In the darkness her uplifted white face shone like the moon; there were two limpid luminous pools in it. All of a sudden they overflowed with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mouth half opened, swallowed hard. There was now nothing left of that "integrated personality", nothing of the calm and the poise which the younger set of scientists admired so much. There was only a young woman torn with torment.
"I would have loved to go with you to the end of the world when we were floating over the Canyon. I would love to go with you a thousand times more tonight," Lee heard her say and then the gnashing of her teeth as she continued: "But it cannot be, Semper. It cannot be because my die is cast, because my fate is made. Did nobody ever tell you? Didn't you even guess? Howard and I—we've been living together for the past six years. He's not a very good man; rather beyond good and evil; but then: I feel that I have got to stick to him now more than ever."
The golden helmet of her hair dropped to Lee's breast. "I'm ashamed," she sobbed, "terribly, terribly ashamed, Semper. I've made such a mess of things, of you and me—such a mess of my whole life."
He buried his face into the fragrance of the golden wave. "It's nothing, darling," he whispered close to her ear. "It doesn't mean a thing to me; it's less than a cloud which passes across the face of the moon, and then it's gone and never will come back...."
She freed herself from his embrace. With both her hands upon his shoulders she looked straight into his eyes.
"That is not true, Semper," she said and there was the fierceness of a young Viking warrior in the flash of her eyes: "That is not true and there's been already too much of lie in my life. I just cannot stand for any more of that. It can not be, Semper. I've told you plainly and it means not ever, not ever. Go now. Do as I told you. Go immediately. If you really love me, grant me this, let me feel that I could do at least something—this one thing for you."
"Oona!" Lee exclaimed and it sounded like a deep-throated bell in an ancient cathedral town as it rings the last stroke of midnight and then hangs mute in the dark sky. That happiness he had felt, that cometflight through all the stars in heaven; it was too big for him, it couldn't last. He had sensed the blow before it fell. It wasn't like being hit in action; it was like in that field hospital when the doc had told him: "This is going to hurt, Joe—I'm sorry, but we're shy of morphine." Howard's name had cut just like that expected knife. What was there left to say? Nothing; nothing, but one small matter.
"I love you, Oona, and that means forever just as much as you mean that not ever you can come with me. And I thank you, Oona, for this hour. Yes; I think I'll go back to Australia—where I belong. But not tonight. I've set a great experiment going—the outcome is no longer in my hand. Still I feel I mustn't run away now. In fact I cannot; it's somewhat like a soldier's duty to stay up front. I'm going to see this to the end."
She buried her face in her hands: "I knew it. You child, you—you Don Quixote charging against the windmills. They're going to kill you, they're going to kill you. And now there's nothing I can do."
For a second her small fists pounded against Lee's breast and the next moment, before he could do anything, she had jumped out of the plane slamming the door in his face. For a few seconds more he heard her footsteps rushing across the frozen turf and the receding wails of echoes from the hangar walls: