He told his story in jerks, with quick glances over his shoulder and exaggerated gestures. Norah guessed that his nerves were breaking under the strain. His poise, his assurance was shattered. His debonair bearing had shrunk to the rags of a swagger that he pulled round him when fear allowed.
'What's he going to do, Norah? For Christ's sake, what is he going to do?'
She shook her head. 'I don't know,' she said.
He jumped at a sudden snap of a branch. A carrier had stepped on a dry twig.
'What was he saying to you? I couldn't hear.'
'That he must be alone and think.'
Dick's voice went shrill. 'You say he's sitting there, thinking in cold blood whether he'll let us starve?'
She shrugged her shoulders. She believed Archie was doing more than that. He was trying to save something out of a wrecked universe. If she had not exaggerated the look in his eyes, he might even be struggling for sanity.
Dick might be right that their fate swam in the crucible, but she was so desolately unhappy it hardly seemed to matter. Dick's misery took a less stoical form.
'It's awful,' he was saying, 'hanging about to hear what he settles. We might be criminals in the dock. It's worse, for there the judge is not your enemy.'