"E. E. Doc Smith - Skylark 1 - Skylark of Space " - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

impenetrable screen.
As for women, Crane frankly avoided them, partly because his greatest interests in life

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were things in which woman had neither interest nor place, but mostly because he had
for years been the prime target of the man-hunting debutantes and the matchmaking
mothers of three continents.

Dorothy Vaneman with whom he had become acquainted through his friendship with
Seaton, had been admitted to his friendship. Her frank comradeship was a continuing
revelation, and it was she who had last played for him.

She and Seaton had been caught near his home by a sudden shower and had dashed in
for shelter. While the rain beat outside, Crane had suggested that she pass the time by
playing his `fiddle'. Dorothy, a Doctor of Music and an accomplished violinist, realized
with the first sweep of the bow that she was playing an instrument such as she had
known only in her dreams, and promptly forgot everything else. She forgot the rain, the
listeners, the time, and the place; she simply poured into that wonderful violin everything
she had of beauty, of tenderness, of artistry.

Sure, true, and full the tones filled the big room, and in Crane's vision there rose a home
filled with happy work, with laughter and companionship. Sensing the girl's dreams as the
music filled his ears, he realized as never before in his busy and purposeful life what a
home with the right woman could be like.

No thought of love for Dorothy entered his mind - he knew that the love existing between
her and Dick was of the sort that only death could alter - but he knew that she had
unwittingly given him a great gift. Often thereafter in his lonely hours he saw that dream
home, and knew that nothing less than its realization would ever satisfy him.




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Chapter Four

Returning to his boarding house, Seaton undressed and went to bed, but not to sleep. He
knew that he had seen what could very well become a workable space-drive that
afternoon .... After an hour of trying to force himself to sleep he gave up, went to his
desk, and started to study. The more he studied, the more strongly convinced he
became that this first thought was right -the thing could become a space-drive.

By breakfast time he had the beginnings of a tentative theory roughed out, and also had
gained some idea of the nature and magnitude of the obstacles to overcome.

Arriving at the Laboratory, he found that Scott had spread the news of his adventure, and
his room was soon the center of interest. He described what he had seen and done to
the impromptu assembly of scientists, and was starting in on the explanation he had
deduced when he was interrupted by Ferdinand Scott.