Clayton Spencer glanced about the table. Rodney Page, the architect, was

telling a story clearly not for the ears of the clergy, and his own

son, Graham, forced in at the last moment to fill a vacancy, was sitting

alone, bored and rather sulky, and sipping his third cognac.

"If you want my opinion, things are bad."

"For the Allies? Or for us?"

"Good heavens, man, it's the same thing. It is only the Allies who are

standing between us and trouble now. The French are just holding their

own. The British are fighting hard, but they're fighting at home too. We

can't sit by for long. We're bound to be involved."

The rector lighted an excellent cigar.

"Even if we are," he said, hopefully, "I understand our part of it will

be purely naval. And I believe our navy will give an excellent account

of itself."

"Probably," Clay retorted. "If it had anything to fight! But with the

German fleet bottled up, and the inadvisability of attempting to bombard

Berlin from the sea--"

The rector made no immediate reply, and Clayton seemed to expect none.

He sat back, tapping the table with long, nervous fingers, and his eyes

wandered from the table around the room. He surveyed it all with

much the look he had given Natalie, a few moments before, searching,

appraising, vaguely hostile. Yet it was a lovely room, simple and

stately. Rodney Page, who was by way of being decorator for the few,

as he was architect for the many, had done the room, with its plainly

paneled walls, the over-mantel with an old painting inset, its lion

chairs, its two console tables with each its pair of porcelain jars.

Clayton liked the dignity of the room, but there were times when he and

Natalie sat at the great table alone, with only the candles for light

and the rest of the room in a darkness from which the butler emerged at

stated intervals and retreated again, when he felt the oppression of it.

For a dinner party, with the brilliant colors of the women's gowns, it

was ideal. For Natalie and himself alone, with the long silences

between them that seemed to grow longer as the years went on, it was

inexpressibly dreary.

He was frequently aware that both Natalie and himself were talking for

the butler's benefit.

From the room his eyes traveled to Graham, sitting alone, uninterested,

dull and somewhat flushed. And on Graham, too, he fixed that clear

appraising gaze that had vaguely disconcerted Natalie. The boy had had

too much to drink, and unlike the group across the table, it had made

him sullen and quiet. He sat there, staring moodily at the cloth and

turning his glass around in fingers that trembled somewhat.




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