"I believe you"re half in love with Clay yourself!"
"Perhaps I am."
But she smiled frankly into Natalie"s eyes.
"I know if I were married to him, I"d try to do what he wanted."
"You"d try it for a year. Then you"d give it up. It"s one thing to admire a man. It"s quite different being married to him, and having to put up with all sorts of things?"
Her voice trailed off before the dark vision of her domestic, unhappiness. And again, as with Graham and his father, it was what she did not say that counted. Audrey came close to hating her just then.
So far the conversation had not touched on Graham, and now they were turning in the new drive. Already the lawns Were showing green, and extensive plantings of shrubbery were putting out their pale new buds.
Audrey, bending forward in the car, found it very lovely, and because it belonged to Clay, was to be his home, it thrilled her, just as the towering furnaces of his mill thrilled her, the lines of men leaving at nightfall. It was his, therefore it was significant.
The house amazed her. Even Natalie"s enthusiasm had not promised anything so stately or so vast. Moving behind her through great empty rooms, to the sound of incessant hammering, over which Natalie"s voice was raised shrilly, she was forced to confess that, between them, Natalie and Rodney had made a lovely thing. She felt no jealousy when she contrasted it with her own small apartment. She even felt that it was the sort of house Clayton should have.
For, although it had been designed as a setting for Natalie, although every color-scheme, almost every chair, had been bought with a view to forming a background for her, it was too big, too ma.s.sive. It dwarfed her. Out-of-doors, Audrey lost that feeling. In the formal garden Natalie was charmingly framed. It was like her, beautifully exact, carefully planned, already with its spring borders faintly glowing.
Natalie cheered in her approval.
"You"re so comforting," she said. "Clay thinks it isn"t homelike. He says it"s a show place--which it ought to be. It cost enough--and he hates show places. He really ought to have a cottage. Now let"s see the swimming-pool."
But at the pool she lost her gayety. The cement basin, still empty, gleamed white in the sun, and Natalie, suddenly brooding, stood beside it staring absently into it.
"It was for Graham," she said at last. "We were going to have week-end parties, and all sorts of young people. But now!"
"What about now?"
Natalie raised tragic eyes to hers.
"He"s probably going into the army. He"d have never thought of it, but Clayton shows in every possible way that he thinks he ought to go. What is the boy to do? His father driving him to what may be his death!"
"I don"t think he"d do that, Natalie."
Natalie laughed, her little mirthless laugh.
"Much you know what his father would do! I"ll tell you this, Audrey.
If Graham goes, and anything--happens to him, I"ll never forgive Clay.
Never."
Audrey had not suspected such depths of feeling as Natalie"s eyes showed under their penciled brows. They were desperate, vindictive eyes.
Suddenly Natalie was pleading with her.
"You"ll talk to Clay, won"t you? He"ll listen to you. He has a lot of respect for your opinion. I want you to go to him, Audrey. I brought you here to ask you. I"m almost out of my mind. Why do you suppose I play around with Rodney? I"ve got to forget, that"s all. And I"ve tried everything I know, and failed. He"ll go, and I"ll lose him, and if I do it will kill me."
"It doesn"t follow that because he goes he won"t come back."
"He"ll be in danger. I shall be worrying about him every moment." She threw out her hands in what was as unrestrained a gesture as she ever made. "Look at me!" she cried. "I"m getting old under it. I have lines about my eyes already. I hate to look at myself in the morning. And I"m not old. I ought to be at my best now."
Natalie"s anxiety was for Graham, but her pity was for herself. Audrey"s heart hardened.
"I"m sorry," she said. "I can"t go to Clay. I feel as I think he does.
If Graham wants to go, he should be free to do it. You"re only hurting him, and your influence on him, by holding him back."
"You"ve never had a child."
"If I had, and he wanted to go, I should be terrified, but I should be proud."
"You and Clay! You even talk alike. It"s all a pose, this exalted att.i.tude. Even this war is a pose. It"s a national att.i.tude we"ve struck, a great nation going to rescue humanity, while the rest of the world looks on and applauds! It makes me ill."
She turned and went back to the house, leaving Audrey by the swimming-pool. She sat on the edge of one of the stone benches, feeling utterly dreary and sad. To make a sacrifice for a worthy object was one thing. To throw away a life"s happiness for a spoiled, petulant woman was another. It was too high a price to pay. Mingled with her depression was pity for Clayton; for all the years that he had lived with this woman: and pride in him, that he had never betrayed his disillusion.
After a time she saw the car waiting, and she went slowly back to the house. Natalie was already inside, and she made no apologies whatever.
The drive back was difficult. Natalie openly sulked, replied in monosyllables, made no effort herself until they were in the city again.
Then she said, "I"m sorry I asked you to speak to Clay. Of course you needn"t do it."
"Not if it is to do what you said. But I wish you wouldn"t misunderstand me, Natalie. I"m awfully sorry. We just think differently."
"We certainly do," said Natalie briefly. And that was her good-by.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
When Clayton had returned from Washington, one of the first problems put up to him had been Herman Klein"s application to be taken on again. He found Hutchinson in favor of it.
"He doesn"t say much," he said. "Never did. But I gather things are changed, now we are in the war ourselves."
"I suppose we need him."
"You bet we need him."
For the problem of skilled labor was already a grave one.
Clayton was doubtful. If he could have conferred with Dunbar he would have felt more comfortable, but Dunbar was away on some mysterious errand connected with the Military Intelligence Department. He sat considering, tapping on his desk with the handle of his pen. Of course things were different now. A good many Germans whose sympathies had, as between the Fatherland and the Allies, been with Germany, were now driven to a decision between the land they had left and the land they had adopted. And behind Herman there were thirty years of good record.
"Where is the daughter?"
"I don"t know. She left some weeks ago. It"s talk around the plant that he beat her up, and she got out. Those Germans don"t know the first thing about how to treat women."
"Then she is not in Weaver"s office?"
There was more talk in the offices than Hutchinson repeated. Graham"s fondness for Anna, her slavish devotion to him, had been pretty well recognized. He wondered if Clayton knew anything about it, or the further gossip that Graham knew where Anna Klein had been hiding.
"What about Rudolph Klein? He was a nephew, wasn"t he?"
"Fired," said Hutchinson laconically. "Got to spreading the brotherhood of the world idea--sweat brothers, he calls them. But he was mighty careful never to get in a perspiration himself."