Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/277

 that, but very few of them like her. I tried to keep my end up by telling her about the wonders of science, and the great new architecture of the air. And then Sheila used to say, 'And what is the good of them to me, when you have built them. I can see a castle build itself without hands out of gigantic rocks of clear jewels in the sky every night.' And she would point to where crimson or violet clouds hung in the green after-glow over the great Atlantic.

"You would probably say I was mad, if you didn't happen to have been mad yourself. But I was wild with the idea that there was something that she admired and that she thought science couldn't do. I was as morbid as a boy; I half thought she despised me; and I wanted half to prove her wrong and half to do whatever she thought right. I resolved my science should beat the clouds at their own game; and I laboured till I'd actually made a sort of rainbow castle that would ride on the air. I think at the back of my mind there was some sort of crazy idea of carrying her off into the clouds she lived among, as if she were literally an angel and ought to dwell on wings. It never quite came to that, as you will hear, but as my experiments progressed my romance progressed too. You won't need any telling about that; I only want