KD12611
Gift of The People of the U. i.cd States
Through the !" **; kampaign
(A. L. A. -,. ...C. -- U.S.O.)
To the Armed Forces and Merchant Marine








DANGEROUS DAYS
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART





THE WORKS OF
MARY ROBERTS
RINEHART
DANGEROUS DAYS
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
Publishers
New YORK
PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.


KD12611
!
!!!
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Copyright, 1913,
By George H. Doran Com.pany
Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company
Printed in the United States of America


DANGEROUS DAYS





DANGEROUS DAYS
CHAPTER I
N ATALIE SPENCER was giving a dinner. She was not
IV an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives she
lacked a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant
details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as she
threw at random, to right and left, was trivial and distracted.
Yet the dinner was an unimportant one. It had been given
with an eye more to the menu than to the guest list, which
was characteristic of Natalie's mental processes. It was also
characteristic that when the final course had been served with-
out mishap, and she gave a sigh of relief before the gesture of
withdrawal which was a signal to the other women, that she
had realized no lack in it. The food had been good, the service
satisfactory. She stood up, slim and beautifully dressed, and
gathered up the women with a smile.
The movement found Doctor Haverford, at her left, unpre-
pared and with his coffee cup in his hand. He put it down
hastily and rose, and the small cup overturned in its saucer,
sending a smudge of brown into the cloth.
"Dreadfully awkward of me!” he said. The clergyman's
smile of apology was boyish, but he was suddenly aware that
his hostess was annoyed. He caught his wife's amiable eyes
on him, too, and they said quite plainly that one might spill
coffee at home-one quite frequently did, to confess a good
man's weakness—but one did not do it at Natalie Spencer's
table. The rector's smile died into a sheepish grin.


DANGEROUS DAYS
For the first time since dinner began Natalie Spencer had a
clear view of her husband's face. Not that that had mattered
particularly, but the flowers had been too high. For a small
dinner, low flowers, always. She would speak to the florist.
But, having glanced at Clayton, standing tall and handsome at
the head of the table, she looked again. His eyes were fixed on
her with a curious intentness. He seemed to be surveying her,
from the top of her burnished hair to the very gown she wore.
His gaze made her vaguely uncomfortable. It was unsmiling,
appraising, almost-only that was incredible in Clay-almost
hostile.
Through the open door the half dozen women trailed out,
Natalie in white, softly rustling as she moved, Mrs. Haverford
in black velvet, a trifle tight over her ample figure, Marion
Hayden, in a very brief garment she would have called a
frock, perennial débutante that she was, rather negligible Mrs.
Terry Mackenzie, and trailing behind the others, frankly loath
to leave the men, Audrey Valentine. Clayton Spencer's eyes
rested on Audrey with a smile of amused toleration, on her
outrageously low green gown, that was somehow casually ele-
gant, on her long green ear-rings and jade chain, on the cig-
aret between her slim fingers.
Audrey's audacity always amused him. In the doorway she
turned and nonchalantly surveyed the room.
"For heaven's sake, hurry!” she apostrophized the table.
"We are going to knit_I feel it. And don't give Chris any-
thing more to drink, Clay. He's had enough."
She went on, a slim green figure, moving slowly and reluc-
tantly toward the drawing-room, her head held high, a little
smile still on her lips. But, alone for a moment, away from
curious eyes, her expression changed, her smile faded, her
lovely, irregular face took on a curious intensity. What a
devilish evening! Chris drinking too much, talking wildly,
and always with furtive eyes on her. Chris! Oh, well, that
was life, she supposed.
She stopped before a long mirror and gave a bit of careless
sestragea her her


DANGEROUS DAYS
attention to her hair. With more care she tinted her lips again
with a cosmetic stick from the tiny, diamond-studded bag she
carried. Then she turned and surveyed the hall and the li-
brary beyond. A new portrait of Natalie was there, hanging
on the wall under a shaded light, and she wandered in, still
with her cigaret, and surveyed it. Natalie had everything.
The portrait showed it. It was beautiful, smug, complacent.
Mrs. Valentine's eyes narrowed slightly. She stood there,
thinking about Natalie. She had not everything, after all.
There was something she lacked. Charm, perhaps. She was
a cold woman. But, then, Clay was cold, too. He was even
a bit hard. Men said that; hard and ambitious, although he
was popular. Men liked strong men. It was only the weak
they deplored and loved. Poor Chris!
She lounged into the drawing-room, smiling her slow, cool
smile. In the big, uncarpeted alcove, where stood Natalie's
great painted piano, Marion Hayden was playing softly, care-
fully posed for the entrance of the men. Natalie was sitting
with her hands folded, in the exact center of a peacock-blue
divan. The others were knitting.
"Very pretty effect, Toots !” Audrey called. And Miss Hay-
den gave her the unashamed smile of one woman of the world
to another.
Audrey had a malicious impulse. She sat down beside Nat-
alie, and against the blue divan her green gown shrieked a
discord. She was vastly amused when Natalie found an ex-
cuse 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, Aippantly.
"Of what it is that they want more than anything else in the
world."
"Children-sons," put in Mrs. Mackenzie. She was a ro-
bust, big woman with kindly eyes, and she was childless.
"Women !" called Toots Hayden. She was still posed, but


1ο:
DANGEROUS DAYS
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 fresk
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 last-
ing loves, that men were true to the end, and that the relation-
ships 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, any-
how."
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 indif-
ference or real ignorance as to what counted. Was it indif-
ference, 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 curi-
ous mixture of intelligence and frivolity. She was a good fel-
low. 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.


DANGEROUS DAYS
IL
ne thing; ouble noe fighting
The rector was the other, and he was relieved to find Doc-
tor Haverford moving up to the vacant place at his right.
"I've been wanting to see you, Clay,” he said in an under-
tone. “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


12
DANGEROUS DAYS
paneled walls, the over-mantel with an old painting inset, its
lion chairs, its two console tables with each its pair of porce-
lain jars. Clayton liked the dignity of the room, but there
were times when he and Natalie sat at the great table alone,
with only the candles for light and the rest of the room in a
darkness from which the butler emerged at stated intervals and
retreated again, when he felt the oppression of it. For a
dinner party, with the brilliant colors of the women's gowns,
it was ideal. For Natalie and himself alone, with the long
silences between them that seemed to grow longer as the years
went on, it was inexpressibly dreary.
He was frequently aware that both Natalie and himself were
talking for the butler's benefit.
From the room his eyes traveled to Graham, sitting alone,
uninterested, dull and somewhat flushed. And on Graham,
too, he fixed that clear appraising gaze that had vaguely dis-
concerted Natalie. The boy had had too much to drink, and.
unlike the group across the table, it had made him sullen and
quiet. He sat there, staring moodily at the cloth and turning
his glass around in fingers that trembled somewhat.
Then he found himself involved in the conversation.
"London as dark as they say?" inquired Christopher Valen-
tine. 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 some-
thing. 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


DANGEROUS DAYS
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 al-
ready."
"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 bellig-
erently Irish. “What about Rumania ? What about the Rus-
sians 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 regard-
ing him acrimoniously, and Clayton apparently had not heard
at all.
The dispute went on, Chris Valentine alternately flippant
and earnest, the rector conciliatory, Graham glowering and
silent. Nolan had started on the Irish question, and Rodney
baited him with the prospect of conscription there. Nolan's


14
DANGEROUS DAYS
voice, full and mellow and strangely sweet, dominated the
room.
But Clayton was not listening. He had heard Nolan air his
views before. He was a trifle acid, was Nolan. He needed
mellowing, a woman in his life. But Nolan had loved once,
and the girl had died. With the curious constancy of the Irish,
he had remained determinedly celibate.
"Strange race," Clayton reflected idly, as Nolan's voice sang
on. "Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil.
One-woman men, too. Curious !".
It occurred to him then that his own reflection was as odd
as the fidelity of the Irish. He had been faithful to his wife.
He had never thought of being anything else.
He did not pursue that line of thought. He sat back and
resumed his nervous tapping of the cloth, not listening, hardly
thinking, but conscious of a discontent that was beyond an-
alysis.
Clayton had been aware, since his return from the continent
and England days before, of a change in himself. He had
not recognized it until he reached home. And he was angry
with himself for feeling it. He had gone abroad for certain
Italian contracts and had obtained them. A year or two, if the
war lasted so long, and he would be on his feet at last, after
years of struggle to keep his organization together through
the hard times that preceded the war. He would be much
more than on his feet. Given three more years of war, and he
would be a very rich man.
And now that the goal was within sight, he was finding that
it was not money he wanted. There were some things money
could not buy. He had always spent money. His anxieties
had not influenced his scale of living. Money, for instance,
could not buy peace for the world, or peace for a man, either.
It had only one value for a man; it gave him independence of
other men, made him free.
"Three things,” said the rector, apropos of something or
other, and rather oratorically, "are required by the normal


DANGEROUS DAYS
man. Work, play, and love. Assure the crippled soldier that
he has lost none of these, and ".
Work and play and love. Well, God knows he had worked.
Play? He would have to take up golf again more regularly.
He ought to play three times a week. Perhaps he could take
a motor-tour now and then, too. Natalie would like that.
Love? He had not thought about love very much. A mar-
ried man of forty-five certainly had no business thinking about
love. No, he certainly did not want love. He felt rather
absurd, even thinking about it. And yet, in the same flash,
came a thought of the violent passions of his early twenties.
There had been a time when he had suffered horribly because
Natalie had not wanted to marry him. He was glad all that
was over. No, he certainly did not want love.
He drew a long breath and straightened up.
"How about those plans, Rodney?” he inquired genially.
"Natalie says you have them ready to look over.”
"I'll bring them round, any time you say."
"To-morrow, then. Better not lose any time. Building is
going to be a slow matter, at the best.”
"Slow and expensive,” Page added. He smiled at his host,
but Clayton Spencer remained grave.
"I've been away,” he said, “and I don't know what Natalie
and you have cooked up between you. But just remember
this: I want a comfortable country house. I don't want a pub-
lic library."
Page looked uncomfortable. The move into the drawing-
room covered his uneasiness, but he found a moment later on
to revert to the subject.
“I have tried to carry out Natalie's ideas, Clay," he said.
“She wanted a sizeable place, you know. A wing for house-
parties, and—that sort of thing."
Clayton's eyes roamed about the room, where portly Mrs.
Haverford was still knitting placidly, where the Chris Valen-
tines were quarreling under pretense of raillery, where Toots
Hayden was smoking a cigaret in a corner and smiling up


16
DANGEROUS DAYS
at Graham, and where Natalie, exquisite and precise, was
supervising the laying out of a bridge table.
"She would, of course," he observed, rather curtly, and,
moving through a French window, went out onto a small
balcony into the night.
He was irritated with himself. What had come over him?
He shook himself, and drew a long breath of the sweet night
air. His tall, boyishly straight figure dominated the little
place. In the half-light he looked, indeed, like an overgrown
boy. He always looked like Graham's brother, anyhow; it
was one of Natalie's complaints against him. But he put the
thought of Natalie away, along with his new discontent. By
George, it was something to feel that, if a man could not fight
in this war, at least he could make shells to help end it. Ob-
livious to the laughter in the room behind him, the clink of
glass as whiskey-and-soda was brought in, he planned there
in the darkness, new organization, new expansions—and found
in it a great content.
He was proud of his mills. They were his, of his making.
The small iron foundry of his father's building had developed
into the colossal furnaces that night after night lighted the
down-town district like a great conflagration. He was proud
of his mills and of his men. He liked to take men and see
them work out his judgment of them. He was not often
wrong. Take that room behind him: Rodney Page, dilettante,
liked by women, who called him "Roddie," a trifle unscrupu-
lous but not entirely a knave, the sort of man one trusted with
everything but one's 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 Gra-
ham with a new vision. He turned and glanced back into the
drawing-room, where Graham, in the center of that misfit


DANGEROUS DAYS
17
group and not quite himself, was stooping over Marion Hay-
den. 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 al-
ways spoiled him, and now there were, with increasing fre-
quency, 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 secre-
tary, 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 Nat-
alie 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 Haver-
fords 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 fath-
er'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


18
DANGEROUS DAYS
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 Sat-
urday 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."
at had a few mot the bottom inim. Clay.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
"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 think it too much money for
the service he will be able to give for the first year or two."
And, although she had let it go at that, he had felt in
her a keen resentment. Graham had got a car of his own, was
using it hard, if the bills the chauffeur presented were an in-
dication, and Natalie had overdrawn her account two thousand
five hundred dollars.
The evening wore on. Two tables of bridge were going,
with Denis Nolan sitting in at one. Money in large amounts
was being written in on the bridge scores. The air of the
room was heavy with smoke, and all the men and some of the
women were drinking rather too much. There were splotches
of color under the tan in Graham's cheeks, and even Natalie's
laughter had taken on a higher note.
Chris's words rankled in Clayton Spencer's mind. A step
from the Saturday night carouse. How much better was this
sort of thing? A dull party, driven to cards and drink to get
through the evening. And what sort of home life were he and
Natalie giving the boy? Either this, or the dreary evenings
when they were alone, with Natalie sitting with folded hands,
or withdrawing to her boudoir upstairs, where invariably
she summoned Graham to talk to him behind closed doors.
He went into the library and shut the door. The room
rested him, after the babble across. He lighted a cigar, and
stood for a moment before Natalie's portrait. It had been
painted while he was abroad at, he suspected, Rodney's insti-
gation. It left him quite cold, as did Natalie herself.


20
DANGEROUS DAYS
He could look at it dispassionately, as he had never quite
cared to regard Natalie. Between them, personally, there was
always the element she never allowed him to forget, that she
had given him a son. This was Natalie herself, Natalie at
forty-one, girlish, beautiful, fretful and selfish. Natalie
with whom he was to live the rest of his life, who was to share
his wealth and his future, and with whom he shared not a
single thought in common.
He had a curious sense of disloyalty as he sat down at his
desk and picked up a pad and pencil. But a moment later
he had forgotten her, as he had forgotten the party across the
hall. He had work to do. Thank God for work.


CHAPTER II
N ATALIE was in bed when he went up-stairs. Through
the door of his dressing-room he could see her lying,
surrounded by papers. Natalie's handsome bed was always
covered with things, her handkerchief, a novel, her silk dress-
ing-gown Aung over the footboard, sometimes bits of dress
materials and lace. Natalie did most of her planning in bed.
He went in and, clearing a space, sat down on the foot of
the bed, facing her. Her hair was arranged in a loose knot
on top of her head, and there was a tiny space, perhaps a quar-
ter of an inch, slightly darker than the rest. He realized with
a little start that she had had her hair touched up during his
absence. Still, she looked very pretty, her skin slightly glis.
tening with its night's bath of cold cream, her slim arms
lying out on the blue silk eiderdown coverlet.
"I told Doctor Haverford to-night that we would like to
give him a car, Natalie,” he began directly. It was typical of
him, the "we.”
"A car? What for?"
"To ride about in, my dear. It's rather a large parish, you
know. And I don't feel exactly comfortable seeing him tramp-
ing along when most people are awheel. He's not very
young."
"He'll kill himself, that's all."
"Well, that's rather up to Providence, of course."
"You are throwing a sop to Providence, aren't you?" she
asked shrewdly. "Throwing bread on the waters! I daresay
he angled for it. You're easy, Clay. Give you a good dinner
-it was a nice dinner, wasn't it?"
"A very nice dinner,” he assented. But at the tone she
looked up.
21


22
DANGEROUS DAYS
TANCE
"Well, what was wrong?" she demanded. "I saw when I
went out that you were angry about something. Your face
was awful.”
"Oh, come now, Natalie," he protested. “It wasn't anything
of the sort. The dinner was all right. The guests were-
all right. I may have unconsciously resented your attitude
about Doctor Haverford. Certainly he didn't angle for it, and
I had no idea of throwing a sop to Providence."
"That isn't what was wrong at dinner."
"Do you really want me to tell you?”
"Not if it's too disagreeable.”
“Good heavens, Natalie. One would think I bullied you!"
“Oh, no, you don't bully. It's worse. It's the way you
look. Your face sets. Well?”
"I didn't feel unpleasant. It's rather my misfortune that
my face. "
"Didn't you like my gown ?"
"Very much. It seemed a trifle low, but you know I always
like your clothes.” He was almost pathetically anxious to
make up to her for that moment's disloyalty in the library.
“There !” she said, brushing the papers aside. “Now we're
getting at it. Was I anything like as low as Audrey Valer-
tine? Of course not! Her back- You just drive me ius
despair, Clay. Nothing I do pleases you. The very tone or
that secretary of yours to-day, when I told her about that over-
draft-it was positively insulting !"
"I don't like overdrafts," he said, without any irritation.
"When you want extra amounts you have only to let me
know."
"You are always finding fault with me," she complained.
"It's either money, or my clothes, or Graham, or something."
Her eyes filled. She looked young and absurdly childish. But
a talk he had had with the rector was still in his mind. It was
while they were still at the table, and Nolan had been attack-
ing the British government.
"We get out of this world largely what we put into it,” he


DANGEROUS DAYS
23
had said. “You give largely, Clay, and you receive largely. I
rejoice in your prosperity, because you have earned it.”
"You think, then," he had asked, “that we only receive as
we give? I don't mean material things, of course."
The rector had fixed him with kindly, rather faded old eyes.
“That has been my experience,” he said. "Happiness for
instance only comes when we forget our eternal search for
it, and try to make others happy. Even religion is changing.
The old selfish idea of saving our own souls has given way
largely to the saving of others, by giving them a chance to
redeem themselves. Decent living conditions-
He had gone on, but Clayton had not listened very intently.
He had been wondering if happiness was not the thing he had
somehow missed. It was then that he had decided to give
the car. If, after all, that would make for the rector's happi-
ness-
"I don't want to find fault with you, Natalie," he said
gravely. “I would like to see you happy. Sometimes I think
you are not. I have my business, but you have nothing to do,
and—I suppose you wouldn't be interested in war-work, would
you? There are a lot of committees, and since I've been in
England I realize what a vast amount is needed. Clothes,
you know, and bandages, and—well, everything."
"Nothing to do," she looked up, her eyes wide and indig-
nant. “But of course you would think that. This house runs
itself, I suppose."
“Let's be honest, Natalie,” he said, with a touch of impa-
tience. “Actually how much time each day do you give this
house ? You have plenty of trained servants. An hour? Two
hours?"
"I'll not discuss it with you.” She took up a typewritten
sheet and pretended to read it carefully. Clayton had a
half-humorous, half-irritated conviction that if he was actu-
ally hunting happiness he had begun his search for it rather
badly. He took the paper from her, gently.
"What's this ?” he inquired. “Anything I should not see?"


24
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Decorator's estimates for the new house." Her voice was
resentful. “You'll have to see them some time.”
"Library curtains, gray Chippendale velvet, gold gimp, faced
with colonial yellow," he read an item picked at random, "two
thousand dollars! That's going some for curtains, isn't it?".
“It's not too much for that sort of thing."
“But, look here, Natalie,” he expostulated. “This is to be
a country house, isn't it? I thought you wanted chintzed
and homey things. This looks like a city house in the coun-
try.”
He glanced down at the total. The hangings alone, with a
tapestry or two, were to be thirty-five thousand dollars. He
whistled.
"Hangings alone! And—what sort of a house has Rodney
planned, anyhow?”
"Italian, with a sunken garden. The landscape estimates
are there, too."
He did not look at them.
"It seems to me you and Rodney have been pretty busy while
I've been away,” he remarked. “Well, I want you to be
happy, my dear. Only—I don't want to tie up a fortune just
now. We may get into this war, and if we do " He rose,
and yawned, his arms above his head. "I'm off to bed,” he
said. “Big day to-morrow. I'll want Graham at the office
at 8:30."
She had sat up in bed, and was staring at him. Her face
was pale.
“Do you mean that we are going to get into this war?"
"I think it very likely, my dear."
“But if we do, Graham "
"We might as well face it. Graham will probably want to
go."
"He'll do nothing of the sort,” she said sharply. "He's all
I have. All. Do you think I'm going to send him over there
to be cannon-fodder? I won't let him go.”
She was trembling violently.


DANGEROUS DAYS
25
"I won't want him to go, of course. But if the thing comes
-he's of age, you know.”
She eyed him with thinly veiled hostility.
"You're hard, Clay,” she accused him. "You're hard all
the way through. You're proud, too. Proud and hard. You'a
want to be able to say your son was in the army. It's not
because you care anything about the war, except to make
money out of it. What is the war to you, anyhow? You
don't like the English, and as for French-you don't even let
me have a French butler."
He was not the less angry because he realized the essential
truth of part of what she said. He felt no great impulse of
sympathy with any of the combatants. He knew the gravity
of the situation rather than its tragedy. He did not like war,
any war. He saw no reason why men should kill. But this
war was a fact. He had had no hand in its making, but
it was made.
His first impulse was to leave her in dignified silence.
But she was crying, and he disliked leaving her in tears. Dead
as was his love for her, and that night, somehow, he knew
that it was dead, she was still his wife. They had had some
fairly happy years together, long ago. And he felt the
need, too, of justification.
"Perhaps you are right, Natalie,” he said, after a moment.
"I haven't cared about this war as much as I should. Not the
human side of it, anyhow. But you ought to understand that
by making shells for the Allies, I am not only making money
for myself; they need the shells. And I'll give them the best.
I don't intend only to profit by their misfortunes.”
She had hardly listened.
"Then, if we get into it, as you say, you'll encourage Gra-
ham to go?"
"I shall allow him to go, if he feels it his duty."
"Oh, duty, duty! I'm sick of the word.” She bent forward
and suddenly caught one of his hands. "You won't make him


26
DANGEROUS DAYS
go, Clay?" she begged. You-you'll let him make his own de-
cision?"
"If you will."
"What do you mean?"
"If you'll keep your hands off, too. We're not in it, yet.
God knows I hope we won't be. But if I promise not to in-
fluence him, you must do the same thing."
"I haven't any more influence over Graham than that,” she
said, and snapped her finger. But she did not look at him.
"Promise," he said, steadily.
“Oh, all right.” Her voice and face were sulky. She looked
much as Graham had that evening at the table.
"Is that a promise ?"
“Good heavens, do you want me to swear to it?"
"I want you to play fair. That's all.”
She leaned back again among her pillows and gathered up
her papers.
"All right,” she said, indifferently. "Have you any pref-
erence as to color for your rooms in the new house?”
He was sorry for his anger, and after all, these things which
seemed so unimportant to him were the things that made up
her life. He smiled.
"You might match my eyes. I'm not sure what color they
are. Perhaps you know."
But she had not forgiven him.
"I've never noticed," she replied. And, small bundle of
samples in her hand, resumed her reading and her inspection
of textiles.
"Good night, Natalie."
"Good night.” She did not look up.
Outside his wife's door he hesitated. Then he crossed and
without knocking entered Graham's bedroom. The boy was
lounging in a long chair by an open fire. He was in his
dressing gown and slippers, and an empty whiskey-and-soda
glass stood beside him on a small stand. Graham was sound


DANGEROUS DAYS
27
asleep. Clayton touched him on the shoulder, but he slept on,
his head to one side, his breathing slow and heavy. It re-
quired some little effort to waken him.
"Graham!” said Clayton sharply.
"Yes.” He stirred, but did not open his eyes.
Lesinam! Wake up, by and looked at hendinner wine.
Graham sat up suddenly and looked at him. The whites of
his eyes were red, but he had slept off the dinner wine. He
was quite himself.
"Better get to bed,” his father suggested. “I'll want you
early to-morrow.”
"What time, sir?"
He leaned forward and pressed a button beside the mantel-
piece.
“What are you doing that for?"
"Ice water. Awfully thirsty."
"The servants have gone to bed. Go down and get it your-
self.”
Graham looked up at the tone. At his father's eyes, he
looked away.
"Sorry, sir," he said. "Must have had too much champagne.
Wasn't much else to do, was there? Mother's parties—my
God, what a dreary lot!"
Clayton inspected the ice water carafe on the stand and
found it empty.
"I'll bring you some water from my room,” he said. “And
-I don't want to see you this way again, Graham. When a
man cannot take a little wine at his own table without taking
too much he fails to be entirely a gentleman."
He went out. When he came back, Graham was standing
by the fire in his pajamas, looking young and rather ashamed.
Clayton had a flash of those earlier days when he had come in
to bid the boy good night, and there had always been that
last request for water which was to postpone the final switch-
ing off of the light.


28
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I'm sorry, father.”
Clayton put his hand on the boy's shoulder and patted him.
“We'll have to do better next time. That's all."
For a moment the veil of constraint of Natalie's weaving
lifted between them.
"I'm a pretty bad egg, 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 some-
thing 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 Clay-
ton'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, whop
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


DANGEROUS DAYS
29
angry. He saw Natalie's fine hand there, and the boy's impres-
sionable nature.
"Think that over, Graham," he said gravely. "I don't be.
lieve 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 ap-
pointed. 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 casu-
ally.
"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.”


30
DANGEROUS DAYS
“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, star-
ing 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 wake
1 ing 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 begun to
show themselves at the corners of his eyes. The lines of
repression from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth
seemed deeper. But his invincible look of boyishness per-
sisted, at that.
There was no awkwardness in Graham's “Morning, dad."
He had not forgotten the night before, but he had already for-
given himself. He ignored the newspaper at his plate, and
dug into his grapefruit.
"Anything new?” he inquired casually.
"You might look and see," Clayton suggested, good-natur-
edly.
"I'll read going down in the car. Can't stand war news
on an empty stomach. Mother all right this morning ?”
"I think she is still sleeping."
"Well, I should say she needs it, after last night. How in
the world we manage, with all the interesting people in the
world, to get together such a dreary lot as that-Lord, it was
awful.”
nd folded his papuli be ready in bedroom Na
Clayton rose and folded his paper.
“The car's waiting,” he said. "I'll be ready in five minutes."
He went slowly up the stairs. In her pink bedroom Nat-
31


32
DANGEROUS DAYS
and he rather men that she was though to end th
alie had just wakened. Madeleine, her elderly French maid,
had brought her breakfast, and she was lying back among the
pillows, the litter of the early mail about her and a morning
paper on her knee. He bent over and kissed her, perfunc-
torily, and he was quick to see that her resentment of the even-
ing before had survived the night.
"Sleep well?” he inquired, looking down at her. She
evaded his eyes.
"Not particularly."
“Any plans for to-day ?"
"I'll just play around. I'm lunching out, and I may run out
with Rodney to Linndale. The landscape men are there to
day.”
She picked up the newspaper as though to end the discus-
sion. He saw then that she was reading the society news,
and he rather more than surmised that she had not even
glanced at the black headings which on the first page an-
nounced the hideous casualties of the Somme.
“Then you've given the planting contract?”
"Some things have to go in in the fall, Clay. For heaven's
sake, don't look like a thunder cloud."
“Have you given the landscape contract ?”
“Yes. And please go out. You make my head ache.”
“How much is it to be?”
“I don't know. Ask Rodney."
"I'll do nothing of the sort, my dear. This is not Rodney's
investment.”
"Nor mine, I suppose !"
“All I want you to do, Natalie, is to consult me. I want
you to have a free hand, but some one with a sense of re-
sponsibility ought to check up these expenditures. But it isn't
only that. I'd like to have a hand in the thing myself. I've
rather looked forward to the time when we could have the
sort of country place we wanted.”
"You don't like any of the strings to get out of your fin-
gers, do you?"


34
DANGEROUS DAYS
nor interein. If he hader of the
pencil :ot, signally
planation, and drove off, going at the reckless speed he af-
fected.
Clayton rode down alone in the limousine. He had meant
to outline his plans of expansion to Graham, but he had had
no intention of consulting him. In his own department the
boy did neither better nor worse than any other of the dozens
of young men in the organization. If he had shown neither
special aptitude for nor interest in the business, he had at
least not signally failed to show either. Now, paper and
pencil in hand, Clayton jotted down the various details of the
new system in their sequence; the building of a forging plant
to make the rough casts for the new Italian shells out of the
steel from the furnaces, the construction of a new spur to the
little railway which bound the old plant together with its shin-
ing steel rails. There were questions of supplies and shipping
and bank credits to face, the vast and complex problems of
the complete new munition works, to be built out of town and
involving such matters as the housing of enormous numbers
of employees. He scrawled figures and added them. Even
with the size of the foreign contract their magnitude startled
him. He leaned back, his mouth compressed, the lines from
the nostrils to the corners deeper than ever.
He had completely forgotten Natalie and the country house.
Outside the gates to the mill enclosure he heard an early extra
being called, and bought it. The Austrian premier had been
assassinated. The successful French counter-attack against
Verdun was corroborated, also. On the center of the front
page was the first photograph to reach America of a tank. He
inspected it with interest. So the Allies had at last shown
some inventive genius of their own! Perhaps this was but the
beginning. Even at that, enough of these fighting mammoths,
and the war might end quickly. With the tanks, and the Al-
lied offensive and the evidence of discontent in Austria, the
thing might after all be over before America was involved.
He reflected, however, that an early peace would not be an
unmixed blessing for him. He wanted the war to end: he


DANGEROUS DAYS
35
hated killing. He felt inarticulately that something horrible
was happening to the world. But personally his plans were
premised on a war to last at least two years more, until the fall
of 1918. That would let him out, cover the cost of the new
plant, bring renewals of his foreign contracts, justify those
stupendous figures on the paper in his hand.
He wondered, rather uncomfortably, what he would do,
under the circumstances, if it were in his power to declare
peace to-morrow.
In his office in the mill administration building, he found the
general manager waiting. Through the door into the confer-
ence room beyond he could see the superintendents of the
various departments, with Graham rather aloof and detached,
and a sprinkling of the most important foremen. On his desk,
neatly machined, was the first tentative shell-case made in the
mill machine-shop, an experiment rather than a realization.
Hutchinson, the general manager, was not alone. Opposite
him, very neatly dressed in his best clothes, his hat in his hand
and a set expression on his face, was one of the boss rollers of
the steel mill, Herman Klein. At Clayton's entrance he made
a motion to depart, but Hutchinson stopped him.
"Tell Mr. Spencer what you've been telling me, Klein," he
said curtly.
Klein fingered his hat, but his face remained set.
“I've just been saying, Mr. Spencer," he said, in good Eng-
lish, but with the guttural accent which thirty years in America
had not eliminated, "that I'll be leaving you now."
“Leaving! Why?"
"Because of that!" He pointed, without intentional drama,
at the shell-case. "I can't make those shells for you, Mr.
Spencer, and me a German.”
Spencer, anon American, aren't you
that I _"
His face
"I am, sir. It is not that. It iss that I " His face
worked. He had dropped back to the old idiom, after years of
painful struggle to abandon it. "It iss that I am a German,


36
DANGEROUS DAYS
also. I have people there, in the war. To make shells to kill
them-no.”
"He is determined, Mr. Spencer," said Hutchinson. "I have
been arguing with him, but-you can't argue with a German."
Clayton was uneasily aware of something like sympathy for
the man.
"I understand how you feel, Klein," he observed. "But
of course you know, whether you go or stay, the shells will be
made, anyhow."
"I know that.”
"You are throwing up a good position.”
"I'll try to get another."
The prospective loss of Klein was a rather serious one.
Clayton, seated behind his great desk, eyed him keenly, and
then stooped to bribery. He mentioned a change in the wage
scale, with bonuses to all foremen and rollers. He knew
Klein's pride in the mill, and he outlined briefly the growth
that was about to be developed. But the boss roller remained
obdurate. He understood that such things were to be, but it
was not necessary that he assist Germany's enemies against
her. Against the determination in his heavy square figure
Clayton argued in vain.
When, ten minutes later, he went into the conference room,
followed by a secretary with a sheaf of papers, the mill was
minus a boss roller, and there was rankling in his mind Klein's
last words..
"I haf no objection, Mr. Spencer, to your making money,
out of this war, but I will not.”
There had been no insolence in his tone. He had gone out,
with his heavy German stolidity of mien unchanged, and had
closed the door behind him with quiet finality.


CHAPTER IV
the faces of the the new departure pow. they were not
RAHAM left the conference that morning in a rather
J exalted mood. The old mill was coming into its own at
last. He had a sense of boyish triumph in the new develop-
ments, a feeling of being a part of big activities that would
bring rich rewards. And he felt a new pride in his father.
He had sat, a little way from the long table, and had watched
the faces of the men gathered about it as clearly and forcibly
the outlines of the new departure were given out. Hitherto
“Spencer's” had made steel only. Now, they were not only to
make the steel, but they were to forge the ingots into rough
casts; these casts were then to be carried to the new munition
works, there to be machined, drilled, polished, provided with
fuses, which "Spencer's" were also to make, and shipped
abroad.
The question of speeding production had been faced and
met. The various problems had been discussed and the bonus
system tentatively taken up. Then the men had dispersed,
each infected with the drive of his father's contagious force.
"Pretty fine old boy," Graham had considered. And he
wondered vaguely if, when his time came, he would be able to
take hold. For a few minutes Natalie's closetings lost their
effect. He saw his father, not as one from whom to hide
extravagance and unpaid bills, but as the head of a great
concern that was now to be a part of the war itself.
He wandered into his father's office, and picked up the
shell. Clayton was already at his letters, but looked up.
"Think we rather had them, eh, Graham?”
"Think you did, sir. Carried them off their feet. Pretty,
isn't it?" He held up the shell-case. "If a fellow could only
forget what the damned things are for!”
37


38
DANGEROUS DAYS
"They are to help to end the war," said Clayton, crisply.
“Don't forget that, boy." And went back to his steady dic-
tation.
Graham went out of the building into the mill yard. The
noise always irritated him. He had none of Clayton's joy
and understanding of it. To Clayton each sound had its cor-
responding activity. To Graham it was merely din, an annoy-
ance to his ears, as the mill yard outraged his fastidiousness.
But that morning he found it rather more bearable. He
stooped where, in front of the store, the storekeeper had
planted a tiny garden. Some small late-blossoming chrysan-
themums were still there and he picked one and put it in his
buttonhole.
His own office was across the yard. He dodged in front of
a yard locomotive, picked his way about masses of lumber and
the general litter of all mill yards, and opened the door of his
own building. Just inside his office a girl was sitting on a
straight chair, her hat a trifle crooked, and her eyes red from
crying. He paused in amazement.
"Why, Miss Klein!” he said. "What's the matter?”
She was rather a pretty girl, even now. She stood up at his
voice and made an effort to straighten her hat.
"Haven't you heard?" she asked.
"I haven't heard anything that ought to make Miss Anna
Klein weep of a nice, frosty morning in October. Unless "
he sobered, for her grief was evident. “Tell me about it.”
"Father has given up his job.”
"No!"
"I'm telling you, Mr. Spencer. He won't help to make
those shells. He's been acting queer for three or four days
and this morning he told your father."
Graham whistled.
"As if it made any difference," she went on irritably. “Some
one else will get his job. That's all. What does he care about
the Germans? He left them and came to America as soon
as he could walk."


DANGEROUS DAYS
Graham sat down.
"Now let's get this,” he said. "He won't make shells for the
Allies and so he's given up his position. All right. That's
bad, but he's a good workman. He'll not have any trouble
getting another job. Now, why are you crying?"
"I didn't think you'd want me to stay on."
Putting her fear into words brought back her long hours
of terror. She collapsed into the chair again and fell to un-
quiet sobbing. Graham was disturbed.
“You're a queer girl," he said. “Why should that lose me
my most valued assistant ?”.
When she made no reply he got up and going over to her
put a hand on her shoulder. “Tell me that,” he said.
He looked down at her. The hair grew very soft and blonde
at the nape of her neck, and he ran a finger lightly across it.
“Tell me that."
"I was afraid it would.”
"And, even if it had, which you are a goose for thinking,
you're just as good in your line as your father is in his. I've
been expecting any time to hear of your leaving me for a
handsomer man!"
He had been what he would have termed jollying her back
to normality again. But to his intense surprise she suddenly
leaned back and looked up into his face. There was no doubt-
ing what he saw there. Just for a moment the situation threat-
ened to get out of hand. Then he patted her shoulders and
put the safety of his desk between them.
“Run away and bathe your eyes,” he said, "and then come
back here looking like the best secretary in the state, and not
like a winter thaw. We have the deuce of a lot of work to do."
But after she had gone he sat for some little time idly rap-
ping a pencil on the top of his desk. By Jove! Anna Klein!
Of all girls in the world! It was rather a pity, too. She was
a nice little thing, and in the last few months she had changed
a lot. She had been timid at first, and hideously dressed.
Lately she had been almost smart. Those ear-rings now


40
DANGEROUS DAYS
they changed her a lot. Queer-how things went on in a girl's
mind, and a fellow didn't know until something happened. He
settled his tie and smoothed back his heavy hair.
During the remainder of the day he began to wonder if he
had not been a fatuous idiot. Anna did her work with the
thoroughness of her German blood plus her American train-
ing. She came back minus her hat, and with her eyes carefully
powdered, and not once during the morning was he able to
meet her eyes fully. By the middle of the afternoon sex
vanity and curiosity began to get the better of his judgment,
and he made an excuse, when she stood beside him over some
papers, her hand on the desk, to lay his fingers over hers. She
drew her hand away quickly, and when he glanced up, boyishly
smiling, her face was flushed.
"Please,” she said. And he felt hurt and rebuffed. He
had no sentiment for her whatever, but the devil of mischief of
twenty-two was behind him, urging him on to the eternal ex-
periment. He was very formal with her for the rest of the
day, and had the satisfaction of leaving her, at four o'clock,
white-faced and miserable over her machine in the little office
next to his.
He forgot her immediately, in the attempt to leave the mill
without encountering his father. Clayton, he knew, would be
staying late, and would be exacting similar tribute to the
emergency from the entire force. Also, he had been going
about the yard with contractors most of the afternoon. But
Graham made his escape safely. It was two hours later when
his father, getting into the limousine, noticed the absence of
the boy's red car, and asked the gateman how long it had
been gone.
"Since about four o'clock, Mr. Spencer."
Suddenly Clayton felt a reaction from the activities of the
day. He sank back in the deeply padded seat, and felt tired
and-in some odd fashion-lonely. He would have liked to
talk to Graham on the way up-town, if only to crystallize his
own thoughts. He would have liked to be going home to re-


DANGEROUS DAYS
view with Natalie the day's events, the fine spirit of his men,
the small difficulties. But Natalie hated the mention of the
mill.
He thought it probable, too, that they were dining out. Yes,
he remembered. They were dining at the Chris Valentines.
Well, that was better than it might have been. They were not
dull, anyhow. His mind wandered to the Valentine house,
small, not too well-ordered, frequently noisy, but always gay
and extremely smart.
He thought of Audrey, and her curious friendship with Nat-
alie. Audrey the careless, with her dark lazy charm, her deep
and rather husky contralto, her astonishing little French
songs, which she sang with nonchalant grace, and her crowds
of boyish admirers whom she alternately petted and bullied-
surely she and Natalie had little enough in common.
Yet, in the last year or so, he had been continually coming
across them together-at the club at luncheon in the women's
dining room, at his own house, Natalie always perfectly and
expensively dressed, Audrey in the casual garments which
somehow her wearing made effective.
He smiled a little. Certain of Audrey's impertinences came
to his mind. She was an amusing young woman. He had an
idea that she was always in debt, and that the fact concerned
her very little. He fancied that few things concerned her
very deeply, including Chris. But she knew about food. Her
dinners were as casual as her house, as to service, but they
were worth eating. She claimed to pay for them out of her
bridge winnings, and, indeed, her invitation for to-night had
been frankness itself.
"I'm going to have a party, Clay," she had said. "I've
made two killings at bridge, and somebody has shipped Chris
some ducks. If you'll send me some cigarets like the last, I'll
make it Tuesday.”
He had sent the cigarets, and this was Tuesday.
The pleasant rolling of the car soothed him. The street
flashed by, brilliant with lights that in far perspective seemed


42
DANGEROUS DAYS
to meet. The shop windows gleamed with color. From curb
to curb were other cars like the one in which he rode, carry-
ing home other men like himself to whatever the evening held
in store. He remembered London at this hour, already dark
and quiet, its few motors making their cautious way in the
dusk, its throngs of clerks, nearly all women now, hurrying
home to whatever dread the night might hold. And it made
him slightly more complacent. These things that he had
taken for granted before had since his return assumed the
quality of luxury.
“Pray God we won't get into it,” he said to himself.
He reviewed his unrest of the night before, and smiled at
it. Happiness. Happiness came from a sense of achievement.
Integrity and power, that was the combination. The respect
of one's fellow men, the day's work well done. Romance was
done, at his age, but there remained the adventure of success.
A few years more, and he would leave the mill to Graham and
play awhile. After that—he had always liked politics. They
needed business men in politics. If men of training and leisure
would only go in for it there would be some chance of clean-
ing up the situation. Yes, he might do that. He was an easy
speaker, and
The car drew up at the curb and the chauffeur got out.
Natalie's car had drawn up just ahead, and the footman was
already opening the door. Rodney Page got out, and assisted
Natalie to alight. Clayton smiled. So she had changed her
mind. He saw Rodney bend over her hand and kiss it after
his usual ceremonious manner. Natalie seemed a trifle breath-
less when she turned and saw him.
“You're early, aren't you?" she said.
"I fancy it is you who are late.”
Then he realized that the chauffeur was waiting to speak to
him.
“Yes, Jackson?”
"I'm sorry, sir. I guess I'll be leaving at the end of my
month, Mr. Spencer."
1-


DANGEROUS DAYS
“Come into the library and I'll talk to you. What's wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong, sir. I have been very well suited.
It's only—I used to be in the regular army, sir, and I guess
I'm going to be needed again."
“You mean—we are going to be involved ?"
“Yes, sir. I think we are.”
“There's no answer to that. Jackson,” he said. But a sense
of irritation stirred him as he went up the steps to the house
door. Jackson was a good man. Jackson and Klein, and who
knew who would be next?
"Oh, damn the war," he reflected ratier wearily.


CHAPTER V
ple played that they id ultimately be involved id not enforce.
T HE winter which preceded the entrance of the United
1 States into the war was socially an extraordinary one.
It was marked by an almost feverish gayety, as though, having
apparently determined to pursue a policy dictated purely by self
interest, the people wished to forget their anomalous position.
Like a woman who covers her shame with a smile. The vast
number of war orders from abroad had brought prosperity
into homes where it had long been absent. Mills and fac-
tories took on new life. Labor was scarce and high.
It was a period of extravagance rather than pleasure. Peo-
ple played that they might not think. Washington, convinced
that the nation would ultimately be involved, kept its secret
well and continued to preach a neutrality it could not enforce.
War was to most of the nation a great dramatic spectacle,
presented to them at breakfast and in the afternoon editions.
It furnished unlimited conversation at dinner parties, led to
endless wrangles, gave zest and point to the peace that made
those dinner parties possible, furnished an excuse for re-
trenchment here and there, and brought into vogue great
bazaars and balls for the Red Cross and kindred activities.
But although the war was in the nation's mind, it was not
yet in its soul.
Life went on much as before. An abiding faith in the
Allies was the foundation stone of its complacency. The
great six-months battle of the Somme, with its million cas-
ualties, was resulting favorably. On the east the Russians
had made some gains. There were wagers that the Germans
would be done in the Spring.
But again Washington knew that the British and French
losses at the Somme had been frightful; that the amount of
44


DANGEROUS DAYS
45
lost territory regained was negligible as against the territory
still held; that the food problem in the British Islands was
acute; that ihe submarine sinkings were colossal. Our peace
was at a fearful cost.
And on the edge of this volcano America played.
When Graham Spencer left the mill that Tuesday after-
noon, it was to visit Marion Hayden. He was rather bored
now at the prospect. He would have preferred going to the
Club to play billiards, which was his custom of a late after-
noon. He drove rather more slowly than was his custom,
and so missed Marion's invitation to get there before the
crowd.
Three cars before the house showed that she already had
callers, and indeed when the parlor-maid opened the door a
burst of laughter greeted him. The Hayden house was a
general rendezvous. There were usually, by seven o'clock,
whiskey-and-soda glasses and tea-cups on most of the furni-
ture, and half-smoked cigarets on everything that would hold
them, including the piano.
Marion herself met him in the hall, and led him past the
drawing-room door.
“There are people in every room who want to be left alone,”
she volunteered. "I kept the library as long as I could. We
can sit on the stairs, if you like."
Which they proceeded to do, quite amiably. From various
open doors came subdued voices. The air was pungent with
tobacco smoke permeated with a faint scent of late afternoon
highballs.
“Tommy!" Marion called, when she had settled herself.
"Yes," from a distance.
"Did you leave your cigaret on the piano?"
“No, Toots dear. But I can, easily."
"Mother," Marion explained, "is getting awfully touchy
about the piano. Well, do you remember half the pretty
things you told me last night?"
"Not exactly. But I meant them.”
she voluon the stairs, ded to do, quit the air was


46
DANGEROUS DAYS
He looked up at her admiringly. He was only a year from
college, and he had been rather arbitrarily limited to the débu-
tantes. He found, therefore, something rather flattering in
the attention he was receiving from a girl who had been out
five years, and who was easiiy the most popular young woman
in the gayer set. It gave him a sense of maturity. Since the
night before he had been rankling under a sense of youth.
"Was I pretty awful last night?” he asked.
"You were very interesting. And I imagine-rather in
discreet.”
"Fine! What did I say?"
"You boasted, my dear young friend."
“Great Scott! I must have been awful."
“About the new war contracts.”
"Oh, business!"
“But I found it very interesting. You know, I like busi-
ness. And I like big figures. Poor people always do. Has
it really gone through? I mean, those things do slip up
sometimes, don't they?”
"It's gone through, all right. Signed, sealed, and deliv-
ered.”
Encouraged by her interest, he elaborated on the new work.
He even developed an enthusiasm for it, to his own surprise.
And the girl listened intently, leaning forward so that her
arm brushed his shoulder. Her eyes, slightly narrowed,
watched him closely. She knew every move of the game she
was determining to play.
Marion Hayden, at twenty-five, knew already what her little
world had not yet realized, that such beauty as she had had
was the beauty of youth only, and that that was going. Late
hours, golf, perhaps a little more champagne than was neces-
sary at dinners, and the mornings found her almost plain.
And, too, she had the far vision of the calculating mind. She
knew that if the country entered the war, every eligible man
she knew would immediately volunteer.
At twenty-five she already noticed a change in the personnel


DANGEROUS DAYS
47
of her followers. The unmarried men who had danced with
her during her first two winters were now sending flowers to
the debutantes, and cutting in on the younger men at balls.
Her house was still a rendezvous, but it was for couples like
the ones who had preëmpted the drawing-room, the library
and the music room that afternoon. They met there, smoked
her cigarets, made love in a corner, occasionally became en-
gaged. But she was of the game, no longer in it.
Men still came to see her, a growing percentage of them
married. They brought or sent her tribute, flowers, candy,
and cigarets. She was enormously popular at dances. But
more and more her dinner invitations were from the older
crowd. Like Natalie Spencer's stupid party the night before.
So she watched Graham and listened. He was a nice boy
and a handsome one. Also he promised to be sole heir to a
great business. If the war only lasted long enough-
"Imagine your knowing all those things," she said admir-
ingly. “You're a partner, aren't you?".
He flushed slightly.
“Not yet. But of course I shall be.”
"When you really get going, I wonder if you will take me
round and show me how shells are made. I'm the most
ignorant person you ever knew.”
"I'll be awfully glad to.”
"Very well. For that promise you shall have a highball.
You're an awful dear, you know."
She placed a slim hand on his shoulder and patted it. Then,
leaning rather heavily on him for support, she got to her feet.
"We'll go in and stir up some of the lovers,” she suggested.
"And if Tommy Hale hasn't burned up the piano we can
dance a bit. You dance divinely, you know."
It was after seven when he reached home. He felt every
inch a man. He held himself very straight as he entered the
house, and the boyish grin with which he customarily greeted'
the butler had given place to a dignified nod.:


48
DANGEROUS DAYS
Natalie was in her dressing-room. At his knock she told
the maid to admit him, and threw a dressing-gown over her
bare shoulders. Then she sent the maid away and herself
cautiously closed the door into Clayton's room.
"I've got the money for you, darling," she said. From her
jewel case she took a roll of bills and held them out to him.
"Five hundred.”
"I hate to take it, mother."
"Never mind about taking it. Pay those bills before your
father learns about them. That's all."
He was divided between gratitude and indignation. His
new-found maturity seemed to be slipping from him. Some-
how here at home they always managed to make him feel like
a small boy.
“Honestly, mother, I'd rather go to father and tell him
about it. He'd make a row, probably, but at least you'd be
out of it.”
She ignored his protest, as she always ignored protests
against her own methods of handling matters.
"I'm accustomed to it," was her sole reply. But her re-
signed voice brought her, as it always had, the ready tribute
of the boy's sympathy. “Sit down, Graham, I want to talk
to you."
He sat down, still uneasily fingering the roll of bills. Just
how far Natalie's methods threatened to undermine his char-
acter was revealed when, at a sound in Clayton's room, he
stuck the money hastily into his pocket.
"Have you noticed a change in your father since he came
back?”
Her tone was so ominous that he started.
"He's not sick, is he?"
“Not that. But—he's different. Graham, your father
thinks we may be forced into the war.”
“Good for us. It's time, that's sure.”
“Graham!”


