Then he found himself involved in the conversation.
"London as dark as they say?" inquired Christopher Valentine. He was a
thin young man, with a small, affectedly curled mustache. Clayton did
not care for him, but Natalie found him amusing. "I haven't been over--"
he really said 'ovah'--"for ages. Eight months or so."
"Very dark. Hard to get about."
"Most of the fellows I know over there are doing something. I'd like to
run over, but what's the use? Nobody around, street's dark, no gayety,
nothing."
"No. You'd better stay at home. They--don't particularly want visitors,
anyhow."
"Unless they go for war contracts, eh?" said Valentine pleasantly, a way
he had of taking the edge off the frequent impertinence of his speech.
"No, I'm not going over. We're not popular over there, I understand.
Keep on thinking we ought to take a hand in the dirty mess."
Graham spoke, unexpectedly.
"Well, don't you think we ought?"
"If you want my candid opinion, no. We've been waving a red flag called
the Monroe Doctrine for some little time, as a signal that we won't
stand for Europe coming over here and grabbing anything. If we're going
to be consistent, we can't do any grabbing in Europe, can we?"
Clayton eyed him rather contemptuously.
"We might want to 'grab' as you term it, a share in putting the madmen
of Europe into chains," he said. "I thought you were pro-British,
Chris."
"Only as to clothes, women and filet of sole," Chris returned
flippantly. Then, seeing Graham glowering at him across the table, he
dropped his affectation of frivolity. "What's the use of our going in
now?" he argued. "This Somme push is the biggest thing yet. They're
going through the Germans like a hay cutter through a field. German
losses half a million already."
"And what about the Allies? Have they lost nothing?" This was Clayton's
attorney, an Irishman named Denis Nolan. There had been two n's in
the Denis, originally, but although he had disposed of a part of his
birthright, he was still belligerently Irish. "What about Rumania? What
about the Russians at Lemberg? What about Saloniki?"
"You Irish!" said the rector, genially. "Always fighting the world and
each other. Tell me, Nolan, why is it that you always have individual
humor and collective ill-humor?"
He felt that that was rather neat. But Nolan was regarding him
acrimoniously, and Clayton apparently had not heard at all.