Dangerous Days

"It is my life."

"Precisely. Only he may not see it that way."

He took a step toward her.

"Mother, do you really want me to marry Marion?"

"I think you ought to be married."

"To Marion?"

"To some one you love."

"Circles again," he muttered. "You've changed your mind, for some

reason. What is it, mother?"

He had an uneasy thought that she might have learned of Anna. There was

that day, for instance, when his father had walked into the back room.

Natalie was following a train of thought suggested by her own anxiety.

"You might be married quietly," she suggested. "Once it was done, I am

sure your father would come around. You are both of age, you know."

He eyed her then with open-eyed amazement.

"I'm darned if I understand you," he burst out. And then, in one of his

quick remorses, "I'm sorry, mother. I'm just puzzled, that's all. But

that plan's no good, anyhow. Marion won't do it. She will have to be

welcome in the family, or she won't come."

"She ought to be glad to come any way she can," Natalie said sharply.

And found Graham's eyes on her, studying her.

"You don't want her. That's plain. But you do want her. That's not so

plain. What's the answer, mother?"

And Natalie, with an irritable feeing that she had bungled somehow, got

up and flung away the cigaret.

"I am trying to give you what you want," she said pettishly. "That's

clear enough, I should think."

"There's no other reason?"

"What other reason could there be?"

Dressing to dine at the Hayden's that night, Graham heard Clayton come

in and go into his dressing-room. He had an impulse to go over, tie

in hand as he was, and put the matter squarely before his father. The

marriage-urge--surely a man would understand that. Even Anna, and his

predicament there. Anything was better than this constant indirectness

of gaining his father's views through his mother.

Had he done so, things would have been different later. But by continual

suggestion a vision of his father as hard, detached, immovable, had been

built up in his mind. He got as far as the door, hesitated, turned back.

It was Marion herself who solved the mystery of Natalie's changed

attitude, when Graham told of it that night. She sat listening, her eyes

slightly narrowed, restlessly turning her engagement ring.

"Well, at least that's something," she said, noncommittally. But in her

heart she knew, as one designing woman may know another. She knew

that Natalie had made Graham promise not to enlist at once, if war was

declared, and now she knew that she was desperately preparing to carry

her fear for Graham a step further, even at the cost of having her in

the family.