For my own part, I went through that period like an automaton. The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed, in some way, to have deadened my imagination; and I carried on my work mechanically without thinking of where it was all leading us. With this new holocaust looming over the Area, Elsa seemed further away than ever. If she had revolted at the story of the South, it seemed to me that this fresh sacrifice of lives in the Area itself would deepen her hatred for the men who planned it. It seemed the very irony of Fate that Nordenholt should choose this juncture to tell me his views on her feelings. “Elsa seems to be coming round a little at last, Jack,” he said to me one day, “I think her emotional side has worked itself out in the contemplation of the Famine; and her reason’s getting a chance again.” “What makes you think that?” I asked. “I haven’t seen anything to make me hopeful about it.” “You wouldn’t notice anything. You don’t know her well enough--Oh, don’t get vexed. Even if you are in love with her, you’ve only known her for a very short time, whereas I’ve studied her since she was a child. I know the symptoms. She’s coming round a little.” “Much good that will do now! If you decimate the Area it will be worse than ever. I hate to think of my own affairs in the middle of this catastrophe; but I simply can’t help it. If your plan goes through, it’s the end of my romance.” He played with the cord of his desk telephone for a moment before replying. I could see that he had some doubt as to whether he ought to speak or not. At last he made up his mind. “If you’re brooding over things as much as all that, Jack, I suppose I must say something; but I’m very much afraid of raising false hopes. You wonder, probably, why I don’t go straight ahead and weed out the useless mouths now and be done with it? Well, the fact is I’m staking it all on the next couple of days. Henley-Davenport seems, by his way of it, to be just on the edge of something definite at last. If he pulls it off, then all’s well. If not....” “What do you mean?” “If Henley-Davenport gets his results, we won’t need coal; because we shall have all the energy we require from his process. I’ve stretched things to the limit in the hope that he will give us the ace of trumps and not the two. If he succeeds, we don’t need to weed out the Area; we can go on as we are; and we shall be absolutely certain to pull through with every soul alive. But I shouldn’t have told you this, perhaps; it may be only a false hope and will just depress you more by the reaction. But you look so miserable that I thought I had better take the risk.” “When do you expect to know definitely?”