Chapter III: The Witness for the Defense

One of the pleasantest evidences of the possession of riches is in the luxury of a private car. Although Colonel Illingworth was personally a man of simple tastes as became an old campaigner, there was no appointment that wit could devise or that money could buy which was lacking to make his private car either more comfortable or more luxurious. Colonel Illingworth did not take large parties with him on the "Martlet," for so he had named the car. Indeed the two men and his daughter, with the cook or steward and the porter and the lady's maid, about exhausted the capacities of the car, so that there was an unusually large observation room at the end.

Anything that partook of luxury and refinement would have been of deep interest to Meade and Abbott, who had been removed from both for a long time on the work. But in its napery, glass, china, and silver, that dining table needed not to apologize to any other anywhere. The Colonel was most punctilious in dressing his part and although he willingly condoned the fact that neither Meade nor Abbott had brought evening clothes to the camp, he and his guests were arrayed to fit the table.

As for his daughter, she had put on her very best. The rude hand of mere man could not hold pencil sufficiently delicate to describe her radiant apparel. Meade, who sat nearest her, could not do it, albeit he never took his eyes off her if he could help it. Neither could the other men who looked at her so admiringly, even though one of these was her father and the other two were well and, considering the years and sizes of their several consorts, fatly married!

Again the French maid had lifted her brows surreptitiously when this gown had been ordered extracted from its wrappings and protecting tissues. She did not lift them quite so high however, because now with the sharpness of her sex and trade, she knew why Mademoiselle's best had been taken on the train and donned on this occasion. It was for the engineer who sat by her side at the table in the observation room.

If anything had been needed to reduce this said engineer to a condition of helpless impotency and despair it was this new gown. Some women's clothes wear the women, and others women wear! This is an orphic way of saying that some women clothes make, while others make the clothes. Oh, not by hand, not by any deft stitchery, but by personality. It was always difficult for mere man to describe one of Helen Illingworth's gowns, only an observing, and unprejudiced, woman could do that.

Of course every wise man knows, in spite of vehement assertion to the contrary, that as a rule women dress for other women, not for men. That claim that they dress for men is usually urged to placate the bill-payer and absolve the feminine conscience, but it is not true, that is generally speaking. In this instance, it was. There was no woman to be dazzled by Helen Illingworth's apparel in that car unless it was Celeste, the maid. No man is a hero to his valet, eke no woman a heroine to her maid. She did not usually care greatly about any impressions she made on Celeste, although the vivacious, enthusiastic expressions of approval she aroused in her factotum that night were balm to her soul. She wanted somebody to tell her how well she looked; not from vanity but as a forecast of the impression she would probably make on her engineer.

It had taken him little time to make his toilet. He rejoiced in a business suit, new and from the best tailor. He was a fastidious man in such matters, and it fitted him and became him amazingly. Abbott was dressed likewise. They were both scrubbed to within an inch of their lives, but climbing about the bridge their hands were scratched, roughened, stained, and torn. Aside from that, Meade was certainly most presentable, and old Abbott, in spite of his indifference to such matters, looked the able and powerful man he was.

The conversation at dinner was at first light and frivolous.

"I'm lost," began Abbott, "overpowered with all this silver and glass and china."

"Yes," laughed Meade, "we should have brought along our granite ware and tin cups, then we would be free from the dreadful fear that we are going to drop something or break something."

"You can break anything you like," said the Colonel with heavy pleasantry. "Make hash out of the china and cut glass," he went on with a delightful mixture of metaphors, "so long as the bridge stands."

"And that is going to be forever, isn't it, Mr. Meade?" asked the girl quickly.

"I don't think anything built by man will survive quite that long," he answered as much to her father and the others as to her, "but this gives every promise of lasting its time."

"You know," observed Curtiss, "there was some question in my mind about these big compression members. When I first studied your father's drawings I wondered if he had made the lacing strong enough to hold the webs."

