Dangerous Days Part 61

"Then his father. You are great friends, aren't you?"

Even this indirect mention of Clayton made Audrey's hands tremble. She put them behind her.

"We are very good friends," she said. But Delight was too engrossed to notice the deeper note in her voice. "I'll see what I can do. But don't count on me too much. You spoke of a girl. I suppose I know who it is."

"Probably. It is Marion Hayden. He is engaged to her."

And again Audrey marveled at her poise, for Delight's little tragedy was clear by that time. Clear, and very sad.

"I can't imagine his really being in love with her."

"But he must be. They are engaged."

Audrey smiled at the simple philosophy of nineteen, smiled and was extremely touched. How brave the child was! Audrey's own courageous heart rather swelled in admiration.

But after Delight had gone, she felt depressed again, and very tired.

How badly these things were handled! How strange it was that love so often brought suffering! Great loves were almost always great tragedies.

Perhaps it was because love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice entered into it.

Her own high courage failed her somewhat. During these recent days when, struggling against very real stage fright, she made her husky, wholly earnest but rather nervous little appeals to the crowds before the enlisting stations, she got along bravely enough during the day. But the night found her sad, unutterably depressed.

At these times she was haunted by a fear that persisted against all her arguments. In Washington Clayton had not looked well. He had been very tired and white, and some of his natural buoyancy seemed to have deserted him. He needed caring for, she would reflect bitterly. There should be some one to look after him. He was tired and anxious, but it took the eyes of love to see it. Natalie would never notice, and would consider it a grievance if she did. The fiercely, maternal tenderness of the childless woman for the man she loves kept her awake at night staring into the darkness and visualizing terrible things. Clayton ill, and she unable to go to him. Ill, and wanting her, and unable to ask for her.

She was, she knew, not quite normal, but the fear gripped and held her.

These big strong men, no one ever looked after them. They spent their lives caring for others, and were never cared for.

There were times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head high, when the thing she was forced to give up seemed trifling compared with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the recruiting station. There was sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton were putting the happiness of others above their own.

They had both, somehow, somewhere, missed the path. But they must never go back and try to find it.

Delight's visit left her thoughtful. There must be some way to save Graham. She wondered how much of Clayton's weariness was due to Graham.

And she wondered, too, if he knew of the talk about Natalie and Rodney Page. There was a great deal of talk. Somehow such talk cheapened his sacrifice and hers.

Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how little such gossip actually meant. Practically every woman she knew, herself included, had at one time or another laid herself open to such invidious comment. They had all been idle, and they sought amus.e.m.e.nt in such spurious affairs as this, harmless in the main, but taking on the appearance of evil. That was part of the game, to appear worse than one really was. The older the woman, the more eager she was often in her clutch at the vanishing romance of youth.

Only--it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A fierce pride for Clayton's name sent the color to her face.

On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to speak at a recruiting station far down-town in a crowded tenement district, and tired as she was, she took a bus and went down at seven o'clock. She was uneasy and nervous. She had not spoken in the evening before, and in all her sheltered life she had never seen the milling of a night crowd in a slum district.

There was a wagon drawn up at the curb, and an earnest-eyed young clergyman was speaking. The crowd was attentive, mildly curious. The clergyman was emphatic without being convincing. Audrey watched the faces about her, standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the futility of it all gripped her. All these men, and only a feeble cheer as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this effort for such scant result, and over on the other side such dire need! But one thing cheered her. Beside her, in the crowd, a portly elderly Jew was standing with his hat in his hand, and when a man near him made some jeering comment, the Jew brought his hand down on his shoulder.

"Be still and listen," he said. "Or else go away and allow others to listen. This is our country which calls."

"It's amusing, isn't it?" Audrey heard a woman's voice near her, carefully inflected, slightly affected.

"It's rather stunning, in a way. It's decorative; the white faces, and that chap in the wagon, and the gasoline torch."

"I'd enjoy it more if I'd had my dinner."

The man laughed.

"You are a most brazen combination of the mundane and the spiritual, Natalie. You are all soul--after you are fed. Come on. It's near here."

Audrey's hands were very cold. By the movement of the crowd behind her, she knew that Natalie and Rodney were making their escape, toward food and a quiet talk in some obscure restaurant in the neighborhood. Fierce anger shook her. For this she and Clayton were giving up the only hope they had of happiness--that Natalie might carry on a cheap and stealthy flirtation.

She made a magnificent appeal that night, and a very successful one.

The lethargic crowd waked up and pressed forward. There were occasional cheers, and now and then the greater tribute of convinced silence. And on a box in the wagon the young clergyman eyed her almost wistfully.

What a woman she was! With such a woman a man could live up to the best in him. Then he remembered his salary in a mission church of twelve hundred a year, and sighed.

He gained courage, later on, and asked Audrey if she would have some coffee with him, or something to eat. She looked tired.

"Tired!" said Audrey. "I am only tired these days when I am not working."

"You must not use yourself up. You are too valuable to the country."

She was very grateful. After all, what else really mattered? In a little glow she accepted his invitation.

"Only coffee," she said. "I have had dinner. Is there any place near?"

He piloted her through the crowd, now rapidly dispersing. Here and there some man, often in halting English, thanked her for what she had said. A woman, slightly the worse for drink, but with friendly, rather humorous eyes, put a hand on her arm.

"You're all right, m'dear," she said. "You're the stuff. Give it to them. I wish to G.o.d I could talk. I'd tell 'em something."

The clergyman drew her on hastily.

In a small Italian restaurant, almost deserted, they found a table, and the clergyman ordered eggs and coffee. He was a trifle uneasy. In the wagon Audrey's plain dark clothes had deceived him. But the single pearl on her finger was very valuable. He fell to apologizing for the place.

"I often come here," he explained. "The food is good, if you like Italian cooking. And it is near my work. I--"

But Audrey was not listening. At a corner, far back, Natalie and Rodney were sitting, engrossed in each other. Natalie's back was carefully turned to the room, but there was no mistaking her. Audrey wanted madly to get away, but the coffee had come and the young clergyman was talking gentle plat.i.tudes in a rather sweet but monotonous voice. Then Rodney saw her, and bowed.

Almost immediately afterward she heard the soft rustle that was Natalie, and found them both beside her.

"Can we run you up-town?" Natalie asked. "That is, unless--"

She glanced at the clergyman.

"Thank you, no, Natalie. I'm going to have some supper first."

Natalie was uneasy. Audrey made no move to present the clergyman, whose name she did not know. Rodney was looking slightly bored.

"Odd little place, isn't it?" Natalie offered after a second's silence.

"Rather quaint, I think."

Natalie made a desperate effort to smooth over an awkward situation. She turned to the clergyman.

"We heard you speaking. It was quite thrilling."