DANGEROUS DAYS
“Why, good heavens, mother," he began, "we should have
been in it last May. We should-
She was holding out both hands to him, piteously.
“You wouldn't go, would you?”
"I might have to go,” he evaded.
"You wouldn't, Graham. You're all I have. All I have
left to live for. You wouldn't need to go. It's ridiculous.
You're needed here. Your father needs you."
"He needs me the hell of a lot," the boy muttered. But
he went over and, stooping down, kissed her trembling face.
"Don't worry about me,” he said lightly. “I don't think
we've got spine enough to get into the mix-up, anyhow. And
if we have "
"You won't go. Promise me you won't go."
When he hesitated she resorted to her old methods with
both Clayton and the boy. She was doing all she could to
make them happy. She made no demands, none. But when
she asked for something that meant more than life to her, it
was refused, of course. She had gone through all sorts of
humiliation to get him that money, and this was the gratitude
she received.
Graham listened. She was a really pathetic figure, crouched
in her low chair, and shaken with terror. She must have
rather a bad time; there were so many things she dared not
take to his father. She brought them to him instead, her
small grievances, her elaborate extravagances, her disappoint-
ments. It did not occur to him that she transferred to his
young shoulders many of her own burdens. He was only
grateful for her confidence, and a trifle bewildered by it.
And she had helped him out of a hole just now.
"All right. I promise,” he said at last. “But you're worry-
ing yourself for nothing, mother.”
She was quite content then, cheered at once, consulted the
jewelled watch on her dressing table and rang for the maid.
"Heavens, how late it is !” she exclaimed. “Run out now,


50
DANGEROUS DAYS
dear. And, Graham, tell Buckham to do up a dozen dinner-
napkins in paper. Audrey Valentine has telephoned that she
has just got in, and finds she hasn't enough. If that isn't like
her!"


CHAPTER VI
that what evening, whihat followed, wing Summe
the piaconly by his finess. Nataliinner, save u
M ONTHS afterward, Clayton Spencer, looking back, real-
1 ized that the night of the dinner at the Chris Valentines
marked the beginning of a new epoch for him. Yet he never
quite understood what it was that had caused the change. All
that was clear was that in retrospect he always commenced
with that evening, when he was trying to trace his own course
through the months that followed, with their various changes,
to the momentous ones of the following Summer.
Everything pertaining to the dinner, save the food, stood
out with odd distinctness. Natalie's silence during the drive,
broken only by his few questions and her brief replies. Had
the place looked well ? Very. And was the planting going
on all right? She supposed so. He had hesitated, rather dis-
couraged. Then:
"I don't want to spoil your pleasure in the place, Nat-
alie " he had said, rather awkwardly. “After all, you will
be there more than I shall. You'd better have it the way you
like it."
She had appeared mollified at that and had relaxed some-
what. He fancied that the silence that followed was no longer
resentful, that she was busily planning. But when they had
almost reached the house she turned to him.
"Please don't talk war all evening, Clay,” she said. "I'm
so ghastly sick of it.”
"All right,” he agreed amiably. “Of course I can't prevent
the others doing it."
"It's generally you who lead up to it. Ever since you came
back you've bored everybody to death with it.”
"Sorry," he said, rather stiffly. "I'll be careful.”
He had a wretched feeling that she was probably right. He
51


52
DANGEROUS DAYS
had come back so full of new impressions that he had prob-
ably overflowed with them. It was a very formal, extremely
tall and reticent Clayton Spencer who greeted Audrey that
night.
Afterward he remembered that Audrey was not quite her
usual frivolous self that evening. But perhaps that was only
in retrospect, in view of what he learned later. She was very
daringly dressed, as usual, wearing a very low gown and a
long chain and ear-rings of black opals, and as usual all the
men in the room were grouped around her.
"Thank heaven for one dignified man,” she exclaimed, look-
ing up at him. “Clayton, you do give tone to my parties.”
It was not until they went in to dinner that he missed Chris.
He heard Audrey giving his excuses.
"He's been called out of town,” she said. "Clay, you're to
have his place. And the flowers are low, so I can look across
and admire you.”
There were a dozen guests, and things moved rapidly. Au-
drey's dinners were always hilarious. And Audrey herself,
Clayton perceived from his place of vantage, was Airting al-
most riotously with the man on her left. She had two high
spots of color in her cheeks, and Clayton fancied-or was that
in retrospect, too?—that her gayety was rather forced. Once
he caught her eyes and it seemed to him that she was trying
to convey something to him.
And then, of course, the talk turned to the war, and he
caught a flash of irritation on Natalie's face.
"Ask the oracle," said Audrey's clear voice. "Ask Clay.
He knows all there is to know."
"I didn't hear it, but I suppose it is when the war will end ?"
"Amazing perspicacity," some one said.
"I can only give you my own opinion. Ten years if we
don't go in. Possibly four if we do."
There were clamors of dissent.
“None of them can hold out so long."
"If we go in it will end in six months."


DANGEROUS DAYS
IS DAYS
53
“Nonsense! The Allies are victorious now.”
"I only gave an opinion," he protested. “One man's guess
is just as good as another's. All I contend is that it is going
on to a finish. The French and English are not going to stop
until they have made the Hun pay in blood for what he has
cost them.”
“I wish I were a man," Audrey said suddenly. "I don't see
how any man with red blood in his veins can sit still, and not
take a gun and try to stop it. Sometimes I think I'll cut off
my hair, and go over anyhow. I've only got one accomplish-
ment. I can shoot. I'd like to sit in a tree somewhere and
pick them off. The butchers !"
There was a roar of laughter, not so much at the words as
at the fierceness with which she delivered them. Clayton,
however, felt that she was in earnest and liked her the better
for it. He surmised, indeed, that under Audrey's affectations
there might be something rather fine if one could get at it.
She looked around the table, coolly appraising every man
there.
"Look at us,” she said. "Here we sit, over-fed, over-dressed.
Only not over-wined because I can't afford it. And probably-
yes, I think actually-every man at this table is more or less
making money out of it all. There's Clay making a fortune.
There's Roddie, making money out of Clay. Here am I,
serving Clayton's cigarets—I don't know why I pick on you,
Clay. The rest are just as bad. You're the most conspicuous,
that's all.”
Natalie evidently felt that the situation required saving.
"I'm sure we all send money over,” she protested. “To the
Belgians and all that. And if they want things we have to
sell-
"Oh, yes, I know all that,” Audrey broke in, rather wearily.
"I know. We're the saviors of the Belgians, and we've given
a lot of money and shiploads of clothes. But we're not stop-
ping the war. And it's got to be stopped !”
Clayton watched her. Somehow what she had just said


54
DANGEROUS DAYS
seemed to crystallize much that he had been feeling. The
damnable butchery ought to be stopped.
"Right, Audrey," he supported her. "I'd give up every
prospect I have if the thing could be ended now."
He meant it then. He might not have meant it, entirely, to-
morrow or the day after. But he meant it then. He glanced
down the table, to find Natalie looking at him with cynical
amusement.
The talk veered then, but still focused on the war. It be-
came abstract as was so much of the war talk in America in
1916. Were we, after this war was over, to continue to use
the inventions of science to destroy mankind, or for its wel-
fare? Would we ever again, in wars to come, go back to the
comparative humanity of the Hague convention? Were such
wickednesses as the use of poison gas, the spreading of disease
germs and the killing of non-combatants, all German prece-
dents, to inaugurate a new era of cruelty in warfare.
Was this the last war? Would there ever be a last war?
Would there not always be outlaw nations, as there are out-
law individuals? Would there ever be a league of nations to
enforce peace ?
From that to Christianity. It had failed. On the contrary,
there was a great revival of religious faith. Creeds, no. Be-
lief, yes. Too many men were dying to permit the growth of
any skepticism as to a future life. We must have it or go mad.
In the midst of that discussion Audrey rose. Her color
had faded, and her smile was gone.
“I won't listen any longer,” she said. "I'm ready to talk
about fighting, but not about dying."
Clayton was conscious that he had had, in spite of Audrey's
speech about the wine, rather more to drink than he should
have. He was not at all drunk, but a certain excitement had
taken the curb off his tongue. After the departure of the
women he found himself, rather to his own surprise, deliver-
ing a harangue on the Germans.
"Liars and cheats," he said. And was conscious of the
had faden't listen anyt'about dying.d had, in sp


DANGEROUS DAYS
55
undivided attention of the men. "They lied when they signed
the Hague Convention; they lie when they claim that they
wanted peace, not war; they lie when they claim the mis-use
by the Allies of the Red Cross; they lie to the world and they
lie to themselves. And their peace offers will be lies. Always
lies.”
Then, conscious that the table was eying him curiously, he
subsided into silence.
"You're a dangerous person, Clay," somebody said. “You're
the kind who develops a sort of general hate, and will force
the President's hand if he can. You're too old to go yourself,
but you're willing to send a million or two boys over there to
fight a war that is still none of our business."
"I've got a son," Clayton said sharply. And suddenly re-
membered Natalie. He would want to boast, she had said,
that he had a son in the army. Good God, was he doing it
already? He subsided into the watchful silence of a man not
entirely sure of himself.
He took no liquor, and with his coffee he was entirely him-
self again. But he was having a reaction. He felt a sort of
contemptuous scorn for the talk at the table. The guard
down, they were either mouthing flamboyant patriotism or
attacking the Government. It had done too much. It had
done too little. Voices raised, faces flushed, they wrangled,
protested, accused.
And the nation, he reflected, was like that, divided appar-
ently hopelessly. Was there anything that would unite it,
as for instance France was united ? Would even war do it?
Our problem was much greater, more complicated. We were
of every race. And the country was founded and had grown
by men who had fled from the quarrels of Europe. They had
come to find peace. Was there any humanitarian principle
in the world strong enough to force them to relinquish that
peace?
Clayton found Audrey in the hall as they moved at last
toward the drawing-room. He was the last of the line of


56
DANGEROUS DAYS
men, and as he paused before her she touched him lightly on
the arm.
"I want to talk to you, Clay. Unless you're going to play.”
“I'd rather not, unless you need me."
"I don't. I'm not playing either. And I must talk to some
one."
There was something wrong with Audrey. Her usual in-
souciance was gone, and her hands nervously fingered the opal
beads of her long necklace.
"What I really want to do," she added, “is to scream. But
don't look like that. I shan't do it. Suppose we go up to
Chris's study.”
She was always a casual hostess. Having got her parties
together, and having fed them well, she consistently declined
further responsibility. She kept open house, her side board
and her servants at the call of her friends, but she was quite
capable of withdrawing herself, without explanation, once
things were moving well, to be found later by some one who
was leaving, writing letters, fussing with her endless bills, or
sending a check she could not possibly afford to some one in
want whom she happened to have heard about. Her popu-
larity was founded on something more substantial than her
dinners.
Clayton was liking Audrey better that night than he had
ever liked her, though even now he did not entirely approve
of her. And to the call of any woman in trouble he always
responded. It occurred to him, following her up the stairs,
that not only was something wrong with Audrey, but that it
was the first time he had ever known her to show weakness.
Chris's study was dark. She groped her way in and turned
on the lamp, and then turned and faced him.
"I'm in an awful mess, Clay," she said. “And the worst
of it is, I don't know just what sort of a mess it is.”
"Are you going to tell me about it?"
"Some of it. And if I don't start to yelling like a tom-cat."
"You're not going to do that. Let me get you something."


· DANGEROUS DAYS
57
He was terrified by her eyes. "Some aromatic ammonia."
That was Natalie's cure for everything.
"I'm not going to faint. I never do. Close the door and
sit down. And then give me a hundred dollars, if you
have it. Will you?”
"Is that enough ?” he asked. And drew out his black silk
evening wallet, with its monogram in seed pearls. He laid the
money on her knee, for she made no move to take it. She
sat back, her face colorless, and surveyed him intently.
“What a comfort you are, Clay," she said. “Not a word
in question. Just like that! Yet you know I don't borrow
money, usually."
"The only thing that is important is that I have the money
with me. Are you sure it's enough?”
"Plenty. l'll send it back in a week or so. I'm selling this
house. It's practically sold. I don't know why anybody
wants it. It's a poky little place. But-well, it doesn't matter
about the house. I called up some people to-day who have
been wanting one in this neighborhood and I'm practically
sure they'll take it.”
"But-you and Chris "
"We have separated, Clay. At least, Chris has gone.
There's a long story behind it. I'm not up to telling it to-night.
And this money will end part of it. That's all I'm going to tell
about the money. It's a small sum, isn't it, to break up a
family!"
"Why, it's absurd! It's—it's horrible, Audrey."
"Oh, it isn't the money. That's a trifle. I just had to have
it quickly. And when I learned I needed it of course the banks
were closed. Besides, I fancy Chris had to have all there
was."
Clayton was puzzled and distressed. He had not liked Chris.
He had hated his cynicism, his pose of indifference. His very
fastidiousness had never seemed entirely genuine. And this
going away and taking all Audrey's small reserve of money-
"Where is he?”


58
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I don't know. I believe on his way to Canada.”
“Do you mean-
“Oh, no, he didn't steal anything. He's going to enlist in
the Canadian army. Or he said so when he left.”
“Look here, Audrey, you can't tell me only part of the story.
Do you mean to say that Chris has had a magnificent impulse
and gone to fight? Or that he's running away from some-
thing?"
"Both,” said Audrey. “I'll tell you this much, Clay. Chris
has got himself into a scrape. I won't tell you about that, be-
cause after all that's his story. And I'm not asking for sym-
pathy. If you dare to pity me I'll cry, and I'll never forgive
you."
"Why didn't he stay and face it like a man? Not leave you
to face it."
"Because the only person it greatly concerned was myself.
He didn't want to face me. The thing that is driving me almost
mad is that he may be killed over there. Not because I love
him so much. I think you know how things have been. But
because he went to—well, I think to reinstate himself in my
esteem, to show me he's a man, after all.”
“Good heavens, Audrey. And you went through dinner with
all this to bear!"
"I've got to carry it right along, haven't I? You know
how I've been about this war, Clay. I've talked and talked
about wondering how our men could stay out of it. So when
the smash came, he just said he was going. He would show
me there was some good stuff in him still. You see, I've
really driven him to it, and if he's killed ”.
A surge of resentment against the absent man rose in Clay-
ton Spencer's mind. How like the cynicism of Chris's whole
attitude that he should thrust the responsibility for his going
onto Audrey. He had made her unhappy while he was with
her, and now his death, if it occurred, would be a horror to
her.
"I don't know why I burden you with all this,” she said,


DANGEROUS DAYS
rather impatiently. “I daresay it is because I knew you'd
have the money. No, I don't mean that. I'd rather go to you
in trouble than to any one else; that's why.”
"I hope you always will.”
“Oh, I shall! Don't worry." But her attempt at gayety fell
flat. She lighted a cigaret from the stand beside her and fell
to studying his face.
"What's happened to you?" she asked. “There's a change
in you, somehow. I've noticed it ever since you came home.
You ought to be smug and contented, if any man should. But
you're not, are you?"
"I'm working hard. That's all. I don't want to talk about
myself," he added impatiently. "What about you? What are
you going to do?"
"Sell my house, pay my debts and live on my own little bit
of an income.”
"But, good heavens, Audrey! Chris has no right to cut off
like this, and leave you. I don't know the story, but at least
he must support you. A man can't just run away and evade
every obligation. I think I'll have to go after him and give
him a talking to.”
"No!” she said, bending forward. “Don't do that. He has
had a bad scare. But he's had one decent impulse, too. Let
him alone, Clay."
She placed the money on the stand, and rose. As she faced
him, she impulsively placed her hands on his shoulders.
"I wish I could tell you, Clay,” she said, in her low, slightly
husky voice, “how very, very much I admire you. You're
pretty much of a man, you know. And—there aren't such a
lot of them.”
For an uneasy moment he thought she was going to kiss
him. But she let her hands fall, and smiling faintly, led the
way downstairs. Once down, however, she voiced the under-
lying thought in her mind.
"If he comes out, Clay, he'll never forgive me, probably.


60
DANGEROUS DAYS
And if he is—if he doesn't, I'll never forgive myself. So I'm
damned either way.”
But ten minutes later, with a man on either side of her, she
was sitting at the piano with a cigaret tucked behind her ear,
looking distractingly pretty and very gay and singing a slightly
indecorous but very witty little French song.
Clayton Spencer, cutting in on the second rubber, wondered
which of the many he knew was the real Audrey. He won-
dered if Chris had not married, for instance, the girl at the
piano, only to find she was the woman upstairs. And he won-
dered, too, if that were true, why he should have had to clear
out. So many men married the sort Audrey had been, in
Chris's little study, only to find that after all the thing they
had thought they were getting was a pose, and it was the girl
at the piano after all.
He missed her, somewhat later. She was gone a full half
hour, and he fancied her absence had something to do with
the money she had borrowed.


CHAPTER VII
TWO things helped greatly to restore Clayton to a more
1 normal state of mind during the next few days. One
of them undoubtedly was the Valentine situation. Beside
Audrey's predicament and Chris's wretched endeavor to get
away and yet prove himself a man, his own position seemed,
if not comfortable, at least tenable. He would have described
it, had he been a man to put such a thing into words, as that
"he and Natalie didn't exactly hit it off.”
There were times, too, during those next few days, when
he wondered if he had not exaggerated their incompatibility.
Natalie was unusually pleasant. She spent some evening
hours on the arm of his big chair, talking endlessly about the
Linndale house, and he would lean back, smiling, and pretend
to a mad interest in black and white tiles and loggias.
He made no further protest as to the expense.
"Tell me,” he said once, "what does a fellow wear in this
er-Italian palace? If you have any intention of draping
me in a toga and putting vine leaves in my hair, or whatever
those wreaths were made of — !”
Natalie had no sense of humor, however. She saw that he
meant to be amusing, and she gave the little fleeting smile one
gives to a child who is being rather silly.
"Of course,” he went on, "we'll have Roman baths, and be
anointed with oil afterwards by lady Greek slaves. Perfumed
oil.”
“Don't be vulgar, Clay.” And he saw she was really of-
fended.
While there was actually no change in their relationship,
which remained as it had been for a dozen years, their surface
life was pleasanter. And even that small improvement cheered
1.
6


62
DANGEROUS DAYS
him greatly. He was thankful for such a peace, even when he
knew that he had bought it at a heavy price.
The other was his work. The directorate for the new
munition plant had been selected, and on Thursday of that
week he gave a dinner at his club to the directors. It had
been gratifying to him to find how easily his past reputation
carried the matter of the vast credits needed, how absolutely
his new board deferred to his judgment. The dinner became,
in a way, an ovation. He was vastly pleased and a little
humbled. He wanted terribly to make good, to justify their
faith in him. They were the big financial men of his time,
and they were agreeing to back his judgment to the fullest
extent.
When the dinner was over, a few of the younger men were
in no mood to go home. They had dined and wined, and the
night was young. Denis Nolan, who had been present as
the attorney for the new concern, leaned back in his chair and
listened to them with a sort of tolerant cynicism.
"Oh, go home, you fellows,” he said at last. “You make me
sick. Enough's enough. Why the devil does every dinner like
this have to end in a debauch ?"
In the end, however, both he and Clayton went along, Clay-
ton at least frankly anxious to keep an eye on one or two of
them until they started home. He had the usual standards,
of course, except for himself. A man's private life, so long as
he was not a bounder, concerned him not at all. But this had
been his dinner. He meant to see it through. Once or twice
he had seen real tragedy come to men as a result of the reck-
lessness of long dinners, many toasts and the instinct to go on
and make a night of it.
Afterward they went to a midnight roof-garden, and at
first it was rather dreary. Their youth was only comparative
after all, and the eyes of the girls who danced and sang passed
over them, to rest on boys in their twenties.
Nolan chuckled.
“Pathetic!” he said. "The saddest sight in the world!


DANGEROUS DAYS
63
Every one of you here would at this moment give up every-
thing he's got to be under thirty."
"Oh, shut up !" some one said, almost savagely.
“Of course, there are compensations,” he drawled. "At
twenty you want to take the entire bunch home and keep
'em. At thirty you know you can't, but you still want to. At
forty and over you don't want them at all, but you think it's
damned curious they don't want you."
Clayton had watched the scene with a rather weary in-
terest. He was, indeed, trying to put himself in Graham's
place, at Graham's age. He remembered once, at twenty, hav-
ing slipped off to see “The Black Crook," then the epitome
of wickedness, and the disillusionment of seeing women in
tights with their accentuated curves and hideous lack of ap-
peal to the imagination. The caterers of such wares had
learned since then. Here were soft draperies instead, laces
and chiffons. The suggestion was not to the eyes but to the
mind. How devilishly clever it all was.
Perhaps there were some things he ought to discuss with
Graham. He wondered how a man led up to such a thing.
Nolan bent toward him.
"I've been watching for a girl," he said, “but I don't see
her. Last time I was here I came with Chris. She was his
girl.”
"Chris !”
"Yes. It stumped me, at first. She came and sat with us,
not a bad little thing, but—Good Lord, Clay, ignorant and
not even pretty! And Chris was fastidious, in a way. I don't
understand it."
The ancient perplexity of a man over the sex selections
of his friends puckered his forehead.
"Damned if I understand it,” he repeated.
A great wave of pity for Audrey Valentine surged in
Clayton Spencer's heart. She had known it, of course; that
was why Chris had gone away. How long jad she known
it? She was protecting Chris's name, even now. For all


64
DANGEROUS DAYS
her frivolity, there was something rather big in Audrey. The
way she had held up at her dinner, for instance and he
rather fancied that the idea of his going into the army had
come from her, directly or indirectly. So Chris, from being
a fugitive, was already by way of being a hero to his friends.
Poor Audrey!
He made a mental note to send her some flowers in the
morning.
He ordered them on his way down-town, and for some
curious reason she was in his mind most of the day. Chris
had been a fool to throw away a thing so worth having.
Not every man had behind him a woman of Audrey's sort.


CHAPTER VIII
erford.
THAT afternoon, accompanied by a rather boyishly ex-
1 cited elderly clergyman, he took two hours off from the
mill and purchased a new car for Doctor Haverford.
The rector was divided between pleasure at the gift and
apprehension at its cost, but Clayton, having determined to
do a thing, always did it well.
"Nonsense,” he said. “My dear man, the church has owed
you this car for at least ten years. If you get half the
pleasure out of using it that I'm having in presenting it to
you, it will be well worth while. I only wish you'd let me
endow the thing. It's likely to cost you a small fortune."
Doctor Haverford insisted that he could manage that. He
stood off, surveying with pride not unmixed with fear its
bright enamel, its leather linings, the complicated system of
dials and bright levers which filled him with apprehension.
"Delight says I must not drive it,” he said. “She is sure
I would go too fast, and run into things. She is going to
drive for me."
"How is Delight?"
"I wish you could see her, Clayton. She-well, all young
girls are lovely, but sometimes I think Delight is lovelier
than most. She is much older than I am, in many ways.
She looks after me like a mother. But she has humor, too.
She has been drawing the most outrageous pictures of me
arrested for speeding, and she has warned me most gravely
against visiting road houses !”
“But Delight will have to be taught, if she is to run the
car."
"The salesman says they will send some one."
“They give one lesson, I believe. That's not enough.
I
65


66
DANGEROUS DAYS
think Graham could show her some things. He drives well.”
Flying uptown a little later in Clayton's handsome car, the
rector dreamed certain dreams. First his mind went to his
parish visiting list, so endless, so never cleaned up, and now
about to be made a pleasure instead of a penance. And into
his mind, so strangely compounded of worldliness and spirit-
uality, came a further dream-of Delight and Graham Spen-
cer-of ease at last for the girl after the struggle to keep up
appearances of a clergyman's family in a wealthy parish.
Money had gradually assumed an undue importance in his
mind. Every Sunday, every service, he dealt in money. He
reminded his people of the church debt. He begged for vari-
ous charities. He tried hard to believe that the money that
came in was given to the Lord, but he knew perfectly well that
it went to the janitor and the plumber and the organist. He
watched the offertory after the sermon, and only too often
as he stood waiting, before raising it before the altar, he
wondered if the people felt that they had received their
money's worth.
He had started life with a dream of service, but although
his own sturdy faith persisted, he had learned the cost of
religion in dollars and cents. So, going up town, he won-
dered if Clayton would increase his church subscription, now
that things were well with him.
"After all,” he reflected, "war is not an unmized evil,” and
outlined a sermon, to be called the Gains of War, and sub-
sequently reprinted in pamphlet form and sold for the bene-
fit of the new altar fund. He instructed Jackson to drive
to the parish house instead of to the rectory, so that he might
jot down the headings while they were in his mind. They
ran like this: Spiritual growth; the nobility of sacrifice;
the pursuit of an ideal; the doctrine of thy brother's keeper.
He stopped to speak to Jackson from the pavement.
"I daresay we shall be in frequent difficulties with that
new car of ours, Jackson," he said genially. "I may have to


DANGEROUS DAYS
ask you to come round and explain some of its mysterious
interior to me.”
Jackson touched his cap.
"Thank you, sir, I'll be glad to come. But I am leaving Mr.
Spencer soon."
“Leaving !"
"Going back to the army, sir."
In the back of his mind the rector had been depending on
Jackson, and he felt vaguely irritated.
"I'm sorry to hear it. I'd been counting on you."
"Very sorry, sir. I'm not leaving immediately."
"I sometimes think,” observed the rector, still ruffled, "that
a man's duty is not always what it appears on the surface. To
keep Mr. Spencer-er-comfortable, while he is doing his
magnificent work for the Allies, may be less spectacular, but
it is most important."
Jackson smiled, a restrained and slightly cynical smile.
"That's a matter for a man's conscience, isn't it, sir?” he
asked. And touching his cap again, moved off. Doctor
Haverford felt reproved. Worse than that, he felt justly
reproved. He did not touch the Gains of War that after-
noon.
In the gymnasium he found Delight, captaining a basket-
ball team. In her knickers and middy blouse she looked like
a little girl, and he stood watching her as, flushed and excited,
she ran round the long room. At last she came over and
dropped onto the steps at his feet.
"Well?" she inquired, looking up. “Did you get it?"
"I did, indeed. A beauty, Delight.”
"A fivver?"
"Not at all. A very handsome car." He told her the make,
and she fushed again with pleasure.
"Joy and rapture !” she said. "Did you warn him I am
to drive it?"
"I did. He suggests that Graham give you some lessons."
"Graham!"


68
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Why not?"
"He'll be bored to insanity. That's all. You-you didn't
suggest it, did you, daddy ?"
With all her adoration of her father, Delight had long
recognized under his real spirituality a certain quality of
worldly calculation. That, where it concerned her, it was
prompted only by love did not make her acceptance of it
easier.
"Certainly not,” said the rector, stiffly.
"Graham's changed, you know. He used to be a nice little
kid. But he's—I don't know what it is. Spoiled, I suppose.”
"He'll steady down, Delight.”
She looked up at him with clear, slightly humorous eyes.
“Don't get any queer ideas about Graham Spencer and me,
Daddy,” she said. "In the first place, I intend to choose my
own husband. He's to look as much as possible like you,
but a trifle less nose. And in the second place, after I've
backed the car into a telegraph pole, and turned it over in
a ditch, Graham Spencer is just naturally going to know I
am no woman to tie to.”
She got up and smiled at him.
"Anyhow, I wouldn't trust him with the communion serv-
ice,” she added, and walking out onto the floor, blew shrilly
on her whistle. The rector watched her with growing in-
dignation. These snap judgments of youth! The easy damn-
ing of the young! They left no room for argument. They
condemned and walked away, leaving careful plans in ruin
behind them.
And Delight, having gone so far, went further. She an-
nounced that evening at dinner that she would under no
circumstances be instructed by Graham Spencer. Her mother
ventured good-humored remonstrance.
“The way to learn to drive a car," said Delight, “is to get
into it and press a few things, and when it starts, keep on
going. You've got to work it out for yourself.”
And when Clayton, calling up with his usual thoughtful-


DANGEROUS DAYS
ness that evening, offered Graham as instructor, she refused
gratefully but firmly.
"You're a dear to think of it,” she said, “and you're a dear
to have given Daddy the car. But I'm just naturally going
to fight it out in my own way if it takes all winter."
Natalie, gathering her refusal from Clayton's protest, had
heaved a sigh of relief. Not that she objected to Delight
Haverford. She liked her as much as she liked and under-
stood any young girl, which was very little. But she did
not want Graham to marry. To marry would be to lose him.
And again, watching Clayton's handsome head above his
newspaper, she reflected that Graham was all she had.
Nevertheless, Delight received a lesson in driving from
Graham, and that within two days.
On Saturday afternoon, finding the mill getting on his
nerves, Clayton suggested to Graham what might be the last
golf of the autumn and Graham consented cheerfully enough.
For one thing, the offices closed at noon, and Anna Klein
had gone. He was playing a little game with Anna-a light-
hearted matter of a glance now and then caught and held, a
touched hand, very casually done, and an admiring comment
now and then on her work. And Anna was blossoming like
a flower. She sat up late to make fresh white blouses for
the office, and rose early to have abundance of time to dress.
She had taken to using a touch of rouge, too, although she
put it on after she reached the mill, and took it off before she
started for home.
Her father, sullen and irritable these days, would have
probably beaten her for using it.
But Anna had gone, and a telephone call to Marion Hayden
had told him she was not at home. He thought it possible
she had gone to the country club, and accepted his father's
suggestion of golf willingly.
From the moment he left the mill Anna had left his mind.
He was at that period when always in the back of his mind
there was a girl. During the mill hours the girl was Anna,


70
DANGEROUS DAYS
because she was there. In the afternoon it was Marion, just
then, but even at that there were entire evenings when, at
the theater, a pretty girl in the chorus held and absorbed his
entire attention-or at a dance a débutante, cloudy and mys-
terious in white chiffon, bounded his universe for a few hours.
On this foundation of girl he built the superstructure of
his days. Not evil, but wholly irresponsible. The urge of
vital youth had caught him and held him. And Clayton, sit-
ting that day beside him in the car, while Graham drove and
the golf clubs rattled in their bags at his feet, remembered
again the impulses of his own adolescence, and wondered.
There had been a time when he would have gone to the boy
frankly, with the anxieties he was beginning to feel. There
were so many things he wanted to tell the boy. So many
warnings he should have.
But Natalie had stolen him. That was what it amounted to.
She had stolen his confidence, as only a selfish woman could.
And against that cabal of mother and son he felt helpless. It
was even more than that. As against Natalie's indulgence he
did not wish to pose as a mentor pointing out always the way
of duty.
“How old are you, Graham?” he said suddenly.
“Twenty-two." Graham glanced at him curiously. His
father knew his age, of course.
"I was married at your age.”
“Tough luck," said Graham. And then: "I'm sorry, father,
I didn't mean that. But it's pretty early, isn't it? No time
for a good time, or anything."
"I fancy Nature meant men to marry young, don't you? It
saves a lot of complications."
"The girl a fellow marries at that age isn't often the one
he'd marry at thirty," said Graham. And feeling that he
had said the wrong thing, changed the subject quickly. Clay-
ton did not try to turn it back into its former channel. The
boy was uncomfortable, unresponsive. There was a barrier


72
DANGEROUS DAYS
now, Delight, what is it? There's something. We used to
be pals.”
"I don't know, Graham," she said truthfully. "I only know
-well, I hear things, of course. Nothing very bad. Just little
things. I wish you wouldn't insist. It's idiotic. What does
it matter what I think?”
Graham flushed. He knew well enough one thing she had
heard. Her father and mother had been at dinner the other
night, and he had had too much to drink.
"Sorry."
He stopped the pump and put away the tools, all in silence.
Good heavens, was all the world divided into two sorts of
people: the knockers—and under that heading he placed his
father, Delight, and all those who occasionally disapproved
of him—and the decent sort who liked a fellow and under-
stood him?
But his training had been too good to permit him to show
his angry scorn. He made an effort and summoned a smile.
"All ready," he said. “And since you won't let me teach
you, perhaps I'd better take you home."
"You were going to the club."
“Oh, that's all right. Father's probably found some one."
But she insisted that he drive them both to the club, and
turn the car round there. Then, with a grinding of gear
levers that made him groan, she was off toward home, leav-
ing Graham staring after her.
"Well, can you beat it?” he inquired of the empty air.
"Can you beat it?”
And wounded in all the pride of new manhood, he joined
Marion and her rather riotous crowd around the fire inside
the clubhouse. Clayton had given him up and was going
around alone, followed by a small caddie. The links were
empty, and the caddie lonely. He ventured small bits of
conversation now and then, looking up with admiration at
Clayton's tall figure. And, after a little, Clayton took the


DANGEROUS DAYS
73
bag from him and used him only for retrieving balls. The
boy played round, whistling.
"Kinda quiet to-day, ain't it?" he offered, trudging a foot
or two behind.
"It is, rather, young man.”
"Mostly on Saturdays I caddie for Mr. Valentine. But
he's gone to the war.”
"Oh, he has, has he?” Clayton built a small tee, and placed
his ball on it. "Well, maybe we'll all be going some day.''
He drove off and started after the ball. It was not until
he was on the green that he was conscious of the boy beside
him again.
"How old d’you have to be to get into the army, Mr. Spen-
cer?” inquired the caddie, anxiously.
Clayton looked at him quizzically.
“Want to try for it, do you? Well, I'm afraid you'll have
to wait a bit.”
"I'm older than I look, Mr. Spencer."
“How old are you?”
"Sixteen.”
"Afraid you'll have to wait a while,” said Clayton, and
achieved a well-nigh perfect long putt.
"I'd just like to get a whack at them Germans," offered
the boy, and getting no response, trudged along again at his
heels.
Suddenly it struck Clayton as rather strange that, in alj
the time since his return from Europe, only four people had
shown any but a sort of academic interest in the war, and
that, ironically enough, a German had been the first to make
a sacrifice for principle. Chris had gone, to get out of trouble.
The little caddie wanted to go, to get a "whack” at the mad-
men of Europe. And Jackson, the chauffeur, was going,
giving up his excellent wages to accept the thirty-odd dollars
a month of a non-com, from a pure sense of responsibility..
But, among the men he knew best, in business and in the


74
DANGEROUS DAYS
clubs, the war still remained a magnificent spectacle. A daily
newspaper drama.
Suddenly Clayton saw Audrey Valentine. She was swing-
ing toward him, her bag with its clubs slung over her shoulder,
her hands in the pockets of an orange-colored sweater. In
her black Velvet tam and short skirt she had looked like a
little girl, and at first he did not recognize her. She had seen
him, however, and swung toward him.
"Hello, Clay,” she called, when they were within hailing
distance. “Bully shot, that last.”
i “Where's your caddie?"
"I didn't want one. I had a feeling that, if I took one,
and he lost a ball in these impecunious times of mine, I'd mur-
der him. Saw you at the fifth hole. I'd know your silhouette
anywhere.”
1 Under her rakish cap her eyes were rather defiant. She
did not want pity; she almost dared him to pity her.
"Come round again with me, Audrey, won't you?"
"I'm off my game to-day. I'll wander along, if you don't
mind. I'll probably sneeze or something when you're driv-
ing, of course.”
"Nothing," he said, gravely approaching his ball, "so adds
distance to my drive as a good explosive sneeze just be-
hind it.”
They talked very little. Audrey whistled as she walked
along with the free swinging step that was characteristic of
her, and Clayton was satisfied merely to have her compan-
ionship. She was not like some women; a man didn't have to
be paying her compliments or making love to her. She even
made no comments on his shots, and after a time that rather
annoyed him.
"Well?” he demanded, after an excellent putt. "Was that
good or wasn't it?".
"Very good," she said gravely. "I am only surprised when
gou do a thing badly. Not when you do it well."
He thought that over.
A


DANGEROUS DAYS
75
"Have you anything in mind that I do badly? I mean, par
ticularly in mind.”
“Not very much.” But after a moment: “Why don't you
make Natalie play golf?”
"She hates it."
He rather wondered if she thought Natalie was one of the
things he managed badly.
The sense of companionship warmed him. Although neither
of them realized it, their mutual loneliness and dissatisfac-
tion had brought them together, and mentally at least they
were clinging, each desperately to the other. But their talk
was disjointed:
"I'll return that hundred soon. I've sold the house."
"I wish you wouldn't worry about it. It's ridiculous,
Audrey."
And, a hundred yards or so further on, “They wouldn't
have Chris in Canada. His heart. He's going into the French
Ambulance service.”
"Good for Chris.”
But she came out very frankly, when they started back to
the clubhouse.
"It's done me a lot of good, meeting you, Clay. There's
something so big and solid and dependable about you. I
wonder-I suppose you don't mind my using you as a sort
of 'anchor to windward ?"
*""Good heavens, Audrey! If I could only do something."
"You don't have to do a thing.” She smiled up at him, and
her old audacity was quite gone. "You've just got to be
And you don't have to send me flowers, you know. I mean,
I understand that you're sorry for me, without that. You're
the only person in the world I'd allow to be sorry for me.”
He was touched. There was no coquetry in her manner.
She paid her little tribute quite sincerely and frankly.
"I've been taking stock to-day,” she went on, "and I put
you among my assets. One reliable gentleman, six feet tall,


DANGEROUS DAYS
77
face of their lives, where only they met, Natalie had always
borne comparison well. But here was a new standard to
measure by, and another woman, a woman with hands to
serve and watchful, intelligent eyes, outmeasured her.
Not that Clayton knew all this. He felt, in a vague way,
that Natalie was out of place there, and he felt, even more
strongly, that she had not the faintest interest in the still
figure on its white bed-save as it touched Graham and her-
self.
He was resentful, too, that she felt it necessary to plead
with him for his own boy. Good God, if she felt that way
about him, no wonder Graham
She had placed a hand on Clayton's arm, as he sat in that
endless vigil, and bent down to whisper, although no sound
would have penetrated that death-like stupor.
“It was an accident, Clay,” she pled. “You know Gra-
ham's the kindest soul in the world. You know that, Clay."
"He had been drinking." His voice sounded cold and
strained to his own ears.
"Not much. Almost nothing, Toots says positively."
“Then I'd rather he had been, Natalie. If he drove that
ball out of wanton indifference "
"He didn't see the boy."
“He should have looked.”
In her anger she ceased her sibilant whispering, and stood
erect.
"I told him you'd be hard,” she said. "He's outside, half-
sick with fright, because he is afraid. Afraid of you," she
added, and went out, her silks rustling in the quiet corridor.
She had gone away soon after that, the nurse informed
him. And toward dawn Clayton left Audrey in the sick room
and found Graham. He was asleep in a chair in the waiting-
room, and looked boyish and very tired. Clayton's heart con-
tracted.
He went back to his vigil, and let Graham sleep on.
Some time later he roused from a doze in his chair. Gra-


78
DANGEROUS DAYS
ham was across the bed from him, looking down. Audrey
was gone. And the injured boy stirred and opened his eyes.
"H-hello, Joey," said Graham, with a catch in his voice.
Joey lay still, his eyes taking in his new surroundings.
Then he put out a hand and touched the bandage on his head.
"What I got on?” he demanded, faintly.
Graham caught his father's eyes across the bed, and smiled
a shaky, tremulous smile.
"I guess he's all right, Father," he said. And suddenly
crumpled up beside the bed, and fell into a paroxysm of
silent sobbing. With his arm around the boy's shoulders,
Clayton felt in that gray dawn the greatest thankfulness of
his life. Joey would live. That cup was taken from his
boy's lips. And he and Graham were together again, close to
gether. The boy's grip on his hand was tight. Please God,
they would always be together from now on.


CHAPTER IX
CLAYTON did not care to tell Natalie of Chris's flight.
U She would learn it soon enough, he knew, and he felt
unwilling to discuss the affair as Natalie would want to dis-
cuss it. Not that he cared about Chris, but he had begun
to feel a protective interest in Audrey Valentine, an interest
that had in it a curious aversion to hearing her name in con-
nection with Chris's sordid story.
He and Natalie met rarely in the next few days. He dined
frequently at his club with men connected in various ways
with the new enterprise, and transacted an enormous amount
of business over the dinner or luncheon table. Natalie's
door was always closed on those occasions when he returned,
and he felt that with the stubbornness characteristic of her
she was still harboring resentment against him for what he
had said at the hospital.
He knew she was spending most of her days at Linndale,
and he had a vague idea that she and Rodney together had
been elaborating still further on the plans for the house. It
was the furtiveness of it rather than the fact itself that
troubled him. He was open and straightforward himself.
Why couldn't Natalie be frank with him?
It was Mrs. Haverford, punctually paying her dinner-call
in an age which exacts dinner-calls no longer-even from its
bachelors—who brought Natalie the news of Chris's going.
Natalie, who went down to see her with a mental protest,
found her at a drawing-room window, making violent signals
at somebody without, and was unable to conceal her amaze-
ment.
"It's Delight,” explained Mrs. Haverford. "She's driving
me round. She won't come in, and she's forgotten her fur


80
DANGEROUS DAYS
coat. And it's simply bitter outside. Well, my dear, how
are you?"
Natalie was well, and said so. She was conscious that Mrs.
Haverford was listening with only half an ear, and indeed,
a moment later she had risen again and hurried to the win-
dow.
"Natalie !" she cried. "Do come and watch. She's turning
the car. We do think she drives wonderfully. Only a few
days, too."
"Why won't she come in ?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Unless she is afraid Graham may
be here."
"What in the world has Graham got to do with it?" Natalie's
voice was faintly scornful.
"I was going to ask you that, Natalie. Have they quar-
reled, or anything?".
"I don't think they meet at all, do they?”.
“They met once since Clayton gave Doctor Haverford the
car. Graham helped her when she had got into a ditch, I
believe. And I thought perhaps they had quarreled about
something."
"That would imply a degree of intimacy that hardly exista,
does it?" Natalie said, sharply.
But Mrs. Haverford had not fought the verbal battles of
the parish for twenty years in vain.
"It was the day of that unfortunate incident at the coun-
try club, Natalie.”
Natalie colored.
"Accident, rather than incident."
"How is the poor child ?"
"He is quite well again,” Natalie said impatiently. "I can
not understand the amount of fuss every one makes over
the boy. He ran in front of where Graham was driving, and
got what he probably deserved."
"I understand Clayton has given him a position."
"He has made him an office boy."


DANGEROUS DAYS
81
"How like dear Clayton!” breathed Mrs. Haverford, and
counted the honors as hers. But she had not come to quarrel.
She had had, indeed, a frankly benevolent purpose in com-
ing, and she proceeded to carry it out at once.
"I do think, my dear," she said, "that some one ought to
tell Audrey Valentine the stories that are going about.”
"What has she been doing?” Natalie asked, with her cool
smile. “There is always some story about Audrey, isn't
there?"
“Do you mean to say you haven't heard ?”
“I don't hear much gossip.”
Mrs. Haverford let that pass.
"You know how rabid she has been about the war. Well,
the story is,” she went on, with a certain unction, “that she
has driven Chris to enlisting in the Foreign Legion, or some-
thing. Anyhow, he sailed from Halifax last week.”
Natalie straightened in her chair.
“Are you certain ?"
"It's town talk, my dear. Doctor Haverford spoke to
Clayton about it some days ago. He rather gathered Clayton
already knew.”
That, too, was like dear Clayton, Natalie reflected bitterly.
He had told her nothing. In her heart she added secretiveness
to the long list of Clayton's deficiencies toward her.
"Personally, I imagine they were heavily in debt,” Mrs.
Haverford went on. “They had been living beyond their
means, of course. I like Mrs. Valentine, but I do think,
to drive a man to his death, or what may be his death "
"I don't believe it. I don't believe he went to fight, any-
way. He was probably in some sort of a scrape.”
"She has sold her house."
Natalie's impulse of sympathy toward Audrey was drowned
in her rising indignation. That all this could happen and
Audrey not let her know was incredible.
"I haven't seen her recently,” she said coldly.
“Nobody has. I do think she might have seen her clergy-


82
DANGEROUS DAYS
man. There is a time when only the church can give us the
comfort we need, my dear.”
And whatever Mrs. Haverford's faults, she meant that
quite simply.
“And you say Clay knew?"
"It's rather likely he would. They were golfing together,
weren't they, when that caddie was hurt?”
Natalie was not a jealous woman. She had, for years,
taken Clay's faithfulness for granted, and her own com-
placency admitted no chance of such a possibility. But she
was quick to realize that she had him at a disadvantage.
"How long have you known it?" she asked him that night,
when, after the long dinner was over, she sat with her elbows
on the table and faced him across the candles.
He was tired and depressed, and his fine face looked drawn.
But he roused and smiled across at her. He had begun to
have a feeling that he must make up to Natalie for something
-he hardly knew for what.
“Known what, dear?”
"About Chris and Audrey ?"
He was fundamentally honest, so he answered her directly.
"Since the day Chris left.”
"When was that?”
"The day we dined there.”
"And Audrey told you ?"
"She had to, in a way. I'm sure she'll tell you herself.
She's been rather hiding away, I imagine."
"Why did she have to tell you?”
"If you want the exact truth, she borrowed a small sum
from me, as the banks were closed, naturally. There was
some emergency—I don't know what.”
"She borrowed from you!"
"A very small amount, my dear. Don't look like that,
Natalie. She knew I generally carried money with me.”
"Oh, I'm not jealous ! Audrey probably thinks of you as


DANGEROUS DAYS
a sort of grandfather, anyhow. It's not that. It is your
keeping the thing from me.”
"It was not my secret.”.
But Natalie was jealous. She had that curious jealousy
of her friends which some women are cursed with, of being
first in their regard and their confidence. A slow and smolder-
ing anger against Audrey, which had nothing whatever to do
with Clayton, darkened her eyes.
"I'm through with Audrey. That's all,” she said.
And the man across regarded her with a sort of puzzled
wonder.
Her indignation against Clayton took the form of calcula-
tion; and she was quick to pursue her advantage. In the
library she produced the new and enlarged plans for the house.
"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 hos-
pital, he went over them carefully. And even their magni-
tude, 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


84
DANGEROUS DAYS
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 hold-
ing 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.”
She freed her dands.
"So we couldn't even have one happy evening!" she said.
"I won't quarrel with you, Clay. And I won't be tragic over
Graham. If you'll just be human to him, he'll come out all
right."
She went into her bedroom, the heavy lace of her negligee
trailing behind her, and closed the door.
Clayton had a visitor the next morning at the mill, a man
named Dunbar, who marked on his visitors' slip, under the


DANGEROUS DAYS
heading of his business with the head of the concern, the
words, "Private and confidential.”
Clayton, looking up, saw a small man, in a suit too large for
him, and with ears that projected wide on either side of a
shrewd, rather humorous face.
"Mr. Spencer ?"
“Yes. Sit down, please.”
Even through the closed window the noise of the mill pene-
trated. The yard-engine whistled shrilly. The clatter of
motor-trucks, the far away roar of the furnaces, the imme-
diate vicinity of many typewriters, made a very bedlam of
sound. Mr. Dunbar drew his chair closer, and laid a card
on the desk.
"My credentials,” he explained.
Clayton read the card.
“Very well, Mr. Dunbar. What can I do for you?”
Dunbar fixed him with shrewd, light eyes, and bent for-
ward.
"Have you had any trouble in your mill, Mr. Spencer ?”
"None whatever."
"Are you taking any measures to prevent trouble?”.
“I had expected to. Not that I fear anything, but of course
no one can tell. We have barely commenced to get lined up
for our new work.”
“May I ask the nature of the precautions?”
Clayton told him, with an uneasy feeling that Mr. Dun-
bar was finding them childish and inefficient.
"Exactly,” said his visitor. "And well enough as far as
they go. They don't go far enough. The trouble with you
manufacturers is that you only recognize one sort of trouble,
and that's a strike. I suppose you know that the Kaiser has
said, if we enter the war, that he need not send an army
here at all. That his army is here already, armed and
equipped."
"Bravado," said Clayton.
"I wonder !"