"That matter was very thoroughly gone into," said Meade quickly. "It was the very point which I myself had questioned, but father is absolutely confident that we provided latticing enough to take up all the stresses. I looked into that matter myself," he went on with much emphasis.

"I guess it's all right," said Curtiss lightly. "I examined the webs and lacings carefully this afternoon. They seem to be as right as possible."

"Those trusses," said Abbott emphatically, "will stand forever. You need not worry about that."

"Are you going to finish this job on time?" asked Severence, the vice-president. "You know the financial end of it is mine, and much depends upon the date of completion."

"That depends upon you people at the shop, Doctor. If you get the stuff here to me I'll get it in place in short order," answered Abbott.

"There's an immense amount of work still to be done on the bridge, though," said Curtiss, "and you can't let up a minute if we are to complete it within the limits assigned."

"I don't expect to let up a minute. If necessary I'll get more men and work them in two shifts, or even three. Don't worry about that, gentlemen."

"We aren't worrying about anything with you and Meade on the job, Abbott," said the Colonel genially.

"Yes, you are, father," said the girl, "begging your pardon, you live bridge, and think bridge, and sleep bridge, and eat bridge, and drink bridge."

"Mercy," laughed the Colonel. "I must have a digestion that is a cross between that of an elephant and an ostrich. I'm glad I don't play it, too."

"You know what I mean," said his daughter. "Ever since the International has been started you have scarcely been able to give a thought even to me. I'm tired of it. I hope the old thing will soon be finished so that we can all go back to normal life again."

"I hope so, too," assented the Colonel, "and I guess you are right. The fact is the bridge is an obsession with us all. It is the biggest job the Martlet has ever handled. Indeed it is the biggest thing in the world. It's the longest cantilever, the greatest span, the heaviest trusses, the----"

"I've heard all about it," interrupted the girl, waving him into silence, "ever since you began it. Sometimes I think it's beginning to obsess me, too."

"You don't look like it," whispered Meade, under cover of the general laugh that greeted her remark.

"What do I look like?" she whispered back quickly in return.

But Meade had no opportunity to tell her save in so far as his eyes spoke for him because as the laughter died away the Colonel took up the conversation. That silent language which the young engineer spoke with his eyes, however, must have been quite intelligible and easy for her to understand. Her color was already high, but in the excitement of his glance in an indefinable anticipation of something, she could not exactly tell what, it deepened a little under that direct almost fierce glance.

"It is not exactly a subject for dinner conversation," said the Colonel with sudden gravity, which proved how keenly his daughter had realized his overpowering interest in the great undertaking, "but all of us here, even you, my dear, must realize how much that bridge means to us. I won't go so far as to say that its failure would ruin us, but it would be a blow both to our finances and our fame that it would be hard for us to survive."

"Have you ever known anything that my father designed to fail?" asked Meade somewhat hotly.

"No, and that is why we took his plan in spite of----"

"In spite of what, sir?"

"In spite of Curtiss here and some others."

"Mr. Curtiss," said Meade, turning to the chief engineer, "if it will add anything to your peace of mind I will assume my full share of responsibility for the matter. You know the books by Schmidt-Chemnitz the great German bridge engineer?"

Curtiss nodded.

"At first, I, that is we, thought that there might possibly be weakness in those compression members, but I checked them with the methods he advocates and then submitted the figures to my father and then he went through the whole calculation and applied coefficients he felt to be safe."

"I'm willing to take your father's judgment in the matter rather than Schmidt-Chemnitz', or anybody's," said Curtiss, "so successful has been his career."

"Now that I have seen the members in place I have no doubt that they will stand," said the Colonel.

"Sure they will," added Abbott with supreme and contagious confidence, an assurance which helped even Meade to believe.

"Of course we all know," said Dr. Severence, who had been long enough in touch with engineering to learn much about it, "that there is always more or less of experimenting in the design of a new thing like this."

"Yes," said the Colonel, "but we don't want our experiments to fail in this instance."

