“More than that,” thought Margaret; “if it has gone down entirely out of our reach, the thing is a failure all the same, for I don't believe he can ever be induced to make another.”
CHAPTER XVI. THE TRACK OF THE SHELL
During the course of his inventive life Roland Clewe had become accustomed to disappointments; he was very much afraid, indeed, that he was beginning to expect them. If that really happened, there would be an end to his career.
But when he spoke in this way to Margaret, she almost scolded him.
“How utterly absurd it is,” she said, “for a man who has just discovered the north pole to sit down in an arm-chair and talk in that way!”
“I didn't discover it,” he said; “it was Sammy and Gibbs who found the pole. As for me—I don't suppose I shall ever see it.”
“I am not so sure of that,” she said. “We may yet invent a telescope which shall curve its reflected rays over the rotundity of the earth and above the highest icebergs, so that you and I may sit here and look at the waters of the pole gently splashing around the great buoy.”
“And charge a dollar apiece to all other people who would like to look at the pole, and so we might make much money,” said he. “But I must really go and do something; I shall go crazy if I sit here idle.”
Margaret knew that the loss of the shell was the greatest blow that Roland had ever yet received. His ambitions as a scientific inventor were varied, but she was well aware that for some years he had considered it of great importance to do something which would bring him in money enough to go on with his investigations and labors without depending entirely upon her for the necessary capital. If he could have tunnelled a mountain with this shell, or if he had but partially succeeded in so doing, money would have come to him. He would have made his first pecuniary success of any importance.