was rather more interested in what the meeting might be about.
“Men,” Davina said. “How can they think about business when the orchestra plays so divinely?”
Andrew gave her an odd look before he said, “Perhaps you would honor me with another dance?”
And then Claire and Alice were claimed, and it was not until the evening ended that they saw the count again. They were putting on their wraps in the great entry hall with its black-and-white marble parquet when he came out of another door swinging his driving coat on.
“Lady Dunsmuir,” he said, “might I offer your protegees a ride to the airfield? I am most interested in continuing our discussions about automata. You too, Mr. Malvern. I am a great reader of your monographs and would be honored if you would accompany us.”
“You—you drive yourself, sir?” Andrew said.
“Certainly. My captains will follow in their own landau. They think I drive zu schnell—how do you say? Too fast.”
Claire bit back an eager acceptance, and turned to Davina. “May we?” After all, they had come with the earl’s party and were his responsibility.
“You will be careful with them, Ferdinand,” Davina said, half teasing, half stern. “They are precious to us.”
The count bowed, sweeping his beaver topper from his head. “As my own daughters, my dear lady.”
“Then you must enjoy the ride, girls. We will see you later at the Lady Lucy.”
Andrew handed Alice down the steps and into the rear compartment, and Claire seated herself in the front next to the count.
“This is a Daimler,” Alice breathed, looking about her as if she were in a palace.
“Eight pistons,” the count said proudly, flicking levers and spinning a great wheel next [t wnt>to his knee. “She’ll do nearly sixty miles in an hour, if the roads are good.”
“Sixty…! Oh sir, when we get to the airfield, may we please look in the engine compartment?” Claire begged, and was thrown back against the seat cushions when the Daimler took off like a horse from the starting gate.
“I will give you a personal tour of it tomorrow,” the count assured her. “Now, Fraulein Alice, I beg you to tell me more about these automata of yours. You say the one has magnetic feet?”
Claire relaxed in the seat next to him as the count kept one eye on their route over the prairie and the other on Alice as he peppered her with questions. When he had extracted her promise of a demonstration in exchange for a good look at the engine in daylight, he said, “It is my belief that man was not created for drudgery, but for genius, and craft, and good, profitable work. Why should the factories not be run by automata? Why should machines not be operated by machines?”
Claire had never devoted much thought to the subject of mechanized labor, but clearly, the great man had. On the other hand—
“But, Count, machines cannot solve problems, or take a line of action to a logical conclusion. They can only obey.”
Andrew chuckled. “I could say the same about many a fellow student in school.”
“Yes, but those students are likely not inventing great devices in manufactories.”
“God has given us many gifts,” the count said, “among them creativity, logic, and consideration for the needs of others. But I am not speaking of these. I am speaking of rote tasks on the manufactory floor. Why encumber a man with such when he could be in the laboratory, conducting experiments?”
Something about this argument bothered Claire, but she could not put her finger upon it. She gazed into the darkness, thinking, as the landau’s lanterns illuminated the road ahead. Road was a generous term. The landau took its bumps and potholes in stride, its great wheels floating over them as if they were nothing. The moon had moved across the sky to the point where Claire could tell it was very late. Past midnight, at least. She hoped the Mopsies had not waited up to hear about the ball.
“Count, do you not think that—”
He cursed as a deer or an antelope of some kind bounded into the lamp light and across the road, and hauled back on the bar that controlled the rate of steam. Simultaneously, the sheet of isinglass next to her ear exploded inward, showering her with glittering fragments. She screamed and leaped to her left as the landau swerved and hit the bank on the driver’s side. The heavy Daimler’s nose lunged at the sky and then dropped them half on top of the bank, the