86
DANGEROUS DAYS
Mr. Dunbar reached into his breast pocket, and produced
a long typed memorandum
“You might just glance at that.”
Clayton read it carefully. It was a list of fires, mostly in
granaries and warehouses, and the total loss was appalling.
"All German work,” said his visitor. "Arson, for the
Fatherland. All supplies for the Allies, you see. I've got
other similar lists, here, all German deviltry. And they're
only commencing. If we go into the war- "
The immediate result of the visit was that Clayton be.
came a member of a protective league which undertook, with
his coöperation, to police and guard the mill. But Mr. Dun-
bar's last words left him thinking profoundly.
“We're going to be in it, that's sure. And soon. And Ger-
many's army is here. It's not only Germans either. It's the
I. W. W., for one thing. We've got a list through the British
post-office censor, of a lot of those fellows who are taking
German money to-day. They're against everything. Not
only work. They're against law and order. And they're likely
to raise hell."
He rose to leave.
"How do your Germans like making shells for the Allies ?"
he asked.
"We haven't a great many. We've had no trouble. One
man resigned-a boss roller. That's all."
"Watch him. He's got a grievance.”
"He's been here a long time. I haven't an idea he'd do us
any harm. It was a matter of principle with him.”
"Oh, it's a matter of principle with all of them. They
can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye
on him, or let us do it for you."
Clayton sat for some time after Dunbar had gone. Was
it possible that Klein, or men like Klein, old employees and
faithful for years, could be reached by the insidious wicked-
ness of Germany? It was incredible. But then the whole
situation was incredible; that a peaceful and home-loving peo-


DANGEROUS DAYS
ple, to all appearances, should suddenly shed the sheep skin
of years of dissimulation, and appear as the wolves of the
world.
One of his men had died on the Lusitania, a quiet little
chap, with a family in the suburbs and a mania for raising
dahlias. He had been in the habit of bringing in his best
specimens, and putting them in water on Clayton's desk. His
pressed glass vase was still there, empty.
Then his mind went back to Herman Klein. He had a
daughter in the mill. She was earning the livelihood for the
family now, temporarily. And the Germans were thrifty.
If for no other reason he thought Klein would not imperil
either his daughter's safety or her salary.
There was a good bit of talk about German hate, but surely
there was no hate in Klein.
Something else Dunbar had said stuck in his mind.
“We've got to get wise, and soon. It's too big a job for
the regular departments to handle. Every city in the country
and every town ought to have a civilian organization to watch
and to fight it if it has to. They're hiding among us every-
where, and every citizen has got to be a sleuth, if we're to
counter their moves. Every man his own detective !"
He had smiled as he said it, but Clayton had surmised a
great earnestness and considerable knowledge behind the
smile.


CHAPTER X
ELIGHT HAVERFORD was to come out in December,
but there were times when the Doctor wondered if she
was really as keen about it as she pretended to be. He found
her once or twice, her usually active hands idle in her lap,
and a pensive droop to her humorous young mouth.
"Tired, honey?” he asked, on one of those occasions.
“No. Just talking to myself.”
"Say a few nice things for me, while you're about it, then.”
“Nice things ! I don't deserve them.”
“What awful crime have you been committing? Break it
to me gently. You know my weak heart."
"Your tobacco heart!” she said, severely. “Well, I've been
committing a mental murder, if you want to know the facts.
Don't protest. It's done. She's quite dead already."
“Good gracious! And I have reared this young viper
Who is she?"
"I don't intend to make you an accessory, daddy."
But behind her smile he felt a real hurt. He would have
given a great deal to have taken her in his arms and tried
to coax out her trouble so he might comfort her. But that
essential fineness in him which his worldliness only covered
like a veneer told him not to force her confidence. Only, he
wandered off rather disconsolately to hunt his pipe and to
try to realize that Delight was now a woman grown, and
liable to woman's heart-aches.
"What do you think it is ?” he asked that night, when after
her nightly custom Mrs. Haverford had reached over from
the bed beside his and with a single competent gesture had
taken away his book and switched off his reading lamp, and
88. . .
away his his and wiHaverfordes


DANGEROUS DAYS
89
he had, with the courage of darkness, voiced a certain un-
easiness.
"Who do you think it is, you mean.”
“Very well, only the word is 'whom.'
Mrs. Haverford ignored this.
“It's that Hayden girl,” she said. “Toots. And Graham
Spencer."
“Do you think that Delight "
"She always has. For years."
Which was apparently quite clear to them both.
"If it had only been a nice girl,” Mrs. Haverford protested,
plaintively. “But Toots! She's fast, I'm sure of it.”
"My dear!"
"And that boy needs a decent girl, if anybody ever did. A
shallow mother, and a money-making father-all Toots Haya
den wants is his money. She's ages older than he is. I hear
he is there every day and all of Sundays."
The rector had precisely as much guile as a turtle dove,
and long after Mrs. Haverford gave unmistakable evidences
of slumber, he lay with his arms above his head, and plotted.
He had no conscience whatever about it. He threw his
scruples to the wind, and if it is possible to follow the twists
of a theological mind turned from the straight and narrow
way into the maze of conspiracy, his thoughts ran something
like this:
"She is Delight. Therefore to see her is to love her. To
see her with any other girl is to see her infinite superiority
and charm. Therefore "
Therefore, on the following Sunday afternoon, the totally
unsuspecting daughter of a good man gone wrong took a note
from the rector to the Hayden house, about something or
other of no importance, and was instructed to wait for an
answer. And the rector, vastly uneasy and rather pleased
with himself, took refuge in the parish house and waited ten
eternities, or one hour by the clock.
Delight herself was totally unsuspicious. The rectory on


DANGEROUS DAYS
a Sunday afternoon was very quiet, and she was glad to get
away. She drove over, and being in no hurry she went by
the Spencer house. She did that now and then, making vari-
ous excuses to herself, such as liking the policeman at the
corner or wanting to see the river from the end of the street.
But all she saw that day was Rodney Page going in, in a top
hat and very bright gloves.
"Precious !” said Delight to herself. Her bump of reverence
was very small.
But she felt a little thrill, as she always did, when she
passed the house. Since she could remember she had cared
for Graham. She did not actually know that she loved him.
She told herself bravely that she was awfully fond of him,
and that it was silly, because he never would amount to any-
thing. But she had a little argument of her own, for such
occasions, which said that being really fond of any one meant
knowing all about them and liking them anyhow.
She stopped the car at the Hayden house, and carried her
note to the door. When she went in, however, she was in-
stantly uncomfortable. The place reeked with smoke, and
undeniably there was dancing going on somewhere. A phono-
graph was scraping noisily. Delight's small nose lifted a lit-
tle. What a deadly place! Coming in from the fresh out-
doors, the noise and smoke and bar-room reek stifled her.
Then a door opened, and Marion Hayden was drawing her
into a room.
"How providential, Delight !” she said. “You'll take my
hand, won't you? It's Graham's dummy, and we want to
dance."
The two connecting rooms were full of people, and the air
was heavy. Through the haze she saw Graham, and nodded
to him, but with a little sinking of the heart. She was aware,
however, that he was looking at her with a curious intentness
and a certain expectancy. Maybe he only hoped she would let
him dance with Toots.
"No, thanks,” she said. “Sorry.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
“Why not, Delight? Just a hand, anyhow.”
“Three good reasons: I don't play cards on Sunday; I
don't ever play for money; and I'm stifling for breath already
in this air."
She was, indeed, a little breathless.
There was, had she only seen it, relief in Graham's face.
She did not belong there, he felt. Delight was—well, she
was different. He had not been thinking of her before she
came in; he forgot her promptly the moment she went out.
But she had given him, for an instant, a breath of the fresh
out-doors, and quietness and-perhaps something clean and
fine.
There was an insistent clamor that she stay, and Tommy
Hale even got down on his knees and made a quite impas-
sioned appeal. But Delight's chin was very high, although
she smiled.
"You are all very nice," she said. “But I'm sure I'd bore
you in a minute, and I'm certain you'd bore me. Besides,
I think you're quite likely to be raided.”
Which met with great applause.
But there was nothing of Delight of the high head when
she got out of her car and crept up the rectory steps. How
could she even have cared ? How could she? That was his
life, those were the people he chose to play with. She had
a sense of loss, rather than injury.
The rector, tapping at her door a little later, received the
answer to his note through a very narrow crack, and went
away feeling that the way of the wicked is indeed hard.
Clayton had been watching with growing concern Gra-
ham's intimacy with the gay crowd that revolved around
Marion Hayden. It was more thoughtless than vicious; more
pleasure-seeking than wicked; but its influence was bad, and
he knew it.
But he was very busy. At night he was too tired to con-
front the inevitable wrangle with Natalie that any protest


92
DANGEROUS DAYS
about Graham always evoked, and he was anxious not to dis-
turb the new rapprochement with the boy by direct criticism.
The middle of December, which found the construction
work at the new plant well advanced, saw the social season
definitely on, also, and he found himself night after night
going to dinners and then on to balls. There were fewer
private dances than in previous Winters, but society had taken
up various war activities and made them fashionable. The
result was great charity balls.
On these occasions he found himself watching for Audrey,
always. She had, with a sort of diabolical cleverness, suc-
ceeded in losing herself. Her house was sold, he knew, and
he had expected that she would let him know where to find
her. She had said she counted on him, and he had derived
an odd sort of comfort from the thought. It had warmed him
to think that, out of all the people he knew, to one woman
he meant something more than success.
But although he searched the gayest crowds with his eyes,
those hilarious groups of which she had been so frequently
the center, he did not find her. And there had been no letter
save a brief one without an address, enclosing her check for
the money she had borrowed. She had apparently gone, not
only out of her old life, but out of his as well.
At one of the great charity balls he met Nolan, and they
stood together watching the crowd.
"Pretty expensive, I take it,” Nolan said, indicating the
scene. "Orchestra, florist, supper-I wonder how much the
Belgians will get.”
"Personally, I'd rather send the money and get some sleep.”
"Precisely. But would you send the money? We've got
to have a quid pro quo, you know—most of us." He surveyed
the crowd with cynical, dissatisfied eyes. “At the end of two
years of the war," he observed, apropos of nothing, "five mil-
lion men are dead, and eleven million have been wounded. A
lot of them were doing this sort of thing two years ago."


DANGEROUS DAYS
our busin a hurtyao, whe
"I would like to know where we will be two years from
now.”
"Some of us won't be here. Have you seen Lloyd George's
speech on the German peace terms? That means going on to
the end. A speedy peace might have left us out, but there
will be no peace. Not yet, or soon.”
"And still we don't prepare!"
“The English tradition persists,” said the Irishman, bit-
terly. "We want to wait, and play to the last moment, and
then upset our business and overthrow the whole country,
trying to get ready in a hurry.”
"I wonder what they will do, when the time comes, with
men like you and myself?”
"Take our money," said Nolan viciously. "Tax our heads
off. Thank God I haven't a son.”
Clayton eyed him with the comprehension of long acquaint-
ance.
"Exactly," he said. “But you'll go yourself, if you can.”
"And fight for England ? I will not.”
He pursued the subject further, going into an excited ac-
count of Ireland's grievances. He was flushed and loquacious.
He quoted Lloyd George's "quagmire of distrust” in tones
raised over the noise of the band. And Clayton was con-
scious of a growing uneasiness. How much of it was real,
how much a pose? Was Nolan representative of the cultured
Irishman in America ? And if he was, what would be the
effect of their anti-English mania ? Would we find ourselves,
like the British, split into factions? Or would the country
be drawn together by trouble until it changed from a federa-
tion of states to a great nation, united and unbeatable ?
Were we really the melting pot of the world, and was war
the fiery furnace which was to fuse us together, or were there
elements, like Nolan, like the German-Americans, that would
never fuse?
He left Nolan still irritable and explosive, and danced once
with Natalie, his only dance of the evening. Then, finding


DANGEROUS DAYS
be mir other men he knew arveling idiot, like Chois the path.
The next day she missed it from its place, and Clayton's
man, interrogated, said he had asked to have it put away
somewhere. He did not care for it. Natalie raised her eye-
brows. She had thought the poems rather pretty.
One resolution Clayton made, as a result of that night. He
would not see Audrey again if he could help it. He was not
in love with her and he did not intend to be. He was deter-
minedly honest with himself. Men in his discontented state
were only too apt to build up a dream-woman, compounded
of their own starved fancy, and translate her into terms of
the first attractive woman who happened to cross the path.
He was not going to be a driveling idiot, like Chris and some
of the other men he knew. Things were bad, but they could
be much worse.
It happened then that when Audrey called him at the mill a
day or so later it was a very formal voice that came back to
her over the wire. She was quick to catch his tone.
“I suppose you hate being called in business hours, Clay!"
"Not at all.”
"That means yes, you know. But I'm going even further.
I'm coming down to see you."
"Why, is anything wrong?"
He could hear her laughter, a warm little chuckle.
“Don't be so urgent,” she said gayly. “I want to consult you.
That's all. May I come?”
There was a second's pause. Then,
"Don't you think I'd better come to see you?"
"I've only a little flat. I don't think you'll like it."
"That's nonsense. Where is it?"
She gave him the address.
"When shall I come?"
“Whenever it suits you. I have nothing to do. Say this
afiernoon about four."
That "nothing to do" was an odd change, in itself, for
Audrey had been in the habit of doling out her time like
sweetmeats.


96
DANGEROUS DAYS
to the mill as ourison of the inner room he observed to
"Where in the world have you been all this time?" he de-
manded, almost angrily. To his own surprise he was sud-
denly conscious of a sense of indignation and affront. She
had said she depended on him, and then she had gone away
and hidden herself. It was ridiculous.
"Just getting acquainted with myself,” she replied, with
something of her old airy manner. "Good-by."
His irritation passed as quickly as it came. He felt calm and
very sure of himself, and rather light-hearted. Joey, who was
hy now installed as an office adjunct, and who commonly
referred to the mill as "ours," heard him whistling blithely and
cocked an ear in the direction of the inner room.
"Guess we've made another million dollars," he observed to
the pencil-sharpener.
Clayton was not in the habit of paying afternoon calls on
women. The number of such calls that he had paid without
Natalie during his married life could have been numbered on
the fingers of his two hands. Most of the men he knew paid
such visits, dropping in somewhere for tea or a highball on the
way uptown. He had preferred his club, when he had a
little time, the society of other men.
He wondered if he should call Natalie and tell her. But
he decided against it. It was possible, for one thing, that
Audrey still did not wish her presence in town known. If she
did, she would tell Natalie herself. And it was possible, too,
that she wanted to discuss Chris, and the reason for his
going.
He felt a real sense of relief, when at last he saw her, to find
her looking much the same as ever. He hardly knew what he
had expected. Audrey, having warned him as to the apart-
ment, did not mention its poverty again. It was a tiny little
place, but it had an open fire in the living-room, and plain,
pale-yellow walls, and she had given it that curious air of dis-
tinction with which she managed, in her casual way, to invest
everything about her.


DANGEROUS DAYS
97
“I hope you observe how neat I am," she said, as she gave
him her hand. "My rooms, of course."
"Frightfully so."
He towered in the low room. Audrey sat down and sur-
veyed him as he stood by the fire.
“It is nice to have a man about again.”
"Do you mean to say you have been living here, without even
visitors, for two months ?”.
“You'll laugh. Clay, I'm studying!"
"Studying! What?"
“Stenography. Oh, it's not as bad as that. I don't have to
earn my living. I've just got to do something for my soul's
sake. I went all over the ground, and I saw I was just a cum-
berer of the earth, and then I thought "
She hesitated.
“What did you think?"
"If, some time or other, I could release a man to go and
fight, it would be the next best thing to giving myself. Not
here, necessarily; I don't believe we will ever go in. But
in England, anywhere."
"You've released Chris.”
"He released himself. And he's not fighting. He's driving
an ambulance."
He waited, hoping she would go on. He was not curious,
but he thought it might be good for her to talk Chris and the
trouble over with some one. But she sat silent, and suddenly
asked him if he cared for tea. He refused.
“How's Natalie ?"
"Very well."
"And the house?”
"Held up by cold weather now. It should be finished by
the end of April.”
"Clay,” she said, after a moment, “are you going to employ
women in the new munition works?"
“In certain departments, yes."


98
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I have a girl I want work for. She's not trained, of
course.”
“None of them are. We have to teach them. I can give you
a card to the employment department if you want it."
“Thanks.”
There was a short silence. She sat looking at the fire, and
he had a chance to notice the change in her. She had visualized
it herself. Her long ear-rings were gone, and with them some
of the insolence they had seemed to accentuate. She was not
rouged, and he had thought at first, for that reason, that she
looked ill. She was even differently dressed, in something
dark and girlish with a boyish white Eton collar.
"I wonder if you think I'm hiding, Clay,” she said, finally.
"Well, what are you doing?" He smiled down at her from
the hearth-rug.
"Paying my bills! That's not all the truth, either. I'll tell
you, Clay. I just got sick of it all. When Chris left I had a
chance to burn my bridges and I burned them. The same peo-
ple, the same talk, the same food, the same days filled with
the same silly things that took all my time and gave me
nothing."
“How long had you been feeling like that?”
"I don't know. Ever since the war, I suppose. I just got
to thinking— "
Her voice trailed off.
"I have some of Chris's Scotch, if you want a high-ball.”
“Thanks, no. Audrey, do you hear from Chris?”
"Yes. He's in a dangerous place now, and sometimes at
night - I suppose I did force him, in a way. He was doing
no good here, and I thought he would find himself over there.
But I didn't send him. He Tell me about making shells."
He was a little bit disappointed. Evidently she did not de-
pend on him enough to tell him Chris's story. But again, she
was being loyal to Chris.
He told her about the mill, phrasing his explanation in the
simplest language; the presses drilling on white-hot metal; the


DANGEROUS DAYS
great anvils; the forge; the machine-shop, with its lathes,
where the rough surfaces of the shells were first rough-turned
and then machined to the most exact measurements. And find-
ing her interested, he told her of England's women workers, in
their khaki-colored overalls and caps, and of the convent-
like silence and lack of movement in the filling-sheds, where
one entered with rubber-shod feet, and the women, silent and
intent, sat all day and all night, with queer veils over their
faces, filling shells with the death load.
Audrey listened, her hands clasped behind her head.
"If other women can do that sort of thing, why can't I,
Clay?"
"Nonsense."
"But why? I'm intelligent."
"It's not work for a lady."
"Lady! How old-fashioned you are! There are no ladies
any more. Just women. And if we aren't measured by our
usefulness instead of our general not-worth-a-damn-ness, well,
we ought to be. Oh, I've had time to think, lately."
He was hardly listening. Seeing her, after all those weeks,
had brought him a wonderful feeling of peace. The little
room, with its fire, was cozy and inviting. But he was quite
sure, looking down at her, that he was not in danger of falling
in love with her. There was no riot in him, no faint stirring
of the emotions of that hour with the mauve book.
There was no suspicion in him that the ways of love change
with the years, that the passions of the forties, when they come,
are to those of the early years as the deep sea to a shallow
lake, less easily roused, infinitely more terrible.
"This girl you spoke about, that was the business you men-
oned?"
"Yes." She hesitated. “I could have asked you that over
the telephone, couldn't I? The plain truth is that I've had
two bad months-never mind why, and Christmas was coming,
and—I just wanted to see your perfectly sane and normal
face again."


100
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I wish you'd let me know sooner where you were."
She evaded his eyes.
"I was getting settled, and studying, and learning to knit,
and-oh, I'm the most wretched knitter, Clay! I just stick at
it doggedly. I say to myself that hands that can play golf,
and use a pen, and shoot, and drive a car, have got to learn
to knit. But look here!”
She held up a forlorn looking sock to his amused gaze. “And
I think I'm a clever woman.”
"You're a very brave woman, Audrey," he said. “You'll let
me come back, won't you?”
“Heavens, yes. Whenever you like. And I'm going to stop
being a recluse. I just wanted to think over some things.”
On the way home he stopped at his florist's, and ordered a
mass of American beauties for her on Christmas morning.
She had sent her love to Natalie, so that night he told Natalie
he had seen her, and such details of her life as he knew.
"I'm glad she's coming to her senses,” Natalie said. “Every-
thing's been deadly dull without her. She always made things
go—I don't know just how," she added, as if she had been
turning her over in her mind. “What sort of business did she
want to see you about?”
"She has a girl she wants to get into the mill.”
"Good gracious, she must be changed,” said Natalie. And
proceeded-she was ready to go out to dinner-to one of her
long and critical surveys of herself in the cheval mirror. Re-
cently those surveys had been rather getting on Clayton's
nerves. She customarily talked, not to him, but to his reflec-
tion over her shoulder, when, indeed, she took her eyes from
herself,
"I wonder,” she said, fussing with a shoulder-strap, "who
Audrey will marry if anything happens to Chris ?"
She saw his face and raised her eyebrows.
"You needn't scowl like that. He's quite as likely as not
never to come back, isn't he? And Audrey didn't care a
pin for him.”
nerves. Those surveys had herself in the cher to one of had


DANGEROUS DAYS
101
“We're talking rather lightly of a very terrible thing, aren't
we?”
"Oh, you're not,” she retorted. “You think just the same
things as I do, but you're not so open about them. That's
all"


CHAPTER XI
GRAHAM was engaged. He hardly knew himself how it
J had come about. His affair with Marion had been, up to
the very moment of his blurted-out "I want you," as light-
hearted as that of any of the assorted young couples who
flirted and kissed behind the closed doors of that popular
house.
The crowd which frequented the Hayden home was gay,
tolerant and occasionally nasty. It made ardent love semi-
promiscuously, it drank rather more than it should, and its
desire for a good time often brought it rather close to the
danger line. It did not actually step over, but it hovered
gayly on the brink.
And Toots remained high-priestess of her little cult. The
men liked her. The girls imitated her. And Graham, young
as he was, seeing her popularity, was vastly gratified to find
himself standing high in her favor.
Marion was playing for the stake of the Spencer money.
In her intimate circle every one knew it but Graham.
"How's every little millionaire ?" was Tommy Hale's usual
greeting.
She knew only one way to handle men, and with the stake
of the Spencer money she tried every lure of her experience on
Graham. It was always Marion who on cold nights sat hud-
dled against him in the back seat of the Hayden's rather
shabby car, her warm ungloved hand in his. It was Marion
who taught him to mix the newest of cocktails, and who later
praised his skill. It was Marion who insisted on his having a
third, too, when the second had already set his ears drumming.
The effect on the boy of her steady propinquity, of her
constant caressing touches, of the general letting-down of the
102


DANGEROUS DAYS
103
bars of restraint, was to rouse in him impulses of which he
was only vaguely conscious, and his proposal of marriage,
when it finally came, was by nature of a confession. He had
kissed her, not for the first time, but this time she had let him
hold her, and he had rained kisses on her face.
“I want you," he had said, huskily.
And even afterward, when the thing was done, and she had
said she would marry him, she had to ask him if he loved her.
"I-of course I do,” he had said. And had drawn her back
into his arms.
He wanted to marry her at once. It was the strongest urge
of his life, and put into his pleading an almost pathetic earnest-
ness. But she was firm enough now.
“I don't think your family will be crazy about this, you
know."
"What do we care for the family? They're not marrying
you, are they?"
"They will have to help to support me, won't they?”.
And he had felt a trifle chilled.
It was not a part of Marion's program to enter the Spencer
family unwelcomed. She had a furtive fear of Clayton
Spencer, the fear of the indirect for the direct, of the design-
ing woman for the essentially simple and open male. It was
not on her cards to marry Graham and to try to live on hi:
salary.
So for a few weeks the engagement was concealed even
from Mrs. Hayden, and Graham, who had received some stock
from his father on his twenty-first birthday, secretly sold a
few shares and bought the engagement ring. With that Mar-
ion breather easier. It was absolute evidence.
Her methods were the methods of her kind and her time.
To allure a man by every wile she knew, and having won him
to keep him uncertain and uneasy, was her perfectly simple
reed. So she reduced love to its cheapest terms, passion and
jealousy, played on them both, and made Graham alternately
happy and wretched.


104
DANGEROUS DAYS
Once he found Rodney Page there, lounging about with the
manner of a habitué. It seemed to Graham that he was always
stumbling over Rodney those days, either at home, with draw-
ings and color sketches spread out before him, or at the Hay-
den house.
"What's he hanging around here for?” he demanded when
Rodney, having bent over Marion's hand and kissed it, had
gone away. "If he could see that bare spot on the top of his
head he'd stop all that kow-towing."
"You're being rather vulgar, aren't you?" Marion had said.
"He's a very old friend and a very dear one."
"Probably in love with you once, like all the rest ?".
He had expected denial from her, but she had held her
cigaret up in the air, and reflectively regarded its small gilt
tip.
"I'm afraid he's rather unhappy. Poor Rod!”
"About me?"
"About me."
"Look here, Toots,” he burst out. "I'm playing square with
you. I never go anywhere but here. I—I'm perfectly straight
with you. But every time here I find some of your old guard
hanging round. It makes me wild."
"They've always come here, and as long as our engagement
isn't known, I can't very well stop them."
"Then let me go to father."
"He'll turn you out, you know. I know men, dear old thing,
and father is going to raise a merry little hell about us. He's
the sort who wants to choose his son's wife for him. He'd
like to play Providence." She watched him, smiling, but with
slightly narrowed eyes. "I rather think he has somebody in
mind for you now."
"I don't believe it.”
“Of course you don't. But he has."
"Who?"
“Delight. She's exactly the sort he thinks you'll need. He


DANGEROUS DAYS
Ιος
still thinks you are a little boy, Graham, so he picks out a nice
little girl for you. Such a nice little girl.”
The amused contempt in her voice made him angry-for
Delight rather than himself. He was extremely grown-up
and dignified the rest of the afternoon; he stood very tall and
straight, and spoke in his deepest voice.
It became rather an obsession in him to prove his man-
hood, and added to that was the effect of Marion's constant,
insidious appeal to the surging blood of his youth. And, day
after day, he was shut in his office with Anna Klein.
He thought he was madly in love with Marion. He knew
that he was not at all in love with Anna Klein. But she
helped to relieve the office tedium.
He was often aware, sitting at his desk, with Anna before
nim, notebook in hand, that while he read his letters her eyes
were on him. More than once he met them, and there was
something in them that healed his wounded vanity. He was
a man to her. He was indeed almost a god, but that he did
not know. In his present frame of mind, he would have ac-
cepted even that, however.
Then, one day he kissed her. She was standing very close,
and the impulse was quick and irresistible. She made no
effort to leave his arms, and he kissed her again.
“Like me a little, do you?" he had asked, smiling into her
eyes.
Oh, I do, I do!” she had replied, hoarsely.
It was almost an exact reversal of his relationship with
Marion. There the huskiness was his, the triumphant smile
was Marion's. And the feeling of being adored without stint
or reservation warmed him.
He released her then, but their relationship had taken on a
new phase. He would stand against the outer door, to prevent
its sudden opening. And she would walk toward him, fright-
ened and helpless until his arms closed about her. It was en-
tirely a game to him. There were days, when Marion was
trying, or the work of his department was nagging him, when
oras Marion's Cathe huskiness versal, of his",


106
DANGEROUS DAYS
he scarcely noticed her at all. But again the mischief in him,
the idler, the newly awakened hunting male, took him to her
with arms outheld and the look of triumph in his eyes that she
mistook for love.
On one such occasion Joey came near to surprising a situa-
tion, so near that his sophisticated young mind guessed rather
more than the truth. He went out, whistling.
He waited until Graham had joined the office force in the
mill lunchroom, and invented an errand back to Graham's
office. Anna was there, powdering her nose with the aid of
a mirror fastened inside her purse.
Joey had adopted Clayton with a sort of fierce passion, hid-
den behind a pose of patronage.
"He's all right,” he would say to the boys gathered at noon
in the mill yard. “He's kinda short-tempered sometimes,
but me, I understand him. And there ain't many of these
here money kings that would sit up in a hospital the way he
did with me."
The mill yard had had quite enough of that night in the
hospital. It would fall on him in one of those half-playful,
half-vicious attacks that are the humor of the street, and some-
times it was rather a battered Joey who returned to Clayton's
"handsome office, to assist him in running the mill.
But it was a very cool and slightly scornful Joey who con-
fronted Anna that noon hour. He lost no time in prelimi-
naries.
"What do you think you're doing, anyhow?” he demanded.
“Powdering my nose, if you insist on knowing."
They spoke the same language. Anna knew what was com-
ing, and was on guard instantly.
"You cut it out, that's all.”
"You cut out of this office. And that's all."
Joey sat down on Graham's desk and folded his arms.
"What are you going to get out of it, anyhow?" he said
with a shift from bullying to argument.
"Out of what?"


DANGEROUS DAYS
107
"You know, all right."
She whirled on him.
"Now see here, Joey,” she said. "You run out and play.
I'll not have any little boys meddling in my affairs."
Joey slid off the desk and surveyed her with an impish smile.
"Your affairs !” he repeated. "What the hell do I care about
your affairs? I'm thinking of the boss. It's up to him if he
wants to keep German spies on the place. But it's up to some
of us here to keep our eyes open, so that they don't do any
harm."
Sheer outrage made Anna's face pale. She had known for
some time that the other girls kept away from her, and she
had accepted it with the stolidity of her blood. She had no
German sympathies; her sympathies in the war lay nowhere.
But-she a spy!
"You get out of here," she said furiously, “or I'll go to Mr.
Spencer and complain about you. I'm no more a spy than you
are. Not as much !--the way you come sneaking around lis-
tening and watching! Now you get out.”
And Joey had gone, slowly to show that the going was of
his own free well, and whistling. He went out and closed
the door. Then he opened it and stuck his head in.
“You be good,” he volunteered, “and when the little old
U. S. gets to mixing up with the swine over there, I'll bring
you a nice fat Hun as a present."


DANGEROUS DAYS
109
gianter resentment, Toots Haydene-loves-me-n
take or own rious "# 1001Graham
of that kindly pair who loved her so. Alone in her room,
dressed to go down-stairs, Delight drew a long breath and
picked up her flowers which Clayton Spencer had sent. It
had been his kindly custom for years to send to each little
débutante, as she made her bow, a great armful of white
lilacs and trailing tiny white rosebuds.
"Fifty dollars, probably,” Delight reflected. “And the Bel-
gians needing flannels. It's dreadful.”
Her resentment against Graham was dying. After all, ho
was only a child in Toots Hayden's hands. And she made one
of those curious “He-loves-me-he-loves-me-not" arrangements
in her own mind. If Graham came that afternoon, she would
take it as a sign that there was still some good in him, and
she would try to save him from himself. She had been rather
nasty to him. If he did not come
A great many came, mostly women, with a sprinkling of
men. The rector, who loved people, was in his element. He
was proud of Delight, proud of his home; he had never ceased
being proud of his wife. He knew who exactly had sent
each basket of flowers, each hanging bunch. "Your exquisite
orchids,” he would say; or, "that perfectly charming basket.
It is there, just beside Mrs. Haverford.”
But when Natalie Spencer came in alone, splendid in Rus-
sian sables, 'he happened to be looking at Delight, and he saw
the light die out of her eyes.
Natalie had tried to bring Graham with her. She had gone
into his room that morning while he was dressing and asked
him. To tell the truth, she was uneasy about Marion Hayden
and his growing intimacy there.
"You will, won't you, Graham, dear?”
"Sorry, mother. I just can't. I'm taking a girl out.”
"I suppose it's Marion."
Her tone caused him to turn and look at her.
“Yes, it's Marion. What's wrong with that?”
"It's so silly, Graham. She's older than you are. And she's
not really nice, Graham. I don't mean anything horrid, but
into his o tell the trimacy therein, dear


DANGEROUS DAYS
III
“Thank you,” he said gravely. “I much appreciate your
telling me."
Mrs. Hayden had lowered her voice still more. The revela-
tion took on the appearance of conspiracy.
"In the early spring, probably," she said, "we shall need
your services, and your blessing."
So that was the end of one dream. He had dreamed sa
many—in his youth, of spiritualizing his worldly flock; in
middle life, of a bishopric; he had dreamed of sons, to carry
on the name he had meant to make famous. But the failures
of those dreams had been at once his own failure and his own
disappointment. This was different.
He was profoundly depressed. He wandered out of the
crowd and, after colliding with a man from the caterer's in a
dark rear hall, found his way up the servant's staircase to the
small back room where he kept the lares and penates of his
quiet life, his pipe, his fishing rods, a shabby old smoking coat,
and back files of magazines which he intended some day to
read, when he got round to it.
The little room was jammed with old furniture, stripped
from the lower floor to make room for the crowd. He had to
get down on his knees and crawl under a table to reach his
pipe. But he achieved it finally, still with an air of abstrac-
tion, and lighted it. Then, as there was no place to sit down,
he stood in the center of the little room and thought.
He did not go down again. He heard the noise of the ar-
riving and departing motors subside, its replacement by the
sound of clattering china, being washed below in the pantry.
He went down finally, to be served with a meal largely sup-
plemented by the left-overs of the afternoon refreshments,
ornate salads, fancy ices, and an overwhelming table decora-
tion that shut him off from his wife and Delight, and left him
in magnificent solitude behind a pyramid of flowers.
Bits of the afternoon's gossip reached him; the comments on
Delight's dress and her flowers; the reasons certain people


I12
DANGEROUS DAYS
had not come. But nothing of the subject nearest his heart.
At the end of the meal Delight got up.
"I'm going to call up Mr. Spencer,” she said. "He has about
fifty dollars' worth of thanks coming to him.”
"I didn't see Graham," said Mrs. Haverford. "Was he
here?"
Delight stood poised for flight.
“He couldn't come because he had enough to do being two
places at once. His mother said he was working, and Mrs.
Hayden said he had taken Marion to the Country Club. I
don't know why they take the trouble to lie to me."


CHAPTER XIII
CHRISTMAS day of the year of our Lord, 1916, dawned
u on a world which seemed to have forgotten the Man of
Peace. In Asia Minor the Allies celebrated it by the capture
of a strong Turkish position at Maghdadah. The Germans
spent it concentrating at Dead Man's Hill; the British were
ejected from enemy positions near Arras. There was no
Christmas truce. The death-grip had come.
Germany, conscious of her superiority in men, and her hypo-
critical peace offers unanimously rejected, was preparing to
free herself from the last restraint of civilization and to begin
unrestricted submarine warfare.
On Christmas morning Clayton received a letter from Chris.
Evidently it had come by hand, for it was mailed in America.
"Dear Clay: I am not at all sure that you will care to hear
from me. In fact, I have tried two or three times to write to
you, and have given it up. But I am lonelier than Billy-be-
damned, and if it were not for Audrey's letters I wouldn't
care which shell got me and my little cart.
“I don't know whether you know why I got out, or not.
Perhaps you don't. I'd been a fool and a scoundrel, and I've
had time, between fusses, to know just how rotten I've been.
But I'm not going to whine to you. What I am trying to get
over is that I'm through with the old stuff for good.
“God only knows why I am writing to you, anyhow-unless
it is because I've always thought you were pretty near right.
And I'd like to feel that now and then you are seeing Audrey,
and bucking her up a bit. I think she's rather down.
“Do you know, Clay, I think this is a darned critical time.
The press hasn't got it yet, but both the British and the French
113


114
DANGEROUS DAYS
are hard up against it. They'll fight until there is no one left
to fight, but these damned Germans seem to have no breaking-
point. They haven't any temperament, I daresay, or maybe
it is soul they lack. But they'll fight to the last man also, and
the plain truth is that there are too many of them.
"It looks mighty bad, unless we come in. And I don't mind
saying that there are a good many eyes over here straining
across the old Atlantic. Are we doing anything, I wonder?
Getting ready? The officers here say we can't expand an army
to get enough men without a draft law. Can you see the ad-
ministration endangering the next election with a draft law?
Not on your life.
"I'm on the wagon, Clay. Honestly, it's funny. I don't
mind telling you I'm darned miserable sometimes. But then
I get busy, and I'm so blooming glad in a rush to get water
that doesn't smell to heaven that I don't want anything else.
“I suppose they'll give us a good hate on Christmas. Well,
think of me sometimes when you sit down to dinner, and you
might drink to our coming in. If we have a principle to divide
among us we shall have to.”
Clayton read the letter twice.
He and Natalie lunched alone, Natalie in radiant good
humor. His gift to her had been a high collar of small dia-
monds magnificently set, and Natalie, whose throat commenced
to worry her, had welcomed it rapturously. Also, he had that
morning notified Graham that his salary had been raised to
five thousand dollars.
Graham had shown relief rather than pleasure.
"I daresay I won't earn it, Father," he had said. "But I'll
at least try to keep out of debt on it."
"If you can't, better let me be your banker, Graham."
The boy had flushed. Then he had disappeared, as usual,
and Clayton and Natalie sat across from each other, in their
high-armed lion chairs, and made a pretense of Christmas
gayety. True to Natalie's sense of the fitness of things, a small


DANGEROUS DAYS
115
Nuremberg Christmas tree, hung with tiny toys and lighted
with small candles, stood in the center of the table.
"We are dining out,” she explained. “So I thought we'd
use it now."
"It's very pretty,” Clayton acknowledged. And he wondered
if Natalie felt at all as he did, the vast room and the two men
serving, with Graham no one knew where, and that travesty
of Christmas joy between them. His mind wandered to long
ago Christmases.
"It's not so very long since we had a real tree," he observed.
"Do you remember the one that fell and smashed all the things
on it? And how Graham heard it and came down ?".
“Horribly messy things," said Natalie, and watched the
second man critically. He was new, and she decided he was
awkward.
She chattered through the meal, however, with that light
gayety of hers which was not gayety at all, and always of the
country house.
“The dining-room floor is to be oak, with a marble border,"
she said. “You remember the ones we saw in Italy? And the
ceiling is blue and gold. You'll love the ceiling, Clay."
There was claret with the luncheon, and Clayton, raising his
glass, thought of Chris and the water that smelled to heaven.
Natalie's mind was on loggias by that time.
"An upstairs loggia, too,” she said. "Bordered with red
geraniums. I loathe geraniums, but the color is good. Rod-
ney wants Japanese screens and things, but I'm not sure.
What do you think?"
"I think you're a better judge than I am,” he replied, smil-
ing. He had had to come back a long way, but he made the
effort.
"It's hardly worth while struggling to have things attrac-
tive for you," she observed petulantly. "You never notice,
anyhow. Clay, do you know that you sit hours and hours, and
never talk to me?"
"No! Do I? I'm sorry."


116
DANGEROUS DAYS
"You're a perfectly dreary person to have around.”
“I'll talk to you, my dear. But I'm not much good at houses.
Give me something I understand.”
“The mill, I suppose! Or the war!"
"Do I really talk of the war?”
"When you talk at all. What in the world do you think
about, Clay, when you sit with your eyes on nothing? It's a
vicious habit."
"Oh, ships and sails and sealing wax and cabbages and
kings," he said, lightly.
That afternoon Natalie slept, and the house took on the
tomb-like quiet of an establishment where the first word in
service is silence. Clay wandered about, feeling an inex-
pressible loneliness of spirit. On those days which work did
not fill he was always discontented. He thought of the club,
but the vision of those disconsolate groups of homeless bache-
lors who gathered there on all festivals that centered about a
family focus was unattractive.
All at once, he realized that, since he had wakened that
morning, he had been wanting to see Audrey. He wanted to
talk to her, real talk, not gossip. Not country houses. Not
personalities. Not recrimination. Such talk as Audrey her-
self had always led at dinner parties: of men and affairs, of
big issues, of the war.
He felt suddenly that he must talk about the war to some
one.
Natalie was still sleeping when he went down-stairs. It had
been raining, but a cold wind was covering the pavement with
a glaze of ice. Here and there men in top hats, like himself,
were making their way to Christmas calls. Children clinging
to the arms of governesses, their feet in high arctics, slid
laughing on the ice. A belated florist's wagon was still deliv-
ering Christmas plants tied with bright red bows. The street
held more of festivity to Clayton than had his house. Even
the shop windows, as he walked toward Audrey's unfashion-


DANGEROUS DAYS
117
able new neighborhood, cried out their message of peace.
Peace—when there was no peace.
Audrey was alone, but her little room was crowded with
· gifts and flowers.
"I was hoping you would come, Clay,” she said. “I've had
some visitors, but they're gone. I'll tell them down-stairs that
I'm not at home, and we can really talk." .
“That's what I came for.”
And when she had telephoned; “I've had a letter from Chris,
Audrey."
She read it slowly, and he was surprised, when she finally
looked up, to find tears in her eyes.
“Poor old Chris !” she said. “I've never told you the story,
have I, Clay? Of course I know perfectly well I haven't.
There was another woman. I think I could have understood
it, perhaps, if she had been a different sort of a woman. But
- I suppose it hurt my pride. I didn't love him. She was
such a vulgar little thing. Not even pretty. just-woman.”
He nodded.
"He was fastidious, too. I don't understand it. And he
swears he never cared for her. I don't believe he did, either.
I suppose there's no explanation for these things. They just
happen. It's the life we live, I dare say. When I look
back She's the girl I sent into the mill."
He was distinctly shocked.
“But, Audrey," he protested, "you are not seeing her, are
you?”
“Now and then. She has fastened herself on me, in a way.
Don't scowl like that. She says she is straight now and that
she only wants a chance to work. She's off the stage for good.
She-danced. That money I got from you was for her. She
was waiting, up-stairs. Chris was behind with her rent, and
she was going to lose her furniture."
“That you should have to do such a thing!” he protested.
"It's—well, it's infamous.”
But she only smiled.


118
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Well, I've never been particularly shielded. It hasn't hurt
me. I don't even hate her. But I'm puzzled sometimes.
Where there's love it might be understandable. Most of us
would hate to have to stand the test of real love, I daresay.
There's a time in every one's life, I suppose, when love seems
to be the only thing that matters.”
That was what the poet in that idiotic book had said: “There
is no other joy."
"Even you, Clay,” she reflected, smilingly. “You big, grave
men go all to pieces, sometimes.”
"I never have,” he retorted.
She returned Chris's letter to him.
“There," she said. "I've had my little whimper, and I feel
better. Now talk to me."
The little clock was striking six when at last he rose to go.
The room was dark, with only the glow of the wood fire on
Audrey's face. He found her very lovely, rather chastened
and subdued, but much more appealing than in her old days
of sparkle and high spirits.
"You are looking very sweet, Audrey."
"Am I? How nice of you!"
She got up and stood on the hearth-rug beside him, looking
up at him. Then, "Don't be startled, Clay," she announced,
smilingly. “I am going to kiss you—for Christmas."
And kiss him she did, putting both hands on his shoulders,
and rising on her toes to do it. It was a very small kiss, and
Clayton took it calmly, and as she intended him to take it. But
it was, at that, rather a fushed Audrey who bade him good-
night and God bless you.
Clayton took away with him from that visit a great peace
and a great relief. He had talked out to her for more than
an hour of the many things that puzzled and bewildered him.
He had talked war, and the mill, and even Graham and his
problems. And by talking of them some of them had clarified.
A little of his unrest had gone. He felt encouraged, he had
a new strength to go on. It was wonderful, he reflected,


DANGEROUS DAYS
119
what the friendship of a woman could mean to a man. He
was quite convinced that it was only friendship.
He turned toward home reluctantly. Behind him was the
glow of Audrey's fire, and the glow that had been in her eyes
when he entered. If a man had such a woman behind him,
He went into his great, silent house, and the door closed be-
hind him like a prison gate.
For a long time after he had gone, Audrey, doors closed to
visitors, sat alone by her fire, with one of his roses held close
to her cheek.
In her small upper room, in a white frame cottage on the
hill overlooking the Spencer furnaces, Anna Klein, locked
away from prying eyes, sat that same Christmas evening and
closely inspected a tiny gold wrist-watch. And now and then,
like Audrey, she pressed it to her face.
Not the gift, but the giver.


CHAPTER XIV.
L AVING turned Dunbar and his protective league over
11 to Hutchinson, the general manager, Clayton had put
him out of his mind. But during the week after Christmas
he reached the office early one morning to find that keen and
rather shabby gentleman already there, waiting.
Not precisely waiting, for he was standing by one of the
windows, well back from it, and inspecting the mill yard with
sharp, darting glances.
"Hello, Dunbar," said Clayton, and proceeded to shed his
fur-lined coat. Dunbar turned and surveyed him with the
grudging admiration of the undersized man for the tall one.
“Cold morning," he said, coming forward. "Not that I sup-
pose you know it.” He glanced at the coat.
"I thought Hutchinson said that you'd gone away."
"Been to Washington. I brought something back that will
inaterest Youtside his coar of photogr. he said
From inside his coat he produced a small leather case, and
took from it a number of photographs.
"I rather gathered, Mr. Spencer," he said dryly, "when I was
here last that you thought me an alarmist. I don't know that
I blame you. We always think the other fellow may get it,
but that we are safe. You might glance at those photo-
graphs."
He spread them out on the desk. Beyond the windows the
mill roared on; men shouted, the locomotive whistled, a long
file of laborers with wheelbarrows went by. And from a new
building going up came the hammering of the riveting-ma-
chines, so like the rapid explosions of machine guns.
"Interesting, aren't they?" queried Dunbar. “This is a
clock-bomb with a strap for carrying it under a coat. That's
120


DANGEROUS DAYS
121
a lump of coal-only it isn't. It's got enough explosive inside
to blow up a battleship. It's meant for that, primarily. That's
fire-confetti-damnable stuff-understand it's what burned
up most of Belgium. And that's a fountain-pen. What do
you think of that? Use one yourself, don't you? Don't leave
it lying around. That's all.”
“What on earth can they do with a fountain-pen?”
"One of their best little tricks," said Mr. Dunbar, with a
note of grudging admiration in his voice. "Here's a cut of the
mechanism. You sit down, dip your pen, and commence to
write. There's the striking pin, or whatever they call it. It
hits here, and-good night !"
"Do you mean to say they're using things like that here?”
"I mean to say they're planning to, if they haven't already.
That coal now, you'd see that go into your furnaces, or under
your boilers, or wherever you use it, and wouldn't worry,
would you?"
"Are these actual photographs ?”
"Made from articles taken from a German officer's trunk,
in a neutral country. He was on his way somewhere, I im-
agine."
Clayton sat silent. Then he took out his fountain-pen and
surveyed it with a smile.
"Rather off fountain-pens for a time, I take it !” observed
Dunbar. "Well, I've something else for you. You've got one
of the best little I. W. W. workers in the country right here
in your mill. Some of them aren't so bad-hot air and noth-
ing else. But this fellow's a fanatic. Which is the same as
saying he's crazy."
“Who is he?
"Name's Rudolph Klein. He's a sort of relation to the
chap that got out. Old man's been sore on him, but I under-
stand he's hanging around the Klein place again."
Clayton considered.
"I don't remember him. Of course, I can't keep track of
the men. We'll get rid of him.”


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DANGEROUS DAYS
Mr. Dunbar eyed him.
“That's the best thing you can think of?"
"I don't want him round, do I?”.
"Nine of you men out of ten say that. You'd turn him loose
and so warn him. Not only that, but he'll be off on his devil's
work somewhere. Perhaps here. Perhaps elsewhere. And
we want him where we can find him. See here, Mr. Spen-
cer, d'you ever hear of counter-espionage?"
Clayton never had, but the term explained itself.
"Set a spy to watch a spy,” said Dunbar. “Let him think
he's going on fine. Find his confederates. Let them get ready
to spring something. And then-get them. Remember," he
added with sarcasm, "we're still neutral. You can't lock a man
up because he goes around yelling 'Down with capital! The
whole country is ready to yell it with him. And, even if you
find him with a bomb under his coat, labeled 'made in Ger-
many,' it's hard to link Germans up with the thing. He can
say that he always buys his bombs in Germany. That they
make the best bombs in the world. That he likes the way they
pack 'em, and their polite trade methods."
Clayton listened, thinking hard.
"We have a daughter of Klein's here. She is my son's sec
retary."
Dunbar glanced at him quickly, but his eyes were on the
window.
"I know that."
“Think I should get rid of her ?”.
Dunbar hesitated. He liked Clayton Spencer, and it was
his business just then to know something about the Kleins.
It would be a good thing for Clayton Spencer's boy if they
got rid of the girl.
On the other hand, to keep her there and watch her was
certainly a bigger thing. If she stayed there might be trouble,
but it would concern the boy only. If she left, and if she
was one link in the chain to snare Rudolph, there might be a
disaster costing many lives. He made his decision quickly.


