She leaned back again among her pillows and gathered her papers.
"All right," she said, indifferently. "Have you any preference as to color for your rooms in the new house?"
He was sorry for his anger, and after all, these things which seemed so unimportant to him were the things that made up her life. He smiled.
"You might match my eyes. I"m not sure what color they are. Perhaps you know."
But she had not forgiven him.
"I"ve never noticed," she replied. And, small bundle of samples in her hand, resumed her reading and her inspection of textiles.
"Good night, Natalie."
"Good night." She did not look up.
Outside his wife"s door he hesitated. Then he crossed and without knocking entered Graham"s bedroom. The boy was lounging in a long chair by an open fire. He was in his dressing gown and slippers, and an empty whiskey-and-soda gla.s.s stood beside him on a small stand. Graham was sound asleep. Clayton touched him on the shoulder, but he slept on, his head to one side, his breathing slow and heavy. It required some little effort to waken him.
"Graham!" said Clayton sharply.
"Yes." He stirred, but did not open his eyes.
"Graham! Wake up, boy."
Graham sat up suddenly and looked at him. The whites of his eyes were red, but he had slept off the dinner wine. He was quite himself.
"Better get to bed," his father suggested. "I"ll want you early to-morrow."
"What time, sir?"
He leaned forward and pressed a b.u.t.ton beside the mantel-piece.
"What are you doing that for?"
"Ice water. Awfully thirsty."
"The servants have gone to bed. Go down and get it yourself."
Graham looked up at the tone. At his father"s eyes, he looked away.
"Sorry, sir," he said. "Must have had too much champagne. Wasn"t much else to do, was there? Mother"s parties--my G.o.d, what a dreary lot!"
Clayton inspected the ice water carafe on the stand and found it empty.
"I"ll bring you some water from my room," he said. "And--I don"t want to see you this way again, Graham. When a man cannot take a little wine at his own table without taking too much he fails to be entirely a gentleman."
He went out. When he came back, Graham was standing by the fire in his pajamas, looking young and rather ashamed. Clayton had a flash of those earlier days when he had come in to bid the boy good night, and there had always been that last request for water which was to postpone the final switching off of the light.
"I"m sorry, father."
Clayton put his hand on the boy"s shoulder and patted him.
"We"ll have to do better next time. That"s all."
For a moment the veil of constraint of Natalie"s weaving lifted between them.
"I"m a pretty bad egg, I guess. You"d better shove me off the dock and let me swim--or drown."
"I"d hardly like to do that, you know. You are all I have."
"I"m no good at the mill."
"You haven"t had very much time. I"ve been a good many years learning the business.""
"I"ll never be any good. Not there. If there was something to build up it would be different, but it"s all done. You"ve done it. I"m only a sort of sublimated clerk. I don"t mean," he added hastily, "that I think I ought to have anything more. It"s only that--well, the struggle"s over, if you know what I mean."
"I"ll talk to you about that to-morrow. Get to bed now. It"s one o"clock."
He moved to the doorway. Graham, carafe in hand, stood staring ahead of him. He had the courage of the last whiskey-and-soda, and a sort of desperate contrition.
"Father."
"Yes, Graham."
"I wish you"d let me go to France and fly."
Something like a cold hand seemed to close round Clayton"s heart.
"Fly! Why?"
"Because I"m not doing any good here. And--because I"d like to see if I have any good stuff in me. All the fellows are going," he added, rather weakly.
"That"s not a particularly worthy reason, is it?"
"It"s about as worthy as making money out of sh.e.l.ls, when we haven"t any reason for selling them to the Allies more than the Germans, except that we can"t ship to the Germans."
He looked rather frightened then. But Clayton was not angry. He saw Natalie"s fine hand there, and the boy"s impressionable nature.
"Think that over, Graham," he said gravely. "I don"t believe you quite mean it. Good-night."
He went across to his own bedroom, where his silk pajamas, neatly folded, lay on his painted Louis XVI bed. Under his reading lamp there was a book. It was a part of Natalie"s decorative scheme for the room; it"s binding was mauve, to match the hangings. For the first time since the room had been done over during his absence he picked up the book.
"Rodney"s idea, for a cent!" he reflected, looking rather grimly at the cover.
He undressed slowly, his mind full of Graham and the problem he presented. Then he thought of Natalie, and of the little things that made up her life and filled her days. He glanced about the room, beautiful, formal, exquisitely appointed. His father"s portrait was gone from over the mantel, and an old French water-color hung there instead.
That was too bad of Natalie. Or had it been Rodney? He would bring it back. And he gave a fleeting thought to Graham and his request to go abroad. He had not meant it. It was sheer reaction. But he would talk to Graham.
He lighted a cigaret, and getting into bed turned on his reading lamp.
Queer how a man could build, and then find that after all he did not care for the achievement. It was the building alone that was worth while.