"Roddie says he has tried to call you at the mill, but you are always
out of your office. So he sent these around to-day."
True to the resolution he had made that night in the hospital, he went
over them carefully. And even their magnitude, while it alarmed him,
brought no protest from him. After all the mill and the new plant were
his toys to play with. He found there something to fill up the emptiness
of his life. If a great house was Natalie's ambition, if it gave her
pleasure and something to live for, she ought to have it.
She had prepared herself for a protest, but he made none, even when the
rather startling estimate was placed before him.
"I just want you to be happy, my dear," he said. "But I hope you'll
arrange not to run over the estimate. It is being pretty expensive as it
is. But after all, success doesn't mean anything, unless we are going to
get something out of it."
They were closer together that evening than they had been for months.
And at last he fell to talking about the mill. Natalie, curled up on
the chaise longue in her boudoir, listened attentively, but with small
comprehension as he poured out his dream, for himself now, for Graham
later. A few years more and he would retire. Graham could take hold
then. He might even go into politics. He would be fifty then, and a
man of fifty should be in his prime. And to retire and do nothing was
impossible. A fellow went to seed.
Eyes on the wood fire, he talked on until at last, roused by Natalie's
silence, he glanced up. She was sound asleep.
Some time later, in his dressing-gown and slippers, he came and roused
her. She smiled up at him like a drowsy child.
"Awfully tired," she said. "Is Graham in?"
"Not yet."
She held up her hands, and he drew her to her feet.
"You've been awfully dear about the house," she said. And standing on
tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek. Still holding both her hands, he
looked down at her gravely.
"Do you really think that, Natalie?"
"Of course."
"Then--will you do something in return?"
Her eyes became shrewd, watchful.
"Anything in reason."
"Don't, don't, dear, make Graham afraid of me."
"As if I did! If he is afraid of you, it is your own fault"
"Perhaps it is. But I try--good God, Natalie, I do try. He needs a curb
now and then. All boys do. But if we could only agree on it--don't you
see how it is now?" he asked, trying to reason gently with her. "All the
discipline comes from me, all the indulgence from you. And--I don't want
to lose my boy, my dear."