DANGEROUS DAYS
123
"Keep her, by all means," he said. “And don't tell Mr.
Graham anything. He's young, and he'd be likely to show
something. I suppose she gets considerable data where she
is?"
"Only of the one department. But that's a fair indication
of the rest."
Dunbar rose.
"I'm inclined to think there's nothing to that end of it,” he
said. “The old chap is sulky, but he's not dangerous. It's
Rudolph I'm afraid of." .
At the luncheon hour that day Clayton, having finished his
mail, went to Graham's office. He seldom did that, but he was
uneasy. He wanted to see the girl. He wanted to look her
over with this new idea in his mind. She had been a quiet
little thing, he remembered; thorough, but not brilliant. He
had sent her to Graham from his own office. He disliked even
the idea of suspecting her; his natural chivalry revolted from
suspecting any woman.
Joey, who customarily ate his luncheon on Clayton's desk
in his absence, followed by one of Clayton's cigarets, watched
him across the yard, and whistled as he saw him enter Gra-
ham's small building. ,
"Well, what do you think of that?" he reflected. “I hope
he coughs before he goes in.”
But Clayton did not happen to cough. Graham's office was
empty, but there was a sound of voices from Anna Klein's
small room beyond. He crossed to the door and opened it, to
stand astonished, his hand on the door-knob.
Anna Klein was seated at her desk, with her luncheon
spread before her on a newspaper, and seated on the desk, a
sandwich in one hand, the other resting on Anna's shoulder,
was Graham. He was laughing when Clayton opened the
door, but the smile froze on his face. He slid off her desk.
“Want me, father?"
“Yes,” said Clayton, curtly. And went out, leaving the door
open. A sort of stricken silence followed his exit, then Gra-


124
DANGEROUS DAYS
ham put down the sandwich and went out, closing the door
behind him. He stood just inside it in the outer room, rather
pale, but looking his father in the eyes.
"Sorry, father," he said. "I didn't hear you. I- "
"What has that to do with it?"
The boy was silent. To Clayton he looked furtive, guilty.
His very expression condemned him far more than the inci-
dent itself. And Clayton, along with his anger, was puzzled
as to his best course. Dunbar had said to leave the girl where
she was. But-was it feasible under these circumstances ?
He was rather irritated than angry. He considered a flirta-
tion with one's stenographer rotten bad taste, at any time. The
business world, to his mind, was divided into two kinds of
men, those who did that sort of thing, and those who did not.
It was a code, rather than a creed, that the boy had violated.
Besides, he had had a surprise. The girl who sat laughing
into Graham's face was not the Anna Klein he remembered,
a shy, drab little thing, badly dressed, rather sallow and un-
smiling. Here was a young woman undeniably attractive
slightly rouged, trim in her white blouse, and with an air of
piquancy that was added, had he known it, by the large imi.
tation pearl earrings she wore.
“Get your hat and go to lunch, Graham,” he said. “And
you might try to remember that a slightly different stand-
ard of conduct is expected from my son, here, than may be
the standard of some of the other men."
"It doesn't mean anything, that sort of fooling."
"You and I may know that. The girl may not."
Then he went out, and Graham returned unhappily to the
inner room. Anna was not crying; she was too frightened
to cry. She had sat without moving, her hand still clutching
her untouched sandwich. Graham looked at her and tried to
smile.
"I'm gone, I suppose ?"
"Don't you worry about that,” he said, with boyish bravado.
"Don't you worry about that, little girl."


DANGEROUS DAYS
125
"Father will kill me," she whispered. "He's queer these
days, and if I go home and have to tell him— " She shud.
dered.
"I'll see you get something else, if the worst comes, you
know."
She glanced up at him with that look of dog-like fidelity
that always touched him.
"I'll find you something good,” he promised.
"Something good," she repeated, with sudden bitterness.
"And you'll get another girl here, and flirt with her, and make
her crazy about you, and "
"Honestly, do you like me like that?"
"I'm just mad about you,” she said miserably.
Frightened though he was, her wretchedness appealed to
him. The thought that she cared for him, too, was a salve
to his outraged pride. A moment ago, in the other room,
he had felt like a bad small boy. As with Marion, Anna
nade him feel every inch a man. But she gave him what
Marion did not, the feeling of her complete surrender. Mare
ion would take; this girl would give.
He bent down and put his arms around her.
"Poor little girl!” he said. "Poor little girl!"


CHAPTER XV
THE gay and fashionable crowd of which Audrey had
1 been the center played madly that winter. The short
six weeks of the season were already close to an end. By
mid-January the south and California would have claimed
most of the women and some of the men. There were a few,
of course, who saw the inevitable catastrophe: the Mackenzies
had laid up their house-boat on the west coast of Florida.
Denis Nolan had let his little place at Pinehurst.
The advance wave of the war tide, the increased cost of
living, had sobered and made thoughtful the middle class,
but above in the great businesses, and below among the la-
boring people, money was plentiful and extravagance ran
riot.
And Audrey Valentine's world missed her. It refused to
accept her poverty as an excuse, and clamored for her.
It wanted her to sit again at a piano, somewhere, anywhere,
with a lighted cigaret on the music-rack, and sing her husky,
naive little songs. It wanted her cool audacity. It wanted
her for week-end parties and bridge, and to canter on frosty
mornings on its best horses and make slaves of the park
policemen, so that she might jump forbidden fences. It
wanted to see her oust its grinning chauffeurs, and drive its
best cars at their best speed.
Audrey Valentine leading a cloistered life! Impossible!
Selfish!
And Audrey was not cut out for solitude. She did not
mind poverty. She found it rather a relief to acknowledge
what had always been the fact. But she did mind loneliness.
And her idea of making herself over into something useful
was not working out particularly well. She spent two hours
126


DANGEROUS DAYS
127
a day, at a down-town school, struggling with shorthand, and
her writing-table was always littered with papers covered
with queer hooks and curves, or with typed sheets beginning:
mMessrs Smitk and Co.,: Dear Sirs."
Clayton Spencer met her late in December, walking fever-
ishly along with a book under her arm, and a half-desperate
ook in her eyes. He felt a little thrill when he saw her,
which should have warned him but did not.
She did not even greet him. She stopped and held out her
book to him.
"Take it !” she said. "I've thrown it away twice, and two
wretched men have run after me and brought it back.”
He took it and glanced at it.
"Spelling! Can't you spell ?"
"Certainly I can spell,” she said with dignity. "I'm a very
good speller. Clay, there isn't an “i” in business, is there?”
“It is generally considered necessary to have two pretty
good eyes in business.” But he saw then that she was really
rather despairing. “There is, one 'i,'” he said. “It seems
foolish, doesn't it? Audrey dear, what are you trying to do?
For heaven's sake, if it's money "
"It isn't that. I have enough. Honestly, Clay, I just had
some sort of an idea that I'd been playing long enough. But
I'm only good for play. That man this morning said as much,
when we fussed about my spelling. He said I'd better write
a new dictionary.”
Clayton threw back his head and laughed, and after a mo-
ment she laughed, too. But as he went on his face was grave.
Somebody ought to be looking after her. It was not for some
time that he realized he carried the absurd little spelling-
book. He took it back to the office with him, and put it in
the back of a drawer of his desk. Joey, coming in some time
later, found him, with the drawer open, and something in
his hands which he hastily put away. Later on, Joey investi-


128
DANGEROUS DAYS
gated that drawer, and found the little book. He inspected
it with a mixture of surprise and scorn.
"Spelling!” he muttered. “And a hundred dollar a month
girl to spell for him!”
It was Rodney Page who forced Audrey out of her seclu-
sion.
Rodney had had a prosperous year, and for some time his
conscience had been bothering him. For a good many years
he had blithely accepted the invitations of his friends—din-
ners, balls, week-end and yachting parties, paying his way
with an occasional box of flowers. He decided, that last
winter of peace, to turn host and, true to instinct, to do the
unusual.
It was Natalie who gave him the suggestion.
"Why don't you turn your carriage-house into a studio,
and give a studio warming, Roddie? It would be fun fixing
it up. And you might make it fancy dress."
Before long, of course, he had accepted the idea as of his
own originating, and was hard at work.
Rodney's house had been his father's. He still lived there,
although the business district had encroached closely. And
for some time he had used the large stable and carriage-house
at the rear as a place in which to store the odd bits of furni-
ture, old mirrors and odds and ends that he had picked up
here and there. Now and then, as to Natalie, he sold some
of them, but he was a collector, not a merchant. In his way,
he was an artist.
In the upper floor he had built a skylight, and there, in odd
hours, he worked out, in water-color, sketches of interiors,
sometimes for houses he was building, sometimes purely for
the pleasure of the thing.
The war had brought him enormous increase in his collec-
tion. Owners of French châteaus, driven to poverty, were
sending to America treasures of all sorts of furniture, tap-
estries, carpets, old fountains, porcelains, even carved wood-


DANGEROUS DAYS
129
work and ancient mantels, and Rodney, from the mixed mo
tives of business and pride, decided to exhibit them.
The old brick floor of the stable he replaced with hand-
made tiles. The box-stalls were small display-rooms, hung
with tapestries and lighted with candles in old French sconces.
The great carriage-room became a refectory, with Jacobean
and old monastery chairs, and the vast loft overhead, reached
by a narrow staircase that clung to the wall, was railed on
its exposed side, waxed as to floor, hung with lanterns, and
became a ballroom.
Natalie worked with him, spending much time and a prodi.
gious amount of energy. There was springing up between
them one of those curious and dangerous intimacies, of idle-
ness on the woman's part, of admiration on the man's, which
sometimes develop into a wholly spurious passion. Prob-
ably Rodney realized it; certainly Natalie did not. She liked
his admiration; she dressed, each day, for Rodney's unfailing
comment on her clothes.
"Clay never notices what I wear,” she said, once, plain-
tively.
So it was Rodney who brought Audrey Valentine out of
her seclusion, and he did it by making her angry. He dropped
in to see her between Christmas and New-years, and made
a plea.
"A stable-warming!" she said. "How interesting! And
iancy dress! Are you going to have them come as grooms,
or jockeys? If I were going I'd go as a circus-rider. I used
to be able to stand up on a running horse. Of course you're
having horses. What's a stable without a horse?"
He saw she was laughing at him and was rather resentfui.
"I told you I have made it into a studio.”
But when he implored her to go, she was obdurate.
"Do go away and let me alone, Rodney," she said at last.
"I loathe fancy-dress parties."
"It won't be a party without you."
“Then don't have it. I've told you, over and over, I'm not


130
DANGEROUS DAYS
going out. It isn't decent this year, in my opinion. And,
anyhow, I haven't any money, any clothes, any anything. A
bad evening at bridge, and I shouldn't be able to pay my
rent."
“That's nonsense. Why do you let people say you are
moping about Chris? You're not."
"Of course not."
She sat up.
"What else are they saying?"
"Well, there's some talk, naturally. You can't be as popu-
lar as you have been, and then just drop out, without some
gossip. It's not bad.”
"What sort of talk?”.
He was very uncomfortable.
"Well, of course, you have been pretty strong on the war
stuff "
"Oh, they think I sent him!”
"If only you wouldn't hide, Audrey. That's what has made
the talk. It's not Chris's going.”
"I'm not hiding. That's idiotic. I was bored to death, if
you want the truth. Look here, Rodney. You're not being
honest. What do they say about Chris and myself ?”
He was cornered.
"Is it-about another woman?”
"Well, of course now and then—there ar: always such
stories. And of course Chris "
“Yes, they knew Chris." Her voice was scornful. “So
they think I'm moping and hiding because — How inter-
esting!"
She sat back, with her old insolent smile.
"Poor Chris !” she said. “The only man in the lot except
Clay Spencer who is doing his bit for the war, and they—
when is your party, Roddie?"
"New-year's Eve."
“I'll come,” she said. And smiling again, dangerously, "I'U
come, with bells on.”


CHAPTER XVI
THERE had been once, in Herman Klein the making of
T a good American. He had come to America, not at the
call of freedom, but of peace and plenty. Nevertheless, he
had possibilities.
Taken in time he might have become a good American.
But nothing was done to stimulate in him a sentiment for his
adopted land. He would, indeed, have been, for all his citi-
zenship papers, a man without a country but for one thing.
The Fatherland had never let go. When he went to the
Turnverein, it was to hear the old tongue, to sing the oid
songs. Visiting Germans from overseas were constantly lec-
turing, holding before him the vision of great Germany. He
saw moving-pictures of Germany; he went to meetings which
commenced with "Die Wacht am Rhine." One Christmas he
received a handsome copy of a photograph of the Kaiser
through the mail. He never knew who sent it, but he had
it framed in a gilt frame, and it hung over the fireplace in the
sitting-room.
He had been adopted by America, but he had not adopted
America, save his own tiny bit of it. He took what the new
country gave him with no faintest sense that he owed any.
thing in return beyond his small yearly taxes. He was neither
friendly nor inimical.
His creed through the years had been simple: to owe no
man money, even for a day; to spend less than he earned;
to own his own home; to rise early, work hard, and to live
at peace with his neighbors. He had learned English and had
sent Anna to the public school. He spoke English with her,
always. And on Sunday he put on his best clothes, and sat
in the German Lutheran church, dozing occasionally, but
always rigidly erect.
131


132
DANGEROUS DAYS
With his first savings he had bought a home, a tiny two-
roomed frame cottage on a hill above the Spencer mill, with
a bit of waste land that he turned into a thrifty garden. Anna.
was born there, and her mother had died there ten years later.
But long enough before that he had added four rooms, and
bought an adjoining lot. At that time the hill had been
green; the way to the little white house had been along and
up a winding path, where in the spring the early wild flowers
came out on sunny banks, and the first buds of the neigh-
borhood were on Klein's own lilac-bushes.
He had had a magnificent sense of independence those days,
and of freedom.
He voted religiously, and now and then in the evenings he:
had been the moderate member of a mild socialist group.
Theoretically, he believed that no man should amass a fortune
by the labor of others. Actually he felt himself well paid, a.
respected member of society, and a property owner.
In the early morning, winter and summer, he emerged into
the small side porch of his cottage and there threw over
himself a pail of cold water from the well outside. Then he
rubbed down, dressed in the open air behind the old awning
hung there, took a dozen deep breaths and a cup of coffee,
and was off for work. The addition of a bathroom, with
running hot water, had made no change in his daily habits.
He was very strict with Anna, and with the women who,
one after another, kept house for him.
"I'll have no men lounging around," was his first instrucs
tion on engaging them. And to Anna his solicitude took the
form almost of espionage. The only young man he tolerated
about the place was a distant relative, Rudolph Klein.
On Sunday evenings Rudolph came in to supper. But even
Rudolph found it hard to get a word with the girl alone.
"What's eating him, anyhow," he demanded of Anna one
Sunday evening, when by the accident of a neighbor calling
old Herman to the gate, he had the chance of a word.
"He knows a lot about you fellows,” Anna had said. “And


DANGEROUS DAYS
133
the more he knows the less he trusts you. I don't wonder."
"He hasn't anything on me."
But Anna had come to the limit of her patience with her
father at last.
"What's the matter with you?" she demanded angrily one
night, when Herman had sat with his pipe in his mouth, and
had refused her permission to go to the moving-pictures with
another girl. “Do you think I'm going on forever like this,
without a chance to play? I'm sick of it. That's all.”
“You vill not run around with the girls on this hill." He
had conquered all but the English "w.” He still pronounced
it like a “v."
"What's the matter with the girls on this hill?" And when
he smoked on in imperturbable silence, she had flamed into a
fury.
"This is free America," she reminded him. “It's not Ger-
many. And I've stood about all I can. I work all day, and
I need a little fun. I'm going.”
And she had gone, rather shaky as to the knees, but with
her head held high, leaving him on the little veranda with
his dead pipe in his mouth and his German-American news-
paper held before his face. She had returned, still terrified,
to find the house dark and the doors locked, and rather than
confess to any one, she had spent the night in a chair out of
joors.
At dawn she had heard him at the side of the house, draw-
ing water for his bath. He had gone through his morning
program as usual, by the sounds, and had started off for
work without an inquiry about her. Only when she heard
the gate click had she hammered at the front door and been
admitted by the untidy servant.
"Fine way to treat me !" she had stormed, and for a part of
that day she was convinced that she would never go back
home again. But fear of her father was the strongest emo-
tion she knew, and she went back that night, as usual. It
not being Herman's way to bother with greetings, she had


DANGEROUS DAYS
135
But, for all that, he was not a man the German organiza-
tion in America put much faith in. Rudolph, feeling his way,
had had one or two conversations with him early in the war
that had made him report adversely.
"Let them stop all this fighting,'' Herman had said. “What
matter now who commenced it? Let them all stop. It is the
only way.”
"Sure, let them stop!” said Rudolph, easily. "Let them
stop trying to destroy Germany."
"That is nonsense,” Herman affirmed, sturdily. “Do you
think I know nothing? I, who was in the Prussian Guard for
five years. Think you I know nothing of the plan?"
The report of the German atrocities, however, found him
frankly incredulous, and one noon hour, in the mill, having
read the Belgian King's statement that the German army in
Belgium had protected its advance with women and children,
Rudolph found him tearing the papers to shreds furiously.
"Such lies!” he cried. “It is not possible that they should
be believed."
The sinking of the Lusitania, however, left him thoughtful
and depressed. In vain Rudolph argued with him.
“They were warned,” he said. "If they chose to take the
chance, is it Germany's fault? If you tell me not to put my
hand on a certain piece in a machine and I do it anyhow, is
it your fault if I lose a hand?”.
Old Herman eyed him shrewdly.
"And if Anna had been on the ship, you think the same,
eh?"
Rudolph had colored.
For some time now Rudolph had been in love with Anna.
He had not had much encouragement. She went Jut with
him, since he was her only means of escape, but she treated
him rather cavalierly, criticized his clothes and speech, laughed
openly at his occasional lapses into sentiment, and was, once
in a long time, so kind that she set his heart leaping.
Until the return of Graham Spencer, all had gone fairly


136
DANGEROUS DAYS
h Anna had ant enough to her about her the
well. But with his installment in the mill, Rudolph's relations
with Anna had changed. She had grown prettier-Rudolph
was not observant enough to mark what made the change,
but he knew that he was madder about her than ever. And
she had assumed toward him an attitude of almost scornful
indifference. The effect on his undisciplined young mind
was bad. He had no suspicion of Graham. He only knew
his own desperate unhappiness. In the meetings held twica
weekly in a hall on Third Street he was reckless, advocating
violence constantly. The conservative element watched hins
uneasily; the others kept an eye on him, for future use.
The closing week of the old year found the situation
strained in the Klein house. Herman had had plenty of op:
portunities for situations, but all of them had to do directly
or indirectly with the making of munitions for the Allies. Old
firms in other liries were not taking on new men. It was the
munition wor':s that were increasing their personnel. And by
that time the determination not to assist Germany's enemies
had become a fixed one.
The day after Christmas, in pursuit of this idea, he com-
manded Anna to leave the mill. But she had defied him,
for the second time in her life, her face pale to the lips.
"Not on your life," she had said. “You may want to
starve. I don't.”
"There is plenty of other work."
"Don't you kid yourself. And, anyhow, I'm not looking
for it. I don't mind working so you can sit here and nurse
a grouch, but I certainly don't intend to start hunting an-
other job."
She had eyed him morosely. "If you ask me," she con-
tinued, "you're out of your mind. What's Germany to you?
You forgot it as fast as you could, until this war came along.
You and Rudolph! You're long distance patriots, you are.”
"I will not help my country's enemies," he had said dog-
gedly.


138
DANGEROUS DAYS
He had saved Anna from her father. But he was of no
mind to save her from himself. She would have to account
to him for that watch.
Anna herself lay awake until late. She saw already the
difficulties before her. Herman was suspicious. He might
inquire. There were other girls from the mill offices on the
hill. And he might speak to Rudolph.
The next evening she found Rudolph waiting for her out-
side the mill gate. Together they started up what had been,
when Herman bought the cottage, a green hill with a winding
path. But the smoke and ore from the mill had long ago
turned it to bareness, had killed the trees and shrubbery, and
filled the little hollows where once the first arbutus had hid-
den with cinders and ore dust. The path had become a
crooked street, lined with wooden houses, and paved with
worn and broken bricks.
Where once Herman Klein had carried his pail and whistled
bits of Shubert as he climbed along, a long line of blackened
men made their evening way. Untidy children sat on the
curb, dogs lay in the center of the road, and women in all
stages of dishabille hung over the high railings of their porches
and watched for their men.
Under protest of giving her a lift up the hill, Rudolph
slipped his hand through Anna's left arm.
Immediately she knew that the movement was a pretext.
She could not free herself.
"Be good, now," he cautioned her. “I've got you. I want
to see that watch."
"You let me alone.”
"I'm going to see that watch."
With his free hand he felt under her sleeve and drew down
the bracelet.
"So the mill gave it to you, eh? That's a lie, and you
know it."
"I'll tell you, Rudolph,” she temporized. "Only don't tell


DANGEROUS DAYS
139
father. All the girls have watches, and I wanted one. So I
bought it.”
“That's a lie, too."
“On the installment plan,” she insisted. “A dollar a week,
that's straight. I've paid five on it already."
He was almost convinced, not quite. He unfastened it awk-
wardly and took it off her wrist. It was a plain little octag-
onal watch, and on the back was a monogram. The mono-
gram made him suspicious again.
"It's only gold filled, Rudolph,”
"Pretty classy monogram for a cheap watch." He held it
close; on the dial was the jeweler's name, a famous one. He
said nothing more, put it back on Anna's arm and released
her. At the next corner he left her, with a civil enough
good-by, but with rage in his heart.


CHAPTER XVII
THE New-year, destined to be so crucial, came in cheer.
1 fully enough. There was, to be sure, a trifle less ostenta.
tion in the public celebrations, but the usual amount of cham.
pagne brought in the most vital year in the history of the:
nation. The customary number of men, warmed by thar:
champagne, made reckless love to the women who happened
to be near them and forgot it by morning. And the women
themselves presented pictures of splendor of a peculiar gor..
geousness.
The fact that almost coincident with the war there hac
come into prominence an entirely new school of color formeci
one of the curious contrasts of the period. Into a drab world
there flamed strange and bizarre theatrical effects, in scenery
and costume. Some of it was beautiful, most of it merely
fantastic. But it was immediately reflected in the clothing oť
fashionable women. Europe, which had originated it, could
use it but little; but great opulent America adopted it and
made it her own.
So, while the rest of the world was gray, America flamed,
and Natalie Spencer, spending her days between dressmakers
and decorators, flamed with the rest.
On New-year's Eve Clayton Spencer always preceded the
annual ball of the City Club, of which he was president, by a.
dinner to the board of governors and their wives. It was
his dinner. He, and not Natalie, arranged the seating, ordered
the flowers, and planned the menu. He took considerable
pride in it; he liked to think that it was both beautiful and
dignified. His father had been president before him, and
he liked to think that he was carrying on his father's custom
with the punctilious dignity that had so characterized him.
140


DANGEROUS DAYS
141
He was dressed early. Natalie had been closeted with
Madeleine, her maid, and a hair-dresser, for hours. As he
went down-stairs he could hear her voice raised in querulous
protest about something.
When he went into the library Buckham was there stoop-
ing over the fire, his austere old face serious and intent.
"Well, another year almost gone, Buckham!” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Spencer."
"It would be interesting to know what the New-year holds."
"I hope it will bring you peace and happiness, sir.”
"Thank you."
And after Buckham had gone he thought that rather a
curious New-year's wish. Peace and happiness! Well, God
knows he wanted both. A vague comprehension of the under-
standing the upper servants of a household acquire as to the
inner life of the family stirred in him; how much they knew
and concealed under their impassive service.
When Natalie came down the staircase a few minutes later
she was swathed in her chinchilla evening wrap, and she
watched his face, after her custom when she expected to annoy
him, with the furtive look that he had grown to associate with
some unpleasantness.
"I hate dressing for a ball at this hour," she said, rather
breathlessly. “I don't feel half-dressed by midnight.'
Madeleine, in street costume, was behind her with a great
box.
"She has something for my hair,” she explained. Her tone
was nervous, but he was entirely unsuspicious.
"You don't mind if I don't go on to Page's, do you? I'm
rather tired, and I ought to stay at the club as late as I can.”
"Of course not. I shall probably pick up some people, any.
how. Everybody is going on."
In the car she chattered feverishly and he listened, lapsing
into one of the silences which her talkative spells always en-
forced.
“What flowers are you having?" she asked, finally.


142
DANGEROUS DAYS
"White lilacs and pussy-willow. Did your orchids come?"
“Thanks, yes. But I'm not wearing them. My gown is
flame color. They simply shrieked.
"Flame color?"
"A sort of orange," she explained. And, in a slightly
defiant tone: "Rodney's is a costume dance, you know."
“Do you mean you are in fancy dress?”.
“I am, indeed.”
He was rather startled. The annual dinner of the board
of governors of the City Club and their wives was a most
dignified function always. He was the youngest by far of
the men; the women were all frankly dowagers. They rep-
resented the conservative element of the city's social life,
that element which frowned on smartness and did not even
recognize the bizarre. It was old-fashioned, secure in its
position, influential, and slightly tedious.
"There will be plenty in fancy dress.”
"Not at the dinner."
"Stodgy old frumps !" was Natalie's comment. "I be-
lieve you would rather break one of the ten commandments
than one of the conventions,” she added.
It was when he saw her coming down the staircase in the
still empty clubhouse that he realized the reason for her de-
fiant attitude when she acknowledged to fancy dress. For
she wore a peacock costume of the most daring sort. Over
an orange foundation, eccentric in itself and very short, was
a vivid tunic covered with peacock feathers on gold tissue,
with a sweeping tail behind, and on her head was the towering
crest of a peacock on a gold bandeau. She waved a great pea-
cock fan, also, and half-way down the stairs she paused and
looked down at him, with half-frightened eyes.
"Do you like it?"
"It is very wonderful,” he said, gravely.
He could not hurt her. Her pleasure in it was too naive.
It dawned on him then that Natalie was really a child, a


DANGEROUS DAYS
143
spoiled and wilful child. And always afterward he tried to
remember that, and to judge her accordingly.
She came down, the upturned wired points of the tunic
trembling as she stepped. When she came closer he saw that
she was made up for the costume ball also, her face frankly
rouged, fine lines under her eyes, her lashes blackened. She
looked very lovely and quite unfamiliar. But he had deter-
mined not to spoil her evening, and he continued gravely
smiling.
"You'd better like it, Clay,” she said, and took a calculating
advantage of what she considered a softened mood. "It cost
a thousand dollars.”
She went on past him, toward the room where the florist
was still putting the finishing touches to the flowers on the
table. When the first guests arrived, she came back and
took her place near him, and he was uncomfortably aware
of the little start of surprise with which she burst upon each
new arrival. In the old and rather staid surroundings of the
club she looked out of place-oriental, extravagant, absurd.
And Clayton Spencer suffered. To draw him as he stood
in the club that last year of our peace, 1916, is to draw him
not only with his virtues but with his faults; his over emphasis
on small things; his jealousy for his dignity; his hatred of
the conspicuous and the unusual.
When, after the informal manner of clubs, the party went
in to dinner, he was having one of the bad hours of his life
to that time. And when, as was inevitable, the talk of the
rather serious table turned to the war, it seemed to him that
Natalie, gorgeous and painted, represented the very worst of
the country he loved, indifference, extravagance, and osten-
tatious display.
But Natalie was not America. Thank God, Natalie was
not America.
Already with the men she was having a triumph. The
women, soberly clad, glanced at each other with raised eye-
brows and cynical smiles. Above the band, already playing


144
DANGEROUS DAYS
in the balie extravaganing in the Supretty gentlemould be fee
in the ballroom, Clayton could hear old Terry Mackenzie pay-
ing Natalie extravagant, flagrant compliments.
"You should be sitting in the sun, or on a balcony," he was
saying, his eyes twinkling. “And pretty gentlemen with long!
curls and their hats tucked under their arms should be feed.
ing you nightingale tongues, or whatever it is you eat.”
“Bugs," said Natalie.
"But-tell me," Terry bent toward her, and Mrs. Terry
kept fascinated eyes on him. “Tell me, lovely creature
aren't peacocks unlucky?"
"Are they? What bad luck can happen to me because I
dress like this?"
"Frightfully bad luck," said Terry, jovially. “Some one
will undoubtedly carry you away, in the course of the even-
ing, and go madly through the world hunting a marble balus-
trade to set you on. I'll do it myself if you'll give me any
encouragement.”
Perhaps, had Clayton Spencer been entirely honest with
himself that night, he would have acknowledged that he had
had a vague hope of seeing Audrey at the club. Cars came
up, discharged their muffled occupants under the awning and
drove away again. Delight and Mrs. Haverford arrived and
he danced with Delight, to her great anxiety lest she might
not dance well. Graham came very late, in the wake of Mar-
ion Hayden.
But Audrey did not appear.
He waited until the New-year came in. The cotillion was
on then, and the favors for the midnight figure were gilt
cornucopias filled with loose flowers. The lights went out
for a moment on the hour, the twelve strokes were rung on a
triangle in the orchestra, and there was a moment's quiet.
Then the light blazed again, flowers and confetti were thrown,
and club servants in livery carried round trays of champagne.
Clayton, standing glass in hand, surveyed the scene with
a mixture of satisfaction and impatience. He found Terry
Mackenzie at his elbow.


DANGEROUS DAYS
145
“Great party, Clay,” he said. "Well, here's to 1917, and
may it bring luck.”
"May it bring peace,” said Clayton, and raised his glass.
Some time later going home in the car with Mrs. Mac-
kenzie, quiet and slightly grim beside him, Terry spoke out of
a thoughtful silence.
"There's something wrong with Clay," he said. "If ever
a fellow had a right to be happy-he has a queer look. Have
you noticed it?"
"Anybody married to Natalie Spencer would develop what
you call a queer look,” she replied, tartly.
"Don't you think he is in love with her ?”
"If you ask me, I think he has reached the point where he
can't bear the sight of her. But he doesn't know it."
"She's pretty.”
"So is a lamp-shade," replied Mrs. Terry, acidly. "Or a
kitten, or a fancy ice-cream. But you wouldn't care to be
married to them, would you?"
It was almost dawn when Natalie came in. Clayton had
not been asleep. He had got to thinking rather feverishly of
the New-year. Without in any way making a resolution, he
had determined to make it a better year than the last; to
be more gentle with Natalie, more understanding with Gra-
ham; to use his new prosperity wisely; to forget his own
lack of happiness in making others happy. He was very
vague about that. The search of the ages the rector had called
happiness, and one found it by giving it.
To his surprise, Natalie came into his bedroom, looking
like some queer oriental bird, vivid and strangely unlike her-
self.
“I saw your light. Heavens, what a party!"
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope you didn't mind my not
going on.”
"I wish you had. Clay, you'll never guess what happened."
"Probably not. What?


146
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Well, Audrey just made it, that's all. Funny! I wish
you'd seen some of their faces. Of course she was disgrace-
ful, but she took it off right away. But it was like her-no
one else would have dared."
His mouth felt dry. Audrey-disgraceful!
"It was in the stable, you know, I told you. And just at
midnight the doors opened and a big white horse leaped in
with Audrey on his back. No saddle—nothing. She was
dressed like a bare-back rider in the circus, short tulle skirts
and tights. They nearly mobbed her with joy.” She yawned.
“Well, I'm off to bed."
He roused himself.
"A happy New-year, my dear."
“Thanks,” she said, and wandered out, her absurd feathered
tail trailing behind her.
He lay back and closed his eyes. So Audrey had done
that, Audrey, who had been in his mind all those sleepless
hours; for he knew now that back of all his resolutions te
do better had been the thought of her.
He felt disappointed and bitter. The sad disillusion of
the middle years, still heroically clinging to faiths that ons
after another destroyed themselves, was his.


CHAPTER XVIII
AUDREY was frightened. She did not care a penny's
A worth what her little world thought. Indeed, she knew
that she had given it a new thrill and so had won its enthu-
siastic approval. She was afraid of what Clayton would
think.
She was absurdly quiet and virtuous all the next day,
gathered out her stockings and mended them; began a per-
sonal expenditure account for the New-year, heading it care-
fully with “darning silk, 50 cents”; wrote a long letter to
Chris, and listened for the telephone. If only he would call
her, so she could explain. Still, what could she explain ? She
had done it. It was water over the dam-and it is no fault
of Audrey's that she would probably have spelled it "damn.”
By noon she was fairly abject. She did not analyze her
own anxiety, or why the recollection of her escapade, which
would a short time before have filled her with a sort of un-
holy joy, now turned her sick and trembling.
Then, in ihe middle of the afternoon, Clay called her up.
She gasped a little when she heard his voice.
"I wanted to tell you, Audrey,” he said, "that we can prob-
ably use the girl you spoke about, rather soon.”
"Very well. Thank you. Is—wasn't there something else,
own, anxiety, or who fairly abject. She spelled it "damn.""
too ?”
"Something else?".
"You are angry, aren't you?”
He hesitated.
“Surprised. Not angry. I haven't any possible right to be
angry.”
“Will you come up and let me tell you about it, Clay?"
“I don't see how that will help any."
147


148
DANGEROUS DAYS
will help of that; her me, Audreseen all day little rog
"It will help me."
He laughed at that; her new humility was so unlike her.
"Why, of course I'll come, Audrey," he said, and as he
rang off he was happier than he had been all day.
He was coming. Audrey moved around the little room,
adjusting chairs, rearranging the flowers that had poured in
on New-year's day, brushing the hearth. And as she worked
she whistled. He would be getting into the car now. He
would be so far on his way. He would be almost there. She
ran into her bedroom and powdered her nose, with her lips
puckered, still whistling, and her heart singing.
But he scolded her thoroughly at first.
“Why on earth did you do it," he finished. “I still can't
understand. I see you one day, gravity itself, a serious young
woman-as you are to-day. And then I hear-it isn't like
you, Audrey."
"Oh yes, it is. It's exactly like me. Like one me. There
are others, of course."
She told him then, making pitiful confession of her own
pride and her anxiety to spare Chris's name.
"I couldn't bear to have them suspect he had gone to the
war because of a girl. Whatever he ran away from, Clay,
he's doing all right now."
He listened gravely, with, toward the end, a jealousy he
would not have acknowledged even to himself. Was it pos-
sible that she still loved Chris? Might she not, after the
fashion of women, be building a new and idealized Chris,
now that he had gone to war, out of his very common clay?
“He has done splendidly,” he agreed.
Again the warmth and coziness of the little room enveloped
him. Audrey's low huskily sweet voice, her quick smile, her
new and unaccustomed humility, and the odd sense of her
understanding, comforted him. She made her indefinite ap-
peal to the best that was in him.
Nothing so ennobles a man as to have some woman believe
in his nobility.


DANGEROUS DAYS
149
"Clay,” she said suddenly, "you are worrying about some-
thing."
"Nothing that won't straighten out, in time."
"Would it help to talk about it?'
He realized that he had really come to her to talk about it.
It had been in the back of his head all the time.
“I'm rather anxious about Graham.”
"Toots Hayden?”
“Partly."
"I'm afraid she's got him, Clay. There isn't a trick in the
game she doesn't know. He had about as much chance as
I have of being twenty again. She wants to make a wealthy
marriage, and she's picked on Graham. That's all.”
"It isn't only Marion. I'm afraid there's another girl, a
girl at the mill-his stenographer. I have no proof of any-
thing. In fact, I don't think there is anything yet. She's
in love with him, probably, or she thinks she is. I happened
on them together, and she looked Of course, if what you
say about Marion is true, he can not care for her, even, well,
in any way."
"Oh, nonsense, Clay. A man-especially a boy-can love
a half-dozen girls. He can be crazy about any girl he is with.
It may not be love, but it plays the same tricks with him that
the real thing does.”
"I can't believe that.”
"No. You wouldn't.”
She leaned back and watched him. How much of a boy he
was himself, anyhow! And yet how little he understood the
complicated problems of a boy like Graham, irresponsible but
responsive, rich without labor, with time for the sort of dal-
liance Clay himself at the same age had had neither leisure
nor inclination to indulge.
He was wandering about the room, his hands in his pockets,
his head bent. When he stopped:
"What am I to do with the girl, Audrey ?"
"Get rid of her. That's easy."


150
DANGEROUS DAYS
“Not so easy as it sounds."
He told her of Dunbar and the photographs, of Rudolph
Klein, and the problem as he saw it.
"So there I am,” he finished. "If I let her go, I lose one
of the links in Dunbar's chain. If I keep her-
"Can't Natalie talk to him? Sometimes a woman can get
to the bottom of these things when a man can't. He might
tell her all about it.”
"Possibly. But I think it unlikely Natalie would tell me."
She leaned over and patted his hand impulsively.
“What devils we women are !” she said. "Now and then
one of us gets what she deserves. That's me. And now and
then one of us get's something she doesn't deserve. And that's
Natalie. She's over-indulgent to Graham.”
"He is all she has.”
He has you. her voicemething.
Something in her voice made him turn and look at her.
"That ought to be something, you know,” she added. And
laughed a little.
“Does Natalie pay his debts ?”
"I rather think so."
But that was a subject he could not go on with.
"The fault is mine. I know my business better than I know
how to handle my life, or my family. I don't know why I
trouble you with it all, anyhow. You have enough.” He hesi-
tated. “That's not exactly true, either. I do know. I'm re-
lying on your woman's wit to help me. I'm wrong some-
how."
"About Graham?"
"I have a curious feeling that I am losing him. I can't
ask for his confidence. I can't, apparently, even deserve it.
I see him, day after day, with all the good stuff there is in
him, working as little as he can, drinking more than he should,
out half the night, running into debt-good heavens, Audrey,
what can I do?"
She hesitated.


DANGEROUS DAYS
151
"Of course, you know one thing that would save him,
Clay?"
“What?"
"Our getting into the war.”
"I ought not to have to lose my boy in order to find him.
But-we are going to be in it.”
He had risen and was standing, an elbow on the mantel-
piece, looking down at her.
"I suppose every man wonders, once in a while, how he'd
conduct himself in a crisis. When the Lusitania went down
I dare say a good many fellows wondered if they'd have been
able to keep their coward bodies out of the boats. I know
I did. And I wonder about myself now. What can I do if
we go into the war? I couldn't do a forced march of more
than five miles. I can't drill, or whatever they call it. I can
shoot clay pigeons, but I don't believe I could hit a German
coming at me with a bayonet at twenty feet. I'd be pretty
much of a total loss. Yet I'll want to do something."
And when she sat, very silent, looking into the fire: "You
see, you think it absurd yourself.”
"Hardly absurd,” she roused herself to look up at him. “If
it is, it's the sort of splendid absurdity I am proud of. I
was wondering what Natalie would say.”
"I don't believe it lies between a man and his wife. It's
between him and his God.”
He was rather ashamed of that, however, and sain after
he went away.


CHAPTER XIX
MTATALIE SPENCER was finding life full of interest
that winter. Now and then she read the headings in
the newspapers, not because she was really interested, but
that she might say, at the dinner-party which was to her the
proper end of a perfect day:
"What do you think of Turkey declaring her independ-
ence?"
Or:
"I see we have taken the Etoile Wood."
Clayton had overheard her more than once, and had mar-
veled at the dexterity with which, these leaders thrown out,
she was able to avoid committing herself further.
The new house engrossed her. She was seeing a great
deal of Rodney, too, and now and then she had fancied that
there was a different tone in Rodney's voice when he ad-
dressed her. She never analyzed that tone, or what it sug-
gested, but it gave her a new interest in life. She was always
marceled, massaged, freshly manicured. And she had found
a new facial treatment. Clayton, in his room at night, could
hear the sharp slapping of flesh on flesh, as Madeleine gently
pounded certain expensive creams into the skin of her face
and neck.
She refused all forms of war activity, although now and
then she put some appeal before Clayton and asked him if
he cared to send a check. He never suggested that she answer
any of these demands personally, after an experience early
in the winter.
"Why don't you send it yourself?" he had asked.
"Wouldn't you like it to go in your name?"
"It doesn't matter. I don't know any of the committee."
152


DANGEROUS DAYS
He had tried to explain what he meant.
"You might like to feel that you are doing something."
"I thought my allowance was only to dress on. If I'm to
attend to charities, too, you'll have to increase it.”
"But," he argued patiently, "if you only sent them cwenty-
five dollars, and did without some little thing to do it, you'd
feel rather more as though you were giving, wouldn't you?”
“Twenty-five dollars! And be laughed at !"
He had given in then.
"If I put an extra thousand dollars to your account to-
morrow, will you check it out to this fund?”
"It's too much.”
“Will you?"
"Yes, of course," she had agreed, indifferently. And he
had notified her that the money was in the bank. But two
months later the list of contributors was published, and
neither his name nor Natalie's was among them.
Toward personal service she had no inclination whatever.
She would promise anything, but the hour of fulfilling always
found her with something else to do. Yet she had kindly im-
pulses, at times, when something occurred to take her mind
from herself. She gave liberally to street mendicants. She
sent her car to be used by those of her friends who had none.
She was lavish with flowers to the sick—although Clayton
paid her florist bills.
She was lavish with money—but never with herself.
In the weeks after the opening of the new year Clayton
found himself watching her. He wondered sometimes just
what went on in her mind during the hours when she sat, her
hands folded, gazing into space. He could not tell. He sur-
mised her planning, always planning; the new house, a gown,
a hat, a party.
But late in January he began to think that she was plan-
ning something else. Old Terry Mackenzie had been there
one night, and he had asserted not only that war was com-


154
DANGEROUS DAYS
ticht comes, is everity had said. And een a roar of lavo
ing, but that we would be driven to conscription to raise an
army.
"They've all had to come to it,” he insisted. “And we will,
as sure as God made little fishes. You can't raise a million
volunteers for a war that's three thousand miles away."
"You mean, conscription among the laboring class ?” Nat-
alie had asked naïvely, and there had been a roar of laughter.
“Not at all,” Terry had said. And chuckled. “This war,
if it comes, is every man's burden, rich and poor. Only the
rich will give most, because they have most to give."
"I think that's ridiculous,” Natalie had said.
It was after that that Clayton began to wonder what she
was planning.
He came home late one afternoon to find that they were
spending the evening in, and to find a very serious Natalie
waiting, when he came down-stairs dressed for dinner. She
made an effort to be conversational, but it was a failure. He
was uneasily aware that she was watching him, inspecting,
calculating, choosing her moment. But it was not until they
were having coffee that she spoke.
“I'm uneasy about Graham, Clay.”
He looked up quickly.
“Yes?"
"I think he ought to go away somewhere.”
"He ought to stay here, and make a man of himself," he
came out, almost in spite of himself. He knew well enough
that such a note always roused Natalie's antagonism, and he
waited for the storm. But none came.
"He's not doing very well, is he?".
"He's not failing entirely. But he gives the best of himself
outside the mill. That's all.”
She puzzled him. Had she heard of Marion ?
"Don't you think, if he was away from this silly crowd he
plays with, as he calls it, that he would be better off ?” .
"Where, for instance ?"


DANGEROUS DAYS
155
“You keep an agent in England. He could go there. Or
to Russia, if the Russian contract goes through.”
He was still puzzled.
"But why England or Russia ?”
"Anywhere out of this country.”
"He doesn't have to leave this country to get away from a
designing woman.”
From her astonished expression, he knew that he had been
wrong. She was not trying to get him away from Marion.
From what?
She bent forward, her face set hard.
“What woman?”
Well, it was out. She might as well know it. "Don't you
think it possible, Natalie, that he may intend to marry Marion
Hayden?"
There was a very unpleasant half-hour after that. Marion
was a parasite of the rich. She had abused Natalie's hos-
pitality. She was designing. She played bridge for her dress
money. She had ensnared the boy.
And then:
"That settles it, I should think. He ought to leave America.
If you have a single thought for his welfare you'll send him
to England."
"Then you hadn't known about Marion when you proposed
that before?"
"No. I knew he was not doing well. And I'm anxious.
After all, he's my boy. He is "
"I know," he supplemented gravely. "He is all you have.
But I still don't understand why he must leave America."
It was not until she had gone up-stairs to her room, leav-
ing him uneasily pacing the library floor, that he found the
solution. Old Terry Mackenzie and his statement about con-
scription. Natalie wanted Graham sent out of the country,
so he would be safe. She would purchase for him a shameful
immunity, if war came. She would stultify the boy to keep
him safe. In that hour of clear vision he saw how she had


156
DANGEROUS DAYS
always stultified the boy, to keep him safe. He saw her life
a series of small subterfuges, of petty indulgences, of little
plots against himself, all directed toward securing Graham
immunity-from trouble at school, from debt, from his own
authority.
A wave of unreasoning anger surged over him, but with it
there was pity, too; pity for the narrowness of her life and
her mind, pity for her very selfishness. And for the first
time in his life he felt a shamefaced pity for himself. He
shook himself violently. When a man got sorry for him-
self-


CHAPTER XX
D UDOLPH KLEIN had not for a moment believed Anna's
I story about the watch, and on the day after he dis-
covered it on her wrist he verified his suspicions. During
his noon hour he went up-town and, with the confident swag-
ger of a certain type of man who feels himself out of place,
entered the jeweler's shop in question.
He had to wait for some little time, and he spent it in
surveying contemptuously the contents of the show-cases.
That even his wildest estimate fell far short of their value he
did not suspect, but his lips curled. This was where the
money earned by honest workmen was spent, that women
might gleam with such gewgaws. Wall Street bought them,
Wall Street which was forcing this country into the war to
protect its loans to the Allies. America was to pull Eng-
land's chestnuts out of the fire that women, and yet moci
women, might wear those strings of pearls, those glittering
diamond baubles.
Into his crooked mind there flashed a line from a speech
at the Third Street hall the night before: “War is hell. Let
those who want to, go to hell.”
SorWall Street bought pearls for its women, and the
dissolute sons of the rich bought gold wrist-watches for girls
they wanted to seduce. The expression on his face was so
terrible that the cierk behind the counter, waiting to find what
he wanted, was startled.
"I want to look at gold wrist-watches," he said. And eyed
the clerk for a trace of patronage.
"Ladies'?”
“Yes.”
He finally found one that was a duplicate of Anna's, and
157


158
DANGEROUS DAYS
examined it carefully. Yes, it was the same, the maker's
name on the dial, the space for the monogram on the back,
everything.
"How much is this one?”
"One hundred dollars.”
He almost dropped it. A hundred collars! Then he re-
membered Anna's story.
"Have you any gold-filled ones that look like this?”
"We do not handle gold-filled cases."
He put it down, and turned to go. Then he stopped.
"Don't sell on the installment plan, either, I suppose ?” The
sneer in his voice was clearer than his anxiety. In his mind,
he already knew the answer.
"Sorry. No."
He went out. So he had been right. That young skunk
had paid a hundred dollars for a watch for Anna. To Ru-
dolph it meant but one thing.
That had been early in January. For some days he kept his
own counsel, thinking, planning, watching. He was jealous
of Graham, but with a calculating jealousy that set him won-
dering how to turn his knowledge to his own advantage. And
Anna's lack of liberty comforted him somewhat. He couldn't
meet her outside the mill, at least not without his know-
ing it.
He established a system of espionage over her that drove
her almost to madness.
"What're you hanging round for?" she would demand wher
he stepped forward at the mill gate. “D'you suppose I neves
want to be by myself?”
Or:
"You just go away, Rudolph Klein. I'm going up with
some of the girls."
But she never lost him. He was beside her or at her heels.
his small crafty eyes on her. When he walked behind her
there was a sensuous gleam in them.
After a few weeks she became terrified. There was a cold-


160
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I have no money for Belgians," he said. He would not let
them come in. “Why should I help the Belgians ? Liars and
hypocrites !"
The story went about the neighborhood, and he knew it. He
cared nothing for popularity, but he resented losing his stand-
ing in the community. And all along he was convinced that he
was right; that the Belgians had lied. There had been, in the
Germany he had left, no such will to wanton killing. These
people were ignorant. Out of the depths of their ignorance
they talked.
He read only German newspapers. In the little room back
of Gustav Shroeder's he met only Germans. And always, at
his elbow, there was Rudolph.
Until the middle of January Rudolph had not been able to
get him to one of his incendiary meetings. Then one cold
night while Anna sewed by the lamp inside the little house,
Rudolph and Herman walked in the frozen garden, Herman
with his pipe, Rudolph with the cheap cigarets he used inces-
santly. Anna opened the door a crack and listened at first.
She was watchful of Rudolph, always, those days. But the
subject was not Anna.
"You think we get in, then ?" Herman asked.
"Sure.”
"But for what?"
"So 'Spencers' can make more money out of it,” said Ru.
dolph bitterly. “And others like them. But they and their
kind don't do the dying. It's the workers that go and die.
Look at Germany !"
"Yes. It is so in Germany."
"All this talk about democracy—that's bunk. Just plain
bunk. Why should the workers in this country kill the work-
ers in another? Why? To make money for capital-more
money."
"Ja," Herman assented. “That is what war is. Always the
same. I came here to get away from war.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
161
"Well, you didn't get far enough. You left a king behind,
but we've got a Czar here."
Herman was slowly, methodically, following an earlier train
of thought.
"I am a workman," he said. “I would not fight against
other workmen. Just as I, a German, will not fight against
other Germans.”
“But you would sit here, on the hill, and do nothing."
"What can I do? One man, and with no job.”
"Come to the meeting to-night.”
"You and your meetings!" the old German said impatiently.
"You talk. That's all.”
Rudolph lowered his voice.
"You think we only talk, eh? Well, you come and hear
some things. Talk! You come,” he coaxed, changing his
tone. “And we'll have some beer and schnitzel at Gus's after.
My treat. How about it?”
Old Herman assented. He was tired of the house, tired of
the frozen garden, tired of scolding the slovenly girl who
pottered around all day in a boudoir cap and slovenly wrapper.
Tired of Anna's rebellious face and pert answers.
He went inside the house and put a sweater under his coat,
and got his cap.
“I go out,” he said, to the impassive figure under the lamp.
"You will stay in."
“Oh, I don't know. I may take a walk.”
"You will stay in," he repeated, and followed Rudolph out-
side. There he reached in, secured the key, and locked the
door on the outside. Anna, listening and white with anger,
heard his ponderous steps going around to the back door, and
the click as he locked that one also.
"Beast !" she muttered. "German schwein."
It was after midnight when she heard him coming back.
She prepared to leap out of her bed when he came up-stairs,
to confront him angrily and tell him she was through. She
was leaving home. But long after she had miserably cried


162
DANGEROUS DAYS
herself to sleep, Herman sat below, his long-stemmed pipe in
his teeth, his stockinged feet spread to the dying fire.
In that small guarded hall that night he had learned many
surprising things, there and at Gus's afterward. The Father-
land's war was already being fought in America, and not only
by Germans. The workers of the world had banded themselves
together, according to the night's speakers. And because they
were workers they would not fight the German workers. It
was all perfectly simple. With the coöperation of the work-
ers of the world, which recognized no country but a vast
brotherhood of labor, it was possible to end war, all war.
In the meantime, while all the workers all over the world
were being organized, one prevented as much as possible any
assistance going to capitalistic England. One did some simple
thing—started a strike, or sawed lumber too short, or burned
a wheat-field, or put nails in harvesting machinery, or missent
perishable goods, or changed signal-lights on railroads, or
drove copper nails into fruit-trees, so they died. This was a
pity, the fruit-trees. But at least they did not furnish fruit
for Germany's enemies.
So each one did but one thing, and that small, so small that
it was difficult to discover. But there were two hundred thou-
sand men to do them, according to Rudolph, and that meant
& great deal.
Only one thing about the meeting Herman had not liked.
There were packages of wicked photographs going about.
Filthy things. When they came to him he had dropped them
on the floor. What had they to do with Germany's enemies,
or preventing America from going into the war?
Rudolph laughed when he dropped them.
They won't bite you !” he had said, and had stooped to pick
them up. But Herman had kept his foot on them.
So-America would go into the war against the Fatherland,
unless many hundreds of thousands did each their little bit.
And if they did not, America would go in, and fight for Eng-
land to control the seas, and the Spencer plant would make mil-


DANGEROUS DAYS
163
lions of shells that honest German workers, sweat-brothers of
the world, might die.
He remembered word for word the peroration of the even
ing's speech.
"We would extend the hand of brotherhood to the so-called
enemy, and strangle the cry for war in the fat white throats of
the blood-bloated money-lenders of Wall Street, before it be-
came articulate."
He was very tired. He stooped and picked up his shoes, and
with them in his hand, drawn to his old-time military erect-
ness, he stood for some time before the gilt-framed picture on
the wall. Then he went slowly and ponderously up-stairs to
bed.


