Twelve Stories and a DreamWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Twelve Stories and a Dream
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English; Short stories
“It's just because it's dangerous,” began the Lady Mary, and felt she
had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.
Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.
“I feel I ought to go up,” he said, regarding the ground. He looked up
and met the Lady Mary's eyes. “I want to go up,” he said, and smiled
whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. “If I could just sit down
somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--”
Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. “Come into my
little room in the green pavilion,” he said. “It's quite cool there.” He
took Filmer by the arm.
Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. “I shall be
all right in five minutes,” he said. “I'm tremendously sorry--”
The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. “I couldn't think--” he said to
Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull.
The rest remained watching the two recede.
“He is so fragile,” said the Lady Mary.
“He's certainly a highly nervous type,” said the Dean, whose weakness
it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with enormous
families, as “neurotic.”
“Of course,” said Hickle, “it isn't absolutely necessary for him to go
up because he has invented--”
“How COULD he avoid it?” asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest shadow
of scorn.
“It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now,” said Mrs.
Banghurst a little severely.
“He's not going to be ill,” said the Lady Mary, and certainly she had
met Filmer's eye.
“YOU'LL be all right,” said Banghurst, as they went towards the
pavilion. “All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you
know. You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--”
“Oh, I want to go,” said Filmer. “I shall be all right. As a matter of
fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip of brandy
first.”
Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty
decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps five
minutes.
The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals
Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost of the
stands erected for spectators, against the window pane peering out, and
then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished shouting behind the
grand stand, and presently the butler appeared going pavilionward with a
tray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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