner again, at
his house in South Audley Street, and
the only other guests were young
Merton and a man named Creasy, who
meant nothing to me until I learned
afterwards that he was the inventor
of the famous 485 horse-power
Creasy motor engine with which
in Lint Si -
Douglas Merton had made his flight
to South Africa. During the dinner I
am afraid that I did most of the talk-
ing, about the international situation
and the possibility of something good
coming out of Kellogg's peace plan.
Creasy, a pleasant bearded man
with the look of a scientist, seemed
interested and kept me going with in-
telligent comments and questions
which pandered to my simple belief
that I was entertaining the company,
until I became aware that the nerves
of these people were on edge and that,
apart from Creasy who was playing
up to me, they were not paying the
slightest attention to my disquisition.
Lethbridge sat grimly silent, except
for his duties as a host regarding
wine,
Now and again he seemed to be
listening, and turned his eyes towards
me, but there was a blank look in
them except when he gave a queer
furtive glance at his wife. She was
sitting on tke oppesite side to Doug-
las Merton, and I noticed presently
that she was eating practically noth-
ing.
Once she looked across at young
Merton and smiled at him myster-
iously with some secret message in
her eyes.
It was Lethbridge who opened my
cyes to the cause of all this nervous
tension when coffce had been brought
in and the servants had left the room.
“I suppose there’s only one sub-
ject in our minds—with perhaps one
exception,” he said, with a faint
smile in my direction. “We had bet-
ter have a talk about it—now that we
seem to have settled the fate of the
world 1’
That was a slam at me, and I color-
ed a little, I think, but turned my at-
tention to Creasy who made an ob-
jection—polite but quite urgent—
against “public discussion.”
“These things leak out,” he said.
“Whatever your decision, the whole
thing ought to be kept absolutely
private.’
Barbara laughed at him and gave
me a guarantee as an old friend.
“Nothing will get beyond this room.”
Then she turned to that middle-
aged husband of hers with a kind of
eagerness and impatience.
“What’s the verdict, Frank? Oh, I
do hope you're going to do the big
thing, after all my arguments.
What's the money, anyhow? It means
nothing to you, and you’ll get it all
back, every penny of it, when Doug-
las does the trick. America will go
mad about him. He‘ll be a second
Lindbergh, and not so indifferent to
dollars, because he can’t afford to be,
worse luck ! We shall share some of
his glory.”
“I don’t know about glory,” Mer-
ton said with a faint smile, but it’s a
pretty good stunt, and dead certain
with the new Creasy engine.”
“I believe the engine is all right,”
said Creasy with quiet confidence,
“after a few more tests. But, as
Lady Barbara says, I have to think
of the dollars, worse luck. I must
pay the horrible cost of producing the
finest engine in the world and risking
it on an Atlantic flight. It’s only fair
to my company to get a proper guar-
airtee and a share of the profits.”
It was to me that Lethbridge turn-
ed heavily, while he figured his glass
of poit.
“I am glad to have you as a wit-
ness,” he said. “These pecple—my
wife especially-—are trying to per-
suade me to finance an attempt to fly
the Atlantic from east to west. Mr.
Iferton and Mr. Creasy are offering
themselves as victims of that abomi-
nable sea.
“Well, I suppose if they want to
commit sucide it’s their own business.
But then, you see, they want me to
pay the expenses of that particular
funeral. Or, at least, Barbara has
been asking on their behalf. She
thinks I'm very unkind—very unsport-
ing—because so far I have refused
utterly to become an accessory to
what I consider a form of criminal
lunacy.”
“Not quite as bad as that, sir,” re-
marked young Merton with a quiet
laugh. “Still I quite agree that I
have no right to ask you for a penny.
Lady Barbara thought you might be
interested.”
Barbara turned to me.
“Speak to that stubborn husband of
mine,” she pleaded. “Tell him that
man doesn’t live by bread alone—nor
vet by cotton goods. Try to make
him understand that there is a spirit-
ual aspect of life and that a great and
gallant adventure—the biggest adven-
ture left in the world—is worth help-
ing by men who have the material
means.
“I'm not asking for myself. I'm
ready to pawn some of these silly
pearls.” She flicked the rope of pearls
round her neck as though it were a
string of worthless beads. “It’s be-
cause I want Douglas to do a big
thing for England’s sake. He's our
Lindbergh. After Africa—the Atlan-
tic. East to west. It’s his chance of
immortality. It's our chance of giv-
ing him the chance. Frank has only
got to scrawl his name on a beastly
little check....Help me to persuade
him.”
I wished to goodness she hadn't
dragged me in. I thought of Mrs.
Merton, who had asked me to prevent
this thing. : .
“Frankly I'm against it,” I said.
“The risk is too great. Immortality
1s all right, but there's something to
be said for life. Didn’t we sacrifice
enough boys in the war?”
Barbara’s face flushed, and she
looked at me angrily. “Et tu, Brute?”
she said scornfully.
I turned to young Merton and ask-
ed him a quiet question.
keen to go?”
“As keen as mustard,” he answered,
but I thought there was a moment’s
hesitation before he spoke, and he
was obviously embarrassed by this
financial discussion, which, after all,
was Barbara’s idea and not his.
“It would be a great test of my en- ,
gine,” said Creasy.
Lord Lethbridge poured himself out
another glass of port and I could see
that his hand trembled slightly.
