He shut the door carefully and returned to Nadia.
It was a defeated Nadia Mdevani who emerged from what proved to be a prolonged interview with Lieutenant Berry. If, before it, she looked worn and troubled, her will had at least remained indomitable. If her voice had flagged, her eyes lost their challenge, yet she had always managed to convey an impression of impregnable right shall be might. Now she had yielded everything, to all appearances, and came carrying her weapon by the blade and laid across her forearm for the victor to accept the hilt. Her face was haggard; her unquenchable color quenched; her feet scarcely lifted; she twisted her clasped hands together as though they were manacled. When she spoke it was in a voice not her own, a voice in which despair had even surpassed weariness.
“Very well, Mr. Berry,” she said. “I understand perfectly. I shall make no attempt to escape, I swear. I am not the kind. When I am beaten in fair play I am as willing to dance to the music as I am when I win and the tune is gayer. I only ask one favor before I go with you. May I have a few words with Mr. Belknap in private? That is, if he will condescend to have a few words with me. He may even put me to the indignity of a search for concealed firearms if he so desires.” There was a flicker of the old Nadia as she looked up at Belknap on the last words.
Belknap and Berry exchanged glances, and there was a faint nod of acquiescence on Berry’s part. It didn’t escape Nadia. She smiled dimly.
“Thank you, Mr. Berry. I will not transgress your orders, on my honor.” With a little characteristic shrug of a shoulder she motioned Belknap to follow her. She led him into the library, and, closing the door, leaned against it as though she had reached the farthermost limit of endurance. Her drooping figure, her shattered face, so pierced Belknap with their utter resignation that before he could trust himself to speech she had spoken.
“The Chamber of Horrors,” she murmured with a dim twitch at the corners of her sad mouth. “Do you object to seeing me here? It is here we truly met for the first time. Do you remember last night, the things we said, and the things we left unsaid? Don’t let’s leave anything unsaid tonight. Oh, I’m sorry to be so pathetic and so obvious.” She half lifted her eyes to him and let them fall away, but he had a glimpse of the pride in them struggling to master an emotion he dared not name.