F very phlegmatic about it. Says another twelve hours of observation may be of value. She and A rowed ashore over the runners trailing in the water and with great difficulty succeeded in hacking off a few runners of the sprayed Grass. I thought her undertaking this hazard an absurd piece of bravado—she might just as well have sent someone else.
Disregarding her rudeness in not inviting me, I accompanied her unasked to her laboratory-cabin. She laid the stolons on an enamelsurfaced table and busied herself with some apparatus. I could not take my eyes from these segments of the Grass. They lay on the table, not specimens of vegetation, but stunned creatures ready to spring to vigorous and vengeful life when they recovered. It was impossible not to pick one up and run it through my fingers, feeling again the soft, electric touch.
Miss Francis' preparations were interminable. If she follows such an elaborate ritual for the mere checking of an unsuccessful experiment no wonder she is taking years to get anywhere. My attention wandered and I started to leave the cabin when I noticed my hand still held one of the specimens.
It was withered and dry.
100. September 17: The enthusiasm greeting the discovery that F's reagent mortally affected the Grass was only tempered by the dampening thought that its action had been incomplete. What good was the lethal compound if its work were final only when the sprayed parts were severed?
F seemed to think it was a great deal of good. Her manner toward me, boisterous and quite out of keeping with our respective positions and sexes, could almost be called friendly. During the return to Southampton she constantly clapped me on the back and shouted, "It's over, Weener; it's all over now."
"But it isnt over," I protested. "Your spray hadnt the slightest direct effect on the Grass."
"Oh, that. That's nothing. A mere impediment. A matter of time only."
"Time only! Good God, do you realize the Grass is halfway through Ireland? That we are surrounded now on four sides?"
"A lastminute rescue is quite in the best tradition. Don't disturb yourself; you will live to gloat over the deaths of better men."