"Women!" called Toots Hayden. She was still posed, but she had stopped
playing. Mrs. Haverford's eyes rested on her a moment, disapprovingly.
"What do you say, Natalie?" Audrey asked.
"I hadn't thought about it. Money, probably."
"You are all wrong," said Audrey, and lighted a fresh cigaret. "They
want different things at different ages. That's why marriage is such
a rotten failure. First they want women; any woman will do, really. So
they marry--any woman. Then they want money. After that they want power
and place. And when they've got that they begin to want--love."
"Good gracious, Audrey, what a cynical speech!" said Mrs. Mackenzie. "If
they've been married all that time--"
"Oh, tut!" said Audrey, rudely.
She had the impulse of the unhappy woman to hurt, but she was rather
ashamed of herself, too. These women were her friends. Let them go on
believing that life was a thing of lasting loves, that men were true
to the end, and that the relationships of life were fixed and permanent
things.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was just being clever! Let's talk about the
war. It's the only thing worth talking about, anyhow."
In the dining-room Clayton Spencer, standing tall and erect, had
watched the women go out. How typical the party was of Natalie, of her
meticulous care in small things and her indifference or real ignorance
as to what counted. Was it indifference, really, or was it supreme
craftiness, the stupidity of her dinners, the general unattractiveness
of the women she gathered around her, the ill-assortment of people who
had little in themselves and nothing whatever in common?
Of all the party, only Audrey and the rector had interested him
even remotely. Audrey amused him. Audrey was a curious mixture of
intelligence and frivolity. She was a good fellow. Sometimes he thought
she was a nice woman posing as not quite nice. He didn't know. He was
not particularly analytical, but at least she had been one bit of cheer
during the endless succession of courses.
The rector was the other, and he was relieved to find Doctor Haverford
moving up to the vacant place at his right.
"I've been wanting to see you, Clay," he said in an undertone. "It's
rather stupid to ask you how you found things over there. But I'm going
to do it."
"You mean the war?"
"There's nothing else in the world, is there?"
"One wouldn't have thought so from the conversation here to-night."