CHAPTER XXI
TROM the moment, the day before Christmas, when Gra-
T ham had taken the little watch from his pocket and fas-
tened it on Anna's wrist, he was rather uneasily aware that she
had become his creature. He had had no intention of buying
Anna. He was certainly not in love with her. But he found
her amusing and at times comforting.
He had, of course, expected to lose her after the unlucky
day when Clayton had found them together, but Dunbar had
advised that she be kept on for a time at least. Mentally
Graham figured that the first of January would see her gone,
and the thought of a Christmas present for her was partly
compounded of remorse.
He had been buying a cigaret case for Marion when the
thought came to him. He had not bought a Christmas pres-
ent for a girl, except flowers, since the first year he was at
college. He had sent Delight one that year, a half-dozen little
leather-bound books of poetry. What a precious young prig
he must have been! He knew now that girls only pretended
to care for books. They wanted jewelry, and they got past
the family with it by pretending it was not real, or that they
had bought it out of their allowances. One of Toots' friends
was taking a set of silver fox from a man, and she was as
straight as a die. Oh, he knew girls, now.
The next day he asked Anna Klein: "What would you like
for Christmas?”
Anna, however, had insisted that she did not want a Christ-
mas present.
Later on, however, she had seen a watch one of the girls on
the hill had bought for twelve dollars, and on his further
insistence a day or so later she had said:
164


DANGEROUS DAYS
165
"Do you really want to know?"
“Of course I do."
"You oughtn't to spend money on me, you know."
"You let me attend to that. Now, out with it!"
So she told him rather nervously, for she felt that twelve
dollars was a considerable sum. He had laughed, and agreed
instantly, but when he went to buy it he found himself paying
a price that rather startled him.
"Don't you lose it, young lady?” he admonished her when,
the day before Christmas, he fastened it on her wrist. Then
he had stooped down to kiss her, and the intensity of feeling
in her face had startled him. “It's a good watch," he had said,
rather uneasily; "no excuse for your being late now !"
All the rest of the day she was radiant.
He meant well enough even then. He had never pretended
to love her. He accepted her adoration, petted and teased her
in return, worked off his occasional ill humors on her, was in-
deed conscious sometimes that he was behaving extremely well
in keeping things as they were.
But by the middle of January he began to grow uneasy. The
atmosphere at Marion's was bad; there was a knowledge of
life plus an easy toleration of certain human frailties that was
as insidious as a slow fever. The motto of live and let live
prevailed. And Marion refused to run away with him and
marry him, or to let him go to his father.
In his office all day long there was Anna, so yielding, so
surely his to take if he wished. Already he knew that things
there must either end or go forward. Human emotions do not
stand still; they either advance or go back, and every impulse
of his virile young body was urging him on.
He made at last an almost frenzied appeal to Marion to
marry him at once, but she refused flatly.
"I'm not going to ruin you,” she said. "If you can't bring
your people round, we'll just have to wait."
“They'd be all right, once it is done."
"Not if I know your father! Oh, he'd be all right--in tep


166
DANGEROUS DAYS
years or so. But what about the next two or three? We'd
have to live, wouldn't we?"
He lay awake most of the night thinking things over. Did
she really care for him, as Anna cared, for instance? She was
always talking about their having to live. If they couldn't
manage on his salary for a while, then it was because Marion
did not care enough to try. .
For the first time he began to question Marion's feeling for
him. She had been rather patronizing him lately. He had
overheard her, once, speaking of him as a nice kid, and it
rankled. In sheer assertion of his manhood he met Anna
Klein outside the mill at the noon hour, the next day, and took
her for a little ride in his car. After that he repeatedly did
the same thing, choosing infrequented streets and roads, dining
with her sometimes at a quiet hotel out on the Freeland road.
"How do you get away with this to your father?” he asked
her once.
"Tell him you're getting ready to move out to the new plant,
and we're working. He's not round much in the evenings now.
He's at meetings, or swilling beer at Gus's saloon. They're a
bad lot, Graham, that crowd at Gus's."
"How do you mean, bad?”.
"Well, they're Germans, for one thing, the sort that shouts
about the Fatherland. They make me sick.”
"Let's forget them, honey,” said Graham, and reaching
under the table-cloth, caught and held one of her hands.
He was beginning to look at things with the twisted vision
of Marion's friends. He intended only to flirt a little with
Anna Klein, but he considered that he was extremely virtuous
and, perhaps, a bit of a fool for letting things go at that.
Once, indeed, Tommy Hale happened on them in a road-house,
sitting very quietly with a glass of beer before Graham and a
lemonade in front of Anna, and had winked at him as though
he had received him into the brotherhood of those who were
seeing life.


168
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Nothing doing,” stated Mr. Dunbar, flatly. “Our informer
is tending bar at Gus's. Herman listens and drinks their beer,
but he's got the German fear of authority in him. He's a beer
socialist. That's all.”
But in that Mr. Dunbar left out of account the innate sav-
agery that lurked under Herman's phlegmatic surface.
"You don't think it would do if she was moved to another
office?"
"The point is this.” Dunbar moved his chair forward. “The
time may come when we will need the girl as an informer,
Rudolph Klein is infatuated with her. Now I understand that
she has a certain feeling of-loyalty to Mr. Graham. In that
case”-he glanced at Clayton-"the welfare of the many,
Mr. Spencer, against the few."
For a long time after he was gone Clayton sat at his desk,
thinking. Every instinct in him revolted against the situation
thus forced on him. There was something wrong with Dun-
bar's reasoning. Then it flashed on him that Dunbar probably
was right, and that their points of view were bitterly opposed.
Dunbar would have no scruples, because he was not quite a
gentleman. But war was a man's game. It was not the time
for fine distinctions of ethics. And Dunbar was certainly a
man.
If only he could talk it over with Natalie! But he knew
Natalie too well to expect any rational judgment from her.
She would demand at once that the girl should go. Yet he
needed a woman's mind on it. In any question of relationship
between the sexes men were creatures of impulse, but women
had plotted and planned through the ages. They might lose
their standards, but never their heads. Not that he put such
a thought into words. He merely knew that women were bet-
ter at such things than men.
That afternoon, as a result of much uncertainty, he took his
problem to Audrey. And Audrey gave him an answer.
“You've got to think of the mill, Clay," she said. “The Dun-
bar man is right. And all you or any other father of a boy


DANGEROUS DAYS
169
can do is to pray in season, and to trust to Graham's early
training."
And all the repressed bitterness in Clayton Spencer's heart
was in his answer.
"He never had any early training, Audrey. Oh, he had cer-
tain things. His manners, for instance. But other things—
I ought not to say that. It was my fault, too. I'm not blam-
ing only Natalie. Only now, when it is all we have to count
on "
He was full of remorse when he started for home. He felt
guilty of every disloyalty. And in masculine fashion he tried
to make up to Natalie for the truth that had been wrung from
him. He carried home a great bunch of roses for her. But
he carried home, too, a feeling of comfort and vague happiness,
as though the little room behind him still reached out and held
him in its warm embrace.


CHAPTER XXII
In the evening of the thirty-first of January Clayton and
1 Graham were waiting for Natalie to come down to dinner
when the bell rang, and Dunbar was announced. Graham
welcomed the interruption. He had been vaguely uneasy with
his father since that day in his office when Clayton had found
him on Anna Klein's desk. Clayton had tried to restore the
old friendliness of their relation, but the boy had only half-
heartedly met his advances. Now and then he himself made
an overture, but it was the almost timid advance of a puppy
that has been beaten. It left Clayton discouraged and alarmed,
set him to going back over the past for any severity on his part
to justify it. Now and then he wondered if, in Graham's fre-
quent closetings with Natalie, she did not covertly undermine
his influence with the boy, to increase her own.
But if she did, why? What was going on behind the in
passive, lovely mask that was her face?
Dunbar was abrupt, as usual.
“I've brought you some news, Mr. Spencer," he said. He
looked oddly vital and alive in the subdued and quiet room.
"They've shown their hand at last. But maybe you've heard
d. It left. Chóast for any se, in Gral
that him to going bar and the tite, she did
it.”
od as in ind over Chorward .
"I've heard nothing new."
“Then listen,” said Dunbar, bending forward over a table,
much as it was his habit to bend over Clayton's desk. “We're
in it at last. Or as good as in it. Unrestricted submarine war-
fare! All merchant-ships bound to and from Allied ports to
be sunk without warning! We're to be allowed-mark this,
it's funny !-we're to be allowed to send one ship a week to
England, nicely marked and carrying passengers only."
There was a little pause. Clayton drew a long breath.
170


DANGEROUS DAYS
171
ne felonde Grahat the boy he saw
an ammaGraham azy abo
"That means war," he said finally.
"Hell turned over and stirred up with a pitch-fork, if we
have any backbone at all,” agreed Dunbar. He turned to Gra-
ham. "You young fellows'll be crazy about this."
“You bet we will,” said Graham.
Clayton slipped an arm about the boy's shoulders. He could
not speak for a moment. All at once he saw what the news
meant. He saw Graham going into the horror across the sea.
He saw vast lines of marching men, boys like Graham, boys
who had frolicked through their careless days, whistled and
played and slept sound of nights, now laden like pack animals
and carrying the implements of death in their hands, going
forward to something too terrible to contemplate.
And a certain sure percentage of them would never come
back.
His arm tightened about the bov. When he withdrew it
Graham straightened.
• “If it's war, it's my war, father."
And Clayton replied, quietly:
"It is your war, old man.”
Dunbar turned his back and inspected Natalie's portrait.
When he faced about again Graham was lighting a cigaret,
and Natalie herself was entering the room. In her rose-col-
ored satin she looked exotic, beautiful, and Dunbar gave her a
fleeting glance of admiration as he bowed. She looked too
young to have a boy going to war. Behind her he suddenly
saw other women, thousands of other women, living luxurious
lives, sheltered and pampered, and suddenly called on to face
sacrifice without any training for it.
"Didn't know you were going out,” he said. "Sorry. I'll
run along now."
"We are dining at home," said Natalie, coldly. She re-
mained standing near the door, as a hint to the shabby gentle-
man with the alert eyes who stood by the table. But Dun-
bar had forgotten her already.
"I came here right away," he explained, “because you may


172
DANGEROUS DAYS
citcing into thestions as and Claytone sent wors and the men in
be having trouble now. In fact, I'm pretty sure you will. If
we declare war to-morrow, as we may-
“War!” said Natalie, and took a step forward.
Dunbar remembered her.
“We will probably declare war in a day or two. The Ger-
mans-
But Natalie was looking at Clayton with a hostility in her
eyes she took no trouble to conceal.
"I hope you'll be happy, now. You've been talking war,
wanting war-and now you've got it.”
She turned and went out of the room. The three men in
the library below heard her go up the stairs and the slam of
her door behind her. Later on she sent word that she did not
care for any dinner, and Clayton asked Dunbar to remain.
Practical questions as to the mill were discussed, Graham en-
tering into them with a new interest. He was flushed and ex-
cited. But Clayton was rather white and very quiet.
Once Graham took advantage of Dunbar's preoccupation
with his asparagus to say:
“You don't object to the aviation service, father?”
"Wherever you think you can be useful.”
After coffee Graham rose.
"I'll go and speak to mother," he said. And Clayton felt
in him a new manliness. It was as though his glance said,
"She is a woman, you know. War is men's work, work for
you and me. But it's hard on them.”
Afterward Clayton was to remember with surprise how
his friends gathered that night at the house. Nolan came in
early, his twisted grin rather accentuated, his tall frame more
than usually stooped. He stood in the doorway of the library,
one hand in his pocket, a familiar attitude which made him
look oddly boyish.
"Well!” he drawled, without greeting. “They've done it.
The English have got us. We hadn't a chance. The little
Welshman "
"Come in," Clayton said, "and talk like an American and not


DANGEROUS DAYS
173
an Irishman. I don't want to know what you think about
Lloyd George. What are you going to do?”
"I was thinking," Nolan observed, advancing, "of blowing
up Washington. We'd have a fresh start, you see. With
Washington gone root and branch we would have some sort
of chance, a clear sweep, with the capital here or in Boston
Or London.”
Clayton laughed. Behind Nolan's cynicism he felt a real
disturbance. But Dunbar eyed him uncertainly. He didn't
know about some of these Irish. They'd fight like hell, of
course, if only they'd forget England.
"Don't worry about Washington,” Clayton said. “Let it
work out its own problems. We will have our own. What.
do you suppose men like you and myself are going to do? We
can't fight."
Nolan settled himself in a long chair.
"Why can't we fight?” he asked. “I heard something the
other day. Roosevelt is going to take a division abroad-older
men. I rather like the idea. Wherever he goes there'll be
fighting. I'm no Rough Rider, God knows. But I haven't
spent a half hour every noon in a gymnasium for the last ten
years for nothing. And I can shoot.”
"And you are free,” Clayton observed, quietly.
Nolan looked up.
“It's going to be hard on the women," he said. “You're all
right. They won't let you go. You're too useful where you
are. But of course there's the boy."
When Clayton made no reply Nolan glanced at him again.
“I suppose he'll want to go,” he suggested.
Clayton's face was set. For more than an hour now Gra-
ham had been closeted with his mother, and as the time went
on, and no slam of a door up-stairs told of his customary
method of leaving a room, he had been conscious of a growing
uneasiness. The boy was soft; the fiber in him had not been
hardened yet, not enough to be proof against tears. He want-
ed desperately to leave Nolan, to go up and learn what argu-
"hen Clayton me there's the You're


174
DANGEROUS DAYS
ments, what coaxing and selfish whimperings Natalie was
using with the boy. But he wanted, also desperately, to have
the boy fight his own fight and win.
"He will want to go, I think. Of course, his mother will
be shaken just now. It'll all new to her. She wouldn't be-
lieve it was coming."
"He'll go," Nolan said reflectively. “They'll all go, the
best of them first. After all, we've been making a lot of noise
about wanting to get into the thing. Now we're in, and that's
the first price we pay—the boys."
A door slammed up-stairs, and Clayton heard Graham com-
ing down. He passed the library door, however, and Clayton
suddenly realized that he was going out.
“Graham!” he called.
Graham stopped, and came back slowly.
“Yes, father," he said, from the doorway.
“Aren't you coming in ?"
"I thought I'd go out for a bit of a spin, if you don't mind.
Evening, Mr. Nolan.”
The boy was shaken. Clayton knew it from his tone. All
the fine vigor of the early evening was gone. And an over-
whelming rage filled him, against Natalie, against himself,
even against the boy. Trouble, which should have united his
house, had divided it. The first threat of trouble, indeed.
"You can go out later," he said rather sharply. "We ought
to talk things over, Graham. This is a mighty serious time.”
"What's the use of talking things over, father? We don't
know anything but that we may declare war.”
"That's enough, isn't it?”
But he was startled when he saw Graham's face. He was
very pale and his eyes already looked furtive. They were ter-
ribly like Natalie's eyes sometimes. The frankness was gone
out of them. He came into the room, and stood there, rigid.
"I promised mother to get her some sleeping-powders.”
"Sleeping-powders !"
"She's nervous."


DANGEROUS DAYS
175
"Bad things, sleeping-powders,” said Nolan. "Get her to
take some setting-up exercises by an open window and she'll
sleep like a top."
"Do you mind if I go, father?"
Clayton saw that it was of no use to urge the boy. Graham
wanted to avoid him, wanted to avoid an interview. The early
glow of the evening faded. Once again the sense of having
lost his son almost overwhelmed him.
“Very well,” he said stiffly. And Graham went out.
However, he did not leave the house. At the door he met
Doctor Haverford and Delight, and Clayton heard the clergy-
man's big bass booming through the hall.
"_ like a lamb to the slaughter!” he was saying. "And I
a man of peace!"
When he came into the library he was still holding forth
with an affectation of rage.
"I ask you, Clayton," he said, "what refuge is there for a
man of peace? My own child, leading me out into the night,
and inquiring on the way over if I did not feel that the com-
mandment not to kill was a serious error."
"Of course he's going," she said. "He has been making
the most outrageous excuses, just to hear mother and me reply
to them. And all the time nothing would hold him back.”
"My dear," said the rector solemnly. "I shall have to tell
you something. I shall have to lay bare the secrets of my
heart. How are you, Nolan? Delight, they will not take me.
I have three back teeth on a plate. I have never told you this
before. I did not wish to ruin your belief that I am perfect.
But- "
In the laugh that greeted this Graham returned. He was,
Clayton saw, vaguely puzzled by the rector and rather in
credulous as to Delight's attitude.
"Do you really want him to go?” he asked her.
"Of course. Aren't you going? Isn't everybody who is
worth anything going? I'd go myself if I could. You don't
know how lucky you are.”


176
DANGEROUS DAYS
"But is your Mother willing?"
“Why, what sort of a mother do you think I have?"
Clayton overheard that, and he saw Graham wince. Hiss
own hands clenched. What a power in the world a bravo
woman was! And what evil could be wrought by a woman
without moral courage, a selfish woman. He brought himself
up short at that.
Others came in. Hutchinson, from the mill. Terry Mac-
kenzie, Rodney Page, in evening clothes and on his way from
the opera to something or other. In a corner Graham and
Delight talked. The rector, in a high state of exaltation, was
inclined to be oratorical and a trifle noisy. He dilated on the
vast army that would rise overnight, at the call. He con-
sidered the raising of a company from his own church, and
nominated Clayton as its captain. Nolan grinned sardonically,
“Precisely," he said dryly. "Clayton, because he looks like
a Greek god, is ideally fitted to lead a lot of men who never
saw a bayonet outside of a museum. Against trained fighting
men. There's a difference you know, dominie, between a clay
pigeon and a German with a bomb in one hand and a saw-
toothed bayonet in the other."
"We did that in the Civil War."
“We did. And it took four years to fight a six-months war."
"We must have an army. I daresay you'll grant that.”
"Well, you can bet on one thing; we're not going to have
every ward boss who wants to make a record raising a reg: :
ment out of his henchmen and leading them to death.”
"What would you suggest ?" inquired the rector, rathes
crestfallen.
“I'd suggest training men as officers. And then-a draft.
"Never come to it in the world.” Hutchinson spoke up.
“I've heard men in the mill talking. They'll go, some of them
but they won't be driven. It would be civil war.”
Clayton glanced at Graham as he replied. The boy was
Ieaning forward, listening.
"There's this to be said for the draft,” he said. “Under the
and it took four y daresay you not going to
have an arin one thing; a record raisth."


178
DANGEROUS DAYS
had followed his mother up the stairs that night, to come down
baffled, thwarted, miserable.
He rose and threw away his cigar. He must have the thing
out with Natalie. The boy's soul was more important than
his body. He wanted him safe. God, how he wanted him
safe! But he wanted him to be a man.
Natalie's room was dark when he went in. He hesitated.
Then he heard her in bed, sobbing quietly. He was angry at
himself for his impatience at the sound. He stood beside the
bed, and forced a gentleness he did not feel.
“Can I get you anything ?” he asked.
"No, thank you.” And he moved toward the lamp. "Don't
turn the light on. I look dreadful."
"Shall I ring for Madeleine ?"
“No. Graham is bringing me a sleeping-powder.”
"If you are not sleepy, may I talk to you about some
things ?"
"I'm sick, Clay. My head is bursting.”
"Sometimes it helps to talk out our worries dear." He was
still determinedly gentle.
He heard her turning her pillow, and settling herself more
comfortably.
"Not to you. You've made up your mind What's the
use?”
“Made up my mind to what?"
“To sending Graham to be killed.”
"That's hardly worthy of you, Natalie,” he said gravely,
"He is my son, too. I love him at least as much as you do.
I don't think this is really up to us, anyhow. It is up to him.
If he wants to go "
She sat up, suddenly, her voice thin and high.
"How does he know what he wants ?" she demanded. "He's
too young. He doesn't know what war is; you say so your-
self. You say he is too young to have a position worth while
at the plant, but of course he's old enough to go to war


DANGEROUS DAYS
179
than thsterical woan he had
and have a leg shot off, or to be blinded, or something." Her
voice broke.
He sat down on the bed and felt around until he found her
hand. But she jerked it from him.
"You promised me once to let him make his own decision
if the time came.”
“When did I promise that?"
"In the fall, when I came home from England.”
"I never made such a promise."
“Will you make it now?”.
"No!"
He rose, more nearly despairing than he had ever been. He
could not argue with a hysterical woman. He hated coward-
ice, but far deeper than that was his conviction that she had
already exacted some sort of promise. And the boy was not
like her in that respect. He regarded a promise as almost in
the nature of an oath. He himself had taught him that in the
creed of a gentleman a promise was a thing of his honor, to
be kept at any cost.
i
"You are compelling me to do a strange and hateful thing,"
he said. "If you intend to use your influence to keep him out,
I shall have to offset it by urging him to go. That is putting
a very terrible responsibility on me.”
He heard her draw her breath sharply.
"If you do that I shall leave you,” she said, in a frozen voice.
Suddenly he felt sorry for her. She was so weak, so
childish, so cowardly. And this was the nearest they had
come to a complete break.
"You're tired and nervous," he said. “We have come a
long way from what I started out to say. And a long way
from—the way things used to be between us. If this thing, to-
night, does not bring two people together-
"Together!" she cried shrilly. "When have we been to-
gether? Not in years. You have been married to your busi-
ness. I am only your housekeeper, and Graham's mother.
onsibility enth sharply said, in a fro weak, som
He heard her at I shall leave yother. She was
she cried shrihave been ma Graham's


180
DANGEROUS DAYS
And even Graham you are trying to take away from me. Oh,
go away and let me alone."
Down-stairs, thoughts that were almost great had formu-
lated themselves in his mind; that to die that others might live
might be better than to live oneself; that he loved his country,
although he had been shamefaced about it; that America was
really the melting-pot of the world, and that, perhaps, only the
white flame of war would fuse it into a great nation.
But Natalie made all these thoughts tawdry. She cheapened
them. She found in him nothing fine; therefore there was
probably nothing fine in him. He went away, to lie awake
most of the night.


CHAPTER XXIII
DUT, with the breaking off of diplomatic relations, matters
D remained for a time at a standstill. Natalie dried her
eyes and ordered some new clothes, and saw rather more of
Rodney Page than was good for her.
With the beginning of February the country house was far
enough under way for it to be promised for June, and Nat-
alie, the fundamentals of its decoration arranged for, began to
haunt old-furniture shops, accompanied always by Rodney.
"Not that your taste is not right, Natalie," he explained.
"It is exquisite. But these fellows are liars and cheats, some
of them. Besides, I like trailing along, if you don't mind.”
Trailing along was a fairly accurate phrase. There was
scarcely a day now when Natalie's shining car, with its two
men in livery, did not draw up before Rodney's office build-
ing, or stand, as unostentatiously as a fire engine, not too near
the entrance of his club. Clayton, going in, had seen it there
once or twice, and had smiled rather grimly. He considered
its presence there in questionable taste, but he felt no uneasi-
ness. Determined as he was to give Natalie such happiness
as was still in him to give, he never mentioned these instances.
But a day came, early in February, which was to mark a
change in the relationship between Natalie and Rodney.
It started simply enough. They had lunched together at a
down-town hotel, and then went to look at rugs. Rodney had
found her rather obdurate as to old rugs. They were still
arguing the matter in the limousine.
"I just don't like to think of all sorts of dirty Turks and
Arabs having used them," she protested. “Slept on them,
walked on them, spilled things on them-ugh!”
“But the colors, Natalie dear! The old faded copper-tones,
Butee in toa simp, and Turate cousine ji sort
came: enship be. The
181


182
DANGEROUS DAYS
the dull-blues, the dead-rose! There is a beauty about age,
you know. Lovely as you are, you'll be even lovelier as an
old woman."
“I'm getting there rather rapidly.”
He turned and looked at her critically. No slightest aid
that she had given her beauty missed his eyes, the delicate ar-
tificial lights in her hair, her eyebrows drawn to a hair's
breadth and carefully arched, the touch of rouge under her
eyes and on the lobes of her ears. But she was beautiful, no
matter what art had augmented her real prettiness. She was a
charming, finished product, from her veil and hat to her nar-
rowly shod feet. He liked finished things, well done. He
liked the glaze on a porcelain; he liked the perfect lacquering
on the Chinese screen he had persuaded Natalie to buy; he pre-
ferred wood carved into the fine lines of Sheraton to the trees
that grow in the Park, for instance, through which they were
driving.
A Sheraton sideboard was art. Even certain forms of
Colonial mahogany were art, although he was not fond of
them. And Natalie was—art. Even if she represented the
creative instincts of her dressmaker and her milliner, and not
her own-he did not like a Louis XV sofa the less that it had
not carved itself.
Possibly Natalie appealed then to his collective instinct, he
had not analyzed it. He only knew that he liked being with
her, and he was not annoyed, certainly, by the fact that he
knew their constant proximity was arousing a certain amount
of comment.
SU:
"You are very beautiful,” he said with his appraising glance
full on her. "You are quite the loveliest woman I know.”
"Still? With a grown son?”
"I am not a boy myself, you know.”
"What has that to do with it?"
He hesitated, then laughed a little.
"I don't know," he said. "I didn't mean to say that, exe
don't hed, then lalo with it now.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
182
actly. Of course, that fact is that I'm rather glad you are not
a débutante. You would be giving me odds and ends of
dances if you were, you know, and shifting me as fast as pos-
sible. As it is "
The coquetry which is a shallow woman's substitute for
passion stirred in her.
"Well? I'm awfully interested."
He turned and faced her.
"I wonder if you are!"
"Go on, Roddie. As it is ?!
"As it is,” he said, rather rapidly, "you give me a great
deal of happiness. I can't say all I would like to, but just be-
ing with you-Natalie, I wonder if you know how much it
means to me to see you every day.”
“I like it, or I wouldn't do it.”
"But-I wonder if it means anything to you?”
Curiously enough, with the mere putting it into words, his
feeling for her seemed to grow. He was even somewhat ex-
cited. He hent toward her, his eyes on her face, and caught
one of her gloved hands. He was no longer Airting with a
pretty woman. He was in real earnest. But Natalie was
still flirting.
"Do you want to know why I like to be with you? Be-
cause of course I do, or I shouldn't be."
"Does a lamishing man want water?"
"Because you are sane and sensible. You believe, as I do,
in going on as normally as possible. All these people who go
around glooming because there is a war across the Atlantic!
They are so tiresome. Good heavens, the hysterical attitude
of some fomen! And Clay!"
He released her hand.
"So you like me because I'm sensible! Thanks."
"That's a good reason, isn't it?"
"Good God, Natalie, I'm only sensible because I have to be.
Not about the war. I'm not talking about that. About you."
“What have I got to do with your being sensible and sane?"
iamishing mne and sensib. All these poethe Atlantic
ed her, And Good


184
DANGEROUS DAYS
“Just think about things, and you'll know.”
She was greatly thrilled and quite untouched. It was a
pleasant little game, and she held all the winning cards. So
she said, very softly:
“We mustn't go on like this, you know. We mustn't spoil
things.”
And by her very "we" let him understand that the plight
was not his but theirs. They were to suffer on, she implied,
in a mutual, unacknowledged passion. He flushed deeply.
But although he was profoundly affected, his infatuation
was as spurious as her pretense of one. He was a dilettante
in love, as he was in art. His æsthetic sense, which would have
died of an honest passion, fattened on the very hopelessness of
his beginning an affair with Natalie. Confronted just then
with the privilege of marrying her, he would have drawn back
in dismay.
Since no such privilege was to be his, however, he found a
deep satisfaction in considering himself hopelessly in love with
her. He was profoundly sorry for himself. He saw himself
a tragic figure, hopeless and wretched. He longed for the un-
attainable; he held up empty hands to the stars, and by so
mimicking the gesture of youth, he regained youth.
"You won't cut me out of your life, Natalie ?” he asked
wistfully.
And Natalie, who would not have sacrificed this new thrill
for anything real in the world, replied:
“It would be better, wouldn't it?".
There was real earnestness in his voice when he spoke. He
had dramatized himself by that time.
"Don't take away the only thing that makes life worth liv-
ing, dear!"
Which Natalie, after a proper hesitation, duly promised not
to do.
There were other conversations after that. About mar-
riage, for instance, which Rodney broadly characterized as the
failure of the world; he liked treading on dangerous ground.


DANGEROUS DAYS
185
“When a man has married, and had children, he has ful-
filled his duty to the State. That's all marriage is duty to the
State. After that he follows his normal instincts, of course."
"If you are defending unfaithfulness ”
"Not at all. I admire faithfulness. It's rare enough for
admiration. No. I'm recognizing facts. Don't you suppose
even dear old Clay likes a pretty woman? Of course he does.
It's a total difference of view-point, Natalie. What is an inci-
dent to a man is a crime to a woman.”
Or:
“All this economic freedom of women is going to lead to
other freedoms, you know.”
“What freedoms?”
“The right to live wherever they please. One liberty brings
another, you know. Women used to marry for a home, for
some one to keep them. Now they needn't, but-they have
to live just the same.”
"I wish you wouldn't, Rodney. It's so-cheap."
It was cheap. It was the old game of talking around con-
versational corners, of whispering behind mental doors. It
was insidious, dangerous, and tantalizing. It made between
them a bond of lowered voices, of being on the edge of things.
Their danger was as spurious as their passion, but Natalie,
without humor and without imagination, found the sense of
insecurity vaguely attractive.
Fundamentally cold, she liked the idea of playing with fire.


CHAPTER XXIV
W HEN wam was not immediately declared the rector, who
Y on the Sunday following that eventful Saturday of the
President's speech to Congress had preached a rousing call
to arms, began to feel a bit sheepish about it.
“War or no war, my dear," he said to Delight, "it made
them think for as much as an hour. And I can change it some-
what, and use it again, if the time really comes.”
"Second-hand stuff !” she scoffed. “You with your old
sermons, and Mother with my old dresses ! But it was a good
sermon,” she added. “I have hardly been civil to that Ger-
man laundress since."
"Good gracious, Delight. Can't you remember that we
must love our enemies?"
“Do you love them? You know perfectly well that the
moment you get on the other side, if you do, you'll be jerking
the cross off your collar and bullying some wretched soldier
to give you his frun.”
He had a guilty feeling that she was right.
It was February then, and they were sitting in the parish
house. Delight had been filling out Sunday-school reports to
parents, an innovation she detested. For a little while there
was only the scratching of her pen to be heard and an oc-
casional squeal from the church proper, where the organ was
being repaired. The rector sat back in his chair, his finger-
tips together, and whistled noiselessly, a habit of his when he
was disturbed. Now and then he glanced at Delight's bent
head.
“My dear," he commented finally.
“Just a minute. That wretched little Simonton girl has been
absent three Sundays out of four. And on the fourth one she
186


DA
DANGEROUS DAYS
said she had a toothache and sat outside on the steps. Well,
daddy?”
“Do you see anything of Graham Spencer now?"
“Very little.” She looked at him with frank eyes. "He has
changed somehow, daddy. When we do meet he is queer. I
sometimes think he avoids me.”
He fell back on his noiseless whistling. And Delight, who
knew his every mood, got up and perched herself on the arm
of his chair.
"Don't you get to thinking things,” she said. And slipped
an arm around his neck.
“I did think, in the winter
"I'll tell you about that,” she broke in, bravely. "I suppose,
if he'd cared for me at all, I'd have been crazy about him. It
isn't because he's good looking. I-well, I don't know why.
I just know, as long as I can remember, I-however, that's
not important. He thinks I'm a nice little thing and lets it
go at that. It's a good bit worse, of course, than having
him hate me.”
"Sometimes I think you are not very happy."
"I'm happier than I would be trying to make him fall in
love with me. Oh, you needn't be shocked. It can be done.
Lots of girls do it. It isn't any moral sense that keeps me
from it, either. It's just pride."
"My dear!"
"And there's another angle to it. I wouldn't marry a man
who hasn't got a mind of his own. Even if I had the chance,
which I haven't. That silly mother of his-she is silly, daddy,
and selfish- Do you know what she is doing now?”
"We ought not to discuss her. She-
"Fiddlesticks. You love gossip and you know it."
Her tone was light, but the rector felt that arm around his
neck tighten. He surmised a depth of feeling that made him
anxious.
“She is trying to marry him to Marion Hayden."
The rector sat up, almost guiltily.


188
DANGEROUS DAYS
"But-are you sure she is doing that?”
"Everybody says so. She thinks that if he is married, and
there is a war, he won't want to go if he has a wife." She
was silent for a moment. “Marion will drive him straight to
the devil, daddy."
The rector reached up and took her hand. She cared more
than she would admit, he saw. She had thought the thing
out, perhaps in the long night—when he slept placidly.
Thought and suffered, he surmised. And again he remem-
bered his worldly plans for her, and felt justly punished.
“I suppose it is hard for a father to understand how any
one can know his little girl and not love her. Or be the better
for it.”
She kissed him and slid off the arm of his chair.
"Don't you worry," she said cheerfully. “I had to make
an ideal for myself about somebody. Every girl does. Some-
times it's the plumber. It doesn't really matter who it is, so
you can pin your dreams to him. The only thing that hurts
is that Graham wasn't worth while.”
She went back to her little cards, but some ten minutes
later the rector, lost in thought, heard the scratching of her
pen cease.
"Did you ever think, daddy,” she said, "of the influence
women have over men? Look at the Spencers. Mrs. Spencer
spoiling Graham, and making her husband desperately un-
happy. And— ”.
“Unhappy? What makes you think that?"
"He looks unhappy."
The rector was startled. He had an instant vision of Clay-
ton Spencer, tall, composed, handsome, impeccably clothed.
He saw him in the setting that suited him best, the quiet ele-
gance of his home. Clayton unhappy! Nonsense. But he
was uneasy, too. That very gravity which he had noticed
lately, that was certainly not the gravity of an entirely happy
man. Clayton had changed, somehow. Was there trouble
there? And if there were, why?
--


DANGEROUS DAYS
189
The rector, who reduced most wretchedness to terms of
dollars and cents, of impending bills and small deprivations,
found himself at a loss.
"I am sure you are wrong," he objected, rather feebly.
Delight eyed him with the scorn of nineteen for fifty.
"I wonder what you would do," she observed, “if mother
just lay around all day, and had her hair done, and got new
clothes, and never thought a thought of her own, and just
used you as a sort of walking bank-account?"
“My dear, I really can not "
"I'll tell you what you'd do," she persisted. “You'd fall in
love with somebody else, probably. Or else you'd just natu-
rally dry up and be made a bishop."
He was extremely shocked at that, and a little hurt. It took
her some time to establish cheerful relations again, and a very
humble apology. But her words stuck in the rector's mind.
He made a note for a sermon, with the text: "Her children
arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he prais-
eth her.”
He went quietly into the great stone building and sat down.
The organist was practicing the Introit anthem, and half way
up the church a woman was sitting quietly.
The rector leaned back, and listened to the music. He often
did that when he had a sermon in his mind. It was peaceful
and quiet. Hard to believe, in that peace of great arches and
swelling music, that across the sea at that moment men were
violating that fundamental law of the church, “Thou shalt
not kill.”
The woman turned her head, and he saw that it was
Audrey Valentine. He watched her with kindly, speculative
eyes. Self-reliant, frivolous Audrey, sitting alone in the
church she had so casually attended-surely that was one of
the gains of war. People all came to it ultimately. They
held on with both hands as long as they could, and then they
found their grasp growing feeble and futile, and they turned
to the Great Strength.


190
DANGEROUS DAYS
The organist had ceased. Audrey was kneeling now. The
rector, eyes on the gleaming cross above the altar, repeated
softly:
"Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the
hands of our enemies; that we, being armed with Thy de-
fense, may be preserved evermore from all perils.”
Audrey was coming down the aisle. She did not see him.
She had, indeed, the fixed eyes of one who still looks inward.
She was very pale, but there was a new look of strength in
her face, as of one who has won a victory.
"To glorify Thee, who are the only giver of all victory,
through the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” finished
the reach the meritsee who


192
DANGEROUS DAYS
He had tired of her, probably. She had nothing to give, had
no right to give anything. And, of course, he could not know
how much he had meant to her, of courage to carry on. How
the memory of his big, solid, dependable figure bad helped
her through the bad hours when the thought of Chris's defec-
tion had left her crushed and abject.
She told herself that the reason she wanted to see Natalie
was because she had neglected her shamefully. Perhaps that
was what was wrong with Clay; perhaps he felt that, by avoid-
ing Natalie, she was putting their friendship on a wrong basis.
Actually, she had reached that point all loving women reach,
when even to hear a beloved name, coming out of a long
silence, was both torture and necessity.
She took unusual pains with her dress that afternoon, and
it was a very smart, slightly rouged and rather swaggering
Audrey who made her first call in weeks on Natalie that after-
noon.
Natalie was a little stiff, still slightly affronted.
"I thought you must have left town,” she said. “But you
look as though you'd been having a rest cure.”
"Rouge,” said Audrey, coolly. "No, I haven't been entirely
resting.”
"There are all sorts of stories going about. That you're
going into a hospital; that you're learning to fly; that you're in
the secret service "
"Just because I find it stupid going about without a man!"
Natalie eyed her shrewdly, but there was no self-conscious-
ness is Audrey's face. If the stories were true, and there had
been another woman, she was carrying it off well.
"At least Chris is in France. I have to go, when I go,
without Clay. And there is no excuse whatever.”
"You mean-he is working?"
"Not at night. He is simply obstinate. He says he is tired.
I don't really mind any more. He is so hatefully, heavy these
days."
“Heavy! Clay!"


DANGEROUS DAYS
193
ishe lookete extolled, listenere belatedly, to
“My dear!" Natalie drew her chair closer and lowered her
voice. “What can one do with a man who simply lives war?
He spends hours over the papers. He's up if the Allies make
a gain, and impossible if they don't. I can tell by the very
way he slams the door of his room when he comes home what
the news is. It's dreadful.”
Audrey flushed.
"I wish there were more like him.”
But Natalie smiled tolerantly.
“You are not married to him. I suppose the war is impor-
tant, but I don't want it twenty-four hours a day. I want to
forget it if I can. It's hideous.”
Audrey's mouth twitched. After all, what was the good
of talking to Natalie. She would only be resentful.
"How is the house coming on?" she asked.
She had Natalie on happy ground there. For a half-hour
she looked at blueprints and water-color sketches, heard Rod-
ney's taste extolled, listened to plans for a house-party which
she gathered was, rather belatedly, to include her. And
through it all she was saying to herself,
"This is his wife. This is the woman he loves. He has had
A child by her. He is building this house for her. He goes
into her room as Chris came into mine. And she is not good
enough. She is not good enough.”
Now that she had seen Natalie, she knew why she had not
seen her before. She was jealous of her. Jealous and con-
temptuous. Suddenly she hated Natalie. She hated her be-
cause she was Clayton Spencer's wife, with all that that im-
plied. She hated her because she was unworthy of him. She
hated her because she loved Clay, and hated her more because
she loved herself more than she loved him.
Audrey sat back in her chair and saw that she had traveled
a long way along a tragic road. For the first time in her
brave and reckless life she was frightened. She was even
trembling. She lighted a cigaret from the stand at Natalie's
elbow to steady herself.
enonow that she hashe was jeted Natalie


194
DANGEROUS DAYS
.
in know that? Was falling in le still fooled? a
de intimacy of and then go away honest in
Natalie chattered on, and Audrey gave her the occasional
nod that was all she needed. She thought,
“Does he know about her? Is he still fooled? She is almost
beautiful. · Rodney is falling in love with her, probably. Does
he know that? Will he care terribly if he finds it out? She
looks cold, but one can't tell, and some men-has she a drop
of honest, unselfish passion in her?".
She got up suddenly.
“Heavens, how late it is !” she said. “I must run on.”
"Why not stay on to dinner? Graham is seldom home, and
we can talk, if Clay doesn't.”
The temptation to see Clay again was strong in Audrey.
But suddenly she knew that she did not want to see them to-
gether, in the intimacy of their home. She did not want to sit
between them at dinner, and then go away, leaving them there
together. And something fundamentally honest in her told
her that she had no right to sit at their table.
"I'll come another time, if you'll ask me. Not to-day," she
said. And left rather precipitately. It hurt her, rather, to
have Natalie, with an impulsive gesture, gather the flowers out
of a great jar and insist on her carrying them home with her.
It gave her a miserable sense of playing unfairly.
She walked home. The fresh air, after Natalie's flower-
scented, overheated room, made her more rational. She knew
where she stood, anyhow. She was in love with Clayton
Spencer. She had, she reflected cynically, been in love be-
fore. A number of times before. She almost laughed aloud.
She had called those things love, those sickly romances, those
feeble emotions !
Then her eyes filled with unexpected tears. She had always
wanted some one to make her happy. Now she wanted to
make some one happy. She cared nothing for the cost. She
would put herself out of it altogether. He was not happy.
Any one could see that. He had everything, but he was not
happy. If he belonged to her, she would live to make him
happy. She would


DANGEROUS DAYS
195
Suddenly she remembered Chris. Perhaps she did not
know how to hold a man's love. She had not held him. He
had protested that she was the only woman he had ever loved,
but all the time there had been that other girl. How account
for her, then?
"He did not think of me," she reflected defiantly, "I shall
not think of him.”
She was ashamed of that instantly. After all, Chris was
doing a man's part now. She was no longer angry with him.
She had written him that, over and over, in the long letters
she had made a point of sending him. Only, she did not love
him any more. She thought now that she never had loved
him.
What about the time when he came back? What would she
do then? She shivered.
But Chris, after all, was not to come back. He would never
come back again. The cable was there when she reached her
apartment-a cold statement, irrefutable, final.
She had put the flowers on the table and had raised her
hands to unpin her hat when she saw it. She read it with a
glance first, then slowly, painfully, her heart contracted as if
a hand had squeezed it. She stood very still, not so much
stricken as horrified, and her first conscious thought was of
remorse, terrible, gasping remorse. All that afternoon, while
she had been hating Natalie and nursing her love for Clay,
Chris had been lying dead somewhere.
Chris was dead.
She felt very tired, but not faint. It seemed dreadful,
indeed, that she could be standing there, full of life, while
Chris was dead. Such grief as she felt was for him, not for
herself. He had loved life so, even when he cheapened it.
He had wanted to live and now he was dead. She, who did
not care greatly to live, lived on, and he was gone.
All at once she felt terribly alone. She wanted some one
with her. She wanted to talk it all out to some one who
understood. She wanted Clay, She said to herself that she


196
DANGEROUS DAYS
did not want him because she loved him. All love was dead
in her now. She wanted him because he was strong and
understanding. She made this very clear to herself, because
she had a morbid fancy that Chris might be watching her.
There were people who believed that sort of thing. To her
excited fancy it seemed as though Chris's cynical smile might
flash out from any dusky corner.
She knew she was not being quite rational. Which was
strange, because she felt so strong, and because the voice with
which she called Clayton's number was so steady. She knew,
too, that she was no longer in love with Clay, because his
steady voice over the telephone left her quite calm and un-
moved.
"I want you to come up, Clay,” she said. "If you can,
easily."
"I can come at once. Is anything wrong?”
"Chris has been killed,” she replied, and hung up the re-
ceiver. Then she sat down to wait, and to watch for Chris's
cynical smile to flash in some dusky corner.
Clayton found her there, collapsed in her chair, a slim, gray-
faced girl with the rouge giving a grotesque vitality to her
bloodless cheeks. She got up very calmly and gave him tho
cablegram. Then she fainted in a crumpled heap at his feet.


