His cheeks began to burn again, and he gave me an uncomfortable look. A silence, and he sat down in my dressing-room, his boyish head buried in his hands. After a glance at him I began changing my training-suit for riding-clothes, whistling the while softly to myself. As I buttoned a fresh collar he looked up.
“Mr. Scarlett, you are well-born and—you are here in the circus with the rest of us. You know what we are—you know that two or three of us have seen better days,... that something has gone wrong with us to bring us here,... but we never speak of it,... and never ask questions.... But I should like to tell you about myself;... you are a gentleman, you know,... and I was not born to anything in particular.... I was a clerk in the consul’s office in Paris when Monsieur Tissandier took a fancy to me, and I entered his balloon ateliers to learn to assist him.”
He hesitated. I tied my necktie very carefully before a bit of broken mirror.
“Then the government began to make much of us,... you remember? We started experiments for the army.... I was intensely interested, and ... there was not much talk about secrecy then,... and my salary was large, and I was received at the Tuileries. My head was turned;... life was easy, brilliant. I made an invention—a little electric screw which steered a balloon ... sometimes...” He laughed, a mirthless laugh, and looked at me. All the color had gone from his face.
“There was a woman—” I turned partly towards him.
“We met first at the British Embassy,... then elsewhere,... everywhere.... We skated together at the club in the Bois at that celebrated fête,... you know?—the Emperor was there—” 257
“I know,” I said.
He looked at me dreamily, passed his hand over his face, and went on:
“Somehow we always talked about military balloons. And that evening ... she was so interested in my work ... I brought some little sketches I had made—”
“I understand,” I said.