Clayton Spencer glanced about the table. Rodney Page, the architect, was
telling a story clearly not for the ears of the clergy, and his own
son, Graham, forced in at the last moment to fill a vacancy, was sitting
alone, bored and rather sulky, and sipping his third cognac.
"If you want my opinion, things are bad."
"For the Allies? Or for us?"
"Good heavens, man, it's the same thing. It is only the Allies who are
standing between us and trouble now. The French are just holding their
own. The British are fighting hard, but they're fighting at home too. We
can't sit by for long. We're bound to be involved."
The rector lighted an excellent cigar.
"Even if we are," he said, hopefully, "I understand our part of it will
be purely naval. And I believe our navy will give an excellent account
of itself."
"Probably," Clay retorted. "If it had anything to fight! But with the
German fleet bottled up, and the inadvisability of attempting to bombard
Berlin from the sea--"
The rector made no immediate reply, and Clayton seemed to expect none.
He sat back, tapping the table with long, nervous fingers, and his eyes
wandered from the table around the room. He surveyed it all with
much the look he had given Natalie, a few moments before, searching,
appraising, vaguely hostile. Yet it was a lovely room, simple and
stately. Rodney Page, who was by way of being decorator for the few,
as he was architect for the many, had done the room, with its plainly
paneled walls, the over-mantel with an old painting inset, its lion
chairs, its two console tables with each its pair of porcelain jars.
Clayton liked the dignity of the room, but there were times when he and
Natalie sat at the great table alone, with only the candles for light
and the rest of the room in a darkness from which the butler emerged at
stated intervals and retreated again, when he felt the oppression of it.
For a dinner party, with the brilliant colors of the women's gowns, it
was ideal. For Natalie and himself alone, with the long silences
between them that seemed to grow longer as the years went on, it was
inexpressibly dreary.
He was frequently aware that both Natalie and himself were talking for
the butler's benefit.
From the room his eyes traveled to Graham, sitting alone, uninterested,
dull and somewhat flushed. And on Graham, too, he fixed that clear
appraising gaze that had vaguely disconcerted Natalie. The boy had had
too much to drink, and unlike the group across the table, it had made
him sullen and quiet. He sat there, staring moodily at the cloth and
turning his glass around in fingers that trembled somewhat.