Success
“You could.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t very well, seeing I am practically a penniless
failure, if you had the money; how much less since you are to lose if I
do.”
“It would not make any difference if we cared,” she said. “If you
cared—like that—you would hardly know whether I had money or had not;
it would not hurt your pride that I should have it, or your generosity
that I should lose it. And the same with me—it would not embarrass me
to have when you had not, or trouble me to lose on account of you;
nothing in the world would matter so long as we had each other—if we
cared—that way.”
“I think it would,” he said.
But she persisted. “No,” she said, “I am sure of it. If we loved,
nothing else would matter; we should hardly know anything else.”
“I rather fancy we should,” he said, “and anyhow—I can’t take this
sacrifice of you. Before ever I read the letter I felt that. Why should
you give up this life and work for mine—as you would have to if we
married—even if you could keep the money?”
“It would be nothing if one loved,” she said. “Why, if one loved a
tinker one would put down one’s coronet or career—whichever one had—and
go out joyfully and tramp to the world’s end after him! And if one
loved a duke one would gladly learn the ways and conventions of his
class, though it would be a lot harder, and thankfully share them with
him. There isn’t any giving up to love or any forgiving or giving
either, it’s—just love.”
She spoke with absolute certainty, and though Michael would not agree,
she held to it.
“You should know,” she said, “for you love your work; you do not
sacrifice to that, for there is no sacrifice in giving everything to
it. There is never any choice to you whether you shall or shan’t; what
it needs it must have, without counting the cost—there is no cost. That
is love.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m not sure, but I do know. It has never come my way, perhaps never
will, but I know it; and knowing—I am not going to marry on less.”
CHAPTER XIX
Five years after Michael Annarly left the great firm of Galhardy’s, the
designs for an aerial torpedo were offered to the British Government. A
good many designs had been put forward during those years; a good many
torpedoes, to meet the demand of the altered conditions of warfare, had
been invented, manufactured, modified, improved, discarded in favour
of others. It was no new thing for governments to be offered one;
but this was a new thing; it was not merely a torpedo, it was _the_
torpedo—that for which all the civilised nations had been looking, the
perfect thing. As was that of Galhardy’s disaster to that originally
designed for them by Michael Annarly, so was this to Michael Annarly’s
design. There was no doubt about it, no room for two opinions, it was
perfect. Not closely related to any which had been produced before,
probably worked out from first principles by one who had not kept in
touch with the course of development in this branch of arms. But none
the worse for that; better perhaps, since it was the design of a master
unhampered by the convention of other men’s ideas—one who, by rare
insight, much work and the knowledge and application of obscure and
complicated laws, had arrived at a result simple in its completeness,
however complex in its origin—and fulfilling all requirements.
This torpedo, protected by a provisional patent, was offered to the
British Government; that is to say, the English rights were offered
to them, the inventor reserving to himself the liberty to sell the
foreign rights elsewhere, if he chose.
The offer was considered by the War Office, no doubt carefully
considered, since some time elapsed before an answer was returned.
Indeed, the time of protection allowed a patentee under a provisional
patent was almost expired before the reply was given. When it was,
it was to the effect that the Government could not entertain the
inventor’s suggestion that they should buy the English rights only.
They would give him one thousand pounds for all rights, English and
foreign, they could not consider any other terms.
The proportion of the sum to the magnitude of the invention was rather
interesting—to those who think the sciences lucrative professions and
governments good paymasters. It did not interest the inventor, he had
no such delusions, nor yet much surprise him. He declined the offer,
withdrew his design, and for a little was heard of no more. When the
time arrived to file a complete patent for the torpedo and the heads
for it he filed one; or, rather, a very comprehensive and expressive
series of patents, in which, as law required, every detail of the
invention and manufacture was fully described and made plain. Then he
approached the Government again, this time with another suggestion—that
he should give them the right to use his invention; license them to
manufacture in England and the Colonies, subject to no royalty to him,
no fees or restrictions whatever; he himself retaining, as he naturally
would retain until he agreed to part with it, the right to sell or give
licences elsewhere, at home and abroad.
The offer was perhaps a little bald; it might have been kinder to the
dignity of a Government department if he had asked a nominal hundred
or two for the invaluable concession. But he did not think of that,
he made his offer simply and baldly. And after a decent interval,
as short as decency allowed, it was accepted. Polite things were
said about generous patriotism, and nothing whatever about the copy
of the specification of the complete patent, giving the details of
manufacture, which lay in the official desk at the time. There was no
need to talk of that, the inventor knew it might be expected to be
there; he had had some experience of the world, and also knew that
governments, being tender of the taxpayers’ money, naturally take
what they can get free, the brains of inventors among other things.
