“Yes,” answered Stella with a curious little smile.
But to herself she did not smile; for, if Morris found his visitor a bore, to Stella he was nothing short of an infliction, increased rather than mitigated by numerous presents of hot-house fruit and flowers offered to herself, and entailing, each of them, an expression of thanks verbal or written. At first she treated the thing as a joke, till it grew evident that her admirer was as much in earnest as his nature would permit. Thereon, foreseeing eventualities, she became alarmed.
Unless some means could be found to stop him it was now clear to Stella that Mr. Layard meant to propose to her, and as she had not the slightest intention of accepting him this was an honour which she did not seek. But she could find no sufficient means; hints, and even snubs, only seemed to add fuel to the fire, and of a perpetual game of hide and seek she grew weary.
So it came about that at last she shrugged her shoulders and left things to take their chance, finding some consolation for her discomfort in the knowledge that Miss Layard, convinced that the rector’s daughter was luring her inexperienced brother into an evil matrimonial net, could in no wise restrain her rage and indignation. So openly did this lady express her views, indeed, that at length a report of them reached even Morris’s inattentive ears, whereon he was at first very angry and then burst out laughing. That a man like Stephen Layard should hope to marry a woman like Stella Fregelius seemed to him so absurd as to be almost unnatural. Yet when he came to think it over quietly he was constrained to admit to himself that the match would have many advantages for the young lady, whereof the first and foremost were that Stephen was very rich, and although slangy and without education in its better sense, at heart by no means a bad little fellow. So Morris shrugged his shoulders, shut his eyes, continued to dispense luncheons and afternoon teas, and though with an uneasy mind, like Stella herself, allowed things to take their chance.
All this while, however, his own friendship with Stella grew apace, enhanced as it was in no small degree by the fact that now her help in his scientific operations had become most valuable. Indeed, it appeared that he was destined to owe the final success of his instrument to the assistance of women who, at the beginning, at any rate, knew little of its principles. Mary, it may be remembered, by some fortunate chance, made the suggestion as to the substance of the receiver, which turned the aerophone from a great idea into a practical reality. Now to complete the work it was Stella, not by accident, but after careful study of its problem who gave the thought that led to the removal of the one remaining obstacle to its general and successful establishment.
To test this new development of the famous sound deflector and perfect its details, scores of experiments were needed, most of which he and she carried out together. This was their plan. One of them established him or herself in the ruined building known as the Dead Church, while the other took up a position in the Abbey workshop. From these respective points, a distance of about two miles, they tested the machines with results that day by day grew better and clearer, till at length, under these conditions they were almost perfect.
Strange was the experience and great the triumph when at last Morris, seated in the Abbey with his apparatus before him, unconnected with its twin by any visible medium, was able without interruption for a whole morning to converse with Stella established in the Dead Church.
“It is done,” he cried in unusual exultation. “Now, if I die to-morrow it does not matter.”
Instantly came the answer in Stella’s voice.
“I am very happy. If I do nothing else I have helped a man to fame.”