“No,” I said, “he never failed yet.”
What would she think when the full plans of Nordenholt—who “never failed yet”—were revealed to her? I wondered how this fragile girl would take it. She wouldn’t simply weep and forget, I was sure. She seemed to have high ideals and she evidently idolised Nordenholt. It would be a terrible catastrophe for her. I dreaded the next steps in the conversation, for I did not want to lie to her; and I saw no other way out of it if she turned the talk into the wrong channel.
Nordenholt’s hour was up and I began to feel that the old life was slipping away from me again. For a few minutes we sat silent; for she did not speak and I was afraid to reopen the conversation lest she should continue her line of thought. I watched her as she sat: the tiny shoe, the sweep of the black gown without a sparkle of jewellery to relieve it, the clean curves of her white throat, and over all the lustre of her hair. Would there be any place for all this in the new world? I wondered. Things would be too hard for her fragility, perhaps.
As ten o’clock struck Nordenholt came in. He looked more cheerful than when he had left us, though as he dropped into a chair I noticed that he seemed to be physically tired.
“Henley-Davenport asked me to make his excuses to you, Elsa. He wants to work out something which struck him when we were over at his laboratory; so I left him there.”
He smoked for a while in silence, as though ruminating over what he had seen.
“That’s a brave man if you want to see one,” he said at last. “From what he told me, there will be a terrible explosion the first time he manages to jar up his atomic powder-magazine; and yet he goes into the thing as coolly as though he were lighting a cigarette. I hope he pulls it off. More hangs on that than one can well estimate just now. It may be the last shot in our locker for all we know.”
“But surely, Uncle Stanley, you have foreseen everything?”
“I’m not omniscient, Elsa, though perhaps you have illusions on the point. I do what I can, but one must allow a good deal of latitude for the unpredictable which always exists. And in this affair, I am afraid the unpredictable will not be on the helping side. But don’t worry your head over that; we can’t help it. What’s wrong with you tonight. You look more worried than usual. Tired?”
“Not specially.”
“Would you sing to us a little?”
“Only something very short, then.” She moved to the piano. “What do you want?”
“Oh, let’s see. … I’d like. … No, you wouldn’t care for it. Let’s think again.”
“No, no, Uncle Stanley; I’ll sing anything you wish,” she said, but when he asked for the second Song in Cymbeline, her brows contracted.
“Must you have that one? Won’t the first song do instead?”
“I’d rather have the other. Only the last two verses, for I see you are tired.”
She sat down at the piano and played the preliminary chords. I had never heard the air, possibly it was an unusual setting.
“Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must,
Consign to thee, and come to dust.”
It was a wonderful piece of singing. In the first lines her voice rose clear and confident, reassuring against the mere physical perils. Then with the faintest change of tone, just sufficient to mark the shift in the form of menace, she sang the third line; and let a tinge of melancholy creep into the next. With the last couplet something new came into the music, possibly a drop into the minor; and her voice seemed to fill with an echo of all lost hopes and spent delights. Then it rose again, full and strong in the mandatory lines of the final verse, set to a different air, till at last it died away once more with infinite tenderness:
“Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave.”
I sat spellbound after she had ended. It was wonderful art. She closed the piano and rose from her seat.
“I can’t imagine why you dislike that air,” said Nordenholt.
“Oh, it’s so gloomy, Uncle Stanley. I don’t care to think about things like that.”
“Gloomy? You misread it, I’m sure. I wish I could be sure of Fidele’s luck.
‘Fear not slander, censure rash.’
Which of us can feel sure of being free from these? Not I. And what better could one wish for in the end?
‘And renownèd be thy grave.’
How many ghosts could boast of that after a hundred years?”
“Well, none of us will know about that part of it,” she said lightly. “But I don’t think you need trouble about the ‘censure rash.’ None of your own people will blame you; and I know you care nothing for the rest. Even if they all turned against you, you would
