On these occasions he found himself watching for Audrey, always. She
had, with a sort of diabolical cleverness, succeeded in losing herself.
Her house was sold, he knew, and he had expected that she would let
him know where to find her. She had said she counted on him, and he had
derived an odd sort of comfort from the thought. It had warmed him
to think that, out of all the people he knew, to one woman he meant
something more than success.
But although he searched the gayest crowds with his eyes, those
hilarious groups of which she had been so frequently the center, he did
not find her. And there had been no letter save a brief one without an
address, enclosing her check for the money she had borrowed. She had
apparently gone, not only out of her old life, but out of his as well.
At one of the great charity balls he met Nolan, and they stood together
watching the crowd.
"Pretty expensive, I take it," Nolan said, indicating the scene.
"Orchestra, florist, supper--I wonder how much the Belgians will get."
"Personally, I'd rather send the money and get some sleep."
"Precisely. But would you send the money? We've got to have a quid
pro quo, you know-most of us." He surveyed the crowd with cynical,
dissatisfied eyes. "At the end of two years of the war," he observed,
apropos of nothing, "five million men are dead, and eleven million have
been wounded. A lot of them were doing this sort of thing two years
ago."
"I would like to know where we will be two years from now."
"Some of us won't be here. Have you seen Lloyd George's speech on the
German peace terms? That means going on to the end. A speedy peace might
have left us out, but there will be no peace. Not yet, or soon."
"And still we don't prepare!"
"The English tradition persists," said the Irishman, bitterly. "We want
to wait, and play to the last moment, and then upset our business and
overthrow the whole country, trying to get ready in a hurry.
"I wonder what they will do, when the time comes, with men like you and
myself?"
"Take our money," said Nolan viciously. "Tax our heads off. Thank God I
haven't a son."
Clayton eyed him with the comprehension of long acquaintance.
"Exactly," he said. "But you'll go yourself, if you can."