"You talk as though you were certain of the worst," Seleneck said. "But if everything goes well—what then?"
The compasses slipped from Wolff's fingers.
"God knows!" he said.
It was no exclamation of despair, rather a reverent surrender of a life which he could no longer shape alone, and Seleneck turned aside, more deeply moved than he cared to show. He had known Wolff from the earliest Kadetten days, and had watched the dawn of great promise break into a day of seeming fulfilment. With unchanging, unenvying friendship he had followed the brilliant career, admiring the boy's ambition ripening to steadfast purpose, the boyish spirits steadying to a bold and fearless optimism. And, after all, he ended as others ended—in shipwreck—only more tragically, with the port of Victory in sight. Seleneck remembered his own words spoken only a few months before: "Take care that you do not end as Field-Marshal with Disappointment for an Adjutant!" And Wolff was not even major, and something worse than Disappointment, something that was more like Catastrophe, had already chosen him as comrade.
Against Wolff's wish, Seleneck blamed Nora bitterly. He held her responsible for every shadow that had fallen upon the hopeful life, but he swore to himself that she should not know it, and that he would prove her friend for her husband's sake, whatever befell.
"My will is, of course, made," Wolff said, breaking upon his troubled reflections, "and here is a letter to my aunt and Hildegarde; please give it to them in the event of my death."
"And for your wife?"
"This other letter is for her."
Seleneck took the two envelopes and put them in his pocket.
"I think everything is settled now?" he said.