Dangerous Days | Page 9

I guess. You'd better shove me off the dock and let me swim - or drown."
"I'd hardly like to do that, you know. You are all I have."
"I'm no good at the mill."
"You haven't had very much time. I've been a good many years learning the business."'
"I'll never be any good. Not there. If there was something to build up it would be different, but it's all done. You've done it. I'm only a sort of sublimated clerk. I don't mean," he added hastily, "that I think I ought to have anything more. It's only that - well, the struggle's over, if you know what I mean."
"I'll talk to you about that to-morrow. Get to bed now. It's one o'clock."
He moved to the doorway. Graham, carafe in hand, stood staring ahead of him. He had the courage of the last whiskey-and-soda, and a sort of desperate contrition.
"Father."
"Yes, Graham."
"I wish you'd let me go to France and fly."
Something like a cold hand seemed to close round Clayton's heart.
"Fly! Why?"
"Because I'm not doing any good here. And - because I'd like to see if I have any good stuff in me. All the fellows are going," he added, rather weakly.
"That's not a particularly worthy reason, is it?"
"It's about as worthy as making money out of shells, when we haven't any reason for selling them to the Allies more than the Germans, except that we can't ship to the Germans."
He looked rather frightened then. But Clayton was not angry. He saw Natalie's fine hand there, and the boy's impressionable nature.
"Think that over, Graham," he said gravely. "I don't believe you quite mean it. Good-night."
He went across to his own bedroom, where his silk pajamas, neatly folded, lay on his painted Louis XVI bed. Under his reading lamp there was a book. It was a part of Natalie's decorative scheme for the room; it's binding was mauve, to match the hangings. For the first time since the room had been done over during his absence he picked up the book.
"Rodney's idea, for a cent!" he reflected, looking rather grimly at the cover.
He undressed slowly, his mind full of Graham and the problem he presented. Then he thought of Natalie, and of the little things that made up her life and filled her days. He glanced about the room, beautiful, formal, exquisitely appointed. His father's portrait was gone from over the mantel, and an old French water-color hung there instead. That was too bad of Natalie. Or had it been Rodney? He would bring it back. And he gave a fleeting thought to Graham and his request to go abroad. He had not meant it. It was sheer reaction. But he would talk to Graham.
He lighted a cigaret, and getting into bed turned on his reading lamp. Queer how a man could build, and then find that after all he did not care for the achievement. It was the building alone that was worth while.
He picked up the book from the table, and opened it casually.
"When first I loved I gave my very soul Utterly unreserved to Love's control, But Love deceived me, wrenched my youth away, And made the gold of life forever gray. Long I lived lonely, yet I tried in vain With any other joy to stifle pain; There is no other joy, I learned to know, And so returned to love, as long ago, Yet I, this little while ere I go hence, Love very lightly now, in self defense."
"Twaddle," said Clayton Spencer, and put the book away. That was the sort of stuff men like Rodney lived on. In a mauve binding, too.
After he had put out the light he lay for a long time, staring into the darkness. It was not love he wanted: he was through with all that. Power was the thing, integrity and power. To yield to no man, to achieve independence for one's soul - not that he put it that way. He formulated it, drowsily: 'Not to give a damn for any one, so long as you're right.' Of course, it was not always possible to know if one was right. He yawned. His conscious mind was drowsing, and from the depths below, released of the sentry of his waking hours, came the call of his starved imagination.
CHAPTER III
There was no moral to be adduced from Graham's waking the next morning. He roused, reluctantly enough, but blithe and hungry. He sang as he splashed in his shower, chose his tie whistling, and went down the staircase two steps at a time to a ravenous breakfast.
Clayton was already at the table in the breakfast room, sitting back with the newspaper, his coffee at his elbow, the first cigarette of the morning half smoked. He looked rather older in the morning light. Small fine threads had