And the official knew that he knew—else he would not have given what,
though nominally protected from them as from others, they could have
taken free and unmolested, except by an action which he could not have
afforded to bring, and would not have won if he had. Nothing was said
of that, the relative positions, though perfectly understood, were
decently handled, courteous things were said, and the matter settled;
the Government received free licence to manufacture the matchless
torpedo, and the inventor received nothing and was satisfied.
Next, he turned his attention to foreign patents and foreign rights, a
costly and tedious business. He borrowed the money from Nan Barmister
for it, and devoted as much time and energy to the work as he could
spare. After a while, he got it settled; and, after a greater while,
began to get some returns, enough to feel satisfied that he would
be able to repay the money within a reasonable time. Beyond that he
did nothing; there was really nothing to do. It did not occur to him
to read a paper on aerial torpedoes, or to speak of them to anyone,
or in any way to lay claim to having solved that problem of modern
warfare. He did not desire a paragraph in the papers, nor yet, even if
it were attainable and the war party in the ascendant, knighthood or
an honorary degree; he wanted to make the torpedo, to finish the work
he had begun long ago. He had always wanted to do it, the problem had
fascinated him long before that day five years ago when he told Lady
Sibyl Carson he had solved it. He believed then that he had. He had
learnt a good deal since of obscure laws and abstruse physical things,
also something of psychical values too. He had only solved the problem
up to a point then, by no means produced the perfect torpedo, though no
one since had produced a better. He had long ago recognised the limit
to which he had then attained, and at the back of his mind there had
always been a something which worked upon the problem in season and out
of season, a species of mental discomfort which would never quite rest
until it was done. It was done now: that was all. The life of a creator
is in creating, not in making a fortune or securing a peerage; those
are by-products that occur to few and extinguish some who, dazzled,
lose their way there.
Thus it happened that the great invention was produced without noise
or acclaim; the newspapers did not hear of it, the Government made no
talk about it, there was no object in their doing so, and the inventor
made none either. Certain people, of course, got to know about it,
people whose business it was. Some of them got to know the name of
the inventor, for it appeared on his patent, and there were those who
mastered every detail of the patent very thoroughly—and those who
infringed it where they dared. The remedy for infringing a patent is
an action at law, a costly proceeding, also not one to be embarked
upon until it is possible to show that the infringer has made profit
by his use of the patentee’s invention. Profit is not made from the
manufacture of aerial torpedoes in a month; it takes time to make the
plant, and time to make the torpedoes, even when both are done with
speed and effrontery, and an open, if quiet, disregard for the patents
protecting them. Further, it takes much money to prosecute firms rich
enough to do such things. Michael had not the money. Also, he was
deeply interested in the problem, one which had fascinated him for
long, of large scale internal combustion engines, and he had not enough
leisure of body or mind to divide between two interests.
He lived quietly in the small Midland town, superintending the warp
dyeing works for old Milligen. For four years and more he had done
that, first working under the old man, then with him and George
Foregood; later they had worked with him, finally under him, though
none of the three quite realised that. George was dead now, old
Milligen hopelessly crippled with gout, Michael was more obviously
in command. The dyeing works, under his control, were not; perhaps,
quite like any others in the country, but they were on the whole
profitable. George’s invention had not ruined his old employers, they
had one nearly as good evolved out of his earlier apparatus—the fact,
when he came to realise it, was a blow he never got over. Still, the
apparatus set up at Milligen’s was a good one, really the best, and it
and Michael’s improvements and general management, aided by the start
given by the handsome compensation received from the council for the
power station accident, made the old place more prosperous than it had
been for long. It was still a warp dyer’s; Michael, with the vein of
conservative solidity inherited from his City forebears, never thought
of making it into anything else, even if old Milligen had been willing.
In some respects it was much as it had always been; the buildings still
looked in serious need of repair—except the over-magnificent new ones
put up by the council. Dyeing was still considered to be the sole
industry, and if in the course of time Michael had accumulated machines
strange and unexpected at a small dyer’s (he generally borrowed money
from Nan to get them), he honestly believed of each one as he imported
it that it was in some way connected with the work. Milligen believed
it too, and George when he was alive; they had wonderful flights of
fancy occasionally, both of them, though few of their ideas were
practicable, and none of them were ever put into practice. Michael’s
ideas were different, they were all practicable, though few were put to
profitable practice—only those that were expressed in advice or comment
to men who showed him new machines or old processes, and profited by
what he said. The rest were seldom spoken of; occasionally to Milligen,
more often to Nan, always to Nan when he happened to see her.