He grasped the inventor firmly by the hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Edestone. I shall probably not see you again,” and bowing to the rest of the company he left the room deep in conversation with Sir Egbert Graves.
Edestone immediately became the centre of attraction.
“The King is dead; long live the King!” expresses the eagerness with which man adapts himself to a new order of things. The older men were stunned and seemed unable to throw off the gloom that had settled upon them. They bowed to the inevitable fall of the old and its replacement by the new. They were not buoyed up by the elasticity and confidence of youth; they seemed to realize that their race was run and that it were better that they step aside and give to younger men the task of solving a new problem in a new way. They sat perfectly still with dejected faces that seemed to see only dissolution.
The younger men were quicker to recover, and as they felt the old foundations crumbling under their feet, saw visions of a new and greater edifice. They gloried in the development of the age as they did in their own strength to keep abreast of it, and rushed to meet progress, to join it, and to become one with it. They did not stop to think what the future might have in store for them, but seemed to be intoxicated by its possibilities.
Crowding around Edestone they probed him with questions which he answered with the greatest patience and in the most modest, quiet, and dignified manner. When asked a question almost childish in its simplicity, he appeared to acknowledge the compliment in the assumption that he knew the answer, and gave it with the same precision as one which called for the most complicated mathematical calculation and reference to the most intricate formulae of the laws of mechanics and physics. He was rescued and borne away by Colonel Stewart who announced that, acting under His Majesty’s order, he was obliged to give him some refreshments, whether he wanted them or not, and if he did not come at once to his quarters and have a drink he would be forced to order out the Guards. Drawing him aside the Colonel whispered, “I must see you alone before you leave the Palace.”
Edestone turned and slowly left the room, bowing to each of the separate groups.
“Now,” said Colonel Stewart, “come to my quarters first, as I have something rather confidential to tell you. You can come back and join the others afterward, if you care to.”
When they were comfortably seated in the Colonel’s private apartments, and had provided themselves with drinks and cigars, the equerry leaned toward his charge a trifle impressively.
“Mr. Edestone,” he said, “you do not look like a chap who would lose his nerve if he suddenly found himself in a position that was more or less dangerous. Indeed I rather gather that you are like one of your distinguished Admirals—ready at all times for a fight or a frolic.”
Edestone smiled.