Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and
Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room.
"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the
thing to do under the circumstances, Clive."
"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and
lace hood.
"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the
Greensleeve girl I suppose?"
"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve."
"Who was the man?"
"I don't know--a Captain Dane I believe."
"Wasn't a civil bow enough?"
"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much
is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far--anything
worth having--"
"Don't be a fool, Clive."
He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! I am a fool. And
I don't quite understand how not to be one."
His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion,
discreetly kissed him good night.
"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the
matter with you."
They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his
neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen
might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood.
"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk
through the dressing-room door."
"No; I think I'll turn in."
The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the
dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience
preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say.
And after some fidgeting about he said it: "Mother, honestly what did you think of her?"
His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve
girl?"
"I mean Athalie Greensleeve."
"She is pretty in a rather common way."
"Common!"
"Did you think she is not?"
"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common
about her?"
"If you can't see it any woman of your own class can."
[Illustration: "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'"] Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and
he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology: "What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her
features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and
very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and
sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there
about her that you find common?"