Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories Part 34

She moved into the room and paused a moment near the stand.

'Mrs. Max says you are confining yourself too closely. I've been with her all morning.'

While she spoke she took off her hat and smoothed her hair.

'I'm blown to pieces. I drove Cornish this morning; he got by everything on the way. He acted like a _premiere danseuse_ when I pa.s.sed the cooper's shop.'

His joy at seeing her was discountenanced by his fear for her; and he was afraid of her. Her insinuated trust in him threw into murky relief the affair which occupied him. When she turned to him a flushed, joyful face, and gray eyes clear and unsullied, it flashed into his soul, as formedly as a _Mene Tekel_, that she would unhesitatingly brush out of her life-path the dust of doubt; that equivocation and willingness to balance motives were no part of her. He knew that in her were no dim angles of cross-grained purpose, no shadowy intersections of the lines of good and evil.

'I say I'm blown to wisps; couldn't you find me a mirror, please?'

'What would I do with a mirror here? But see--'

He lifted the window sash, pulled in one shutter, and with a gesture of presentation, said, 'As others see us!'

She turned her back while she arranged her hair before the makeshift mirror. Relieved from her direct gaze, he stepped quickly to the stand, and looked into the crucible. There was no change. He had expected none, but he could not be sure. Maxineff himself could not be sure of this new mixture. A run of the same temperature might bring about the change he looked for as readily as an increase. The suspense was unbearable.

'Well, Cagliostro!' she called. 'You alchemists are capable of the utterest abstraction, aren't you?'

'Why have you come?' he said quickly, frowning at her.

'To take you driving,' with an enticing smile.

'Will you not go? Please, at once?'

Her manner lost something of its verve.

'It isn't safe, you know, really,' he added.

'And won't you come?'

'I cannot; not this morning.'

'Well,' she said, with a little sigh, as she thrust in her hat-pins, 'Mrs. Max will be disappointed. On her command I came to break up this seclusion of yours. None of us have seen you for--'

'A week, seven days!'

'What are you doing?'

'Oh--I've been working out some ideas.'

'But you are so quiet about it! What are the ideas?'

Noakes hesitated, and she laughed merrily as she went toward the door.

'We laity are hopeless, aren't we? You are thinking that I couldn't possibly understand?'

'No, I wasn't, because I scarcely understand myself.'

'Of course, some secret formula Mr. Max has you on.'

'Indeed, no,' he said. 'Mr. Max knows nothing about it--that is,' he continued hurriedly, 'it's the sort of thing-- At any rate, I'll soon be through.'

She stood in the doorway, outlined against the bright incoming mid-daylight, her face turned back to him.

'And then you will come out into the world again? Mrs. Max and Cornish and I shall be honored.'

'Then I shall be free.'

He spoke the words with singular feeling.

'Truly, though, Mr. Noakes,' she said in a straightforward manner, 'you are too busy. Mrs. Max says you are to break out, break out with the measles if nothing else will interrupt you, and you are to have tea with her this afternoon.'

Noakes looked doubtful. She went down the steps and turned again.

'Oh, I almost forgot--here's a letter for you.'

'Where--'

'It came in the Maxineffs' mail this morning. Mrs. Max suggested my bringing it to you.'

Noakes took the long, foreign-stamped envelope. The typed superscription was noncommittal, but at the Berlin postmark his eyes narrowed and the knuckles of the hand by his side whitened. He drew a quick breath and looked keenly at the girl.

'Was Mr. Maxineff at home this morning?' he asked quietly.

'No; I believe he is in the city.'

'Oh!' he breathed. 'Thank you very much.'

He slipped the letter into his pocket.

'Well, I can't stay any longer.'

Noakes pressed her hand.

'And, Cagliostro, when the puzzle's solved, come to see me. I'll sing away the worries, Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Miss Becky. Excuse my untractableness, won't you?'

With a pat to her hat and a smile to Noakes, she was gone.

He watched her a moment, then strode rapidly to the stand. Looking through the faint haze, he saw her pa.s.s down the straight path which led to the great gate of the Maxineff work-yard. When she was close to it he grasped the switch-lever with cramped fingers. His face was colorless.

He moved the lever forward with a jerk, and lifting his eyes, saw her pa.s.s out of the gate.

Beyond reach of time he waited. Evenly, insistently, a dull brown suffused the ma.s.s. Still he waited, fearfully wondering at the stability of this new thing. It kept its even coloring. He pushed back the lever, watched again, and waited.

He was afire with joy. He had succeeded; he had created a thing new to the world, an explosive which would be more powerful than the deadliest in existence; he had perfected the work of a week's exquisite danger; he had won.

'I am glad, glad!' he said faintly.