Frenchman, further removed from destructive passion than the American. He had the strange, fanatical idealism of the Norseman.
'We must conquer,' he said, 'we must conquer the world. Then we can rule.'
'We?' she asked.
He nodded, his face strange and gentle with a deceptive mildness about the eyes.
'Yes,' he said, 'we few who count. The brains. That is all that matters.'
Hilary thought, where are we going? Where is all this leading. These people are mad, but they're not mad in the same way as each other. It's as though they were all going towards different goals, different mirages. Yes, that was the word. Mirages. And from them she turned to a contemplation of Mrs. Calvin Baker. Here there was no fanaticism, no hate, no dream, no arrogance, no aspiration. There was nothing here that Hilary could find or take notice of. She was a woman, Hilary thought, without either heart or conscience. She was the efficient instrument in the hands of a big unknown force.
It was the end of the third day. They had come to a small town and alighted at a small native hotel. Here, Hilary found, they were to resume European clothing. She slept that night in a small, bare, white-washed room, rather like a cell. At early dawn Mrs. Baker woke her.
'We're going off right now,' said Mrs. Baker. 'The plane's waiting.'
'The plane?'
'Why yes, my dear. We're returning to civilised travelling, thank the Lord.'
They came to the airfield and the plane after about an hour's drive. It looked like a disused army airfield. The pilot was a Frenchman. They flew for some hours, their flight taking them over mountains, looking down from the plane Hilary thought what a curious sameness the world has, seen from above. Mountains, valleys, roads, houses. Unless one was really an aerial expert all places looked alike. That in some the population was denser than in others, was about all that one could say. And half of the time one saw nothing owing to travelling over clouds.
In the early afternoon they began to lose height and circle down. They were in mountainous country still but coming down in a flat plain. There was a well-marked aerodrome here and a white building beside it. They made a perfect landing.
Mrs. Baker led the way towards the building. Beside it were two powerful cars with chauffeurs standing by them. It was clearly a private aerodrome of some kind, since there appeared to be no official reception.
'Journey's end,' said Mrs. Baker cheerfully. 'We all go in and have a good wash and brush up. And then the cars will be ready.'
'Journey's end?' Hilary stared at her. 'But we've not – we haven't crossed the sea at all.'
'Did you expect to?' Mrs. Baker seemed amused. Hilary said confusedly,
'Well, yes. Yes, I did. I thought…' She stopped.
Mrs. Baker nodded her head.
'Why, so do a lot of people. There's a lot of nonsense talked about the iron curtain, but what I say is an iron curtain can be anywhere. People don't think of that.'
Two Berber servants received them. After a wash and freshening up they sat down to coffee and sandwiches and biscuits. Then Mrs. Baker glanced at her watch.
'Well, so long, folks,' she said. 'This is where I leave you.'
'Are you going back to Morocco?' asked Hilary, surprised.
'That wouldn't quite do,' said Mrs. Calvin Baker, 'with me being supposed to be burnt up in a plane accident! No, I shall be on a different run this time.'
'But someone might still recognise you,' said Hilary. 'Someone, I mean, who'd met you in hotels in Casablanca or Fez.'
'Ah,' said Mrs. Baker, 'but they'd be making a mistake. I've got a different passport now, though it's true enough that a sister of mine, a Mrs. Calvin Baker, lost her life that way. My sister and I are supposed to be very alike.' She added, 'And to the casual people one comes across in hotels one travelling American woman is very like another.'
Yes, Hilary thought, that was true enough. All the outer, unimportant characteristics were present in Mrs. Baker. The neatness, the trimness, the carefully arranged blue hair, the highly monotonous, prattling voice. Inner characteristics, she realised, were carefully masked or, indeed, absent. Mrs. Calvin Baker presented to the world and to her companions a faзade, but what was behind the facade was not easy to fathom. It was as though she had deliberately extinguished those tokens of individuality by which one personality is distinguishable from another.
Hilary felt moved to say so. She and Mrs. Baker were standing a little apart from the rest.
'One doesn't know,' said Hilary, 'in the least what you're really like?'
'Why should you?'
'Yes. Why should I? And yet, you know, I feel I ought to. We've travelled together in rather intimate circumstances and it seems odd to me that I know nothing about you. Nothing, I mean, of the essential you, of what you feel and think, of what you like and dislike, of what's important to you and what isn't.'
'You've such a probing mind, my dear,' said Mrs. Baker. 'If you'll take my advice, you'll curb that tendency.'
'I don't even know what part of the United States you come from.'
'That doesn't matter either. I've finished with my own country. There are reasons why I can never go back there. If I can pay off a grudge against that country, I'll enjoy doing it.'
For just a second or two malevolence showed both in her expression and in the tone of her voice. Then it relaxed once more into cheerful tourist tones.
'Well, so long, Mrs. Betterton, I hope you have a very agreeable reunion with your husband.'
Hilary said helplessly,
'I don't even know where I am, what part of the world, I mean.'
'Oh, that's easy. There needs to be no concealment about that now. A remote spot in the High Atlas my dear. That's near enough -'
Mrs. Baker moved away and started saying good-bye to the others. With a final gay wave of her hand she walked out across the tarmac. The plane had been refueled and the pilot was standing waiting for her. A faint cold chill went over Hilary. Here, she felt, was her last link with the outside world. Peters, standing near her, seemed to sense her reaction.
'The place of no return,' he said softly. 'That's us, I guess.'
Dr. Barron said softly,
'Have you still courage, Madame, or do you at this moment want to run after your American friend and climb with her into the plane and go back – back to the world you have left?'
'Could I go if I wanted to?' asked Hilary.
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
'One wonders.'
'Shall I call to her?' asked Andy Peters.
'Of course not,' said Hilary sharply.
Helga Needheim said scornfully,
'There is no room here for women who are weaklings.'
'She is not a weakling,' said Dr. Barron softly, 'but she asks herself questions as any intelligent woman would do.' He stressed the word 'intelligent' as though it were a reflection upon the German woman. She, however, was unaffected by his tone. She despised all Frenchmen and was happily assured of her own worth. Ericsson said, in his high nervous voice,
'When one has at last reached freedom, can one even contemplate going back?'
Hilary said,
'But if it is not possible to go back, or to choose to go back, then it is not freedom!'
One of the servants came to them and said,
'If you please, the cars are ready now to start.'
They went out through the opposite door of the building. Two Cadillac cars were standing there with uniformed chauffeurs. Hilary indicated a preference for sitting in front with the chauffeur. She explained the swinging motion of a large car occasionally made her feel car sick. This explanation seemed to be accepted easily
