Again I had come across a new side in Nordenholt’s character. I could hardly picture that grim figure—for even at thirty Nordenholt must have been grim—comforting that tiny scrap of humanity in distress. And yet she was right: he did understand.
“And with it all, he didn’t spoil me. He knew, of course, that when I grew up I would have more money than I knew what to do with; and he determined that I should get the full pleasure out of it by coming to it unspoilt and with unjaded feelings. He brought me up in the simplest way you can imagine. I had no expensive toys, but I liked the ones I had all the better for that. It gave more scope for the imagination, you see: and I had even more than the child’s ordinary imaginative power. When we played fairy tales together he used to be the Ogre or the Prince Charming, and I could see him so well either way. He laughs now when I remind him that he used to make a good Prince Charming.
“Well, so it went on, year after year; and we grew up with more in common than either father and daughter or brother and sister. Somehow I picked up his ways of looking at things; and I caught from him something of his understanding of people. He never put any ideals before me; but I think he himself gave me something to carve out an ideal from. Oh, there’s nobody like Uncle Stanley! I don’t know anybody who comes up to his shoulder.”
“I’ve only known him for a few weeks, Miss Huntingtower,” I said, “but I’ve seen enough to agree with you in that.”
“Have you? I’m so glad. It shows that we’re the same sort of person, doesn’t it? For I know some people hate him—and I hate them for it!”
She clenched her teeth with an air that was half-play, half-earnest.
“I’m going to skip a few years and come to the fairytale part of my story: the Three Wishes. When I grew up, Uncle Stanley told me that he had settled an immense sum on me and that I could do exactly as I wished. I think I failed him at that point. He expected me to go and have a good time; and—I didn’t. I didn’t want to have a good time. I had been thinking over all he had done for me; and I wanted something else entirely. I wanted to give him something in return for all his kindness to me when I was a tiny little thing; and I was afraid that he wouldn’t let me. I went to him one day and asked him to give me three wishes. Now even with me, Uncle Stanley is careful; and he wanted to know what the wishes were before he would promise.
“ ‘I don’t know myself yet,’ I said, ‘but I want to feel that I have three things in reserve that I can ask you to do.’ ‘I promise no impossibilities,’ he told me, ‘but if the things are really possible, you can have them.’ ‘Very well,’ said I, ‘the first of them is that I want to be trained as a secretary.’
“He laughed at me, of course; and when I persisted, he pointed out to me that I was my own mistress and that I needn’t have asked his permission to get trained. ‘You’ve wasted one of your wishes, Elsa,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to hold you to your bargain.’ ‘Well, I wanted your consent to it anyway,’ I told him.
“I went and took a secretary’s training, the most complete I could get. You don’t know how I enjoyed it. I hated the work, of course; but I felt all the time that I was getting ready to be of use to Uncle Stanley; and even the dullest parts of the thing seemed to be lightened by that.
“When I was fully trained, I went to him again. ‘I want my second wish now: I want you to take me as your private secretary.’ I don’t know that he was altogether pleased then. I think he imagined that I would be a nuisance or inefficient or something. But he kept his promise and took me to work with him.
“You can’t guess what I felt about it. I worked hard; I did everything correctly; and I knew him better than anyone else, so that I could help him just when he needed it. Of course, I’m not his only secretary; but I know I suit him better than any of the others. I’ve begun to pay off my debt to him bit by bit; and yet I always seem just as deep in as ever. He’s always been so good to me, you know. But still, I am useful to him; and I’m not merely there on sufferance now. I know he appreciates my work.”
“I doubt if you would be there long if he didn’t,” I said. “From what I have seen of him he isn’t likely to employ amateurs even as a favour. I think he would have let you see you were useless unless you had made good.”
“Oh, if he had been the least dissatisfied with me I would have gone at once as soon as I saw it. I want to be a help and not a hindrance. But now I have answered your question, although it has taken rather a long time to do it.”
Some inane compliment came to my lips but I bit it back without speaking it. She didn’t seem to be the sort of girl who wanted flattery.
“I think you are helping more than Mr. Nordenholt with your work just now,” I said at length. “You seem to have found your way into the centre of the biggest thing this country has ever seen.”
Her face clouded for a moment.
“Yes, it’s a great thing, isn’t it? But do you ever think what failure might mean,
