This emotion of his was like some empty space of horror opened up
between him and Nicholas; Nicky being the only one of his family who was
as yet aware of its existence.

For the next three days, Nicholas, very serious and earnest, shut
himself up in his workshop at the bottom of the orchard and laboured
there, putting the last touches to the final, perfect, authoritative
form of the Moving Fortress, the joint creation of his brain and
Drayton's, the only experiment that had survived the repeated onslaughts
of the Major's criticism. The new model was three times the size of the
lost original; it was less like a battleship and more like a racing-car
and a destroyer. It was his and Drayton's last word on the subject of
armaments.

It was going to the War Office, this time, addressed to the right
person, and accompanied by all sorts of protective introductions, and
Drayton blasting its way before it with his new explosive.

In those three days Nick found an immense distraction in his Moving
Fortress. It also served to blind his family to his real intentions. He
knew that his real intentions could not be kept from them very long.
Meanwhile the idea that he was working on something made them happy.
When Frances saw him in his overalls she smiled and said: "Nicky's got
_his_ job, anyhow." John came and looked at him through the window of
the workshop and laughed.

"Good old Nicky," he said. "Doing his bit!"

In those three days John went about with an air of agreeable excitement.
Or you came upon him sitting in solitary places like the dining-room,
lost in happy thought. Michael said of him that he was unctuous. He
exuded a secret joy and satisfaction. John had acquired a sudden
remarkable maturity. He shone on each member of his family with
benevolence and affection, as if he were its protector and consoler, and
about to confer on it some tremendous benefit.

"Look at Don-Don," Michael said. "The bloodthirsty little brute. He's
positively enjoying the War."

"You might leave me alone," said Don-Don. "I shan't have it to enjoy for
long."

He was one of those who believed that the War would be over in four
months.

Michael, pledged to secrecy, came and looked at the Moving Fortress. He
was interested and intelligent; he admired that efficiency of Nicky's
that was so unlike his own.

Yet, he wondered, after all, was it so unlike? He, too, was aiming at an
art as clean and hard and powerful as Nicky's, as naked of