Dangerous Days

"I suppose they'll give us a good hate on Christmas. Well, think of me

sometimes when you sit down to dinner, and you might drink to our coming

in. If we have a principle to divide among us we shall have to."

Clayton read the letter twice.

He and Natalie lunched alone, Natalie in radiant good humor. His gift

to her had been a high collar of small diamonds magnificently set,

and Natalie, whose throat commenced to worry her, had welcomed it

rapturously. Also, he had that morning notified Graham that his salary

had been raised to five thousand dollars.

Graham had shown relief rather than pleasure.

"I daresay I won't earn it, Father," he had said. "But I'll at east try

to keep out of debt on it."

"If you can't, better let me be your banker, Graham."

The boy had flushed. Then he had disappeared, as usual, and Clayton and

Natalie sat across from each other, in their high-armed lion chairs,

and made a pretense of Christmas gayety. True to Natalie's sense of the

fitness of things, a small Nuremberg Christmas tree, hung with tiny toys

and lighted with small candles, stood in the center of the table.

"We are dining out," she explained. "So I thought we'd use it now."

"It's very pretty," Clayton acknowledged. And he wondered if Natalie

felt at all as he did, the vast room and the two men serving, with

Graham no one knew where, and that travesty of Christmas joy between

them. His mind wandered to long ago Christmases.

"It's not so very long since we had a real tree," he observed. "Do you

remember the one that fell and smashed all the things on it? And how

Graham heard it and came down?"

"Horribly messy things," said Natalie, and watched the second man

critically. He was new, and she decided he was awkward.

She chattered through the meal, however, with that light gayety of hers

which was not gayety at all, and always of the country house.

"The dining-room floor is to be oak, with a marble border," she said.

"You remember the ones we saw in Italy? And the ceiling is blue and

gold. You'll love the ceiling, Clay."

There was claret with the luncheon, and Clayton, raising his glass,

thought of Chris and the water that smelled to heaven.

Natalie's mind was on loggias by that time.

"An upstairs loggia, too," she said. "Bordered with red geraniums. I

loathe geraniums, but the color is good. Rodney wants Japanese screens

and things, but I'm not sure. What do you think?"