The diversion grew upon us as time went on. It was always spontaneous, for our work gave neither of us an opportunity for thinking out details; and each afternoon brought its fresh store of improvisations. Through it all, she was the dreamer of dreams; it was my part to throw her visions into a practically attainable form: and gradually, out of it all, there arose a fabric of phantasy which yet had its foundations in the solid earth.
It took form; we could walk its streets in reverie and pace its lawns. And gradually that land of Faerie came to be peopled with inhabitants, mere phantasms at first, but growing ever more real as we talked of them between ourselves. Half in jest and half in earnest we created them, and soon they twined themselves about our hearts. Children of our brain, they were; dearer than any earthly offspring, for from them we need fear no disappointments.
Fata Morgana we christened our City, after the mirage in the Straits of Messina; for it had that mixture of clear outline and unsubstantiality which seemed to fit the name.
So we planned the future together out of such stuff as dreams are made on. And behind us, grim and silent, sat Nordenholt, the real architect of the coming time.
He never interrupted our talks; and I had no idea that he had even overheard them until one day he called me into his office. He seemed unusually grave.
“Sit down, Jack,” he said, and I started slightly to hear him use the name, since hitherto I had always been simply “Flint” to him. “I’ve got something serious to discuss with you; and it won’t keep much longer.”
He looked up at the great Nitrogen Curve above the mantelpiece and seemed to brood over the inclinations of the red and green lines upon it. They were closing upon one another now, though some distance still separated them.
“Did it ever occur to you that I can’t go on for ever?”
“Well, I suppose that none of us can go on for ever; but I don’t think I would worry too much over that, Nordenholt. Of course you’re doing thrice the work that I am; but I don’t see much sign of it affecting you yet.”