CHAPTER XXVI
THE new munition plant was nearing completion. Situated
1 on the outskirts of the city, it spread over a vast area of
what had once been waste land. Of the three long buildings,
two were already in operation and the third was well under
way.
To Clayton Spencer it was the realization of a dream. He
never entered the great high-walled enclosure without a cer-
tain surprise at the ease with which it had all been accom-
plished, and a thrill of pride at the achievement. He found the
work itself endlessly interesting. The casts, made of his own
steel, lying in huge rusty heaps in the yard; the iittle cars
which carried them into the plant; the various operations by
which the great lathes turned them out, smooth and shining,
only to lose their polish when, heated again, they were ready
for the ponderous hammer to close their gaping jaws. The
delicacy of the work appealed to him, the machining to a
thousandth of an inch, the fastidious making of the fuses,
tiny things almost microscopic, and requiring the delicate
touch of girls, most of whom had been watchmakers and
jewelry-workers.
And with each carload of the finished shells that left the
plant he felt a fine glow of satisfaction. The output was
creeping up. Soon they would be making ten thousand shells
a day. And every shell was one more chance for victory
against the Hun. It became an obsession with him to make
more, ever more.
As the work advanced, he found an unexpected enthusiasm
in Graham. Here was something to be done, a new thing. The
steel mill had been long established. Its days went on mo-
notonously. The boy found it noisy, dirty, without appeal to
197


198
DANGEROUS DAYS
his imagination. But the shell plant was different. There
were new problems to face, of labor, of supplies, of shipping
and output.
He was, however, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that
the break with Germany was the final step that the Government
intended to take. That it would not declare war.
However, the break had done something. It had provided
him with men from the local National Guard to police the
plant, and he found the government taking a new interest,
an official interest, in his safety. Agents from the Military
Intelligence and the Department of Justice scanned his employ-
ment lists and sent agents into the plant. In the building where
men and women were hired, each applicant passed a desk
where they were quietly surveyed by two unobstrusive gentle-
men in indifferent business suits who eyed them carefully.
Around the fuse department, where all day girls and women
handled guncotton and high-explosive powder, a special guard
was posted, day and night.
Early in March Clayton put Graham in charge of the first
of the long buildings to be running full, and was rewarded by
a new look in the boy's face. He was almost startled at the
way he took it.
"I'll do my very best, sir," he said, rather huskily. "If I
can't fight, I can help put the swine out of business, anyhow.”
He was by that time quite sure that Natalie had extracted a
promise of some sort from the boy. On the rare occasions
when Graham was at home he was quiet and suppressed.
He was almost always at Marion Hayden's in the evenings,
and from things he let fall, Clayton gathered that the irrespon-
sible group which centered about Marion was, in the boy's own
vernacular, rather “shot to pieces.” Tommy Hale had gone
to England to join the Royal Flying Corps. One or two of
them were in Canada, trying to enlist there, and one evening
Graham brought home to dinner an inordinately tall and thin
youngster in the kilts of a Scotch-Canadian regiment, with an


DANGEROUS DAYS
199
astounding length of thin leg below his skirts, who had been
one of Marion's most reckless satellites.
"Look like a fool, I know, sir," said the tall individual sheep-
ishly. “Just had to get in it somehow. No camouflage about
these skirts, is there?"
And Clayton had noticed, with a thrill of sympathy, how
wistfully Graham eyed the debonnair young Scot by adoption,
and how Buckham had hovered over him, filling his plate and
his glass. Even Graham noticed Buckham.
“Old boy looks as though he'd like to kiss you, Sid,” he said.
"It's the petticoats. Probably thinks you're a woman.”
“I look better with my legs under the table,” said the tall
boy, modestly.
Clayton was still determined that Graham should fight the
thing out for himself. He wished, sometimes, that he knew
Marion Hayden's attitude. Was she like Natalie? Would
she, if the time came, use her undeniable influence for or
against ? And there again he resented the influence of women
in the boy's life. Why couldn't he make his own decisions ?
Why couldn't they let him make his own decisions ?
He remembered his father, and how his grandmother, in
'61, had put a Bible into one pocket and a housewife into
another, and had sent him off to war. Had the fiber of our
women weakened since then ? But he knew it had not. All
day, in the new plant, women were working with high-explo-
sives quite calmly. And there were Audrey and the Haver-
ford women, strong enough, in all conscience.
Every mental path, those days, somehow led eventually to
Audrey. She was the lighted window at the end of the long
trail.
Graham was, as a matter of fact, trying to work out his
own salvation. He blundered, as youth always blunders, and
after a violent scene with Marion Hayden he made an attempt
to break off his growing intimacy with Anna Klein-to find,
as many a man had before him, that the sheer brutality of
casting off a loving woman was beyond him.


200
DANGEROUS DAYS
The scene with Marion came one Sunday in the Spencer
house, with Natalie asleep up-stairs after luncheon, and Clay-
ton walking off a sense of irritation in the park. He did not
like the Hayden girl. He could not fathom Natalie's change
of front with regard to Graham and the girl. He had gone
out, leaving them together, and Marion had launched her at-
tack fiercely.
"Now !” she cried.
"I couldn't come last night. That's all, Marion."
"It is certainly not all. Why couldn't you come?"
"I worked late.”
“Where?"
"At the plant."
“That's a lie, Graham. I called the plant. I'll tell you
where you were. You were out with a girl. You were seen,
if you want to know it.”
"Oh, if you are going to believe everything you hear about
me ”
"Don't act like a child. Who was the girl?"
"It isn't like you to be jealous, Marion. I let you ruik
around all the time with other fellows, but the minute I take
a girl out for a little spin, you're jealous."
"Jealous !” She laughed nastily. But she knew she was
losing her temper, and brought herself up short. Let him
think she was jealous. What really ailed her was deadly fear
lest her careful plan go astray. She was terrified. That was
all. And she meant to learn who the girl was.
"I know who it was," she hazarded.
"I think you are bluffing."
"It was Delight Haverford.”
“Delight!"
She knew then that she was wrong, but it was her chance
to assail Delight and she took it.
"That--child!" she continued contemptuously. "Don't you
suppose I've seen how she looks at you? I'm not afraid of
her. You are too much a man of the world to let her put


DANGEROUS DAYS
201
anything over on you. At least, I thought you were. Of
course, if you like milk and water "
"It was not Delight,” he said doggedly. "And I don't think
we need to bring her into this at all. She's not in love with
me. She wouldn't wipe her feet on me.”
Which was unfortunate. Marion smiled slowly.
“Oh! But you are good enough for me to be engaged to!
I wonder!”
He went to the window and stood for a moment looking
out. Then he went slowly back to her.
"I'm not good enough for you to be engaged to, Marion,"
he said. "I—don't you want to call it a day?"
She was really terrified then. She went white and again,
niserably, he mistook her agitation for something deeper.
"You want to break the engagement ?"
"Not if you still want me. I only mean—I'm a pretty poor
sort. You ought to have the best, and God help this country
it: I'm the best.”
"Graham, you're in some sort of trouble?"
He drew himself up in boyish bravado. He could not tell
her the truth. It opened up too hideous a vista. Even his
consciousness of the fact that the affair with Anna was still
innocent did not dull his full knowledge of whither it was
trending. He was cold and wretched.
"It's nothing," he muttered.
"You can tell me. You can tell me anything. I know a
lot, you see. I'm no silly kitten. If you're in a fix, I'll help
you. I don't care what it is, I'll help you. I—I'm crazy about
you, Graham.”
Anna's words, too!
“Look here, Marion," he said, roughly, "you've got to do one
of two things. Either marry me or let me go."
“Let you go! I like that. If that is how you feel "
"Oh--don't.” He threw up his arm. "I want you. You
know that. Marry me-to-morrow.”
"I will not. Do you think I'm going to come into this fame


202
DANGEROUS DAYS
ily and have you cut off ? Don't you suppose I know that
Clayton Spencer hates the very chair I sit on? He'll come and
beg me to marry you, some day. Until then— "
“You won't do it?"
“To-morrow? Certainly not."
And again he felt desperately his powerlessness to loosen the
coils that were closing round him, fetters forged of his own
red blood, his own youth, the woman-urge.
She was watching him with her calculating glance.
"You must be in trouble,” she said.
"If I am, it's you and mother who have driven me there.”
He was alarmed then, and lapsed into dogged silence. His
anxiety had forced into speech thoughts that had never be-
fore been articulate. He was astounded to hear himself utter-
ing them, although with the very speaking he realized now that
they were true.
"Sorry, Marion,” he muttered. "I didn't mean all that. I'm
excited. That's all.”
When he sat down beside her again and tried to take her
hand, she drew it away.
"You've been very cruel, Graham,” she said. “I've been
selfish. Every girl who is terribly in love is selfish. I am
going to give you your ring, and leave you free to do what-
ever you want."
Her generosity overcame him. He was instantly ashamed,
humbled.
"Don't!” he begged. "Don't let me go. I'll just go to the
dogs. If you really care- ".
"Care !” she said softly. And as he buried his head in her
lap she stroked his hair softly. Her eyes, triumphant, sur-
veyed the long room, with its satin-paneled walls, its French
furniture, its long narrow gilt-framed mirrors softening the
angles of the four corners.
Some day all this would be hers. For this she would ex-
change the untidy and imitation elegance of her present set-
ting.


DANGEROUS DAYS
203
CS.
She stroked the boy's head absently.
Graham made an attempt to free himself the next day. He
was about to move his office to the new plant, and he made a
determination not to take Anna with him.
He broke it to her as gently as he could.
"Mr. Weaver is taking my place here,” he said, avoiding her -
eyes.
“Yes, Graham.”
"He'll—there ought to be some one here who knows the
ropes."
“Do you mean me?"
"Well, you know them, don't you?" He had tried to smile
at her.
"Do you mean that you are going to have another secretary
at the plant?"
“Look here, Anna," he said impulsively. “You know things
can't go on indefinitely, the way we are now. You know it,
don't you?”
She looked down and nodded.
"Well, don't you think I'd better leave you here?"
She fumbled nervously with her wrist-watch.
"I won't stay here if you go," she said finally. "I hate Mr.
Weaver. I'm afraid of him. I-oh, don't leave me, Graham.
Don't. I haven't anybody but you. I haven't any home
not a real home. You ought to see him these days.” She
always referred to her father as "him." "He's dreadful. I'm
only happy when I'm here with you.”
| He was angry, out of sheer despair.
· "I've told you,” he said. “Things can't go on as they are.
You know well enough what I mean. I'm older than you are,
Anna. God knows I don't want any harm to come to you
through me. But, if we continue to be together— "
"I'm not blaming you.” She looked at him honestly. "I'd
just rather have you care about me than marry anybody else.”
He kissed her, with a curious mingling of exultation and
despair. He left her there when he went away that after-


204
DANGEROUS DAYS
noon, a rather downcast young figure, piling up records and
card-indexes, and following him to the door with worshiping,
anxious eyes. Later on in the afternoon Joey, wandering in
from Clayton's office on one of his self-constituted observa-
tion tours, found her crying softly while she wiped her type-
writer, preparatory to covering it for the night.
"Somebody been treatin' you rough?” he asked, more sym-
pathetic than curious.
"What are you doing here, anyhow?" she demanded, angrily.
"You're always hanging around, spying on me.”
"Somebody's got to keep an eye on you.”
"Well, you don't.”
“Look here,” he said, his young-old face twitching with
anxiety. "You get out from under, kid. You take my advice,
and get out from under. Something's going to fall."
"Just mind your own business, and stop worrying abou$
me. That's all."
He turned and started out.
“Oh, very well,” he said sharply. “But you might take a
word of warning, anyhow. That cousin of yours has got ati
eye on you, all right. And we don't want any scandal about i
the place."
"We? Who are 'we'?”
“Me and Mr. Clayton Spencer," said Joey, smartly, and
went out, banging the door cheerfully.
Anna climbed the hill that night wearily, but with a sense
of relief that Rudolph had not been waiting for her at the
yard gate. She was in no mood to thrust and parry with him.
She wondered, rather dully, what mischief Rudolph was up to.
He was gaining a tremendous ascendency over her father, she
knew. Herman was spending more and more of his evening
away from home, creaking up the stairs late at night, shoes ir
hand, to undress in the cold darkness across the hall.
"Out?" she asked Katie, sitting by the fire with the evening
paper. Conversation in the cottage was almost always la..
conic.


DANGEROUS DAYS
205
"Ate early," Katie returned. “Rudolph was here, too. I'm
going to quit if I've got to cook for that sneak any longer.
You'd think he had a meal ticket here. Your supper's on the
stove."
"I'm not hungry.” She ate her supper, however, and un-
dressed by the fire. Then she went up-stairs and sat by her
window in the gathering night. She was suffering acutely.
Graham was tired of her. He wanted to get rid of her.
Probably he had a girl somewhere else, a lady. Her idea of
the life of such a girl had been gathered from novels.
; "The sort that has her breakfast in bed," she muttered,
"and has her clothes put on her by somebody. Her under-
clothes, too!"
The immodesty of the idea made her face burn with anger.
Late that night Herman came back.
Herman had been a difficult proposition for Rudolph to
handle. His innate caution, his respect for law and, under his
bullying exterior, a certain physical cowardice, made him slow
to move in the direction Rudolph was urging. He was con-
troversial. He liked to argue over the beer and schnitzel Ru-
dolph bought. And Rudolph was growing impatient.
Rudolph himself was all eagerness and zeal. It was his very
zeal that was his danger, although it brought him slavish fol-
lowers. He was contemptuous, ill-tempered, and impatient,
but, of limited intelligence himself, he understood for that
very reason the mental processes of those he would lead.
There was a certain simplicity even in his cunning. With
Herman he was a ferret driving out of their hiding-places
every evil instinct that lay dormant. Under his goading, Her-
man was becoming savage, sullen, and potentially violent.
He was confused, too. Rudolph's arguments always con-
fused him.
He was confused that night, heavy with fatigue and with
Rudolph's steady talk in his ear. He was tired of pondering
great questions, tired of hearing about the Spencers and the
money they were making.


206
DANGEROUS DAYS
Anna's clothing was scattered about the room, and he
frowned at it. She spent too much money on her clothes.
Always sewing at something
He stooped down to gather up his shoes, and his ear thus
brought close to the table was conscious in the silence of a
faint rhythmical sound. He stood up and looked about. Then
he moved the newspaper on the table. Underneath it, forgot-
ten in her anxiety and trouble, lay the little gold watch.
He picked it up, still following his train of thought. It
fitted into the evening's inflammable proceedings. So, with
such trinkets as this, capital would silence the cry of labor
for its just share in the products of its skill and strength!
It would bribe, and cheaply. Ten dollars, perhaps, that tick-
ing insult. For ten dollars-
He held it close to his spectacles. Ah, but it was not so
cheap. It came from the best shop in the city. He weighed
it carefully in his hand, and in so doing saw the monogram.
A doubt crept into his mind, a cold and chilling fear. Since
when had the Spencer plant taken to giving watches for
Christmas? The hill girls who worked as stenographers in
the plant; they came in often enough and he did not remember
any watches, or any mention of watches. His mind, working
slowly, recalled that never before had he seen the watch near
at hand. And he went into a slow and painful calculation.
Fifty dollars at least it had cost. A hundred stenographers-
that would be five thousand dollars for watches.
Suddenly he knew that Anna had lied to him. One of two
things, then: either she had spent money for it, unknown to
him, or some one had given it to her. There was, in his mind,
not much difference in degree between the two alternatives.
Both were crimes of the first magnitude.
He picked the watch up between his broad thumb and fore-
finger, and then, his face a cold and dreadful mask, he mount-
ed the stairs.


CHAPTER XXVII
CLAYTON SPENCER was facing with characteristic
u honesty a situation that he felt was both hopeless and
shameful.
He was hopelessly in love with Audrey. He knew now
that he had known it for a long time. Here was no slender
sentiment, no thin romance. With every fiber of him, heart
and soul and body, he loved her and wanted her. There was
no madness about it, save the fact itself, which was mad
enough. It was not the single attraction of passion, although
he recognized that element as fundamental in it. It was the
craving of a strong man who had at last found his woman.
He knew that, as certainly as he knew anything. He did
not even question that she cared for him. It was as though
they both had passed through the doubting period without
knowing it, and had arrived together at the same point, the
crying need of each other.
He rather thought, looking back, that Audrey had known
it sooner than he had. She had certainly known the night she
learned of Chris's death. His terror when she fainted, the
very way he had put her out of his arms when she opened her
eyes—those had surely told her. Yet, had Chris's cynical
spirit been watching, there had been nothing, even then.
There was, between them, nothing now. He had given way
to the people who flocked to her with sympathy, had called her
up now and then, had sent her a few books, some flowers. But
the hopelessness of the situation held him away from her.
Once or twice, at first, he had called her on the telephone and
had waited, almost trembling, for her voice over the wire, only
to ask her finally, in a voice chilled with repression, how she
was feeling, or to offer a car for her to ride in the park. And
207


208
DANGEROUS DAYS
her replies were equally perfunctory. She was well. She
was still studying, but it was going badly. She was too stupid
to learn all those pot-hooks.
Once she had said:
"Aren't you ever coming to see me, Clay?"
Her voice had been wistful, and it had been a moment be-
fore he had himself enough in hand to reply, formally:
“Thank you. I shall, very soon."
But he had not gone to the little flat again.
Through Natalie he heard of her now and then.
“I saw Audrey to-day,” she said once. “She is not wearing
mourning. It's bad taste, I should say. When one remem-
bers that she really drove Chris to his death "
He had interrupted her, angrily.
"That is a cruel misstatement, Natalie. She did nothing
of the sort."
“You needn't bite me, you know. He went, and had about
as much interest in this war as-as- "
“As you have,” he finished. And had gone out, leaving
Natalie staring after him.
He was more careful after that, but the situation galled
him. He was no hypocrite, but there was no need of wound-
ing Natalie unnecessarily. And that, after all, was the crux
of the whole situation. Natalie. It was not Natalie's fault
that he had found the woman of his heart too late. He had
no thought of blame for her. In decency, there was only
one thing to do. He could not play the lover to her, but
then he had not done that for a very long time. He could
see, however, that she was not hurt.
Perhaps, in all her futile life, Natalie had, for all her com-
plaining, never been so content in her husband as in those
early spring months when she had completely lost him. He
made no demands whatever. In the small attentions, which he
had never neglected, he was even more assiduous. He paid
her ever-increasing bills without comment. He submitted, in
those tense days when every day made the national situation


DANGEROUS DAYS
209
more precarious, to hours of discussion as to the country
house, to complaints as to his own lack of social instinct, and
to that new phase of her attitude toward Marion Hayden that
left him baffled and perplexed.
Then, on the Sunday when he left Graham and Marion to-
gether at the house, he met Audrey quite by accident in the
park. He was almost incredulous at first. She came like the
answer to prayer, a little tired around the eyes, showing
the strain of the past weeks, but with that same easy walk
and unconscious elegance that marked her, always.
She was not alone. There was a tall blonde girl beside
her, hideously dressed, but with a pleasant, shallow face. Just
before they met Audrey stopped and held out her hand.
"Then you'll let me know, Clare?”
“Thank you. I will, indeed, Mrs. Valentine.”
With a curious glance at Clayton the girl went on. Audrey
smiled at him.
"Please don't run!” she said. “There are people looking.
It would be so conspicuous."
"Run!” he replied. He stood looking down at her, and
at something in his eyes her smile died.
"It's too wonderful, Clay."
For a moment he could not speak. After all those weeks of
hunger for her there was no power in him to dissemble. He
felt a mad, boyish impulse to hold out his arms to her,
Malacca stick, gloves, and all!
"It's a bit of luck I hadn't expected, Audrey," he said,
at last, unsteadily.
She turned about quite simply, and faced in the direction
he was going.
"I shall walk with you,” she said, with a flash of her old
impertinence. “You have not asked me to, but I shall, any-
how. Only don't call this luck. It isn't at all. I walk here
every Sunday, and every Sunday I say to myself—he will
think he needs exercise. Then he will walk, and the likeliest
place for him to go is the park. Good reasoning, isn't it?"


210
DANGEROUS DAYS
She glanced up at him, but his face was set and unsmiling.
"Don't pay any attention to me, Clay. I'm a little mad,
probably. You see”-she hesitated—“I need my friends just
now. And when the very best of them all hides away from
me- "
"Don't say that. I stayed away, because ” He hesitated.
"I'm almost through. Don't worry! But I was walking
along before I met Clare—I'll tell you about her presently-
and I was saying to myself that I thought God owed me
something. I didn't know just what. Happiness, maybe. I've
been careless and all that, but I've never been wicked. And
yet I can look back, and count the really happy days of my
life on five fingers.”
She held out one hand.
"Five fingers !" she repeated, "and I am twenty-eight. The
percentage is pretty low, you know.”
"Perhaps you and I ask too much ?”
He was conscious of her quick, searching glance.
“Oh! You feel that way, too? I mean—as I do, that it's
all hardly worth while? But you seem to have everything,
Clay."
"You have one thing I lack. Youth.”
“Youth! At twenty-eight!"
"You can still mold your life, Audrey dear. You have
had a bad time, but—with all reverence to Chris's memory
his going out of it, under the circumstances, is a grief. But
it doesn't spell shipwreck.”
"Do you mean that I will marry again ?" she asked, in a
low tone.
"Don't you think you will, some time? Some nice young
chap who will worship you all the days of his life? That
well, that is what I expect for you. It's at least possible,
you know."
"Is it what you want for me?"
“Good God!” he burst out, his restraint suddenly gone.
"What do you want me to say? What can I say, except that
you is it what you the burst out? What can


DANGEROUS DAYS
211
I want you to be happy? Don't you think I've gone over it
all, over and over again? I'd give my life for the right to tell
you the things I think, but-I haven't that right. Even this
little time together is wrong, the way things are. It is all
wrong."
"I'm sorry, Clay. I know. I am just reckless to-day. You
know I am wreckless. It's my vice. But sometimes—we'd
better talk about the mill.”
But he could not talk about the mill just then. They walked
along in silence, and after a little he felt her touch his arm.
"Wouldn't it be better just to have it out?" she asked, wist-
fully. “That wouldn't hurt anybody, would it?"
"I'm afraid, Audrey."
“I'm not,” she said proudly. "I sometimes think-oh, I
think such a lot these days—that if we talked these things
over, I'd recover my-friend. I've lost him now, you see.
And I'm so horribly lonely, Clay.”
"Lost him!”
“Lost him," she repeated. “I've lost my friend, and I
haven't gained anything. It didn't hurt anybody for us to
meet now and then, Clay. You know that. I wish you would
understand," she added impatiently. “I only want to go back
to things as they were. I want you to come in now and then.
We used to talk about all sorts of things, and I miss that.
Plenty of people come, but that's different. It's only your
occasional companionship I want. I don't want you to come
and make love to me.”
"You say you have missed the companionship,” he said
rather unsteadily. "I wonder if you think I haven't?”
"I know you have, my dear. And that is why I want you
to come. To come without being afraid that I expect or want
anything else. Surely we can manage that.”
He smiled down at her, rather wryly, at her straight
courageous figure, her brave eyes, meeting his so directly.
How like her it all was, the straightforwardness of it, the
absence of coquetry. And once again he knew, not only that


212
DANGEROUS DAYS
he loved her with all the depths of him, of his strong body
and his vigorous mind, but that she was his woman. The one
woman in the world for him. It was as though all his life
he had been searching for her, and he had found her, and
it was too late. She knew it, too. It was in her very eyes.
“I have wanted to come, terribly," he said finally. And
when she held out her hand to him, he bent down and kissed
it.
"Then that's settled,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"And now I'll tell you about Clare. I'm rather proud of
her.”
“Clare?"
The tension had been so great that he had forgotten the
blonde girl entirely.
“Do you remember the night I got a hundred dollars from
you? And later on, that I asked you for work in your mill
for the girl I got it for?"
“Do you mean?" He looked at her in surprise.
“That was the girl. You see, she rather holds onto me.
It's awful in a way, too. It looks as though I am posing as
magnanimous. I'm not, Clay. If I had cared awfully it
would have been different. But then, if I had cared awfully,
perhaps it would never have happened.”
“You have nothing to blame yourself for, Audrey."
“Well, I do, rather. But that's not the point. Sometimes
when I am alone I have wicked thoughts, you know, Clay.
I'm reckless, and sometimes I think maybe there is only one
life, and why not get happiness out of it. I realize that, but
for some little kink in my brain, I might be in Clare's posi-
tion. So I don't turn her out. She's a poor, cheap thing, but
-well, she is fond of me. If I had children—it's funny, but
I rather mother her! And she's straight now, straight as a
string !"
She was sensitive to his every thought, and she knew by
the very change in the angle of his head that he was thinking
that over and not entirely approving. But he said finally:


DANGEROUS DAYS
213
"You're a big woman, Audrey."
“But you don't like it !”
"I don't like her troubling you."
"Troubling me! She doesn't borrow money, you know.
Why, she makes more money from your plant than I have to
live on! And she brings me presents of flowers and the most
awful embroidery, that she does herself.”
"You ought not to know that side of life.”
She laughed a little bitterly.
"Not know it !” she said. "I've had to know it. I learned
it pretty well, too. And don't make any mistake, Clay.” She
looked up at him with her clear, understanding gaze. "Being
good, decent, with a lot of people is only the lack of tempta-
tion. Only, thank God, there are some who have the strength
to withstand it when it comes."
And he read in her clear eyes her promise and her under-
standing; that they loved each other, that it was the one big
thing in both their lives, but that between them there would be
only the secret inner knowledge of that love. There would
be no shipwreck. And for what she gave, she demanded his
strength and his promise. It was to what he read in her
face, not to her words, that he replied:
"I'll do my very best, Audrey dear.”
He went back to her rooms with her, and she made him
tea, while he built the fire in the open fireplace and nursed it
tenderly to a healthy strength. Overnursed it, she insisted.
They were rather gay, indeed, and the danger-point passed
by safely. There was so much to discuss, she pretended.
The President's unfortunate phrase of "peace without vic-
tory"; the deportation of the Belgians, the recent leak in
Washington to certain stock-brokers, and more and more im-
minent, the possibility of a state of war being recognized by
the government.
"If it comes,” she said, gayly, “I shall go, of course. I
shall go to France and sing them into battle. My shorthand
looks like a music score, as it is. What will you do?”.


CHAPTER XXVIII
W HEN Natalie roused from her nap that Sunday after-
noon, it was to find Marion gone, and Graham waiting
for her in her boudoir. Through the open door she could see
him pacing back and forward and something in his face made
her vaguely uneasy. She assumed the child-like smile which
so often preserved her from the disagreeable.
"What a sleep I've had,” she said, and yawned prettily. "I'll
have one of your cigarets, darling, and then let's take a
walk."
Graham knew Natalie's idea of a walk, which was three or
four blocks along one of the fashionable avenues, with the
car within hailing distance. At the end of the fourth block
she always declared that her shoes pinched, and called the
machine.
"You don't really want to walk, mother."
"Of course I do, with you. Ring for Madeleine, dear."
She was uncomfortable. Graham had been very queer
lately. He would have long, quiet spells, and then break out
in an uncontrollable irritation, generally at the servants. But
Graham did not ring for Madeleine. He lighted a cigaret for
Natalie, and standing off, surveyed her. She was very pretty.
She was prettier than Toots. That pale blue wrapper, or
whatever it was, made her rather exquisite. And Natalie,
curled up on her pale rose chaise longue, set to work as de-
liberately to make a conquest of her son as she had ever done
to conquer Rodney Page, or the long list of Rodney's predeces-
sors.
"You're growing very handsome, you know, boy," she said.
“Almost too handsome. A man doesn't need good looks.
They're almost a handicap. Look at your father.”
of her ongue, set to And Natior
115


216
DANGEROUS DAYS
“They haven't hurt him any, I should say.”
“I don't know.” She reflected, eyeing her cigaret. “He
presumes on them, rather. And a good many men never think
a handsome man has any brains.”
"Well, he fools them there, too."
She raised her eyebrows slightly.
“Tell me about the new plant, Graham.”
"I don't know anything about it yet,” he said bluntly. "And
you wouldn't be really interested if I did.”
“That's rather disagreeable of you.”
“No; I'm just trying to talk straight, for once. We-you
and I—we always talk around things. I don't know why."
“You look terribly like your father just now. You are
quite savage.”
"That's exactly what I mean, mother. You don't say father
is savage. God knows he isn't that. You just say I act like
father, and that I am savage.”
Natalie blew a tiny cloud of cigaret smoke, and watched it
for a moment.
"You sound fearfully involved. But never mind about that.
I daresay I've done something; I don't know what, but of
course I am guilty.”
“Why did you bring Marion here to-day, mother?"
"Well, if you want to know exactly, I met her coming out
of church, and it occurred to me that we were having rather
a nice luncheon, and that it would be a pity not to ask some
one to come in. It was a nice luncheon, wasn't it?"
"That's why you asked her? For food?”.
"Brutally put, but correct.”
"You have been asking her here a lot lately. And yet the
last time we discussed her you said she was fast. That she
wanted to marry me for my money. That people would
laugh if I fell for it."
“I hardly used those words, did I pus
“For heaven's sake, mother," he cried, exasperated. "Don't


DANGEROUS DAYS
217
quibble. Let's get down to facts. Does your bringing her
here mean that you've changed your mind ?"
Natalie considered. She was afraid of too quick a sur-
render lest he grow suspicious. She decided to temporize,
with the affectation of frankness that had once deceived
Clayton, and that still, she knew, affected Graham.
"I'll tell you exactly,” she said, slowly. “At first I thought
it was just an infatuation. And—you really are young, Gra-
ham, although you look and act like such a man. But I feel,
now that time has gone on and you still care about her, that
after all, your happiness is all that matters.”
"Mother!"
But she held up her hand.
"Remember, I am only speaking for myself. My dearest
wish is to make you happy. You are all I have. But I cannot
help you very much. Your father looks at those things dif-
ferently. He doesn't quite realize that you are grown up,
and have a right to decide some things for yourself.”
"He has moved me up, raised my salary.”
"That's different. You're valuałle to him naturally. I
don't mean he doesn't love you,” she added hastily, as Graham
wheeled and stared at her. “Of course he does, in his own
way. It's not my way, but then I'm only a woman and a
mother.”
“You think he'll object?"
“I think he must be handled. If you rush at him, and de-
mand the right to live your own life "
"It is my life.”
"Precisely. Only he may not see it that way."
He took a step toward her.
"Mother, do you really want me to marry Marion?"
"I think you ought to be married."
“To Marion?”
"To some one you love."
"Circles again,” he muttered. “You've changed your mind,
for some reason. What is it, mother?”.


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DANGEROUS DAYS
He had an uneasy thought that she might have learned of
Anna. There was that day, for instance, when his father had
walked into the back room.
Natalie was following a train of thought suggested by her
own anxiety.
"You might be married quietly,” she suggested. “Once it
was done, I am sure your father would come around. You
are both of age, you know."
He eyed her then with open-eyed amazement.
"I'm darned if I understand you," he burst out. And then,
in one of his quick remorses, “I'm sorry, mother. I'm just
puzzled, that's all. But that plan's no good, anyhow. Marion
won't do it. She will have to be welcome in the family, or
she won't come.”
"She ought to be glad to come any way she can,” Natalie
said sharply. And found Graham's eyes on her, studying her.
“You don't want her. That's plain. But you do want her.
That's not so plain. What's the answer, mother?”.
And Natalie, with an irritable feeling that she had bungled
somehow, got :p and flung away the cigaret.
“I am trying to give you what you want,” she said pettishly.
“That's clear enough, I should think.”
“There's no other reason?”
"What other reason could there be ?"
· Dressing to dine at the Hayden's that night, Graham heard
Clayton come in and go into his dressing-room. He had an
impulse to go over, tie in hand as he was, and put the matter
squarely before his father. The marriage-urge-surely a
man would understand that. Even Anna, and his predicament
there. Anything was better than this constant indirectness of
gaining his father's views through his mother.
Had he done so, things would have been different later.
But by continual suggestion a vision of his father as hard,
detached, immovable, had been built up in his mind. He got
as far as the door, hesitated, turned back.
· It was Marion herself who solved the mystery of Natalie's


CHAPTER XXIX
LTERMAN KLEIN, watch between forefinger and thumb,
IT climbed heavily to Anna's room. She heard him pause
outside the door, and her heart almost stopped beating. She
had been asleep, and rousing at his step, she had felt under
the pillow for her watch to see the time. It was not there.
She remembered then; she had left it below, on the table.
And he was standing outside her door. She heard him
scratching a match, striking it against the panel of her door.
For so long as it would take the match to burn out, she heard
him there, breathing heavily. Then the knob turned.
She leaped out of the bed in a panic of fear. The hall,
like the room, was dark, and she felt his ponderous body in
the doorway, rather than saw it.
“You will put on something and come down-stairs,” he said
harshly.
"I will not.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I've got
to work, if you haven't. I've got to have my sleep.” Her
tone rose, hysterically. "If you think you can stay out half
the night, and guzzle beer, and then come here to get me up,
you can think again.”
"You are already up," he said, in a voice slowed and thick-
ened by rage. "You will come down-stairs."
He turned away and descended the creaking stairs again.
She listened for the next move, but he made none. She
knew then that he was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
She was half-maddened with terror by that time, and she
ran to the window. But it was high. Even if she could have
dropped out, and before she could put on enough clothing to
escape in, he would be back again, his rage the greater for the
delay. She slipped into a kimono, and her knees giving way
220


DANGEROUS DAYS
221
under her she went down the stairs. Herman was waiting.
He moved under the lamp, and she saw that he held the
watch, dangling.
"Now!” he said. "Where you got this? Tell me."
"I've told you how I got it."
“That was a lie.”
So-Rudolph had told him!
"I like that!” she blustered, trying to gain time. "I guess
it's time they gave me something I've worked hard enough.
They gave them to all the girls.”
“That is a lie also.”
"I like that. Telling me I'm lying. You ask Mr. Graham
Spencer. He'll tell you."
"If that is true, why do you shake so ?”
“You scare me, father.” She burst into frightened tears.
"I don't know what's got into you. I do my best. I give you
all I make. I've kept this house going, and”- she gained a
little courage _“I've had darned little thanks for it.”
“You think I believe the mill gave five thousand dollars
in watches last Christmas? To-morrow I go, with this to
Mr. Clayton Spencer, not to that degenerate son of his, and
I ask him. Then I shall know.
He turned, as if about to leave her, but the alternative he
offered her was too terrible.
"Father!" she said. "I'll tell you the truth. I bought it
myself.”
“With what money ?”
"I had a raise. I didn't tell you. I had a raise of five dol-
lars a week. I'm paying for it myself. Honest to heaven,
that's right, father.”
“So you have had a raise, and you have not told me?"
"I give all the rest to you. What do I get out of all my
hard work? Just a place to live. No clothes. No fun. No
anything. All the other girls have a good time now and then,
but I'm just like a prisoner. You take all I earn, and I get
the devil.”


222
DANGEROUS DAYS
Her voice rose to a terrified squeal. Behind her she heard
the slovenly servant creaking down the stairs. As Herman
moved toward her she screamed.
“Katie!" she called. “Quick. Help!”
But Herman had caught her by the shoulder and was drag-
ging her toward a corner, where there hung a leather strap.
Katie, peering round the door of the enclosed staircase, saw
him raise the strap, and Anna's white face upraised piteously.
"For God's sake, father."
The strap descended. Even after Katie had rushed up the
stairs and locked herself in the room, she could hear, above
Anna's cries, the thud of the strap, relentless, terrible, lusty
with cruelty.
Herman went to church the next morning. Lying in her
bed, too sore and bruised to move, Anna heard him care-
fully polishing his boots on the side porch, heard him throw
away the water after he had shaved, heard at last the slam
of the gate as he started, upright in his Sunday clothes, for
church. •
Only when he had reached the end of the street, and Katie
could see him picking his way down the blackened hill, did
she venture up with a cup of coffee. Anna had to unlock her
door to admit her, to remove a further barricade of chairs.
When Katie saw her she almost dropped the cup.
“You poor little rat,” she said compassionately. "Gee! He
was crazy. I never saw such a face. Gee!"
Anna said nothing. She dropped on the side of the bed and
took the coffee, drinking gingerly through a lip swollen and
cut.
"I'm going to leave,” Katie went on. "It'll be my time next.
If he tries any tricks on me I'll have the law on him. He's
a beast; that's what he is.”
“Katie,” Anna said, "if I leave can you get my clothes to
me? I'll carry all I can."
"He'd take the strap to me.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
223
"Well, if you're leaving anyhow, you can put some of my
things in your trunk.”
"Good and right you are to get out,” Katie agreed. “Sure
I'll do it. Where do you think you'll go ?”
"I thought last night I'd jump in the river. I've changed
my mind, though. I'll pay him back, and not the way he ex-
per mind, thoulast night on
Anna could not pas and what's his is onder he didn't kill
"Give it to him good," assented Katie. "I'd have liked to
slip some of that Paris green of his in his coffee this morn-
ing. And now he's off for church, the old hypocrite !"
To Katie's curious inquiries as to the cause of the beating
Anna was now too committal.
"I held out some money on him," was all she said.
Katie regarded her with a mixture of awe and admira-
tion.
"You've got your nerve,” she said. “I wonder he didn't kill
you. What's yours is his and what's his is his own!"
But Anna could not leave that morning. She lay in her bed,
cold compresses on her swollen face and shoulders, a bruised
and broken thing, planning hideous reprisals. Herman made
no inquiry for her. He went stolidly about the day's work,
carried in firewood and coal from the shed, inspected the
garden with a view to early planting, and ate hugely of the
Sunday mid-day dinner.
In the afternoon Rudolph came.
"Where's Anna ?” he asked briskly.
"She is in her room. She is not well.”
If Rudolph suspected anything, it was only that Anna was
sulking. But later on he had reason to believe that there
was trouble. Out of a clear sky Herman said:
“She has had a raise.” Anna was “she” to him.
"Since when ?" Rudolph asked with interest.
"I know nothing. She has not given it to me. She has
been buying herself a watch.”
"So!" Rudolph's tone was wary.


DANGEROUS DAYS
227
fore had a drink in the morning, and he felt a warm and
reckless glow to his very finger-tips. Bending toward her,
while the waiter's back was turned, he kissed her marred and
swollen cheek.
"To think I have brought you all this trouble!”
"You mustn't blame yourself.”
"I do. But I'll make it up to you, Anna. Yon don't hate
me for it, do you?”
"Hate you! You know better than that."
"I'll come round to take you out now and then, in the
evenings. I don't want you to sit alone in that forsaken
boarding-house and mope.” He drew out a bill-fold, and
extracted some notes. “Don't be silly," he protested, as she
drew back. “It's the only way I can get back my self-respect.
You owe it to me to let me do it.”
She was not hard to persuade. Anything was better than
going back to the cottage on the hill, and to that heavy brood-
ing figure, and the strap on the wall. But the taking of the
money marked a new epoch in the girl's infatuation. It
bought her. She did not know it, nor did he. But hitherto
she had been her own, earning her own livelihood. What
she gave of love, of small caresses and intimacies, had been
free gifts.
From that time she was his creature. In her creed, which
was the creed of the girls on the hill, one did not receive
without giving. She would pay him back, but all that she
had to give was herself.
"You'll come to see me, too. Won't you?"
The tingling was very noticeable now. He felt warm, and
young, and very, very strong.
“Of course I'll come to see you," he said, recklessly. "You
take a little time off-you've worked hard-and we'll play
round together."
She bent down, unexpectedly, and put her bruised cheek
against his hand, as it lay on the table.
"I love you dreadfully," she whispered.


CHAPTER XXX
L'EBRUARY and March were peaceful months, on the sur-
T face. Washington was taking stock quietly of national
resources and watching for Germany's next move. The win-
ter impasse in Europe gave way to the first fighting of spring,
raids and sorties mostly, since the ground was still too heavy
for the advancement of artillery. On the high seas the reign
of terror was in full swing, and little tragic echoes of the
world drama began again to come by cable across the At-
lantic. Some of Graham's friends, like poor Chris, found the
end of the path of glory. The tall young Canadian High-
lander died before Peronne in March. Denis Nolan's nephew
was killed in the Irish Fusileers.
One day Clayton came home to find a white-faced Buckham
taking his overcoat in the hall, and to learn that he had lost
a young brother.
Clayton was uncomfortable at dinner that night. He won-
dered what Buckham thought of them, sitting there around
the opulent table, in that luxurious room. Did he resent it?
After dinner he asked him if he cared to take a few days
off, but the old butler shook his head.
"I'm glad to have my work to keep me busy, sir," he said.
“And anyhow, in England, it's considered best to go on, quite
as though nothing had happened. It's better for the troops,
sir."
There was a new softness and tolerance in Clayton that
early spring. He had mellowed, somehow, a mellowing that
had nothing to do with his new prosperity. In past times he
had wondered how he would stand financial success if it ever
came. He had felt fairly sure he could stand the other thing.
But success? Now he found that it only increased his sense
228


DANGEROUS DAYS
229
song for and then .ped so at that on
of responsibility. He was, outside of the war situation, as
nearly happy as he had been in years. Natalie's petulant
moods, when they came, no longer annoyed him. He was
supported, had he only known it, by the strong inner life he
was living, a life that centered about his weekly meetings
with Audrey.
Audrey gave him courage to go on. He left their com-
radely hours together better and stronger. All the week cen-
tered about that one hour, out of seven days, when he stood
on her hearth-rug, or lay back in a deep chair, listening or
talking—such talk as Natalie might have heard without re-
sentment.
Some times he felt that that one hour was all he wanted; it
carried so far, helped so greatly. He was so boyishly content
in it. And then she would make a gesture, or there would
be, for a second, a deeper note in her voice, and the mad in-
stinct to catch her to him was almost overwhelming.
Some times he wondered if she were not very lonely, not
knowing that she, too, lived for days on that one hour. She
was not going out, because of Chris's death, and he knew
there were long hours when she sat alone, struggling deter-
minedly with the socks she was knitting.
Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that
was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way
up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost in-
visible chain, only to have her refuse to take it.
"I can't, Clay!"
“Why not?"
"It's too valuable. I can't take valuable presents from
men."
"It's value hasn't anything to do with it.”
"I'm not wearing jewelry, anyhow.”
“Audrey," he said gravely, “it isn't the pearl. It isn't its
value. That's absurd. Don't you understand that I would like
to think that you have something I have given you ?”
When she sat still, thinking over what he had said, he


230
DANGEROUS DAYS
conteed not edge only ti
slipped the chain around her neck and clasped it. Then he
stooped down, very gravely, and kissed her.
“For my silent partner!” he said.
In all those weeks, that was the only time he had kissed
her. He knew quite well the edge of the gulf they stood
on, and he was determined not to put the burden of denial on
her. He felt a real contempt for men who left the strength of
refusal to a woman, who pleaded, knowing that the woman's
strength would save them from themselves, and that if she
weakened, the responsibility was hers.
So he fed on the husks of love, and was, if not happy,
happier.
Graham, too, was getting on better. For one thing, Anna
Klein had been ill. She lay in her boarding-house, frightened
at every step on the stairs, and slowly recovered from a low
fever. Graham had not seen her, but he sent her money for
a doctor, for medicines, for her room rent, enclosed in brief
letters, purely friendly and interested. But she kept them
under her pillow and devoured them with feverish eyes.
But something had gone out of life for Graham. Not
Anna. Natalie, watching him closely, wondered what it was.
He had been strange and distant with her ever since that tall
boy in kilts had been there. He was studiously polite and
attentive to her, rose when she entered a room and remained
standing until she was seated, brought her the book she had
forgotten, lighted her occasional cigaret, kissed her morning
and evening. But he no longer came into her dressing-room
for that hour before dinner when Natalie, in dressing-gown
and slippers, had closed the door to Clayton's room and had
kept him for herself.
She was jealous of Clayton those days. Some times she
found the boy's eyes fixed on his father, with admiration and
something more. She was jealous of the things they had in
common, of the days at the mill, of the bits of discussion after
dinner, when Clayton sat back with his cigar, and Graham


DANGEROUS DAYS
231
voiced, as new discoveries, things about the work that Clayton
had realized for years.
He always listened gravely, with no hint of patronage. But
Natalie would break in now and then, impatient of a conversa-
tion that excluded her.
"Your father knows all these things, Graham,” she said
once. “You talk as though you'd just discovered the mill,
like Columbus discovering America."
“Not at all,” Clayton said, hastily. "He has a new views
point. I am greatly interested. Go on, Graham."
But the boy's enthusiasm had died. He grew self-conscious,
apologetic. And Clayton felt a resentment that was close to
despair.
The second of April fell on a Saturday. Congress, having
ended the session the fourth of March, had been hastily re-
convened, and on the evening of that day, Saturday, at half
past eight, the President went before the two Houses in joint
session.
Much to Clayton's disgust, he found on returning home that
they were dining out.
"Only at the Mackenzies. It's not a party,” Natalie said.
As usual, she was before the dressing-table, and she spoke to
his reflection in the mirror. “I should think you could do that,
without looking like a thunder-cloud. Goodness knows we've
been quiet enough this Lent.”
"You know Congress has been re-convened ?”
“I don't know why that should interfere."
"It's rather a serious time.” He tried very hard to speak
pleasantly. Her engrossment in her own reflection irritated
him, so he did not look at her. "But of course I'll go."
"Every time is a serious time with you lately,” she Aung
after him. Her tone was not disagreeable. She was merely
restating an old grievance. A few moments later he heard
her calling through the open door.
'I got some wonderful old rugs to-day, Clay.”
“Yes?"


232
DANGEROUS DAYS
“You'll scream when you pay for them.”
"I've lost my voice screaming, my dear.”
"You'll love these. They have the softest colors, dead
rose, and faded blue, and old copper tones."
"I'm very glad you're pleased.”
She was in high good humor when they started. Clayton,
trying to meet her conversational demands, found himself
wondering if the significance of what was to happen in Wash-
ington that night had struck home to her. If it had, and she
could still be cheerful, then it was because she had forced a
promise from Graham.
He made his decision then; to force her to release the boy
from any promise; to allow him his own choice. But he felt
with increasing anxiety that some of Natalie's weakness of
character had descended to Graham, that in him, as in Natalie,
perhaps obstinacy was what he hoped was strength. He
wondered, listening to her, what it would be to have beside
him that night some strong and quiet woman, to whom he
could carry his problems, his perplexities. Some one to sit,
hand in his, and set him right as such a woman could, on
many things.
And for a moment, he pictured Audrey. Audrey, his wife,
driving with him in their car, to whatever the evening might
hold. And after it was all over, going back with her, away
from all the chatter that meant so little, to the home that shut
them in together.
He was very gentle to Natalie that night.
Natalie had been right. It was a small and informal group,
gathered together hastily to discuss the emergency; only Denis
Nolan, the Mackenzies, Clayton and Natalie, and Audrey.
"We brought her out of her shell,” said Terry, genially,
“because the country is going to make history to-night. The
sort of history Audrey has been shouting for for months.”
The little party was very grave. Yet, of them all, only the
Spencers would be directly affected. The Mackenzies had no
children.
He wie had been aistily to discusand Natalied Terry: genThe


DANGEROUS DAYS
233
“Button, my secretary," Terry announced, "is in Washing-
ton. He is to call me here when the message is finished.”
“Isn't it possible," said Natalie, recalling a headline from
the evening paper, “that the House may cause an indefinite
delay ?"
And, as usual, Clayton wondered at the adroitness with
which, in the talk that followed, she escaped detection.
They sat long at the table, rather as though they clung to-
gether. And Nolan insisted on figuring the cost of war in
money.
"Queer thing," he said. “In ancient times the cost of war
fell almost entirely on the poor. But it's the rich who will
pay for this war. All taxation is directed primarily against
the rich.”
"The poor pay in blood,” said Audrey, rather sharply.
“They give their lives, and that is all they have."
"Rich and poor are going to do that, now," old Terry broke
in. “Fight against it all you like, you members of the privi.
leged class, the draft is coming. This is every man's war."
But Clayton Spencer was watching Natalie. She had paled
and was fingering her liqueur-glass absently. Behind her low-
ered eyelids he surmised that again she was planning. But
what? Then it came to him, like a flash. Old Terry had said
the draft would exempt married men. She meant to marry
Graham to a girl she detested, to save him from danger.
Through it all, however, and in spite of his anger and ap-
prehension, he was sorry for her. Sorry for her craven spirit.
Sorry even with an understanding that came from his own
fears. Sorry for her, that she had remained an essential child
in a time that would tax the utmost maturity. She was a
child. Even her selfishness was the selfishness of a spoiled
child. She craved things, and the spirit, the essence of life,
escaped her.
And beside him was Audrey, valiant-eyed, courageous, hon-
est. Natalie and Audrey! Some time during the evening his


CHAPTER XXXI
eit". cenderne in his into the
RAHAM was waiting in Clayton's dressing-room when he
u went up-stairs. Through the closed door they could hear
Natalie's sleepy and rather fretful orders to her maid. Gra-
ham rose when he entered, and threw away his cigaret.
"I guess it has come, father.”
"It looks like it."
A great wave of tenderness for the boy flooded over him.
That tall, straight body, cast in his own mold, but young, only
ready to live, that was to be cast into the crucible of war, to
come out—God alone knew how. And not his boy only, but
millions of other boys. Yet-better to break the body than
ruin the soul.
"How is mother taking it?"
Natalie's voice came through the door. She was insisting
that the house be kept quiet the next morning. She wanted
to sleep late. Clayton caught the boy's eyes on him, and a
half smile on his face.
"Does she know?"
“Yes."
"She isn't taking it very hard, is she?” Then his voice
changed. “I wish you'd talk to her, father. She's well,
she's got me! You see, I promised her not to go in without
her consent."
"When did you do that?”
“The night we broke with Germany, in February. I was
a fool, but she was crying, and I didn't know what else to do.
And”—there was a ring of desperation in his voice—"she's
holding me to it. I've been to her over and over again."
“And you want to go?”.
“Want to go! I've got to go."
235


236
DANGEROUS DAYS
He broke out then into a wild appeal. He wanted to get
away. He was making a mess of all sorts of things. He
wasn't any good. He would try to make good in the army,
Maybe it was only the adventure he wanted-he didn't know,
He hadn't gone into that. He hated the Germans. He wanted
one chance at them, anyhow. They were beasts.
Clayton, listening, was amazed at the depth of feeling and
anger in his voice.
"I'll talk to your mother," he agreed, when the boy's passion
had spent itself. “I think she will release you.” But he was
less certain than he pretended to be. He remembered Natalie's
drooping eyelids that night at dinner. She might absolve him
from the promise, but there were other ways of holding him
back than promises.
"Perhaps we would better go into the situation thoroughly,"
he suggested. “I have rather understood, lately, that you,
what about Marion Hayden, Graham?”
"I'm engaged to her.”
There was rather a long pause. Clayton's face was expres-
sionless.
“Since when ?"
“Last fall, sir."
"Does your mother know?”
"I told her, yes.” He looked up quickly. "I didn't tell you.
I knew you disliked her, and mother said " He checked
himself. “Marion wanted to wait. She wanted to be welcome
when she came into the family.”
"I don't so much lislike her as I-disapprove of her.”
“That's rather worse, isn't it?"
Clayton was tired. His very spirit was tired. He sat down
in his big chair by the fire.
“She is older than you are, you know.”
"I don't see what that has to do with it, father."
In Clayton's defense was his own situation. He did not
want the boy to repeat his mistakes, to marry the wrong
woman, and then find, too late, the right one. During the
in his big older than you are, to do with it, fatherje did not


DANGEROUS DAYS
237
forfie. Perhaps in hishaps he lost theas doggedly determ
impassioned appeal that followed he was doggedly determined
to prevent that. Perhaps he lost the urgency in the boy's
voice. Perhaps in his new conviction that the passions of the
forties were the only real ones, he took too little count of the
urge of youth.
He roused himself.
"You think you are really in love with her?"
"I want her. I know that.”.
"That's different. That's—you are too young to know what
you want.”
"I ought to be married. It would settle me. I'm sick of
batting round.”
"You want to marry before you enter the army?"
“Yes."
"Do you think for a moment that your wife will be willing
to let you go?"
Graham straightened himself.
"She would have to let me go."
And in sheer despair, Clayton played his last card. Played
it, and regretted it bitterly a moment later.
“We must get this straight, Graham. It's not a question of
your entering the army or not doing it. It's a question of
your happiness. Marriage is a matter of a life-time. It's got
to be based on something more than,” he hesitated. “And
your mother- "
"Please go on."
“You have just said that your mother does not want you
to go into the army. Has it occurred to you she would even
see you married to a girl she detests, to keep you at home?"
Graham's face hardened.
“So," he said, heavily, “Marion wants me for the money
she thinks I'm going to have, and mother wants me to marry
to keep me safe! By God, it's a dirty world, isn't it?”
Suddenly he was gone, and Clayton, following uneasily to
the doorway, heard a slam below. When, some hours later,
Graham had not come back, he fell into the heavy sleep that


238
DANGEROUS DAYS
follows anxiety and brings no rest. In the morning he found
that Graham had gone back to the garage and taken his car,
and that he had not returned.
Afterward Clayton was to look back and to remember with
surprise how completely the war crisis had found him ab-
sorbed in his own small group. But perhaps in the back of
every man's mind war was always, first of all, a thing of his
own human contacts. It was only when those were cleared
up that he saw the bigger problem. The smaller questions
loomed so close as to obscure the larger vision.
He went out into the country the next day, a cold Sunday,
going afoot, his head down against the wind, and walked for
miles. He looked haggard and tired when he came back, but
his quiet face held a new resolve. War had come at last. He
would put behind him the selfish craving for happiness, for-
get himself. He would not make money out of the nation's
necessity. He would put Audrey out of his mind, if not out
of his heart. He would try to rebuild his house of life along
new and better lines. Perhaps he could bring Natalie to see
things as he saw them, as they were, not as she wanted them
to be.
Some times it took great crises to bring out women. Child-
bearing did it, often. Urgent need did it, too. But after all
the real test was war. The big woman met it squarely, took
her part of the burden; the small woman weakened, went
down under it, found it a grievance rather than a grief.
He did not notice Graham's car when it passed him, out-
side the city limits, or see Anna Klein's startled eyes as it
flashed by.
Graham did not come in until evening. At ten o'clock
Clayton found the second man carrying up-stairs a tray con-
taining whisky and soda, and before he slept he heard a tap
at Graham's door across the hall, and surmised that he had
rung for another. Later still he heard Natalie cross the hall,
and rather loud and angry voices. He considered, ironically,


DANGEROUS DAYS
239
that a day which had found a part of the nation on its knees
found in his own house only dissension and bitterness.
In the morning, at the office, Joey announced a soldier to
see him, and added, with his customary nonchalance:
"We'll be having a lot of them around now, I expect.”
Clayton, glancing up from the visitor's slip in his hand,
surprised something wistful in the boy's eyes.
“Want to go, do you?”
"Give my neck to go-sir.” He always added the “sir,"
when he remembered it, with the air of throwing a sop to a
convention he despised.
"You may yet, you know. This thing is going to last a
while. Send him in, Joey."
He had grown attached to this lad of the streets. He found
in his loyalty a thing he could not buy.
Jackson was his caller. Clayton, who had been rather more
familiar with his back in its gray livery than with any other
aspect of him, found him strange and impressive in khaki.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner, Mr. Spencer," he
explained. “I've been down on the border. Yuma. I just
got a short leave, and came back to see my family.”
He stood very erect, a bronzed and military figure. Sud-
denly it seemed strange to Clayton Spencer that this man
before him had only a few months before opened his auto-
mobile door for him, and stood waiting with a rug to spread
over his knees. He got up and shook hands.
"You look like a different man, Jackson."
"Well, at least I feel like a man."
“Sit down," he said. And again it occurred to him that
never before had he asked Jackson to sit down in his pres-
ence. It was wrong, somehow. The whole class system was
absurd. Maybe war would change that, too. It was doing
many queer things, already.
He had sent for Jackson, but he did not at once approach
the reason. He sat back, while Jackson talked of the border
and Joey slipped in and pretended to sharpen lead pencils.


