"What devils we women are!" she said. "Now and then one of us gets what she deserves. That"s me. And now and then one of us get"s something she doesn"t deserve. And that"s Natalie. She"s over-indulgent to Graham."
"He is all she has."
"She has you."
Something in her voice made him turn and look at her.
"That ought to be something, you know," she added. And laughed a little.
"Does Natalie pay his debts?"
"I rather think so."
But that was a subject he could not go on with.
"The fault is mine. I know my business better than I know how to handle my life, or my family. I don"t know why I trouble you with it all, anyhow. You have enough." He hesitated. "That"s not exactly true, either. I do know. I"m relying on your woman"s wit to help me. I"m wrong somehow."
"About Graham?"
"I have a curious feeling that I am losing him. I can"t ask for his confidence. I can"t, apparently, even deserve it. I see him, day after day, with all the good stuff there is in him, working as little as he can, drinking more than he should, out half the night, running into debt--good heavens, Audrey, what can I do?"
She hesitated.
"Of course, you know one thing that would save him, Clay?"
"What?"
"Our getting into the war."
"I ought not to have to lose my boy in order to find him. But--we are going to be in it."
He had risen and was standing, an elbow on the mantel-piece, looking down at her.
"I suppose every man wonders, once in a while, how he"d conduct himself in a crisis. When the Lusitania went down I dare say a good many fellows wondered if they"d have been able to keep their coward bodies out of the boats. I know I did. And I wonder about myself now. What can I do if we go into the war? I couldn"t do a forced march of more than five miles.
I can"t drill, or whatever they call it. I can shoot clay pigeons, but I don"t believe I could hit a German coming at me with a bayonet at twenty feet. I"d be pretty much of a total loss. Yet I"ll want to do something."
And when she sat, very silent, looking into the fire: "You see, you think it absurd yourself."
"Hardly absurd," she roused herself to look up at him. "If it is, it"s the sort of splendid absurdity I am proud of. I was wondering what Natalie would say."
"I don"t believe it lies between a man and his wife. It"s between him and his G.o.d."
He was rather ashamed of that, however, and soon after he went away.
CHAPTER XIX
Natalie Spencer was finding life full of interest that winter. Now and then she read the headings in the newspapers, not because she was really interested, but that she might say, at the dinner-party which was to her the proper end of a perfect day:
"What do you think of Turkey declaring her independence?"
Or:
"I see we have taken the Etoile Wood."
Clayton had overheard her more than once, and had marveled at the dexterity with which, these leaders thrown out, she was able to avoid committing herself further.
The new house engrossed her. She was seeing a great deal of Rodney, too, and now and then she had fancied that there was a different tone in Rodney"s voice when he addressed her. She never a.n.a.lyzed that tone, or what it suggested, but it gave her a new interest in life. She was always marceled, ma.s.saged, freshly manicured. And she had found a new facial treatment. Clayton, in his room at night, could hear the sharp slapping of flesh on flesh, as Madeleine gently pounded certain expensive creams into the skin of her face and neck.
She refused all forms of war activity, although now and then she put some appeal before Clayton and asked him if he cared to send a check. He never suggested that she answer any of these demands personally, after an experience early in the winter.
"Why don"t you send it yourself?" he had asked. "Wouldn"t you like it to go in your name?"
"It doesn"t matter. I don"t know any of the committee."
He had tried to explain what he meant.
"You might like to feel that you are doing something."
"I thought my allowance was only to dress on. If I"m to attend to charities, too, you"ll have to increase it."
"But," he argued patiently, "if you only sent them twenty-five dollars, did without some little thing to do it, you"d feel rather more as though you were giving, wouldn"t you?"
"Twenty-five dollars! And be laughed at!"
He had given in then.
"If I put an extra thousand dollars to your account to-morrow, will you check it out to this fund?"
"It"s too much."
"Will you?"
"Yes, of course," she had agreed, indifferently. And he had notified her that the money was in the bank. But two months later the list of contributors was published, and neither his name nor Natalie"s was among them.
Toward personal service she had no inclination whatever. She would promise anything, but the hour of fulfilling always found her with something else to do. Yet she had kindly impulses, at times, when something occurred to take her mind from herself. She gave liberally to street mendicants. She sent her car to be used by those of her friends who had none. She was lavish with flowers to the sick--although Clayton paid her florist bills.
She was lavish with money--but never with herself.
In the weeks after the opening of the new year Clayton found himself watching her. He wondered sometimes just what went on in her mind during the hours when she sat, her hands folded, gazing into s.p.a.ce. He could not tell. He surmised her planning, always planning; the new house, a gown, a hat, a party.
But late in January he began to think that she was planning something else. Old Terry Mackenzie had been there one night, and he had a.s.serted not only that war was coming, but that we would be driven to conscription to raise an army.
"They"ve all had to come to it," he insisted. "And we will, as sure as G.o.d made little fishes. You can"t raise a million volunteers for a war that"s three thousand miles away."
"You mean, conscription among the laboring cla.s.s?" Natalie had asked naively, and there had been a roar of laughter.