Dangerous Days | Page 5

wife; Chris, too - only he let married women alone, and forgot to
pay back the money he borrowed. There was only one man in the room
about whom he was beginning to mistrust his judgment, and that was
his own son.
Perhaps it was because he had so recently come from lands where
millions of boys like Graham were pouring out their young lives like
wine, that Clayton Spencer was seeing Graham with a new vision. He
turned and glanced back into the drawing-room, where Graham, in the
center of that misfit group and not quite himself, was stooping over
Marion Hayden. They would have to face that, of course, the woman
urge in the boy. Until now his escapades had been boyish ones, a few
debts frankly revealed and as frankly regretted, some college mischiefs,
a rather serious gambling fever, quickly curbed. But never women,
thank God.
But now the boy was through with college, and already he noticed
something new in their relationship. Natalie had always spoiled him,
and now there were, with increasing frequency, small consultations in
her room when he was shut out, and he was beginning to notice a
restraint in his relations with the boy, as though mother and son had
united against him.
He was confident that Natalie was augmenting Graham's allowance
from her own. His salary, rather, for he had taken the boy into the
business, not as a partner - that would come later - but as the manager
of a department. He never spoke to Natalie of money. Her house bills
were paid at the office without question. But only that day Miss Potter,
his secretary, had reported that Mrs. Spencer's bank had called up and
he had made good a considerable overdraft.
He laid the cause of his discontent to Graham, finally. The boy had
good stuff in him. He was not going to allow Natalie to spoil him, or to

withdraw him into that little realm of detachment in which she lived.
Natalie did not need him, and had not, either as a lover or a husband,
for years. But the boy did.
There was a little stir in the room behind. The Haverfords were leaving,
and the Hayden girl, who was plainly finding the party dull. Graham
was looking down at her, a tall, handsome boy, with Natalie's blonde
hair but his father's height and almost insolent good looks.
"Come around to-morrow," she was saying. "About four. There's
always a crowd about five, you know."
Clayton knew, and felt a misgiving. The Hayden house was a late
afternoon loafing and meeting place for the idle sons and daughters of
the rich. Not the conservative old families, who had developed a sense
of the responsibility of wealth, but of the second generation of easily
acquired money. As she went out, with Graham at her elbow, he heard
Chris, at the bridge table.
"Terrible house, the Haydens. Just one step from the Saturday night
carouse in Clay's mill district."
When Graham came back, Mrs. Haverford put her hand on his arm.
"I wish you would come to see us, Graham. Delight so often speaks of
you."
Graham stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"Thanks, I will." But his tone was distant.
"You know she comes out this winter."
"Really?"
"And - you were great friends. I think she misses you a little."
"I wish I thought so!"

Gentle Mrs. Haverford glanced up at him quickly.
"You know she doesn't approve of me."
"Why, Graham!"
"Well, ask her," he said. And there was a real bitterness under the
lightness of his tone. "I'll come, of course, Mrs. Haverford. Thank you
for asking me. I haven't a lot of time. I'm a sort of clerk down at the
mill, you know."
Natalie overheard, and her eyes met Clayton's, with a glance of
malicious triumph. She had been deeply resentful that he had not made
Graham a partner at once. He remembered a conversation they had had
a few months before.
"Why should he have to start at the bottom?" she had protested. "You
have never been quite fair to him, Clay." His boyish diminutive had
stuck to him. "You expect him to know as much about the mill now as
you do, after all these years."
"Not at all. I want him to learn. That's precisely the reason why I'm not
taking him in at once."
"How much salary is he to have?"
"Three thousand a year."
"Three thousand! Why, it will take all of that to buy him a car."
"There are three cars here now; I should think he could manage."
"Every boy wants his own car."
"I pay my other managers three thousand," he had said, still patient.
"He will live here. His car can be kept here, without expense.
Personally, I