"They won't," said the young man boldly.

He had long since persuaded himself that he had been all wrong and his father all right, so that he entered upon his defense and the defense of the bridge with enthusiasm. He was ready to break a lance with anybody on its behalf.

"Well," began the Colonel, "we have every confidence in your father and in you. I don't mind telling you, Meade, it need not go any further, that when this bridge is completed we shall be prepared to make you personally a very advantageous offer for future relations with the Martlet Company if you care to accept it. On the strength of your probable acceptance we are already planning to venture into certain foreign fields which we have hitherto not felt it to our interest to enter."

"That is most kind of you, Colonel Illingworth," said the young man gratefully, "and it appeals to me very strongly. I have been associated with father latterly. He wants to retire with the completion of this bridge and before I open any office of my own I should like the advantage of further experience. Such a connection as you propose seems to me to be ideal, from my point of view. No man could have any better backing than the Martlet Bridge Company."

"Well, we shall look to you to be worthy of it," said the Colonel kindly.

His glance vaguely comprehended his daughter as he spoke. Colonel Illingworth was a very rich man. The Martlet Bridge Company was nearest his heart, but he had many other interests. His only daughter would eventually be the mistress of a great fortune. She could have married anybody--anywhere. Indeed Europeans of high station and ancient lineage had already indicated quite plainly their willingness to ally themselves with beauty and--is it doing them an injustice to say booty, as well?

But Miss Illingworth would have none of them. She was an American to the very core and so proud of it that no old-world title or position could buy her. None of these distinguished gentlemen of foreign birth who had come a-wooing had made any lasting impression upon her. She was now convinced, and for all her life she was sure, that she wanted more than anything else just one American man in the engineering profession! She could have him for the taking, she knew. And she wished he knew it, and would act upon the knowledge without further delay.

Meade was not poor. Of course, his means were limited compared to Colonel Illingworth's great fortune, but what he had earned, saved, and invested was sufficient--yes, even for two. And he would inherit much more. Old Meade had not been the greatest engineer of his generation for nothing. Independent and self-respecting, young Meade could not be considered a fortune-hunter by anybody. He was the kind of man to whom a decent father likes to intrust his daughter. Old Colonel Illingworth found himself gazing wonderingly at the two in a way that again deepened the flush of color in his daughter's cheek as she caught his look. She was relieved that Meade had not happened to observe it.

Had he been blessed with a son by his long dead wife he would have been proud if he had been the type of man that Meade was, thought the Colonel, as he mused on all these possibilities. Perhaps Meade and Helen might--who could tell? He sat silent, so far as he could as host, during the latter part of the dinner, in his turn seeing visions and dreaming dreams. There was a contagion of that sort of thing around that bridge, it would seem.

After dinner the men went out on the observation platform with their cigars and coffee. For those that liked it there was something in tall glasses in which ice tinkled when the glasses were agitated, but Meade declined all three.

"With your permission, sir," he said, "I am going to take Miss Illingworth out on the bridge. The moon is rising and----"

"I have heard so much about it," said the girl, standing by the door. "I want to see it when the workmen are all off and it is all quiet, in the moonlight."

"Very well," said the Colonel. "You will be careful of her, Meade?"

"I'll be more careful of her than we are of the bridge, sir," was the prompt answer.

"And you had better change your dress, Helen, before you go," said the Colonel, turning to Abbott and engaging him in conversation on technical matters.

"I'll wait for you at the front door of the car," said the engineer, his heart beating like a pneumatic riveter and sounding almost as loud in his ears.

As she turned to her stateroom he decided not to break the delicious anticipation of the coming adventure by talking about it to anyone or by seeing anyone but her. He just wanted to wait for her alone in the dark until she came, so he followed her down the corridor to the other end.

"I won't be long," she whispered as she left him.

He took that with a grain of salt. A second that she were away when she might have been with him, would be a long time to him, he knew.