240
DANGEROUS DAYS
Clayton's eyes wandered to the window. Outside in the yard
were other men, now employees of his, who would soon be in
khaki. Out of every group there in a short time some would
be gone, and of those who would go a certain number would
never come back. That was what war was; one day a group
of men, laboring with their hands or their brains, that some
little home might live; that they might go back at evening to
that home, and there rest for the next day's toil. And the
next, gone. Every man out there in the yard was loved by
some one. To a certain number of them this day meant death,
or wounding. It meant separation, and suffering, and strug:
gle.
And all over the country there were such groups.
The roar of the plant came in through the open window. A
freight car was being loaded with finished shells. As fast as
it was filled, another car was shunted along the spur to take
its place. Over in Germany, in hundreds of similar plants,
similar shells were being hurried to the battle line, to be
hurled against the new army that was soon to cross the seas,
All those men, and back of every man, a woman.
Jackson had stopped. Joey was regarding him with stealthy
admiration, and holding his breast bone very high. Already in
his mind Joey was a soldier.
"You did not say in your note why you wanted to see me,
Mr. Spencer.”
He roused himself with a visible effort.
“I sent for you, yes,” he said. “I sent-I'll tell you why I
sent for you, Jackson. I've been meaning to do it for several
weeks. Now that this has come I'm more than glad I did so.
You can't keep your family on what you are getting. That's
certain.”
"My wife is going to help me, sir. The boy will soon be
weaned. Then she intends to get a position. She was a mile
liner when we were married.”
"But-Great Scott! She ought not to leave a child as young
as that.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
241
Jackson smiled.
"She's going to fix that, all right. She wants to do it. And
we're all right so far. I had saved a little.”
Then there were women like that! Women who would not
only let their men go to war, but who would leave their homes
and enter the struggle for bread, to help them do it.
“She says it's the right thing," volunteered Jackson, proudly.
· Women who felt that a man going into the service was a
right thing. Women who saw war as a duty to be done, not a
wild adventure for the adventurous.
"You ought to be very proud of her," he said slowly.
“There are not many like that.”
"Well,” Jackson said, apologetically, “they'll come round,
sir. Some of them kind of hate the idea, just at first. But I
look to see a good many doing what my wife's doing."
Clayton wondered grimly what Jackson would think if he
knew that at that moment he was passionately envious of him,
of his uniform, of the youth that permitted him to wear that
uniform, of his bronzed skin, of his wife, of his pride in that
wife.
"You're a lucky chap, Jackson,” he said. “I sent for you
because I wanted to say that, as long as you are in the national
service, I shall feel that you are on a vacation”-he smiled at
the word—“on pay. Under those circumstances, I owe you
quite a little money."
Jackson was too overwhelmed to reply at once.
"As a matter of fact," Clayton went on, “it's a national
move, in a way. You don't owe any gratitude. We need our
babies, you see. More than we do hats! If this war goes on,
we shall need a good many boy babies.”
And his own words suddenly crystallized the terror that was
in him. It was the boys who would go; boys who whistled in
the morning ; boys who dreamed in the spring, long dreams
of romance and of love.
Boys. Not men like himself, with their hopes and dreams
behind them. Not men who had lived enough to know that


242
DANGEROUS DAYS
only their early dreams were real. Not men, who, having
lived, knew the vast disillusion of living and were ready to die.
It was only after Jackson had gone that he saw the fallacy
of his own reasoning. If to live were disappointment, then
to die, still dreaming the great dream, was not wholly evil.
He found himself saying,
“To earn some honorable advancement for one's soul.”
Deep down in him, overlaid with years of worldliness, there
was a belief in a life after death. He looked out the window
at the little, changing group. In each man out there there was
something that would live on, after he had shed that sweating,
often dirty, always weary, sometimes malformed shell that was
the body. And then the thing that would count would be not
how he had lived but what he had done.
This war was a big thing. It was the biggest thing in all
the history of the world. There might be, perhaps, some
special heaven for those who had given themselves to it, some
particular honorable advancement for their souls. Already
he saw Jackson as one apart, a man dedicated.
Then he knew that all his thinking was really centered
about his boy. He wanted Graham to go. But in giving him
he was giving him to the chance of death. Then he must
hold to his belief in eternity. He must feel that, or the thing
would be unbearable. For the first time in his life he gave
conscious thought to Natalie's religious belief. She believed
in those things. She must. She sat devoutly through the long
service; she slipped, with a little rustle of soft silk, so easily to
her knees. Perhaps, if he went to her with that,


CHAPTER XXXII
POR a week after Anna's escape Herman Klein had sat
T alone and brooded. Entirely alone now, for following
a stormy scene on his discovery of Anna's disappearance,
Katie had gone too.
"I don't know where she is," she had said, angrily, “and
if I did know I wouldn't tell you. If I was her I'd have the
law on you. Don't you look at that strap. You lay a hand
on me and I'll kill you. If you think I'm afraid of you, you
can think again.”
"She is my daughter, and not yet of age,” Herman said
heavily. "You tell her for me that she comes back, or I go
and bring her."
: "Yah !" Katie jeered. “You try it! She's got marks on
her that'll jail you." And on his failure to reply her courage
mounted. “This ain't Germany, you know. They know how
to treat women over here. And you ask me”-her voice
rose—"and I'll just say that there's queer comings and goings
here with that Rudolph. I've heard him say some things
that'll lock him up good and tight.”
For all his rage, Teutonic caution warned him not to lay
hands on the girl. But his anger against her almost strangled
him. Indeed, when she came down stairs, dragging her heavy
suitcase, he took a step or two toward her, with his fists
clenched. She stopped, terrified.
"You old bully!” she said, between white lips. "You touch
me, and I'll scream till I bring in every neighbor in the block.
There's a good lamp-post outside that's just waiting for your
sort of German."
He had refused to pay her for the last week, also. But that
she knew well enough was because he was out of money. As
243


244
DANGEROUS DAYS
fast as Anna's salary had come in, he had taken out of it
the small allowance that was to cover the week's expenses,
and had banked the remainder. But Anna had carried her
last pay envelope away with her, and added to his anger at
her going was his fear that he would have to draw on his
savings.
With Katie gone, he set heavily about preparing his Sur-
day dinner. Long years of service done for him, however,
had made him clumsy. He cooked a wretched meal, and then,
leaving the dishes as they were, he sat by the fire and brooded.
When Rudolph came in, later, he found him there, in his
stocking-feet, a morose and untidy figure.
Rudolph's reception of the news roused him, however. He
looked up, after the telling, to find the younger man standing
over him and staring down at him with blood-shot eyes.
"You beat her!” he was saying. "What with ?"
"What does that matter? She had bought herself a
watch-
"What did you beat her with ?” Rudolph was licking his
lips. Receiving no reply, he called “Katie !"
“Katie has gone."
“Maybe you beat her, too."
“She wasn't my daughter."
"No, by God! You wouldn't dare to touch her. She didn't
belong to you. You "
"Get out,” said Herman, somberly. He stood up men-
acingly. “You go, now."
Rudolph hesitated. Then he laughed.
"All right, old top," he said, in a conciliatory tone. "No
offense meant. I lost my temper."
He picked up the empty coal-scuttle, and went out into
the shed where the coal was kept. He needed a minute to
think. Besides, he always brought in coal when he was
there. In the shed, however, he put down the scuttle and
stood still.
“The old devil!” he muttered.


DANGEROUS DAYS
245
But his rage for Anna was followed by rage against her.
Where was she to-night? Did Graham Spencer know where
she was? And if he did, what then? Were they at that mno-
ment somewhere together? Hidden away, the two of them?
The conviction that they were together grew on him, and
with it a frenzy that was almost madness. He left the coal
scuttle in the shed, and went out into the air. For a half
hour he stood there, looking down toward the Spencer fur-
nace, sending up, now red, now violet bursts of flame.
He was angry enough, jealous enough. But he was quick,
too, to see that that particular lump of potters' clay which
was Herman Klein was ready for the wheel. Even while he
was cursing the girl his cunning mind was already plotting,
revenge for the Spencers, self-aggrandizement among his fel-
lows for himself. His inordinate conceit, wounded by Anna's
defection, found comfort in the early prospect of putting
over a big thing. He carried the coal in, to find Herman
gloomily clearing his untidy table. For a moment they worked
in silence, Rudolph at the stove, Herman at the sink.
Then Rudolph washed his hands under the faucet and
faced the older man. “How do you know she bought her-
self that watch," he demanded.
Herman eyed him.
"Perhaps you gave it to her.” Something like suspicion of
Rudolph crept into his eyes.
“Me? A hundred-dollar watch!”
"How do you know it cost a hundred dollars ?”
"I saw it. She tried that story on me, too. But I was too
smart for her. I went to the store and asked. A hundred
bucks!”
Herman's lips drew back over his teeth.
"You knew it, eh? And you did not tell me?"
"It wasn't my funeral,” said Rudolph coolly. "If you
wanted to believe she bought it herself-
"If she bought it herself!" Rudolph's shoulder was caught
in an iron grip. "You will tell me what you mean.”


246
DANGEROUS DAYS
"Well, I ask you, do you think she'd spend that much on a
watch? Anyhow, the installment story doesn't go. That
place doesn't sell on installments.”
"Who is there would buy her such a watch?” Herman's
voice was thick.
“How about Graham Spencer? She's been pretty thick with
him."
“How you mean—thick ?"
Rudolph shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't mean anything. But he's taken her out in his car.
And the Spencers think there's nothing can't be bought with
money."
Herman put down the dish-cloth and commenced to draw
down his shirt sleeves.
"Where you going?” Rudolph demanded uneasily.
"I go to the Spencers !"
"Listen !" Rudolph said, excitedly. “Don't you do it; not
yet. You got to get him first. We don't know anything; we
don't even know he gave her that watch. We've got to find
her, don't you see? And then, we've got to learn if he's
going there—wherever she is.”
"I shall bring her back," Herman said, stubbornly. "I shall
bring her back, and I shall kill her."
"And get strung up yourself! Now listen—" he argued.
"You leave this to me. I'll find her. I've got a friend, a city
detective, and he'll help me, see? We'll get her back, all
right. Only you've got to keep your hands off her. It's the
Spencers that have got to pay."
Herman went back to the sink, slowly.
“That is right. It is the Spencers," he muttered.
Rudolph went out. Late in the evening he came back,
with the news that the search was on. And, knowing Her-
man's pride, he assured him that the hill need never learn of
Anna's flight, and if any inquiries came he advised him to
say the girl was sick.
In Rudolph's twisted mind it was not so much Anna's de-
Hanhat is right out. Late in


DANGEROUS DAYS
247
linquency that enraged him. The hill had its own ideas of
morality. But he was fiercely jealous, with that class-jealousy
which was the fundamental actuating motive of his life. He
never for a moment doubted that she had gone to Graham.
And, sitting by the fire in the little house, old Herman's
untidy head shrunk on his shoulders, Rudolph almost forgot
Anna in plotting to use this new pawn across the hearth from
him in his game of destruction.
By the end of the week, however, there was no news of
Anna. She had not returned to the mill. Rudolph's friend
on the detective force had found no clew, and old Herman
had advanced from brooding by the fire to long and furious
wanderings about the city streets.
He felt no remorse, only a growing and alarming fury. He
returned at night, to his cold and unkempt house, to cook
himself a frugal and wretched meal. His money had run
very low, and with true German stubbornness he refused to
draw any from the savings bank.
Rudolph was very busy. There were meetings always, and
to the little inner circle that met behind Gus's barroom one
night later in March, he divulged the plan for the destruction
of the new Spencer munition plant.
• “But-will they take him back?” one of the men asked.
He was of better class than the rest, with a military bearing
and a heavy German accent, for all his careful English.
· "Will a dog snatch at a bone?” countered Rudolph. “Take
him back! They'll be crazy about it.”
“He has been there a long time. He may, at the last,
weaken."
But Rudolph only laughed, and drank more whisky of the
German agent's providing.
"He won't weaken,” he said. “Give me a few days more to
find the girl, and all hell won't hold him.”
On the Sunday morning after the President had been before
Congress, he found Herman dressed for church, but sitting


248
DANGEROUS DAYS
by the fire. All around him lay the Sunday paper, and he
barely raised his head when Rudolph entered.
"Well, it's here!” said Rudolph.
“It has come. Yes.”
“Wall Street will be opening champagne to-day.”
Herman said nothing. But later on he opened up the foun-
tains of rage in his heart. It was wrong, all wrong. We had
no quarrel with Germany. It was the capitalists and politi-
cians who had done it. And above all, England.
He went far. He blamed America and Americans for his
loss of work, for Anna's disappearance. He searched his
mind for grievances and found them—in the ore dust on the
hill, which killed his garden; in the inefficiency of the police,
who could not find Anna; in the very attitude of Clayton
Spencer toward his resignation.
And on this smoldering fire Rudolph piled fuel. Not that
he said a great deal. He worked around the cottage, washed
dishes, threw pails of water on the dirty porches, swept the
floor, carried in coal and wood. And gradually he began to
play on the older man's vanity. He had had great influence
with the millworkers. No one man had ever had so much.
Old Herman sat up, and listened sourly. But after a time
he got up and pouring some water out of the kettle, proceeded
to shave himself. And Rudolph talked on. If now he were
to go back, and it were to the advantage of the Fatherland and
of the workers of the world to hamper the industry, who so
able to do it as Herman.
“Hamper? How?” Herman asked, suspiciously, holding his
razor aloft. He had a great fear of the law.
Rudolph re-assured him, cunning eyes averted.
"Well, a strike," he suggested. “The men'll listen to you.
God knows they've got a right to strike.”
"I shall not go back," said Herman stolidly, and finished his
shaving.
But Rudolph was satisfied. He left Herman sitting again


DANGEROUS DAYS
249
by the fire, but his eyes were no longer brooding. He was
thinking, watching the smoke curl up from the china-bowled
German pipe which he had brought from the Fatherland, and
which he used only on special occasions.


CHAPTER XXXIII
THE declaration of war found Graham desperately un-
T happy. Natalie held him rigidly to his promise, but it
is doubtful if Natalie alone could have kept him out of the
army. Marion was using her influence, too. She held him
by alternating between almost agreeing to a runaway mar-
riage and threats of breaking the engagement if he went to
war. She had tacitly agreed to play Natalie's game, and she
was doing it.
Graham did not analyze his own misery. What he said to
himself was that he was making a mess of things. Life, which
had seemed to be a simple thing, compounded of work and
play, had become involved, difficult and wretched.
Some times he watched Clayton almost with envy. He
seemed so sure of himself; he was so poised, so calm, so
strong. And he wondered if there had been a tumultuous youth
behind the quiet of his maturity. He compared the even
course of Clayton's days, his work, his club, the immaculate
orderliness of his life, with his own disordered existence.
He was hedged about with women. Wherever he turned,
they obtruded themselves. He made plans and women brushed
them aside. He tried to live his life, and women stepped in
and lived it for him. His mother, Marion, Anna Klein. Even
Delight, with her friendship always overclouded with disap-
proval. Wherever he turned, a.woman stood in the way. Yet
he could not do without them. He needed them even while
he resented them.
Then, gradually, into his self-engrossment there penetrated
a conviction that all was not well between his father and his
mother. He had always taken them for granted much as he
did the house and the servants. In his brief vacations during
250


DANGEROUS DAYS
251
his college days they had agreed or disagreed, amicably
enough. He had considered, in those days, that life was a
very simple thing. People married and lived together. Mar-,
riage, he considered, was rather the end of things.
But he was older now, and he knew that marriage was a
beginning and not an end. It did not change people funda-
mentally. It only changed their habits.
His discovery that his father and mother differed about
the war was the first of other discoveries; that they differed
about him; that they differed about many matters; that, in-
deed, they had no common ground at all on which to meet;
between them, although Graham did not put it that way, was a
No-Man's Land strewn with dead happiness, lost desires, and
the wreckage of years of dissension.
It was incredible to Graham that he should ever reach the
forties, but he wondered some times if all of life was either
looking forward or looking back. And it seemed to him
rather tragic that for Clayton, who still looked like a boy,
there should be nothing but his day at the mill, his silent
evening at home, or some stodgy dinner-party where the
women were all middle-aged, and the other men a trifle corpu-
lent.
For the first time he was beginning to think of Clayton as
a man, rather than a father.
Not that all of this was coherently thought out. It was a
series of impressions, outgrowth of his own beginning develop-
ment and of his own uneasiness.
He wondered, too, about Rodney Page. He seemed to be
always around, underfoot, suave, fastidious, bowing Natalie
out of the room and in again. He had deplored the war until
he found his attitude unfashionable, and then he began, with
great enthusiasm, to arrange pageants for Red Cross funds,
and even to make little speeches, graceful and artificial, pat-
terned on his best after-dinner manner.
Graham was certain that he supported his mother in trying
to keep him at home, and he began to hate him with a healthy


252
DANGEROUS DAYS
young hate. However, late in April, he posed in one of the
pageants, rather ungraciously, in a khaki uniform. It was not
until the last minute that he knew that Delight Haverford was
to be the nurse bending over his prostrate figure. He tumed
rather savage.
“Rotten nonsense,” he said to her, when they stood waiting
to be posed.
"Oh, I don't know. They're rather pretty.”
"Pretty! Do you suppose I want to be pretty ?”
"Well, I do,” said Delight, calmly.
"It's fake. That's what I hate. If you were really a nurse,
and I was really in uniform-! But this parading in some-
body else's clothes, or stuff hired for the occasion—it's sicken-
ing."
Delight regarded him with clear, appraising eyes.
“Why don't you get a uniform of your own, then ?" she in-
quired. She smiled a little.
He never knew what the effort cost her. He was pale and
angry, and his face in the tableau was so set that it brought
a round of applause. With the ringing down of the curtain
he confronted her, almost menacingly.
“What did you mean by that?” he demanded. “We've
hardly got into this thing yet.”
"We are in it, Graham.”
"Just because I don't leap into the first recruiting office and
beg them to take me what right have you got to call me a
slacker?"
“But I heard "
“Go on!”
"It doesn't matter what I heard, if you are going.”
"Of course I'm going," he said, truculently.
He meant it, too. He would get Anna settled somewhere
she had begun to mend—and then he would have it out with
Marion and his mother. But there was no hurry. The war
would last a long time. And so it was that Graham Spencer


DANGEROUS DAYS
253
joined the long line of those others who had bought a piece of
ground, or five yoke of oxen, or had married a wife.
It was the morning after the pageant that Clayton, going
down-town with him in the car, voiced his expectation that
the government would take over their foreign contracts, and
his feeling that, in that case, it would be a mistake to profit by
the nation's necessities.
“What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean we should take only a small profit. A banker's
profit."
Graham had been fairly stunned, and had sat quiet while
Clayton explained his attitude. There were times when big
profits were allowable. There was always the risk to invested
capital to consider. But he did not want to grow fat on the
nation's misfortunes. Italy was one thing. This was dif-
ferent.
“But-we are just getting on our feet !”
"Think it over!” said Clayton. “This is going to be a long
war, and an expensive one. We don't particularly want to
profit by it, do we?”
Graham Aushed. He felt rather small and cheap, but with
that there was a growing admiration of his father. Suddenly
he saw that this man beside him was a big man, one to be
proud of. For already he knew the cost of the decision. He
sat still, turning this new angle of war over in his mind.
“I'd like to see some of your directors when you put that
up to them !" .
Clayton nodded rather grimly. He did not anticipate a
pleasant hour.
"How about mother?”
"I think we may take it for granted that she feels as we do."
Graham pondered that, too.
"What about the new place?”
“It's too soon to discuss that. We are obligated to do a
certain amount. Of course it would be wise to cut where we
can."


254
DANGEROUS DAYS
Graham smiled.
“She'll raise the deuce of a row," was his comment.
It had never occurred to him before to take sides between
his father and his mother, but there was rising in him a new
and ardent partisanship of his father, a feeling that they were,
in a way, men together. He had, more than once, been tempted
to go to him with the Anna Klein situation. He would have,
probably, but a fellow felt an awful fool going to somebody
and telling him that a girl was in love with him, and what
the dickens was he to do about it?
He wondered, too, if anybody would believe that his rela-
tionship with Anna was straight, under the circumstances.
For weeks now he had been sending her money, out of a
sheer sense of responsibility for her beating and her illness.
He took no credit for altruism. He knew quite well the pos-
sibilities of the situation. He made no promises to himself.
But such attraction as Anna had had for him had been of her
prettiness, and their propinquity. Again she was girl, and
that was all. And the attraction was very faint now. He
was only sorry for her.
When she could get about she took to calling him up daily
from a drug-store at a near-by corner, and once he met her
after dark and they walked a few blocks together. She was
still weak, but she was spiritualized, too. He liked her a
great deal that night.
"Do you know you've loaned me over a hundred dollars,
Graham?" she asked.
"That's not a loan. I owed you that."
“I'll pay it back. I'm going to start to-morrow to look for
work, and it won't cost me much to live."
"If you send it back, I'll buy you another watch !"
And, tragic as the subject was, they both laughed.
"I'd have died if I hadn't had you to think about when I
was sick, Graham. I wanted to die-except for you."
He had kissed her then, rather because he knew she ex-
pected him to. When they got back to the house she said:


DANGEROUS DAYS
255
C
"You wouldn't care to come up?"
"I don't think I had better, Anna."
“The landlady doesn't object. There isn't any parlor. All
the girls have their callers in their rooms.”
“I have to go out to-night,” he said evasively. “I'll come
some other time.”
As he started away he glanced back at her. She was stand-
ing in the doorway, eying him wistfully, a lonely and depressed
little figure. He was tempted to throw discretion to the wind
and go back. But he did not.
On the day when Clayton had broached the subject of of-
fering their output to the government at only a banker's
profit, Anna called him up at his new office in the munition
plant.
He was rather annoyed. His new secretary was sitting
across the desk, and it was difficult to make his responses non-
committal.
“Graham!”
“Yes.”
"Is anybody there? Can you talk ?"
“Not very well.”
“Then listen ; I'll talk. I want to see you."
“I'm busy all day. Sorry.”
“Listen, Graham, I must see you. I've something to tell
you.”
“All right, go ahead.”
"It's about Rudolph. I was out looking for a position yeso
terday and I met him."
“Yes?"
He looked up. Miss Peterson was absently scribbling on
the cover of her book, and listening intently.
"He was terrible, Graham. He accused me of all sorts of
things, about you."
He almost groaned aloud over the predicament he was in.
It began to look serious.
"Suppose I pick you up and we have dinner somewhere?"


256
DANGEROUS DAYS
Oh, you'll go, all ri nou're right, of cou'll kill myself;"erself,
“At the same corner ?"
“Yes."
He was very irritable all morning. He felt as though a net
was closing in around him, and his actual innocence made
him the more miserable. Miss Peterson found him very dif-
ficult that day, and shed tears in her little room before she
went to lunch.
Anna herself was difficult that evening. Her landlady's son
had given up a good job and enlisted. Everybody was going.
She supposed Graham would go next, and she'd be left alone.
"I don't know. I'd like to.”
"Oh, you'll go, all right. And you'll forget I ever existed.”
She made an effort. “You're right, of course. I'm only look-
ing ahead. If anything happens to you, I'll kill myself."
The idea interested her. She began to dramatize herself,
a forlorn figure, driven from home, and deserted by her lover.
She saw herself lying in the cottage, stately and mysterious,
while the hill girls went in and out, and whispered.
"I'll kill myself,” she repeated.
"Nothing will happen to me, Anna, dear."
"I don't know why I care so. I'm nothing to you."
“That's not so."
"If you cared, you'd have come up the other night. You
left me alone in that lonesome hole. It's hell, that place. All
smells and whispering and dirt."
“Now listen to me, Anna. You're tired, or you wouldn't
say that. You know I'm fond of you. But I've got you into
trouble enough. I'm not-for God's sake don't tempt me,
Anna."
She looked at him half scornfully.
"Tempt you!" Then she gave a little scream. Graham
following her eyes looked through the window near them.
“Rudolph!" she whimpered. And began to weep out of
pure terror.
But Grahan saw nobody. To soothe her, however, he went
outside and looked about. There were half a dozen cars, a


DANGEROUS DAYS
257
group of chauffeurs, but no Rudolph. He went back to her,
to find her sitting, pale and tense, her hands clenched together.
“They'll pay you out some way,” she said. “I know them.
They'll never believe the truth. That was Rudolph, all right.
He'll think we're living together. He'd never believe anything
else.”
"Do you think he followed you the other day?"
"I gave him the shake, in the crowd.”
"Then I don't see why you're worrying. We're just where
we were before, aren't we?”
"You don't know them. I do. They'll be up to something."
She was excited and anxious, and with the cocktail he
ordered for her she grew reckless.
“I'm just hung around your neck like a stone," she lamented.
"You don't care a rap for me; I know it. You're just sorry
for me."
Her eyes filled again, and Graham rose, with an impatient
movement.
"Let's get out of this,” he said roughly. "The whole place
is staring at you.”
But on the road the fact that she had been weeping for
him made him relent. He put an arm around her and drew
her to him.
“Don't cry, honey," he said. “It makes me unhappy to see
you miserable.”
He kissed her. And they clung together, finding a little
comfort in the contact of warm young bodies.
He went up to her room that night. He was more anxious
as to Rudolph than he cared to admit, but he went up, treading
softly on stairs that creaked with every step. He had no
coherent thoughts. He wanted companionship rather than
love. He was hungry for what she gave him, the touch of her
hands about his neck, the sense of his manhood that shone
from her faithful eyes, the admiration and unstinting love she
offered him.
But alone in the little room he had a reaction, not the less


258
DANGEROUS DAYS
likes not so and stood there he railwa swi
threw up theol and cleaned down. I the long swing che
keen because it was his fastidious rather than his moral sense
that revolted. The room was untidy, close, sordid. Even
Anna's youth did not redeem it. Again he had the sense,
when he had closed the door, of being caught in a trap, and
this time a dirty trap. When she had taken off her hat, and
held up her face to be kissed, he knew he would not stay.
"It's awful, isn't it?" she asked, following his eyes.
“It doesn't look like you. That's sure.”
"I hurried out. It's not so bad when it's tidy."
He threw up the window, and stood there a moment. The
spring air was cool and clean, and there was a sound of
tramping feet below. He looked down. The railway station
was near-by, and marching toward it, with the long swing of
regulars, a company of soldiers was moving rapidly. The
night, the absence of drums or music, the businesslike rapidity
of their progress, held him there, looking down. He turned
around. Anna had slipped off her coat, and had opened the
collar of her blouse. Her neck gleamed white and young.
She smiled at him.
"I guess I'll be going," he stammered.
“Going!"
"I only wanted to see how you are fixed.” His eyes evaded
hers. “I'll see you again in a day or two. I- "
He could not tell her the thoughts that were surging in him.
The country was at war. Those fellows below there were
already in it, of it. And here in this sordid room, he had
meant to take her, not because he loved her, but because she
offered herself. It was cheap. It was terrible. It was,
dirty.
"Good night,” he said, and tried to kiss her. But she turned
her face away. She stood listening to his steps on the stairs
as he went down, steps that mingled and were lost in the
steady tramp of the soldiers' feet in the street below.


CHAPTER XXXIV
IT ITH.Os many new problems following the declaration of
war, Clayton Spencer found a certain peace. It was
good to work hard. It was good to fill every working hour,
and to drop into sleep at night too weary for consecutive
thought.
Yet had he been frank with himself he would have ac-
knowledged that Audrey was never really out of his mind,
Back of his every decision lay his desire for her approval,
He did not make them with her consciously in his mind, but
he wanted her to know and understand. In his determination,
for instance, to offer his shells to the government at a nominal
profit, there was no desire to win her approbation,
It was rather that he felt her behind him in the decision.
He shrank from telling Natalie. Indeed, until he had re-
turned from Washington he did not broach the subject. And
then he was tired and rather discouraged, and as a result
almost brutally abrupt.
Coming on top of a hard fight with the new directorate, a
fight which he had finally won, Washington was disheartening.
Planning enormously for the future, it seemed to have no
vision for the things of the present. He was met vaguely, put
off, questioned. He waited hours, as patiently as he could,
to find that no man seemed to have power to act, or to know
what powers he had.
He found something else, too-a suspicion of him, of his
motives. Who offered something for nothing must be actuated
by some deep and hidden motive. He found his plain proposi-
tion probed and searched for some ulterior purpose behind it.
"It's the old distrust, Mr. Spencer,” said Hutchinson, who
had gone with him to furnish figures and various data. “The
259


200
DANGEROUS DAYS
Democrats are opposed to capital. They're afraid of it. And
the army thinks all civilians are on the make—which is pretty
nearly true.”
He saw the Secretary of War, finally, and came away feel-
ing better. He had found there an understanding that a man
may—even should-make sacrifices for his country during
war. But, although he carried away with him the conviction
that his offer would ultimately be accepted, there was nothing
actually accomplished. He sent Hutchinson back, and waited
for a day or two, convinced that his very sincerity must bring
a concrete result, and soon.
Then, lunching alone one day in the Shoreham, he saw
Audrey Valentine at another table. He had not seen her for
weeks, and he had an odd moment of breathlessness when his
eyes fell on her. She was pale and thin, and her eyes looked
very tired. His first impulse was to go to her. The second,
on which he acted, was to watch her for a little, to fill his eyes
for the long months of emptiness ahead.
She was with a man in uniform, a young man, gay and
smiling. He was paying her evident court, in a debonair
fashion, bending toward her across the table. Suddenly Clay-
ton was jealous, fiercely jealous.
The jealousy of the young is sad enough, but it is an ephem-
eral thing. Life calls from many directions. There is al-
ways the future, and the things of the future. And behind it
there is the buoyancy and easy forgetfulness of youth. But
the jealousy of later years knows no such relief. It sees time
flying and happiness evading it. It has not the easy self-con-
fidence of the twenties. It has learned, too, that happiness is
a rare elusive thing, to be held and nursed and clung to, and
that even love must be won and held.
It has learned that love must be free, but its instinct is to
hold it with chains.
He suffered acutely, and was ashamed of his suffering.
After all, Audrey was still young. Life had not been kind to


262
DANGEROUS DAYS
ir dining toget. But the new He could notand he
“Oh!” She waited.
"Have you had a pleasant afternoon?"
"Aren't you going to see me before you go?"
"I don't think so."
“Don't you want to know what I am doing in Washington ?"
“That's fairly clear, isn't it?”
“You are being rather cruel, Clay."
He hesitated. He was amazed at his own attitude. Then,
“Will you dine with me to-night?”
"I kept this evening for you."
But when he saw her, his sense of discomfort only in-
creased. Their dining together was natural enough. It was
not even faintly clandestine. But the new restraint he put on
himself made him reserved and unhappy. He could not act a
part. And after a time Audrey left off acting, too, and he
found her watching him. On the surface he talked, but under-
neath it he saw her unhappiness, and her understanding of his.
“I'm going back, too,” she said. “I came down to see what
I can do, but there is nothing for the untrained woman. She's
a cumberer of the earth. I'll go home and knit. I daresay I
ought to be able to learn to do that well, anyhow.”
"Have you forgiven me for this afternoon?”
"I wasn't angry. I understood.”
That was it, in a nutshell. Audrey understood. She was
that sort. She never held small resentments. He rather
thought she never felt them.
"Don't talk about me," she said. “Tell me about you and
why you are here. It's the war, of course.”
So, rather reluctantly, he told her. He shrank from seeming
to want her approval, but at the same time he wanted it. His
faith in himself had been shaken. He needed it restored. And
some of the exaltation which had led him to make his proffer
to the government came back when he saw how she flushed
over it.
“It's very big,” she said, softly. "It's like you, Clay. And
that's the best thing I can say. I am very proud of you.”


DANGEROUS DAYS
263
1
"I would rather have you proud of me than anything in
the world,” he said, unsteadily.
They drifted, somehow, to talking of happiness. And al-
ways, carefully veiled, it was their own happiness they dis-
cussed.
"I don't think,” she said, glancing away from him, "that one
finds it by looking for it. That is selfish, and the selfish are
never happy. It comes-oh, in queer ways. When you're try-
ing to give it to somebody else, mostly."
“There is happiness, of a sort, in work."
Their eyes met. That was what they had to face, she dedi-
cated to service, he to labor.
"It's never found by making other people unhappy, Clay.”
“No. And yet, if the other people are already un-
happy- "
"Never!” she said. And the answer was to the unspoken
question in both their hearts.
It was not until they were in the taxicab that Clayton
forced the personal note, and then it came as a cry, out of
the very depths of him. She had slipped her hand into his,
and the comfort of even that small touch broke down the bar-
riers he had so carefully erected.
"I need you so!” he said. And he held her hand to his
face. She made no movement to withdraw it.
“I need you, too,” she replied. “I never get over needing
you. But we are going to play the game, Clay. We may
have our weak hours—and this is one of them-but always,
please God, we'll play the game.”
The curious humility he felt with her was in his voice.
"I'll need your help, even in that.”
And that touch of boyishness almost broke down her re-
serve of strength. She wanted to draw his head down on her
shoulder, and comfort him. She wanted to smooth back his
heavy hair, and put her arms around him and hold him. There
was a great tenderness in her for him. There were times
when she would have given the world to have gone into his


264
DANGEROUS DAYS
arms and let him hold her there, protected and shielded. But
that night she was the stronger, and she knew it.
"I love you, Audrey. I love you terribly."
And that was the word for it. It was terrible. She knew
it.
oing thro the end. I would but
"To have gone through all the world,” he said, brokenly,
"and then to find the woman, when it is too late. Forever
too late." He turned toward her. "You know it, don't you?
That you are my woman?”.
"I know it,” she answered, steadily. “But I know, toom "
"Let me say it just once. Then never again. I'll bury it, but
you will know it is there. You are my woman. I would go
through all of life alone, to find you at the end. And if I
could look forward, dear, to going through the rest of it
with you beside me, so I could touch you, like this "
"I know.”
"If I could only protect you, and shield you-oh, how ten-
derly I could care for you, my dear, my dear!".
The strength passed to him, then. Audrey had a clear
picture of what life with him might mean, of his protection,
his tenderness. She had never known it. Suddenly every bit
of her called out for his care, his quiet strength.
"Don't make me sorry for myself.” There were tears in
her eyes. “Will you kiss me, Clay? We might have that to
remember.”
But they were not to have even that, for the taxicab drew
up before her hotel. It was one of the absurd anti-climaxes
of life that they should part with a hand-clasp and her formal
"Thank you for a lovely evening."
Audrey was the better actor of the two. She went in as
casually as though she had not put the only happiness of her
life away from her. But Clayton Spencer stood on the pave-
ment, watching her in, and all the tragedy of the empty years
ahead was in his eyes.


CHAPTER XXXV
I EFT alone in her untidy room after Graham's abrupt de
L parture, Anna Klein was dazed. She stood where he
left her, staring ahead. What had happened meant only one
thing to her, that Graham no longer cared about her, and, if
that was true, she did not care to live.
It never occurred to her that he had done rather a fine
thing, or that he had protected her against herself. She felt
no particular shame, save the shame of rejection. In her small
world of the hill, if a man gave a girl valuable gifts or money
there was generally a quid pro quo. If the girl was unwilling,
she did not accept such gifts. If the man wanted nothing, he
did not make them. And men who made love to girls either
wanted to marry them or desired some other relationship with
them.
She listened to his retreating footsteps, and then began,
automatically to unbutton her thin white blouse. But with the
sound of the engine of his car below she ran to the window.
She leaned out, elbows on the sill, and watched him go,
without a look up at her window.
So that was the end of that!
Then, all at once, she was fiercely angry. He had got her
into this scrape, and now he had left her. He had pretended
to love her, and all the time he had meant to do just this, to
let her offer herself so he might reject her. He had been
playing with her. She had lost her home because of him,
had been beaten almost insensible, had been ill for weeks, and
now he had driven away, without even looking back.
She jerked her blouse off, still standing by the window, and
when the sleeve caught on her watch, she jerked that off, too.
She stood for a moment with it in her hand, her face twisted
265


266
DANGEROUS DAYS
with shame and anger. Then recklessly and furiously she
flung it through the open window.
In the stillness of the street far below she heard it strike
and rebound.
"That for him!” she muttered.
Almost immediately she wanted it again. He had given it to
her. It was all she had left now, and in a curious way it had,
through long wearing, come to mean Graham to her. She
leaned out of the window. She thought she saw it gleaming in
the gutter, and already, attracted by the crash, a man was
crossing the street to where it lay.
"You let that alone,” she called down desperately. The
figure was already stooping over it. Entirely reckless now, she
ran, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, down the stairs and out
into the street. She had thought to see its finder escaping,
but he was still standing where he had picked it up.
"It's mine," she began. “I dropped it out of the window.
“You threw it out of the window. I saw you.”
It was Rudolph.
“You— ” He snarled, and stood with menacing eyes fixed
on her bare neck.
"Rudolph !"
“Get into the house,” he said roughly. “You're half-naked.”
“Give me my watch.”
"I'll give it to you, all right. What's left of it. When
we get in.”
He followed her into the hall, but when she turned there
and held out her hand, he only snarled again.
“We'll talk up-stairs."
"I can't take you up. The landlady don't allow it.”
"She don't, eh? You had that Spencer skunk up there."
His face frightened her, and she lied vehemently.
“That's not so, and you know it, Rudolph Klein. He came
inside, just like this, and we stood and talked. Then he went
away. He wasn't inside ten minutes." Her voice rose


268
DANGEROUS DAYS
“God!” said Rudolph. “The dirty pup. Then—then you're
through with him, eh?”
"I'm through, all right.”
Her tone carried conviction. Rudolph's face relaxed, and
seeing that, she remembered her half-dressed condition.
“Throw me that waist,” she said.
“Come around and get it.”
“Aw, Rudolph, throw it. Please !"
“Getting modest, all at once," he jeered. But he picked it
up and advanced to the table with it. As she held out her
hand for it he caught her and drew her forward toward him,
across the table.
“You little devil!” he said, and kissed her.
She submitted, because she must, but she shivered. If she
was to save Graham she must play the game. And so far
she was winning. She was feminine enough to know that al-
ready the thing he thought she had done was to be forgiven
her. More than that, she saw a half-reluctant admiration in
Rudolph's eyes, as though she had gained value, if she had lost
virtue, by the fact that young Spencer had fancied her. And
Rudolph's morals were the morals of many of his kind. He
admired chastity in a girl, but he did not expect it.
But she was watchful for the next move he might make.
That it was not what she expected did not make it the less
terrifying.
“You get your hat and coat on."
"I'll not do anything of the kind."
“D’you think I'm going to leave you here, where he can
come back whenever he wants to? You think again!" .
"Where are you going to take me?"
“I'm going to take you home.”
When pleading made no impression on him, and when he
refused to move without her, she threw her small wardrobe
into the suitcase, and put her hat and coat on. She was past
thinking, quite hopeless. She would go back, and her father
virtue, by morals were the 17 he did not expeche might make.


DANGEROUS DAYS
269
would kill her, which would be the best thing anyhow; she
didn't care to live.
Rudolph had relapsed into moody silence. Down the stairs,
and on the street he preceded her, contemptuously letting her
trail behind. He carried her suitcase, however, and once, be-
ing insecurely fastened, it opened and bits of untidy apparel
littered the pavement. He dropped the suitcase and stood
by while she filled it again. The softness of that moment,
when, lured by her bare arms he had kissed her, was gone.
The night car jolted and swayed. After a time he dozed,
and Anna, watching him, made an attempt at flight. He caught
her on the rear platform, however, with a clutch that sickened
her. The conductor eyed them with the scant curiosity of two
o'clock in the morning, when all the waking world is awry.
At last they were climbing the hill to the cottage, while
behind and below them the Spencer furnaces sent out their
orange and violet flames, and the roar of the blast sounded
like the coming of a mighty wind.
The cottage was dark. Rudolph put down the suitcase, and
called Herman softly through his hands. Above they could
hear him moving, and his angry voice came through the open
window.
“What you want?"
“Come down. It's Rudolph.”
But when he turned Anna was lying in a dead faint on the
garden path, a crumpled little heap of blissful forgetfulness.
When Herman came down, it was to find Rudolph standing
over her, the suitcase still in his hand, and an ugly scowl
on his face.
"Well, I got her," he said. “She's scared, that's all.” He
prodded her with his foot, but she did not move, and Herman
bent down with his candle.
He straightened.
"Bring her in," he said, and led the way into the house.
When Rudolph staggered in, with Anna in his arms, he found
Herman waiting and fingering the leather strap.


DANGEROUS DAYS
271
"Let's have the tea first.”
Audrey's housekeeping was still rather casual. Tidiness
of Natalie's meticulous order would always be beyond her, but
after certain frantic searches for what was needed, she made
some delicious tea.
“Order was left out of me, somehow," she complained. “Or
else things move about when I'm away. I'm sure it is that,
because I certainly never put the sugar behind my best hat.
Now let's have it.”
Delight was only playing with her tea. She flushed deli-
cately, and put the cup down.
"I was in the crowd this morning," she said.
"In the crowd? Oh, my crowd!”
“Yes."
“I see,” said Audrey, thoughtfully. "I make a dreadful
speech, you know.”
"I thought you were wonderful. And, when those men
promised to enlist, I cried. I was horribly ashamed. But
you were splendid.”
"I wonder !” said Audrey, growing grave. Delight was
astonished to see that there were tears in her eyes. “I do
it because it is all I can do, and of course they must go.
But some times at night-you see, my dear, some of them are
going to be killed. I am urging them to go, but the better
the day I have had, the less I sleep at night."
There was a little pause. Delight was thinking desperately
of something to say.
"But you didn't come to talk about me, did you?”
“Partly. And partly about myself. I want to do some-
thing, Mrs. Valentine. I can drive a car, but not very well.
I don't know a thing about the engine. And I can nurse a
little. I like nursing.”
Audrey studied her face. It seemed to her sad beyond
words that this young girl, who should have had only happi-
ness, was facing the horrors of what would probably be a long
war. It was the young who paid the price of war, in death,


272
DANGEROUS DAYS
in empty years. Already the careless gayety of their lives
was gone. For the dream futures they had planned they had
now to substitute long waiting; for happiness, service.
"The Red Cross is going to send canteen workers to France.
You might do that."
"If I only could! But I can't leave mother. Not entirely.
Father is going. He wants to go and fight, but I'm afraid
they won't take him. He'll go as a chaplain, anyhow. But
he's perfectly helpless, you know. Mother says she is going
to tie his overshoes around his neck.”
"I'll see if I can think of something for you, Delight.
There's one thing in my mind. There are to be little houses
built in all the new training-camps for officers, and they art
to be managed by women. They are to serve food-sand:
wiches and coffee, I think. They may be even more pre-
tentious. I don't know, but I'll find out."
“I'll do anything,” said Delight, and got up. It was then
that Audrey realized that there was something more to the
visit than had appeared, for Delight, ready to go, hesitated.
"There is something else, Mrs. Valentine,” she said, rather
slowly. “What would you do if a young man wanted to go
into the service, and somebody held him back?"
"His own people?"
“His mother. And a girl.”
“I would think the army is well off without him."
Delight flushed painfully.
"Perhaps,” she admitted. “But is it right just to let it
go at that? If you like people, it seems wrong just to stand
by and let others ruin their lives for them."
"Only very weak men let women ruin their lives."
But already she began to understand the situation.
“There's a weakness that is only a sort of habit. It may
come from not wanting to hurt somebody.” Delight was pull-
ing nervously at her gloves. “And there is this to be said, too.
If there is what you call weakness, wouldn't the army be good
for it? It makes men, some times, doesn't it?"


