Stephen Pryde turned to his uncle again. “The business that brought him—Grant—can I attend to it for you, Uncle Dick?”
“No, thank you, Stephen, it—it is purely a personal matter.”
Pryde helped himself to a cigarette, saying, “Did he say whether he had heard from Jepson?” and trying to speak carelessly.
Bransby answered him impatiently. “No; I was glad to find out, however, that Grant agrees with me that your scheme for controlling the output of aeroplane engines is an impossible one for us.”
Pryde’s face stiffened. “Then he is wrong,” he said curtly.
Bransby angered. “He is not wrong. Haven’t I just said he agreed with me?”
“If you gave the matter serious attention, instead of opposing it blindly, simply because it came from me——”
But this was too much. Bransby stopped him hotly, “I don’t oppose it because it comes from you. I am against it because it isn’t sound. If it were, I would have thought of it.”
“You don’t realize the possibilities.” Stephen spoke as hotly as the elder had, but there was pleading in his voice.
“There are no possibilities, I tell you,” Bransby continued roughly, “and that should be sufficient—it always has been for every one in my establishment but you”—he turned to Latham: “Stephen is trying to induce me to give up shipbuilding for aeroplane engines—and not only that, he wants to spend our surplus in buying every plant we are able that can be turned to that use.”
“Yes,” Stephen urged, “because after the war the future of the world will be in the air.”
“That has nothing to do with this.” Bransby was growing testy, and always his troubled eyes would turn to Hugh—to Hugh and Helen.
“It has,” Stephen insisted, “for it shows how the problem of transportation has evolved. The men of the future are the men who realize the chance the conquest of the air has given them.”
“Well, let who wishes go in for it. I am quite satisfied with our business as it is, and at my time of life I am not going to embark on ambitious schemes. We make money enough.”
“Money!” Pryde said with bitter scorn. “It isn’t the money that makes me keen. It’s the power to be gained—the power to build and to destroy.” The tense face was fierce and transfigured. The typical face of a seer, Latham thought, watching him curiously. “I tell you, sir, that from now on the men who rule the air are the men who will rule the world.” The voice changed, imperiousness cast away, it was tender, caressingly pleading—“Uncle Dick——”