Lettice faced the conclusion that there was something wrong.
By this and by that, by what she had seen herself and by what Gardiner had said at Westby, she had gathered how things stood between Denis and Dorothea. What would be the effect of such a shock? Lettice found herself unable to guess. Up to a certain point, Denis was transparent; for years she had read him like a book, and had been able to predict not merely what he would do or say, but the very gesture and accent with which he would do or say it. Dear Denis, tried friend, good as good bread, in Gardiner's expressive idiom, pig-headed Ulsterman with those dark blue Southern Irish eyes, truculent fighter answering to the lightest touch of her silken rein!—Lettice was a good lover, and she had given him of her best. But now—now, like Gardiner, she found herself up against a door that had no key. What was going on inside? What was Denis doing there, to heal him of his deadly wound? She did not know—she could not guess. But one thing was certain: he would accept no help. Gardiner in his weakness had cried out to her and rested on her strength; but Denis was neither weak nor dependent. Whatever went on behind the closed door was between him and his God.
Lettice picked up the tickets again. "He's sent me these things because he felt he must, but he doesn't mean me to use them," ran her slow thoughts. "I expect that means he's going to be there himself. Up for the week-end; then he'll probably go on the Saturday—"
Lettice rarely framed a definite resolution, but after long brooding her thoughts would settle into a sediment of purpose. The outcome of that hiatus was that on Saturday she put on her best things and went to Olympia to see for herself.
The whole floor space of the exhibition hall was cut up into a chess-board of stands, each one carpeted with red felt and inclosed in a white railing. Within these crimson plots might be seen every variety of aëroplane. Pusher, tractor, hydroplane, bat-boat, super-marine, the names sounded very imposing, but to the uninstructed (videlicet to Lettice) they all looked as much alike as a crowd of Chinamen. Visitors might wander about at will, stooping under huge pale arching wings, or mounting steps to inspect the fittings of the pilot's cockpit. Lettice had expected to be bored, but she was not. At that time, before it became mechanically perfect and virtually fool-proof, while its imperfections had still to be pieced out with human skill and daring, the aeroplane was no machine but an individual. Denis and his fellows talked of particular planes as a man talks of particular hunters in his stable.
After wandering round the stands, and duly gazing at the Smith monoplane, Lettice retired to the tea-room where she established herself in a corner behind a group of palms. Be it understood that she had come strictly to see, not to speak to her cousin; she knew she could dodge his short-sighted eyes. This being the last day of the show, the hall was full. All the flying world seemed to be there. Celebrities were thick as blackberries in the woods above Frahan; here a young mechanic who had become famous in a day, there a hereditary legislator who had ended his last race (luckily the incident hadn't got into the papers) head downwards in a ditch. Many of the men belonged to a certain well-defined physical type, lean, wiry, and small-made. Other things being equal, the light-weight pilot has an advantage. The women, on the other hand, raræ nantes in gurgite vasto, were mostly hothouse flowers. Lettice, of course, knew no one; she would have been quite at a loss but for her neighbor at the next table, a big man rather like a mastiff, with an incongruous soft voice, who was obligingly giving the carte du pays to his companion.
"See that old cock with the iron-gray hair? That's Arthur Sturt, the ironmaster; he's running the Derby Flying School, and making pots of money. Able chap; there aren't many men of sixty who have receptivity enough to believe in the aeroplane. What? Oh, certainly, sir, the compliment applies to you." He laughed, pausing to light a cigar. "The youngster eating strawberries with the flapper in a pigtail—got him? That's Tommy Wyatt. Riviera cup, you know. A perfect young devil. You ought to have been at Hendon last Saturday; he was putting up some wonderful stunts—simply playing cup-and-ball with his bus. Oh, I'm quite a back number these days. Soon be sixty myself, what?"
"I dare say you'll find you're good for a year or so yet," said his companion dryly. He was a lean, elderly clergyman with an adventurous eye. "By the by, is your partner here?"
The younger man shook his head. "Not he! Hasn't been near the place. I don't know what's taken him—that's to say I do, and wish I didn't. He's not done a stroke of work this year. Let me down rather badly over the seaplane; I particularly wanted to show it. I told you about that nasty affair he was mixed up in, didn't I? For a straight-laced, fastidious fellow like him it must have been the deuce of a jolt, and of course one makes every allowance; but it's a nuisance, all the same. I'm personally sorry, too," he added. "It's a bad job when a chap of that type runs off the rails. What? Oh, no, no mistake about it, I'm afraid; she's making a perfect fool of herself. Byrne will get his divorce this time, as sure as eggs. Hullo! by George—"