“You understand, Elsa? If you go, you take away Mr. Flint; and although I can replace you in your department, I doubt if I can get anyone as good as he is in his line. Go South and you cripple one of the essential parts of the Area. Stay here, and you help us all towards safety—and we are not near the safety-line yet. Which is it to be? I put no pressure on you. I only point out what I think is your duty.”
I had expected some angry reply, some hurried decision which might bring disaster in its train; but luckily things took a different turn. I believe that the strain had been too great for her. Now came the collapse; and before I knew what had happened, she had broken into tears. Nordenholt leaned over her, trying to comfort her; but it was useless; and he let her work out her fit of emotion to the end. At last she pulled herself together.
“If you are sure you need me, I will stay. But I hate you both. I hate the work. I hate the Area and everything in it. I’ll keep my promise to you; but things will never be the same again.... And, oh, this morning I was so happy.”
Nordenholt climbed aboard the car without another word, and I drove on into the dark. Now and again I heard a half-suppressed sob from the girl at my side; but that was all. At the door of Nordenholt’s house I stopped. Elsa left me without uttering even “Good-night.” I watched her tall, slim figure go up the steps and disappear; and something blinded me. I found Nordenholt standing at the side of the car.
“Poor chap,” he said, with an immense pity in his voice. “So you’re involved too? I wish it had been otherwise. Well, well; I couldn’t hope to keep it from her much longer at the best. But I’m very, very sorry. She’ll take it so hard. Her type never looks at these things the way we do.”
He paused and looked at me keenly in the light of the terrace lamps. When he spoke once more, his voice sounded very weary.
“Stand by me, Jack. Get your part ready in time. Don’t flinch because of this. I’m nearly at the end of my tether.”
I could not trust myself to speak. We shook hands in silence, and he went up the steps into the house.