“Very well,” he said; “you can
have what money you want. JL
write the check for it. But our friend
here”—he looked over at me—“will be
a witness—before God and men—that
it won’t be my fault if this young
man goes to his death over that in-
“Are you
— -
fernal sea. The money is a present
to my wife. If she likes to use it as
Dond-money; that is her responsibil-
ity.’
“I can’t say you put the matter
very graciously, O Lord and master,”
Barbara said,” but your words glad-
den my poor heart. Thanks, and
thanks again, on behalf of our gal--
lant aviator and the inventor of the
Creasy engine. It’s a good deed for-
England and young adventure.” Then:
she laughed and looked across at.
Douglas Merton and raised her glass:
high over her head.
“East to west!” she cried.
Young Merton answered her salute:
by touching his glass with a “Cheers-
io!” Then he turned to Lethbridge:
and stammered his thanks. “Fright-
fully sporting of you, sir—and all’
that!”
Lethbridge took me into his study
again to see some Persian manu-
scripts he was collecting. He ignored
a reference I made to that flight busi-
ness, but as I have said, he gave him-
self away that evening and revealed
a dark passion which startled me. It
vas when I was going and returned to
the drawing-room for a moment. to-
say good-by to Barbara. Creasy had
gone, and Barbara was bending over
a map with young Merton, as they sat:
on the sofa together, her head close
to Merton’s. The boy spoke in a low
voice as I entered the room.
“You mustn’t think of that. It’s
an absurd idea, and I couldn’t dream:
of it.”
“It’s a heavenly idea!” said Bar-
bara. “Thirty six hours and then
eternal fame—-or the next best thing.”
(No please. ...Don’t ask me,” he:
They had not heard me come into
the room across the soft carpet until’
I spoke.
“I must be going
and many thanks.”
arbara syrang up and held out her
hand. “Goal heavens, it seems only"
five minutes since dinner! Mr. Mer-
now. Good night,
ton and I have been talking shop
again. The great adventure!”
“Good luck to it,” IT said. “But
you know my views. It fills me with:
terror. Honestly.”
We argued a little until I kissed
her hand and left her.
Lethbridge was standing at the-
door and then, in the hall, waited’
while one of his men handed me my
hat and gloves.
“A windy night,” he remarked.
He held my hand for a moment
with a cold touch and then said some--
thing which sent a chill down my
“PNot good fyi ther, d
. Not good flying weather, do vou
think? But if that boy wants to re
the risk the sooner he starts the bet-
ter, as far as I'm concerned. I don’t
like his manners and’ T suspect his:
morals. Post-war youth, eh? De-
testable!. .. - Well, good night.”
I was an outsider in this affair, but
I confess I was horribly disturbed by
it, and especially by those words of
Lethbridge’s.
His anxiety to have me as a wit-
ness before God and men—as he said’
—that he would not be responsible for
Merton’s death, suggested some se-
cret complex which, as a student of
psychoanalysis, I found sinister. He
had agreed to finance that adventure
--.. Was it to get the boy out of the
way of his wife?
As for Barbara, I did not know
what to think. She had adopted
young Merton as the subject of her
hero-worship and it was natural
enough, knowing her character and
history, that she should want to help
forward his ambition, even urge him
to take a big risk for a great adven-
ture.
But I was afraid there might be
another side to this affair. She was
a woman of thirty-four with a cross-
grained husband for whom she had
respect, perhaps, but no real love. She
looked back always upon those war
days and the boys she had known in
that time of great ordeal. Douglas
Merton belonged to their age and
type...
I knew enough to see the chance
of passion here, and the risk that lay
in wait for a boy to whom Barbara’s
patrician type would seem more won-
derful than the prettiness of Patty
Irwin at the Lyric Theatre... . Well,
there was nothing that I could do
about it—except watch and wait.
It was six weeks after that dinner
in South Audley Street when the in-
credible thing happened which made a
world sensation. It was owing to an
accidental meeting with Creasy—if
these things are accidental—that I
saw the start of that Atlantic flight.
We met in Piccadilly, and when I ask-
ed him how things were going, he told
me that they were “going” sooner
than he had expected.
“We shall be off,” he told me, “as
soon as the weather reports are favy-
orable from the other side. Any
morning now.”
I admired the courage of the man,
well past middle age, who was will-
ing to stake his life on the rythm of
his own engine.
“Better come and have a look at
us,” he suggested in a friendly way.
“I'd like to show you my “Triumph.”
It’s a pretty box of tricks. We're
taking a trial tomorrow at ten o’clock,
if all goes well. Hendon, you know.”
He laughed, gave me a nod and
strode off down Piccadilly, taking a
last look at life, as I thought rather
morbidly.
It was that mee*ng which prompt-
ed me to rise rather earlier than us-
ual next morning and persuade a taxi-
driver to take me as far as Hendon.
But on the way down my eyes caught
a paragraph in the morning paper
which gave me a mental jolt.
At nine o'clock last night in
Piccadilly Mr. J. H. Creasy, the
well-known motor engineer, was
knocked down by a Royal mail
van which collided with a private
car. He was conveyed to St.
George’s Hospital where he was
detained, although fortunately his
injuries are not serious.
“No trial flight this morning !” I
thought after an exclamation of hard
luck in regard to Creasy. But as I
was very near to Hendon I decided to
take a look at his monster engine and
have a word or two with young Mer-
ton,
There is no element of surprise in
what I now have to tell. All the
(Continued on page 3, Col. 1.)