Dangerous Days | Page 2

knitting.
"Very pretty effect, Toots!" Audrey called. And Miss Hayden gave her
the unashamed smile of one woman of the world to another.
Audrey had a malicious impulse. She sat down beside Natalie, and
against the blue divan her green gown shrieked a discord. She was
vastly amused when Natalie found an excuse and moved away, to
dispose herself carefully in a tall, old-gold chair, which framed her like
a picture.
"We were talking of men, my dear," said Mrs. Haverford, placidly
knitting.
"Of course," said Audrey, flippantly.
"Of what it is that they want more than anything else in the world."
"Children-sons," put in Mrs. Mackenzie. She was a robust, big woman
with kindly eyes, and she was childless.

"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."
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,