Dangerous Days

In the evening of the thirty-first of January Clayton and Graham were

waiting for Natalie to come down to dinner when the bell rang, and

Dunbar was announced. Graham welcomed the interruption. He had been

vaguely uneasy with his father since that day in his office when Clayton

had found him on Anna Klein's desk. Clayton had tried to restore the old

friendliness of their relation, but the boy had only half-heartedly met

his advances. Now and then he himself made an overture, but it was the

almost timid advance of a puppy that has been beaten. It left Clayton

discouraged and alarmed, set him to going back over the past for any

severity on his part to justify it. Now and then he wondered if,

in Graham's frequent closetings with Natalie, she did not covertly

undermine his influence with the boy, to increase her own.

But if she did, why? What was going on behind the impassive, lovely mask

that was her face.

Dunbar was abrupt, as usual.

"I've brought you some news, Mr. Spencer," he said. He looked oddly

vital and alive in the subdued and quiet room. "They've shown their hand

at last. But maybe you've heard it."

"I've heard nothing new."

"Then listen," said Dunbar, bending forward over a table, much as it was

his habit to bend over Clayton's desk. "We're in it at last. Or as good

as in it. Unrestricted submarine warfare! All merchant-ships bound

to and from Allied ports to be sunk without warning! We're to be

allowed--mark this, it's funny!--we're to be allowed to send one ship a

week to England, nicely marked and carrying passengers only."

There was a little pause. Clayton drew a long breath.

"That means war," he said finally.

"Hell turned over and stirred up with a pitch-fork, if we have any

backbone at all," agreed Dunbar. He turned to Graham. "You young

fellows'll be crazy about this."

"You bet we will," said Graham.

Clayton slipped an arm about the boy's shoulders. He could not speak for

a moment. All at once he saw what the news meant. He saw Graham going

into the horror across the sea. He saw vast lines of marching men,

boys like Graham, boys who had frolicked through their careless

days, whistled and played and slept sound of nights, now laden like

pack-animals and carrying the implements of death in their hands, going

forward to something too terrible to contemplate.

And a certain sure percentage of them would never come back.

His arm tightened about the boy. When he withdrew it Graham

straightened.