"Yes," said Clive, reddening.

"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've

had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman--very much

like a gentleman--rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman

always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly

reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one

period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn

with your own surpassing personality."

They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant

understanding between them.

Then Clive's face grew graver.

"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good.

The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back....

It's really friendship I tell you."

"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?"

The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am

not."

"What would you do if you were?"

"But--"

"What would you do about it?"

"I don't know."

"Marry her?"

"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained

silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague

sum-total which had so startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie

Greensleeve.

Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of

marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a

proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the

storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled

him.

"What!"

"I couldn't do that," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his

father.

"You could if you had to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your

word it couldn't come to that."

The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending

such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for

Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of

such a thing--such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in

her life or in his.

The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed

too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended

for a while.

Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal

conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and

spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her.

Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he

felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie.

Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her

until he recovered his self-respect--which would be duly recovered,

he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach

them and extinguish the parental loan.




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