I think I have made it clear that when I took over the Reconstruction at Nordenholt’s request I did so in a disinterested spirit, by which I mean that no personal aims of my own were concerned. I began the work solely in the hope that my plans would ensure the welfare of some millions of people, hardly any of whom I knew as individuals. It is true that I put my whole heart into the task and that I strove with all my might to bring its conclusion within the scope of possibility. I could do no less, in view of the immense responsibility which I had undertaken. Possibly my narrative has minimised the labour which the effort involved; if so, I cannot help it.
Even my early stages of collaboration with Elsa Huntingtower failed to alter this attitude of my mind. I still saw the problem as one in which great masses of people were involved; and although I appreciated the fact that these masses were composed of individuals each with his or her separate destiny to work out for good or ill, yet it never occurred to me to regard myself as one of them.
I think that the vision of Fata Morgana, growing ever clearer in my mental vision, forced my thoughts into a fresh channel. In my mind’s eye I saw that happy city, thronged with its joyous people; and gradually I began to picture myself treading those lawns and wandering amid its gardens. Alone? No, I wanted some kindred spirit, someone who could share the victory with me; and Elsa Huntingtower was the only one who had part and lot in it. She and I had built its dreaming spires together by our common labour; and it was with her that I would stray in fancy through its courts. Of all humanity, we two alone had rightful seizin in its soil.
It was late before I recognised where all this was leading me; but when at last I awakened, it drove me with ten-fold force. I wanted no dim future through which I might rove as a shadow among shadows; they had served their turn in the scheme of things and brought me face to face with reality. If Paradise lay before me, Eve must be there, else it would be a mockery: if I had to face failure, I needed a comforter. I wanted Elsa.
I mistrust all novelists’ descriptions of the psychology of a man in love. To me, that passion seems an integration of selfishness and selflessness each developed to its highest pitch and so intimately mingled that one cannot tell where the dividing line between them lies. Luckily, analysis of this kind is beyond the scope of my narrative. The affairs of Elsa Huntingtower and me, so far as they concerned ourselves alone, have no place upon my canvas; but since in their reactions they impinged upon a greater engine, I cannot pass them over in silence without omitting a factor which must have had its influence upon events.
I suppose, from what I see around me, that the average man falls in love by degrees. He seems to be subjected to two forces which alternately act upon him in opposite directions, so that his advance to his goal is intermittent and sometimes slow. In my case, there was nothing of this wavering. Somehow, as soon as I realised what my feelings were, I could not delay an hour longer than was necessary. The real fact was, I suspect, that I did not suddenly fall in love, though I seemed, even to myself, to have done so. In all probability I had been falling in love for weeks without knowing it; and when the illumination came, the long sub-conscious travail had prepared me for instant action.
As it happened, it was one of the days on which we usually motored into the country. At two o’clock I was in the Square with the car; and almost at once the door opened and Elsa appeared. My dreams had far outrun reality; and as the slim fur-clad figure came down the steps I felt my pulse leap. It lasted only for a moment, but I think she read my face like an open book. Behind her came Nordenholt, looking very tired. I could not help seeing the change which the last months had made in him. The deep lines on his face were deeper still; his eyes seemed to be different in some way, though as piercing as ever; and his step had lost the lightness it had when I saw him first in London. He looked me over, as he usually did, but said nothing as he stepped into the back of the car. Elsa took her customary place beside me; and it gave me a novel thrill as I arranged the rug about her. It seemed as though something had fallen from my eyes so that I saw her in a new and wonderful aspect.
As we drove westward and over the Canal, I noticed that she seemed disinclined to talk; and as I myself was busy with my dreams, I did not try to force the conversation. We had passed Bearsden and were in the open country before she had spoken three sentences; and even these were wilfully commonplace. Reflecting on this, and being myself surcharged with emotion, I was vain enough to guess that she was thinking of me and of what I had to tell her; for I had a curious feeling that she must know what was in my mind. So the milestones swept by, and still the three of us remained silent.
It was a dreary landscape through which we drove; but all landscapes in those days were bleak and sinister. In the little wood beyond Bearsden, the trees were uprooted and slanting here and there, owing to the new soil giving them no support. Some, which had threatened to fall across the road, had been cut down. Further on, the Kilpatrick Hills loomed over us, dark from the lack of vegetation; while across the Blane valley, once so green, the smooth folds of the Campsies lay black under the wintry sky. Only here and there, where snow covered the ground, did things remind one of the old days.