As he straightened up he found himself suddenly weak. The strain had been galling, and the madness of gratification consumed his strength. He moved toward the door, stepping very gently, for he knew not how slight a vibration might shatter the delicate affinity in his discovery.
He remembered the foreign letter, and taking it from his pocket, tore open the envelope.
He looked through the open door, conscious for the first time of the perfectness of the day. It was good to be alive, he thought, free, something accomplished, with leave to tell a girl--
A tall man entered the gate and took the walk toward the laboratory.
Noakes looked at him in a moment of amazement, almost of stupefaction.
The necessity of instant action startled him to movement. As quickly as he thought, he pushed the door three-quarters shut, replaced the jars from which he had taken his materials, filled a second crucible with a harmless haphazard mixture, and placed it over a dead furnace in a stand in the corner behind the door. He lifted the window-sash. With all his strength he hurled his priceless crucible. By a marvel of speed he had the sash lowered, and was behind the door, when the building was shaken by an explosion.
"What is that, Mr. Noakes?" came in deep, calm tones from the door.
"Good morning, Mr. Maxineff," said Noakes, turning slowly. "The racket?
Some half-baked fulminate I put in the ditch out there an hour ago."
"So long since?" said the older man, advancing toward the window.
"Yes, sir. I think the jarring of the wagon you see leaving the chemical house caused it."
A hole several feet in diameter marked the spot where the crucible fell.
The stuff had delayed not an instant in working its havoc. Noakes was glad there was too little of it to cause a suspicious deal of damage.
Maxineff looked reflectively about the yard, while Noakes nervously eyed his chief"s expressive profile. His eyes wandered to the fine gray head of this tall, straight man. He could not fail to be impressed afresh by the forceful exterior, significant of the inner att.i.tude which had won for Henry Maxineff a name honored among nations.
"What of your work?" he said.
Noakes was glad those seeing eyes were not on him.
"I"m beat," he said. "I"ve gone at it every way I know, and I have been consistently and finally unsuccessful."
In the ensuing pause Noakes realized that this was the first admission of failure he had ever made to his chief. The surprise it called forth was grateful to him.
"What"s the trouble? But I think the trouble with you is that you have overreached yourself, Noakes."
"Oh, no; the idea is a fine, tremendous one. Sheer stupidity is my trouble, I think."
His humility seemed real, and perhaps the unusualness of it brought a curious expression to Maxineff"s face, and into his eyes a contemplative light that Noakes did not care to meet.
"I met Miss Hallam as I entered," Maxineff said carelessly.
The remark may have meant much, or it may have had merely an intentional indication of the intimacy accorded Noakes above the other a.s.sistants in the laboratories.
"Yes? She came to tell me that Mrs. Max will permit me to have tea with her this afternoon."
"You are coming, I hope?"
"Indeed, yes. I confess I am tired out. I gave up the experiment early this morning. I understood the fulminate was running low, and spent my morning blundering over making some. I couldn"t do that even, familiar as I am with the process."
"Well, leave it all and come with me over the yard. I am inspecting this morning. Be my secretary for a while."
Five o"clock had pa.s.sed when they emerged upon the New England town"s stolid main street. They walked beneath the venerable flanking trees toward the Maxineff villa, which surmounted a wooded continuation of the street.
In a high gray-and-white room they found Mrs. Maxineff. She touched a bell as she said in an odd manner of inflecting, "But you are late!"
Moving to one end of the spindle-legged sofa, she made place at her side for Maxineff, and motioned Noakes to a chair near them.
"Ah, I see it: you will be a second Max--all science, all absence, and a woman waiting at home! Immolation, you call it?" she continued, her hands moving quickly among the appurtenances of the tea-table. "That is what you prefer, my young Mr. Noakes."
"I am under orders, you know, Mrs. Max," said Noakes, with a deferential inclination of the head toward Maxineff.
A servant brought in b.u.t.tered rusks, and served the men with tea.
"Orders! For orders do you permit circles about your eyes as dark as they themselves are? Then you are easily immolate!"
Over his cup Maxineff smiled encouragement to his wife.
"You are practical, my friend. Confess now, there is a reason for your--your application?"
Noakes"s att.i.tude was uncompromising. He placed his cup on the table before he spoke.
"The reason you are thinking of, Mrs. Max, is not for a poor man."
Mrs. Maxineff lifted her shoulders and displayed her palms in a manner that marked her nationality.
"So! Science has made your dark skin white; love for this business of killing men has kept you hid a week."
"Of saving men," Maxineff corrected, while his wife smiled as at the recurrence of a customary witticism.
"And you gave the orders, Max! You are to be blamed for this display of energy."
"Don"t scold, dear. It will be a wonderful thing!"
"A new explosive?" she interrupted.
"Do you remember the day we motored from Stoneham? I first thought of it then. I have been too busy to work on it, so I turned the idea over to Noakes."
"And I have made application to a home for the feeble-minded, Mrs. Max,"
Noakes said. "Mr. Max will never commission me again."
"I"ll be with you to-morrow, and we shall see wherein is the difficulty."
"But, Max, another? Now I see your scheme of universal peace quite puffed away!"
"This will bring it nearer!" Maxineff said enthusiastically.
Mrs. Maxineff shrugged her shoulders as she walked toward the long windows.
"Stay to dinner, will you?" she said to Noakes.