DANGEROUS DAYS
273
For a sickening moment, Audrey thought of Chris. War had
made Chris, but it had killed him, too.
"Have you thought of one thing ?" she asked. “That in
trying to make this young man, whoever it is, he may be hurt,
or even worse?"
"He would have to take his chance, like the rest."
She went a little pale, however. Audrey impulsively put an
arm around her.
“And this—woman is the little long-legged girl who used
to give signals to her father when the sermon was too long!
Now-what can I do about this youth who can't make up his
own mind ?”
“You can talk to his mother."
"If I know his mother—and I think I dorit won't do the
slightest good.”
"Then his father. You are great friends, aren't you?”
Even this indirect mention of Clayton made Audrey's hands
tremble. She put them behind her.
"We are very good friends," she said. But Delight was
too engrossed to notice the deeper note in her voice. “I'll
see what I can do. But don't count on me too much. You
spoke of a girl. I suppose I know who it is."
“Probably. It is Marion Hayden. He is engaged to her.”
And again Audrey marveled at her poise, for Delight's little
tragedy was clear by that time. Clear, and very sad.
"I can't imagine his really being in love with her.”
"But he must be. They are engaged.”
Audrey smiled at the simple philosophy of nineteen, smiled
and was extremely touched. How brave the child was!
Audrey's own courageous heart rather swelled in admiration.
But after Delight had gone, she felt depressed again, and
very tired. How badly these things were handled! How
strange it was that love so often brought suffering! Great
loves were almost always great tragedies. Perhaps it was be-
cause love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice
entered into it.
so oftenings were ressed agairation.
t until the Perhaiting! Grow


DANGEROUS DAYS
self, her sossip
knew of the talk about Natalie and Rodney Page. There was
a great deal of talk. Somehow such talk cheapened his sacri-
fice and hers.
Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how
little such gossip actually meant. Practically every woman she
knew, herself included, had at one time or another laid her-
self open to such invidious comment. They had all been idle,
and they sought amusement in such spurious affairs as this,
harmless in the main, but taking on the appearance of evil.
That was part of the game, to appear worse than one really
was. The older the woman, the more eager she was often
in her clutch at the vanishing romance of youth.
Only—it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A
fierce pride for Clayton's name sent the color to her face.
On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to
speak at a recruiting station far down-town in a crowded
tenement district, and tired as she was, she took a bus and
went down at seven o'clock. She was uneasy and nervous.
She had not spoken in the evening before, and in all her
sheltered life she had never seen the milling of a night crowd
in a slum district.
There was a wagon drawn up at the curb, and an earnest-
eyed young clergyman was speaking. The crowd was at-
tentive, mildly curious. The clergyman was emphatic with-
out being convincing. Audrey watched the faces about her,
standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the futility of
it all gripped her. All these men, and only a feeble cheer
as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this ef-
fort for such scant result, and over on the other side such
dire need! But one thing cheered her. Beside her, in the
crowd, a portly elderly Jew was standing with his hat in his
hand, and when a man near him made some jeering comment,
the Jew brought his hand down on his shoulder.
"Be still and listen,” he said. "Or else go away and allow
others to listen. This is our country which calls.”
the crow all the agreed to


276
DANGEROUS DAYS
"It's amusing, isn't it?" Audrey heard a woman's voice
near her, carefully inflected, slightly affected.
"It's rather stunning, in a way. It's decorative; the white
faces, and that chap in the wagon, and the gasoline torch.”
“I'd enjoy it more if I'd had my dinner.”
The man laughed.
“You are a most brazen combination of the mundane and
the spiritual, Natalie. You are all soul-after you are fed.
Come on. It's near here."
Audrey's hands were very cold. By the movement of the
crowd behind her, she knew that Natalie and Rodney were
making their escape, toward food and a quiet talk in some ob-
scure restaurant in the neighborhood. Fierce anger shook her.
For this she and Clayton were giving up the only hope they
had of happiness—that Natalie might carry on a cheap and
stealthy flirtation.
She made a magnificent appeal that night, and a very suc-
cessful one. The lethargic crowd waked up and pressed for-
ward. There were occasional cheers, and now and then the
greater tribute of convinced silence. And on a box in the
wagon the young clergyman eyed her almost wistfully. What
a woman she was! With such a woman a man could live up to
the best in him. Then he remembered his salary in a mission
church of twelve hundred a year, and sighed.
He gained courage, later on, and asked Audrey if she
would have some coffee with him, or something to eat. She
looked tired.
"Tired!” said Audrey. “I am only tired these days when
I am not working."
"You must not use yourself up. You are too valuable to
the country."
She was very grateful. After all, what else really mat-
tered? In a little glow she accepted his invitation.
"Only coffee,” she said. “I have had dinner. Is there any
place near?"
He piloted her through the crowd, now rapidly dispersing.


DANGEROUS DAYS
277
:
Here and there some man, often in halting English, thanked
her for what she had said. A woman, slightly the worse for
drink, but with friendly, rather humorous eyes, put a hand
on her arm.
"You're all right, m'dear," she said. “You're the stuff. Give
it to them. I wish to God I could talk. I'd tell 'em some-
thing."
The clergyman drew her on hastily.
In a small Italian restaurant, almost deserted, they found
a table, and the clergyman ordered eggs and coffee. He was
a trifle uneasy. In the wagon Audrey's plain dark clothes
had deceived him. But the single pearl on her finger was very
valuable. He fell to apologizing for the place.
"I often come here,” he explained. “The food is good, if
you like Italian cooking. And it is near my work. I- "
But Audrey was not listening. At a corner, far back, Nat-
alie and Rodney were sitting, engrossed in each other, Natalie's
back was carefully turned to the room, but there was no mis-
taking her. Audrey wanted madly to get away, but the coffee
had come and the young clergyman was talking gentle plati-
tudes in a rather sweet but monotonous voice. Then Rodney
saw her, and bowed.
Almost immediately afterward she heard the soft rustle
that was Natalie, and found them both beside her.
"Can we run you up-town?" Natalie asked. “That is, un-
less "
She glanced at the clergyman.
“Thank you, no, Natalie. I'm going to have some supper
first.”
Natalie was uneasy. Audrey made no move to present the
clergyman, whose name she did not know. Rodney was look-
ing slightly bored.
"Odd little place, isn't it?” Natalie offered after a second's
silence.
“Rather quaint, I think.”


280
DANGEROUS DAYS
It's your own affair, of course, but it doesn't seem quite
fair to him.”
"Oh, of course you'd side with him. Women always side
with the husband.”
"I don't ‘side' with any one,” Audrey protested. “But I am
sure, if he realized that you are lonely- "
Suddenly she realized that Natalie was crying. Not much,
but enough to force her to dab her eyes carefully through
her veil.
"I'm awfully unhappy, Audrey,” she said. “Everything's
wrong, and I don't know why. What have I done? I try and
try and things just get worse."
Audrey was very uncomfortable. She had a guilty feeling
that the whole situation, with Natalie pouring out her woes
beside her, was indelicate, unbearable.
“But if Clay- ” she began.
"Clay! He's absolutely ungrateful. He takes me for
granted, and the house for granted. Everything. And if he
knows I want a thing, he disapproves at once. I think some-
times he takes a vicious pleasure in thwarting me."
i But as she did not go on, Audrey said nothing. Natalie had
raised her veil, and from a gold vanity-case was repairing
the damages around her eyes.
"Why don't you find something to do, something to inter-
est you ?” Audrey suggested finally.
· But Natalie poured out a list of duties that lasted for the
last three miles of the trip, ending with the new house.
"Even that has ceased to be a satisfaction,” she finished.
"Clayton wants to stop work on it, and cut down all the esti-
mates. It's too awful. First he told me to get anything I
liked, and now he says to cut down to nothing. I could just
shriek about it.”
"Perhaps that's because we are in the war, now."
“War or no war, we have to live, don't we? And he thinks
I ought to do without the extra man for the car, and the sec-


DANGEROUS DAYS
281
ond man in the house, and heaven alone knows what. I'm at
the end of my patience.”
Audrey made a resolution. After all, what mattered was
that things should be more tolerable for Clayton. She turned
to Natalie.
"Why don't you try to do what he wants, Natalie? He
must have a reason for asking you. And it would please
him a lot."
"If I start making concession, I can just keep it up. He's
like that."
"He's so awfully fine, Natalie. He'
swell, he's rather big.
And sometimes I think, if you just tried, he wouldn't be so
hard to please. He probably wants peace and happiness "
"Happiness !” Natalie's voice was high. “That sounds like
Clay. Happiness! Don't you suppose I want to be happy?".
“Not enough to work for it,” said Audrey, evenly.
Natalie turned and stared at her.
"I believe you're half in love with Clay yourself!"
"Perhaps I am.”
But she smiled frankly into Natalie's eyes.
"I know if I were married to him, I'd try to do what he
wanted.”
“You'd try it for a year. Then you'd give it up. It's one
thing to admire a man. It's quite different being married to
him, and having to put up with all sorts of things ".
Her voice trailed off before the dark vision of her domestic
unhappiness. And again, as with Graham and his father, it
was what she did not say that counted. Audrey came close to
hating her just then.
So far the conversation had not touched on Graham, and
now they were turning in the new drive. Already the lawns
were showing green, and extensive plantings of shrubbery
were putting out their pale new buds. Audrey, bending for-
ward in the car, found it very lovely, and because it belonged
to Clay, was to be his home, it thrilled her, just as the tow-


282
DANGEROUS DAYS
ering furnaces of his mill thrilled her, the lines of men leaving
at nightfall. It was his, therefore it was significant.
The house amazed her. Even Natalie's enthusiasm had not
promised anything so stately or so vast. Moving behind her
through great empty rooms, to the sound of incessant ham-
mering, over which Natalie's voice was raised shrilly, she
was forced to confess that, between them, Natalie and Roa-
ney had made a lovely thing. She felt no jealousy when she
contrasted it with her own small apartment. She even felt
that it was the sort of house Clayton should have.
For, although it had been designed as a setting for Natalie,
although every color-scheme, almost every chair, had been
bought with a view to forming a background for her, it was
too big, too massive. It dwarfed her. Out-of-doors, Audrey
lost that feeling. In the formal garden Natalie was charmingly
framed. It was like her, beautifully exact, carefully planned,
already with its spring borders faintly glowing.
Natalie cheered in her approval.
“You're so comforting,” she said. “Clay thinks it isn't
homelike. He says it's a show place—which it ought to be.
It cost enough-and he hates show places. He really ought
to have a cottage. Now let's see the swimming-pool.”
But at the pool she lost her gayety. The cement basin, still
empty, gleamed white in the sun, and Natalie, suddenly brood-
ing, stood beside it staring absently into it.
“It was for Graham,” she said at last. “We were going to
have week-end parties, and all sorts of young people. But
I have a cottage; she lost here, and Natalie
now!"
"What about now?"
Natalie raised tragic eyes to hers.
"He's probably going into the army. He'd have never
thought of it, but Clayton shows in every possible way that
he thinks he ought to go. What is the boy to do? His father
driving him to what may be his death !"
"I don't think he'd do that, Natalie."
Natalie laughed, her little mirthless laugh.


DANGEROUS DAYS
20
"Much you know what his father would do! I'll tell you
this, Audrey. If Graham goes, and anything—happens to
him, I'll never forgive Clay. Never."
Audrey had not suspected such depths of feeling as Nat-
alie's eyes showed under their penciled brows. They were
desperate, vindictive eyes. Suddenly Natalie was pleading
with her.
"You'll talk to Clay, won't you? He'll listen to you. He
has a lot of respect for your opinion. I want you to go to
him, Audrey. I brought you here to ask you. I'm almost
out of my mind. Why do you suppose I play around with
Rodney? I've got to forget, that's all. And I've tried every-
thing I know, and failed. He'll go, and I'll lose him, and
if I do it will kill me.”
· "It doesn't follow that because he goes he won't come
back."
“He'll be in danger. I shall be worrying about him every
moment.” She threw out her hands in what was as unre-
strained a gesture as she ever made. “Look at me!" she
cried. “I'm getting old under it. I have lines about my eyes
already. I hate to look at myself in the morning. And I'm
not old. I ought to be at my best now.”
Natalie's anxiety was for Graham, but her pity was for
herself. Audrey's heart hardened.
"I'm sorry," she said. “I can't go to Clay. I feel as I think
he does. If Graham wants to go, he should be free to do it.
You're only hurting him, and your influence on him, by hold-
ing him back.”
"You've never had a child."
"If I had, and he wanted to go, I should be terrified, but I
should be proud."
"You and Clay! You even talk alike. It's all a pose, this
exalted attitude. Even this war is a pose. It's a national at-
titude we've struck, a great nation going to rescue humanity,
while the rest of the world looks on and applauds! It makes
me il!.”


284
DANGEROUS DAYS
She turned and went back to the house, leaving Audrey by
the swimming-pool. She sat on the edge of one of the stone
benches, feeling utterly dreary and sad. To make a sacrifice
for a worthy object was one thing. To throw away a life's
happiness for a spoiled, petulant woman was another. It was
too high a price to pay. Mingled with her depression was pity
for Clayton; for all the years that he had lived with this
woman, and pride in him, that he had never betrayed his
disillusion.
After a time she saw the car waiting, and she went slowly
back to the house. Natalie was already inside, and she made
no apologies whatever. The drive back was difficult. Natalie
openly sulked, replied in monosyllables, made no effort her-
self until they were in the city again. Then she said, “I'm
sorry I asked you to speak to Clay. Of course you needn't
do it.”
"Not if it is to do what you said. But I wish you wouldn't
misunderstand me, Natalie. I'm awfully sorry. We just
think differently."
“We certainly do," said Natalie briefly. And that was her
good-by.


CHAPTER XXXVII
W HEN Clayton had returned from Washington, one of
V the first problems put up to him had been Herman
Klein's application to be taken on again. He found Hutchin-
son in favor of it.
“He doesn't say much,” he said. “Never did. But I gather
things are changed, now we are in the war ourselves."
"I suppose we need him.”
"You bet we need him.”
For the problem of skilled labor was already a grave one.
Clayton was doubtful. If he could have conferred with
Dunbar he would have felt more comfortable, but Dunbar
was away on some mysterious errand connected with the Mili-
tary Intelligence Department. He sat considering, tapping on
his desk with the handle of his pen. Of course things were
different now. A good many Germans whose sympathies had,
as between the Fatherland and the Allies, been with Germany,
were now driven to a decision between the land they had left
and the land they had adopted. And behind Herman there
were thirty years of good record.
"Where is the daughter ?”
"I don't know. She left some weeks ago. It's talk around
the plant that he beat her up, and she got out. Those Germans
don't know the first thing about how to treat women.”
"Then she is not in Weaver's office?”.
"No."
There was more talk in the offices than Hutchinson re-
peated. Graham's fondness for Anna, her slavish devotion
to him, had been pretty well recognized. He wondered if
Clayton knew anything about it, or the further gossip that
Graham knew where Anna Klein had been hiding.
285


286
DANGEROUS DAYS
tion hi But hood of tichinson
“What about Rudolph Klein? He was a nephew, wasn't
he ?"
"Fired,” said Hutchinson laconically. "Got to spreading
the brotherhood of the world idea-sweat brothers, he calls
them. But he was mighty careful never to get in a perspira-
tion himself.”
“We might try Herman again. But I'd keep an eye on
him.”
So Herman was taken on at the new munition plant. He
was a citizen, he owned property, he had a record of long
service behind him. And, at first, ne was minded to preserve
that record intact. While he had by now added to his rage
against the Fatherland's enemies a vast and sullen fury
against invested capital, his German caution still remained.
He would sit through fiery denunciations of wealth, nod-
ding his head slowly in agreement. He was perfectly aware
that in Gus's little back room dark plots were hatched. In-
deed, on a certain April night Rudolph had come up and calles
him onto the porch.
"In about fifteen minutes," he said, consulting his watch it,
the doorway, “I'm going to show you something pretty."
And in fifteen minutes to the dot the great railroad ware.
houses near the city wharf had burst into flames. Herman
had watched without comment, while Rudolph talked in-
cessantly, boasting of his share in the enterprise.
“About a million dollars' worth of fireworks there,” he
said, as the glare dyed their faces red. “All stuff for the
Allies.” And he boasted, “When the cat sits on the pick-
handle, brass buttons must go."
By that time Herman knew that the “cat” meant sabotage.
He had nodded slowly.
"But it is dangerous," was his later comment. “Sometimes
they will learn, and then- "
His caution had exasperated Rudolph almost to frenzy. And
as time went on, and one man after another of the organiza-
tion was ferreted out at the new plant and dismissed, the sole
th And in fifteen city wharf had while Rudol


DANGEROUS DAYS
remaining hope of the organization was Herman. With his re-
instatement their hopes had risen again, but to every sugges-
tion so far he had been deaf. He would listen approvingly,
but at the end, when he found the talk veering his way, and
a circle of intent faces watching him, he would say:
"It is too dangerous. And it is a young man's work. I
am not young."
Then he would pay his score, but never by any chance Ru-
dolph's or the others, and go home to his empty house. But
recently the plant had gone on double turn, and Herman was
soon to go on at night. Here was the gang's opportunity.
Everything was ready but Herman himself. He continued
interested, but impersonal. For the sake of the Fatherland
he was willing to have the plant go, and to lose his work.
He was not at all daunted by the thought of the deaths that
would follow. That was war. Anything that killed and de-
stroyed was fair in war. But he did not care to place him-
self in danger. Let those young hot-heads do the work.
Rudolph, watching him, bided his time. The ground was
plowed and harrowed, ready for the seed, and Rudolph had
only to find the seed.
The night he had carried Anna into the cottage on the
hill, he had found it.
Herman had not beaten Anna. Rudolph had carried her
up to her bed, and Herman, following slowly, strap in hand,
had been confronted by the younger man in the doorway of
the room where Anna lay, conscious but unmoving, on the
bed.
“You can use that thing later," Rudolph said. "She's sick
now. Better let her alone.”
"I will teach her to run away," Herman muttered thickly.
“She left me, her father, and threw away a good job-I- "
“You come down-stairs. I've something to say to you."
And, after a time, Herman had followed him down, but he
still clung doggedly to the strap.
Rudolph led the way outside, and here in the darkness he


288
Dn
DANGEROUS DAYS
told Anna's story, twisted and distorted through his own
warped mind, but convincing and partially true. Herman's
silence began to alarm him, however, and when at last he rose
and made for the door, Rudolph was before him.
"What are you going to do?"
Herman said nothing, but he raised the strap and held it
menacingly.
“Get out of my way.”
"Don't be a fool,” Rudolph entreated. “You can beat her
to death, and what do you get out of it? She'll run away again
if you touch her. Put that strap down. I'm not afraid of
you."
Their voices, raised and angry, penetrated through Anna's
haze of fright and faintness. She sat up in the bed, ready to
spring to the window if she heard steps on the stairs. When
none came, but the voices, lowered now, went on endlessly
below, she slipped out of her bed and crept to the doorway.
Sounds traveled clearly up the narrow enclosed stairway.
She stood there, swaying slightly, until at last her legs would
no longer support her. She crouched on the floor, a hand
clutching her throat, lest she scream. And listened.
She did not sleep at all. The night had been too full of
horrors. And she was too ill to attempt a second flight. Be-
sides, where could she go? Katie was not there. She could
see her empty little room across, with its cot bed and tawdry
dresser. Before, too, she had had Graham's protection to
count on. Now she had nothing.
And the voices went on.
When she went back to bed it was almost 'dawn. She heard
Herman come up, heard the heavy thump of his shoes on the
floor, and the creak immediately following that showed he
had lain down without undressing. By the absence of his
resonant snoring she knew he was not sleeping, either. She
pictured him lying there, his eyes on the door, in almost un-
winking espionage.
At half past six she got up and went down-stairs. Almost


290
DANGEROUS DAYS
put his food on the table and he ate gluttonously, as he always
did. She did not sit down. She drank a little coffee, standing
at the stove, and watched the back of his head with hate in
her eyes. He could eat like that, when he stood committed
to a terrible thing!
It was not until late in the day that it began to dawn on
her how she was responsible. She was getting stronger then,
and more able to think. She followed as best she could the
events of the last months, and she saw that, as surely as
though a malevolent power had arranged it, the thing was the
result of her infatuation for Graham.
She was in despair, and she began to plan how to get word
to Graham of what was impending. She scrawled a note to
Graham, telling him where she was and to try to get in touch
with her somehow. If he would come around four o'clock
Herman was generally up and off to the grocer's, or to Gus's
saloon for his afternoon beer.
"I'll break a window and talk to you," she wrote. “I'm
locked in when he's out. My window is on the north side.
Don't lose any time. There's something terrible going to
happen."
But several days went by and the postman did not appear.
Herman had put a padlock on the outside of her bedroom door,
and her hope of finding a second key to fit the door-lock died
then.
It had become a silent, bitter contest between the two of
them, with two advantages in favor of the girl. She was
more intelligent than Herman, and she knew the thing he
was planning to do. She made a careful survey of her room,
and she saw that with a screw-driver she could unfasten the
hinge of her bedroom door. Herman, however, always kept
his tools locked up. She managed, apparently by accident, to
break the point off a knife, and when she went up to her
room one afternoon to be locked in while Herman went to
Gus's saloon, she carried the knife in her stocking.
It was a sorry tool, however. Driven by her shaking hand,
Pit a knife, cked in Wher stockingjing hand,


DANGEROUS DAYS
291
there was a time when she almost despaired. And time was
flying. The postman, when he came, came at five, and she
heard the kitchen clock strike five before the first screw fell
out into her hand. She got them all out finally, and the door
hung crazily, held only by the padlock. She ran to the window.
The postman was coming along the street, and she hammered
madly at the glass. When he saw her he turned in at the
gate, and she got her letter and ran down the stairs.
She heard his step on the porch outside, and called to him,
“Is that you, Briggs ?”
The postman was “Briggs” to the hill.
“Yes."
"If I slide a letter out under the door, will you take it to
the post-office for me? It's important."
"All right. Slide.”
She had put it partially under the door when a doubt crept
into her mind. That was not Briggs's voice. She made a
frantic effort to draw the letter back, but stronger fingers
than hers had it beyond the door. She clutched, held tight.
Then she heard a chuckle, and found herself with a corner
of the envelope in her hand.
There were voices outside, Briggs's and Rudolph's.
"Guess that's for me."
“Like hell it is."
She ran madly up the stairs again, and tried with shaking
fingers to screw the door-hinges into place again. She fully
expected that they would kill her. She heard Briggs go out,
and after a time she heard Rudolph trying to kick in the house
door. Then, when the last screw was back in place, she heard
Herman's heavy step outside, and Rudolph's voice, high, furi-
ous, and insistent.
Had Herman not been obsessed with the thing he was to
do, he might have beaten her to death that night. But he did
not. She remained in her room, without food or water. She
had made up her mind to kill herself with the knife if they


CHAPTER XXXVIII
NE morning, in his mail, Clayton Spencer received a clip-
ping. It had been cut from a so-called society journal,
and it was clamped to the prospectus of a firm of private de-
tectives who gave information for divorce cases as their
specialty.
First curiously, then with mounting anger, Clayton read
that the wife of a prominent munition manufacturer was be-
ing seen constantly in out of the way places with the young
architect who was building a palace for her out of the
profiteer's new wealth. “It is quite probable," ended the no-
tice, "that the episode will end in an explosion louder than
the best shell the husband in the case ever turned out.”
Clayton did not believe the thing for a moment. He was
infuriated, but mostly with the journal, and with the insulting
inference of the prospectus. He had a momentary clear vi-
sion, however, of Natalie, of her idle days, of perhaps a
futile last clutch at youth. He had no more doubt of her
essential integrity than of his own. But he had a very dis-
tinct feeling that she had exposed his name to cheap scandal,
and that for nothing.
Had there been anything real behind it, he might have under-
stood. In his new humility, in his new knowledge of impulses
stronger than any restraints of society, he would quite cer-
tainly have made every allowance. But for a whim, an indul-
gence of her incorrigible vanity! To get along, to save Nat-
alie herself, he was stilling the best that was in him, while
Natalie
That was one view of it. The other was that Natalie was
as starved as he was. If he got nothing from her, he gave
her nothing. How was he to blame her? She was straying
id there been anytmility, in his news, he would qu
293


294
DANGEROUS DAYS
along dangerous paths, but he himself had stood at the edge
of the precipice, and looked down.
Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps, for once, Natalie
was in earnest. Perhaps Rodney was, too. Perhaps each of
them had at last found something that loomed larger than
themselves. In that case-
But everything he knew of Natalie contradicted that. She
was not a woman to count anything well lost for love. She
was playing with his honor, with Rodney, with her own
vanity.
Going up-town that night he pondered the question of how
to take up the matter with her. It would be absurd, under
the circumstances, to take any virtuous attitude. He was
still undetermined when he reached the house.
He found Marion Hayden there for dinner, and Graham,
and a spirited three-corner discussion going on which ceased
when he stood in the doorway. Natalie looked irritated, Gra-
ham determined, and Marion was slightly insolent and un-
usually handsome.
"Hurry and change, Clay,” Natalie said. “Dinner is wait-
ing."
As he went away he had again the feeling of being shut
out of something which concerned Graham.
Dinner was difficult. Natalie was obviously sulking, and
Graham was rather taciturn. It was Marion who kept the
conversation going, and he surmised in her a repressed excite-
ment, a certain triumph.
At last Natalie roused herself. The meal was almost over,
nnd the servants had withdrawn.
“I wish you would talk sense to Graham, Clay,” she said,
fretfully. “I think he has gone mad.”
"I don't call it going mad to want to enlist, father.”
"I do. With your father needing you, and with all the
men there are who can go.”
"I don't understand. If he wants to enter the army, that's
up to him, isn't it?"


DANGEROUS DAYS
297
Clayton knew then that she would never marry Graham. As
she went out he followed her with a faint smile of tribute.
The smile died as he turned to go up the stairs.
Natalie was in her dressing-room. She had not undressed,
but was standing by a window. She made no sign that she
heard him enter, and he hesitated. Why try to talk things
out with her? Why hurt her? Why not let things drift
along ? There was no hope of bettering them. One of two
things he must do, either tear open the situation between them,
or ignore it.
"Can I get anything for your head, my dear?"
“I haven't any headache.”
"Then I think I'll go to bed. I didn't sleep much last night."
He was going out when she spoke again.
“I came up-stairs because I saw how things were going."
"Do you really want to go into that, to-night?”
“Why not to-night? We'll have to go into it soon enough.”
Yet when she turned to him he saw the real distress in her
face, and his anger died.
"I didn't want to hurt you, Natalie. I honestly tried. But
you know how I feel about that girl.”
"Even the servants know it. It is quite evident."
"We parted quite amiably."
"I dare say! You were relieved that she was going. If you
would only be ordinarily civil to her-oh, don't you see? She
could keep Graham from going into this idiotic war. You
can't. I can't. I've tried everything I know. And she knows
she can. She's_hateful about it."
"And you would marry him to that sort of a girl ?”
“I'd keep him from being blinded, or mutilated, or being
killed.”
"You can kill his soul.”
"His soul!” She burst into hysterical laughter. “You to
talk about souls! That's—that's funny."
“Natalie, dear.” He was very grave, very gentle. "Has it
occurred to you that we are hitting it off rather badly lately?"


298
DANGEROUS DAYS
She looked at him quickly.
"How? Because I don't think as you do? We got on well
enough before this war came along."
"Do you think it is only that?”
“If it's the house, just remember you gave me carte blanche
there."
He made a little gesture of despair.
“I just thought perhaps you are not as happy as you might
be."
"Happiness again! Did you come up-stairs to-night, with
this thing hanging over us, to talk about happiness? That's
funny, too.” But her eyes were suddenly suspicious. There
was something strange in his voice.
"Let's forget that for a moment. Graham will make his own
decision. But, before we leave that, let me tell you that
I love him as much as you do. His going means exactly as
much. It's only- "
"Another point we differ on," she finished for him. “Go
on. You are suddenly concerned about my happiness. I'm
touched, Clay. You have left me all winter to go out alone,
or with anybody who might be sorry enough for me to pick
me up, and now—" Suddenly her eyes sharpened, and she
drew her breath quickly. "You've seen that scandalous thing
in the paper!”
"It was sent to me.”
"Who sent it?"
"A firm of private detectives."
She was frightened, and the terror in her face brought
him to her quickly.
"Natalie! Don't look like that! I don't believe it, of course.
It's stupid. I wasn't going to tell you. You don't think I
believe it, do you ?"
She let him put an arm around her and hold her, as he
would a scared child. There was no love for her in it, but
a great pity, and acute remorse that he could hold her so and
care for her so little.


DANGEROUS DAYS
299
"Oh, Clay!" she gasped. “I've been perfectly sick about it!”
His conviction of his own failure to her made him very
tender. He talked to her, as she stood with her face buried
in the shoulder of his coat, of the absurdity of her fear, of
his own understanding, and when she was calmer he made a
futile effort to make his position clear.
"I am not angry,” he said. “And I'm not judging you in
any way. But you know how things are between us. We
have been drifting apart for rather a long time. It's not your
fault. Perhaps it is mine. Probably it is. I know I don't
make you happy. And sometimes I think things have either
got to be better or worse.”
"If I'm willing to go along as we are, I think you should
be"
“Then let's try to get a little happiness out of it all, Natalie.”
“Oh, happiness! You are always raving about happiness.
There isn't any such thing."
“Peace, then. Let's have peace, Natalie.”
She drew back, regarding him.
“What did you mean by things having to be better or
worse?"
When he found no immediate answer, she was uneasy. The
prospect of any change in their relationship frightened her.
Like all weak women, she was afraid of change. Her life
suited her. Even her misery she loved and fed on. She had
pitied herself always. Not love, but fear of change, lav
behind her shallow, anxious eyes. Yet he could not hurt her.
She had been foolish, but she had not been wicked. In his
new humility he found her infinitely better than himself.
"I spoke without thinking."
“Then it must have been in your mind. Let me see the
clipping, Clay. I've tried to forget what it said.”
She took it, still pinned to the prospectus, and bent over
them both. When she had examined them, she continued to
stand with lowered eyelids, turning and crumpling them.
Then she looked up.
clipping, Clay, still pinnead examined thand crumpli


DANGEROUS DAYS
301
when he started, and he had a hopeless sense of the futility
of the effort he had made. Natalie had got by with a bad
half-hour, and would proceed to forget it as quickly as she
always forgot anything disagreeable. Still, she was in a more
receptive mood than usual, and he wondered if that would
not be as good a time as any to speak about his new plan as
to the mill. He took an uneasy turn or two about the room,
feeling her eyes on him.
“There is something else, Natalie.”
She had relaxed like a kitten in her big chair, and was
lighting one of the small, gilt-tipped cigarets she affected.
“About Graham?”.
"It affects Graham. It affects us all.”
“Yes ?”
He hesitated. To talk to Natalie about business meant re-
ducing it to its most elemental form.
"Have you ever thought that this war of ours means more
than merely raising armies?”
"I haven't thought about this war at all. It's too absurd.
A lot of politicians ” She shrugged her shoulders.
“It means a great deal of money."
"Well, the country is rich, isn't it?"
“The country? That means the people.”
"I knew we'd get to money sooner or later,” she observed,
resignedly. "All right. We'll be taxed, so we'll cut down
on the country house-go on. I can say it before you do. But
don't say we'll have to do without the greenhouses, because
we can't.”
“We may have to go without more than greenhouses.”
His tone made her sit bolt upright. Then she laughed a
little.
"Poor old Clay,” she said, with the caressing tone she used
when she meant to make no concession. “I do spend money,
don't I? But I do make you comfortable, you know. And
what is what I spend, compared with what you are mak-
ing?”


CHAPTER XXXIX
AUDREY had made a resolution, and with characteristic
H energy had proceeded to carry it out. She was no longer
needed at the recruiting stations. After a month's debate the
conscription law was about to be passed, made certain by the
frank statement of the British Commission under Balfour as
to the urgency of the need of a vast new army in France.
For the first time the Allies laid their cards face up on the
table, and America realized to what she was committed. Al-
most overnight a potential army of hundreds of thousands
was changing to one of millions. The situation was des-
perate. Germany had more men than the Allies, and had vast
eastern resources to draw on for still more. To the Allies
only the untapped resources of America remained.
In private conference with the President Mr. Balfour had
rirged haste, and yet more haste.
Audrey, reading her newspapers faithfully, felt with her
exaltation a little stirring of regret. Her occupation, such as
it was, was gone. For the thin stream of men flowing toward
the recruiting stations there was now to be a vast movement
of the young manhood of the nation. And she could have
no place in it.
Almost immediately she set to work to find herself a new
place. At first there seemed to be none. She went to a
hospital, and offered her strong body and her two willing
hands for training.
"I could learn quickly," she pleaded, "and surely there will
not be enough nurses for such an army as we are to have.”
"Our regular course is three years."
"But a special course. Surely I may have that. There are
so many things one won't need in France.”
303


304
DANGEROUS DAYS
The head of the training school smiled rather wistfully.
They came to her so often now, these inteHigent, untrained
women, all eagerness to help, to forget and unlive, if they
could, their wasted lives.
"You want to go to France, of course?"
"If I can. I-my husband was killed over there."
But she did not intend to make capital of Chris's death.
“Of course, that has nothing to do with my going. I simply
want to work."
“It's hard work. Not romantic."
"I am not looking for romance."
In the end, however, she had to give it up. In some hos-
pitals they were already training nurses' helpers, but they
were to relieve trained women for France. She went home
to think it over. She had felt that by leaving the country she
would solve Clayton's problem and her own. To stay on,
seeing him now and then, was torture for them both.
But there was something else. She had begun, that after-
noon, to doubt whether she was fitted for nursing after all.
The quiet of the hospital, the all-pervading odor of drugs, the
subdued voice and quiet eyes of the head of the training
school, as of one who had looked on life and found it in-
finitely sad, depressed her. She had walked home, impatient
with herself, disappointed in her own failure. She thought
dismally:
"I am of no earthly use. I've played all my life, and now
I'm paying for it. I ought to.” And she ran over her pitiful
accomplishments: "golf, bridge, ride, shoot, swim, sing (a
little), dance, tennis, some French-what a sickening list !”
She was glad that day to find Clare Gould waiting for her.
As usual, the girl had brought her tribute, this time some early
strawberries. Audrey found her in the pantry arranging their
leaves in a shallow dish.
“Clare !” she said. “Aren't you working?”
"I've gone on night-turn now.”
The girl's admiration salved her wounded pride in her.
disappointed in She had walkte and found aining


DANGEROUS DAYS
305
self. Then she saw, on a table, an envelope with her name
on it. Clare's eyes followed hers.
“That's the rest of the money, Mrs. Valentine."
She colored, but Audrey only smiled at her.
“Fine!” she said. "Are you sure you can spare it?”
"I couldn't rest until it was all paid up. And I'm getting
along fine. I make a lot, really."
“Tell me about the night work.”
"We've gone on double turn. I rather like it at night. It's
-well, it's like something on the stage. The sparks fly from
the lathes, and they look like fireworks. And when they ham-
mer on hot metal it's lovely."
She talked on, incoherent but glowing. She liked her big
turret lathe. It gave her a sense of power. She liked to see
the rough metal growing smooth and shining like silver under
her hands. She was naïvely pleased that she was doing a
man's work, and doing it well.
Audrey leaned back in her chair and listened. All this that
Clare was talking about was Clayton's doing. He at least.
had dreamed true. He was doing a man's part, too, in the
war. Even this girl, whose hand Natalie Spencer would not
have touched, this girl was dreaming true.
Clare was still talking. The draft would be hard on the
plant. They were short-handed now. There was talk of tak-
ing in more girls to replace the men who would be called.
"Do you think I could operate a lathe, Clare?"
"You! Why, Mrs. Valentine, it's not work for a lady!
Look at my hands."
But Audrey made an impatient gesture.
"I don't care about my hands. The question is, could I
do it? I don't seem able to do anything else.”
"Why, yes.” Clare was reluctant. "I can, and you're a
lot cleverer than I am. But it's hard. It's rough, and some
of the talk-oh, I hope you don't mean it, Mrs. Valentine.”
Audrey, however, was meaning it. It seemed to her, all
at once, the way out. Here was work, needed work. Work
lot Why, yes." seem able to do asv The questio


306
DANGEROUS DAYS
that she could do. For the first time in months she blessed
the golf and riding that had kept her fit.
"Mr. Spencer is a friend of yours. He'll never let you do
it.”
"He is not to know, Clare,” Audrey said briskly. “You
are quite right. He would probably be very-mannish about
it. So we won't tell him. And now, how shall I go about
getting in? Will they teach me, or shall I have to just learn?
And whatever shall I wear?”
Clare explained while, for she was determined not to lose
a minute, Audrey changed into her plainest clothes. They
would be in time, if they hurried, before the employment de-
partment closed. There were women in charge there. They
card-indexed you, and then you were investigated by the
secret service and if you were all right, well, that was all.
“Mercy! It's enough,” said Audrey, impatiently. “Do you
mean to say they'll come here?”
She glanced around her rooms, littered with photographs
of people well known to the public through the society jour-
nals, with its high bright silver vases, its odd gifts of porce-
lain, its grand piano taking up more than its share of room.
- "If they come here,” she deliberated, “they won't take me,
Clare. They'll be thinking I'm living on German money!"
So, in the end, she did not go to the munition works. She
went room-hunting instead, with Clare beside her, very un-
comfortable on the street for fear Audrey would be compro-
mised by walking with her. And at six o'clock that evening
a young woman with a softly inflected voice and an air of
almost humorous enjoyment of something the landlady failed
to grasp, was the tenant, for one month's rent in advance, of
a room on South Perry Street.
Clare was almost in tears.
“I can't bear to think of your sleeping in that bed, Mrs.
Valentine," she protested. “It dips down so."
"I shan't have much time to sleep, anyhow. And when I


DANGEROUS DAYS
307
Mary Thompson;e thought of a pret day's or-
ppenedlabric There would record
do so I shall be so tired, I– What was the name I gave her,
Clare?"
"Thompson. Mary Thompson.”
“She surprised me, or I'd have thought of a prettier one.”
She was absurdly high-spirited, although the next day's or-
deal rather worried her when she thought about it. She had,
oddly enough, no trepidation about the work itself. It was
passing the detectives in the employment department that
worried her. As a matter of fact, however, there was no
ordeal. Her card was carried to the desk in the corner, where
the two men sat on whose decisions might so easily rest the
safety of the entire plant, and they surveyed her carefully.
Audrey looked ahead, and waited. They would come over
and question her, and the whole fabric she had built would be
destroyed. But nothing happened. She was told she would be
notified in a day or two if she would be taken on, and with
that she was forced to be content.
She had a bad moment, however, for Graham came through
the office on his way out, and stopped for a moment directly
in front of her. Her heart almost stopped beating, and she
dropped her glove and stooped to pick it up. When she sat
erect again he was moving on. But even her brief glance had
showed her that the boy looked tired and depressed.
She went to her rented room at once, for she must be pre-
pared for inquiries about her. During the interval she ar-
ranged for the closing of her apartment and the storing of her
furniture. With their going would depart the last reminders
of the old life, and she felt a curious sense of relief. They
had little happiness to remind her of, and much suffering. The
world had changed since she had gathered them together, and
she had changed with it. She was older and sadder. But
she would not have gone back. Not for anything would she
have gone back.
She had one thing to do, however, before she disappeared.
She had promised to try to find something for Delight, and
she did it with her usual thoroughness and dispatch. She


308
DANGEROUS DAYS
sent for her that last day in the apartment, when in the
morning she had found at the Perry Street room a card telling
her to report the following night. When Delight came in she
found the little apartment rather bare and rather dreary, but
Audrey was cheerful, almost gay.
"Going away for a little while,” she explained. "I've
stored a lot of stuff. And now, my dear, do you really want
to work?"
"I just must do something."
"All right. That's settled. I've got the thing I spoke
about, in one of the officers' training-camps. But remember,
Delight, this is not going to be a romantic adventure. It's
to be work.”
"I don't want a romantic adventure, Mrs. Valentine.”
"Poor little thing," Audrey reflected to herself. And aloud:
"Good! Of course I know you're sincere about working. I-
I understand, awfully well.”
Delight was pleased, but Audrey saw that she was not
happy. Even when the details had been arranged she stil?
sat in her straight chair and made no move to go. And Au.
drey felt that the next move was up to her.
"What's the news about Graham Spencer?" she inquired,
"He'll be drafted, I suppose.”
"Not if they claim exemption. He's making shells, you
know."
She lifted rather heavy eyes to Audrey's.
“His mother is trying that now," she said. “Ever since
his engagement was broken- "
"Oh, it was broken, was it?"
"Yes. I don't know why. But it's off. Anyhow Mrs.
Spencer is telling everybody he can't be spared.”
“And his father?”
"I don't know. He doesn't talk about it, I think.”
"Perhaps he wants him to make his own decision."
Delight rose and drew down her veil with hands that
Audrey saw were trembling a little.


DANGEROUS DAYS
309
ack is whit. And sheers, Mrs. She asked.
"How can he make his own decision ?" she asked. "He
may think it's his own, but it's hers, Mrs. Spencer's. She's
always talking, always. And she's plausible. She can make
him think black is white, if she wants to."
“Why don't you talk to him?"
"I? He'd think I'd lost my mind! Besides, that isn't it. If
you-like a man, you want him to do the right thing because
he wants to, not because a girl asks him to."
"I wonder," Audrey said, slowly, "if he's worth it, De-
light?"
"Worth what?" She was startled.
"Worth your-worth our worrying about him."
But she did not need Delight's hasty and flushed champion-
ship of Graham to tell her what she already knew.
After she had gone, Audrey sat alone in her empty rooms
and faced a great temptation. She was taking herself out of
Clayton's life. She knew that she would be as lost to him
among the thousands of workers in the munition plant as
she would have been in Russia. According to Clare, he
Farely went into the shops themselves, and never at night.
Of course "out of his life" was a phrase. They would meet
again. But not now, not until they had had time to become
resigned to what they had already accepted. The war would
not last forever. And then she thought of their love, which
had been born and had grown, always with war at its back-
ground. They had gone along well enough until this winter,
and then everything had changed. Chris, Natalie, Clayton,
herself—none of them were quite what they had been. Was
that one of the gains of war, that sham fell away, and people
revealed either the best or the worst in them?
War destroyed, but it also revealed.
The temptation was to hear Clayton's voice again. She
went to the telephone, and stood with the instrument in her
hands, thinking. Would it comfort him? Or would it only
bring her close for a moment, to emphasize her coming si
lence?


312
DANGEROUS DAYS
much it will take and let me do it? I'd like to feel that I
was represented in France-by you,” he added.
i And suddenly the rector remembered. He was most un-
comfortable, and very flushed.
“Thanks. I can't let you do that, of course.”
“Why not?"
"Because, hang it all, Clayton, I'm not a parasite. I took
the car, because it enabled me to do my parish work better.
But I'm not going to run off to war and let you keep my
family."
Clayton glanced at him, at his fine erect old figure, his
warmly flushed face. War did strange things. There was a
new light in the rector's once worldly if kindly eyes. He had
the strained look of a man who sees great things, as yet far
away, and who would hasten toward them.' Insensibly he
quickened his pace.
"But I can't go myself, so why can't I send a proxy?"
Clayton asked, smiling. “I've an idea I'd be well represented.”
"That's a fine way to look at it, but I can't do it, I've saved
something, not much, but it will do for a year or two. I'm
glad you made the offer, though. It was like you, and it
showed me the way. I can't let any man, or any group of
men, finance my going.”
And he stuck te it. Clayton, having in mind those careful
canvasses of the congregation of Saint Luke's which had
every few years resulted in raising the rector's salary, was
surprised and touched. After all, war was like any other
grief. It brought out the best or the worst in us. It roused
or it crushed us.
The rector had been thinking.
"I'm a very fortunate man,” he said, suddenly. "They're
standing squarely behind me, at home. It's the women be-
hind the army that will make it count, Clayton."
Clayton said nothing.
“Which reminds me," went on the rector, “that I find Mrs.
Valentine has gone away. I called on her to-day, and she has


DANGEROUS DAYS
313
giver. up her apartment. Do you happen to know where she
is? She has left no address.”
“Gone away?” Clayton repeated. “Why, no. I hadn't heard
of it.”
There in the busy street he felt a strange sense of loneli-
ness. Always, although he did not see her, he felt her pres-
ence. She walked the same streets. For the calling, if his
extremity became too great, he could hear her voice over
the telephone. There was always the hope, too, of meeting
her. Not by design. She had forbidden that. But some
times perhaps God would be good to them both, if they earned
it, and they could touch hands for a moment.
But-gone!
“You are certain she left no address ?"
“Quite certain. She has stored her furniture, I believe.”
There was a sense of hurt, then, too. She had made this
decision without telling him. It seemed incredible. A dozen
decisions a day he made, and when they were vital there was
always in his mind the question as to whether she would ap-
prove or not. He could not go to her with them, but mentally
he was always consulting with her, earning her approbation.
And she had gone without a word.
"Do you think she has gone to France?" He knew his
voice sounded stiff and constrained.
"I hope not. She was being so useful here. Of course, the
draft law-amazing thing, the draft law! Never thought
we'd come to it. But it threw her out, in a way, of course.”
“What has the draft law to do with Mrs. Valentine?”
“Why, you know what she was doing, don't you?”
"I haven't seen her recently."
The rector half-stopped.
"Well!” he said. “Let me tell you, Clayton, that that girl
has been recruiting men, night after night and day after day.
She's done wonders. Standing in a wagon, mind you, in the
slums, or anywhere; I heard her one night. By George, I


DANGEROUS DAYS
315
“Looked after?”
Natalie had made an error, and knew it.
"I heard that a young clergyman was taking her round,"
she said, and changed the subject. But he knew that she
was either lying or keeping something from him. In those
days of tension he found her half-truths more irritating
than her rather childish falsehoods. In spite of himself, how-
ever, the thought of the young clergyman rankled.
That night, stretched in the low chair in his dressing-room,
under the reading light, he thought over things carefully. If
he loved her as he thought he did, he ought to want her to
be happy. Things between them were hopeless and wretched.
If this clergyman, or Sloane, or any other man loved her, and
he groaned as he thought how lovable she was, then why not
want for her such happiness as she could find ?
He slept badly that night, and for some reason Audrey
wove herself into his dreams of the new plant. The roar
of the machinery took on the soft huskiness of her voice, the
deeper note he watched for and loved.


CHAPTER XLI
ANNA KLEIN stood in her small room and covered her
Imouth with her hands, lest she shriek aloud. She knew
quite well that the bomb in the suit-case would not suffice
to blow up the whole great plant. But she knew what the
result of its explosion would be.
The shells were not loaded at the Spencer plant. They
were shipped away for that. But the fuses were loaded there,
and in the small brick house at the end of the fuse building
there were stored masses of explosive, enough to destroy a
town. It was there, of course, that Herman was to place
the bomb. She knew how he would do it, carefully, methodi-
cally, and with what a lumbering awkward gait he would
make his escape.
Her whole mind was bent on giving the alarm. On escaping,
first, and then on arousing the plant. But when the voices
below continued, long after Herman had gone, she was en-
tirely desperate. Herman had not carried out the suit-case.
He had looked, indeed, much as usual as he walked out the
garden path and closed the gate behind him. He had walked
rather slowly, but then he always walked slowly. She seemed
to see, however, a new caution in his gait, as of one who
dreaded to stumble.
She dressed herself, with shaking fingers, and pinned on her
hat. The voices still went on below, monotonous, endless;
the rasping of Rudolph's throat, irritated by cheap cigarets, the
sound of glasses on the table, once a laugh, guttural and mirth-
less. It was ten o'clock when she knew, by the pushing back
of their chairs, that they were preparing to depart. Ten
o'clock!
She was about to commence again the feverish unscrewing
316


DANGEROUS DAYS
317
of the door hinges, when she heard Rudolph's step on the
stairs. She had only time to get to the back of her room, be-
side the bed, when she heard him try the knob.
“Anna ?”
She let him call her again.
“Anna !”
“What is it?"
“You in bed?"
“Yes. Go away and let me alone. I've got a right to sleep,
anyhow."
“I'm going out, but I'll be back in ten minutes. You try
any tricks and I'll get you. See?"
"You make me sick," she retorted.
She heard him turn and run lightly down the stairs. Only
when she heard the click of the gate did she dare to begin
again at the door. She got down-stairs easily, but she was still
a prisoner. However, she found the high little window into
the coal-shed open, and crawled through it, to stand listening.
The street was quiet.
Once outside the yard she started to run. They would let
her telephone from the drug-store, even without money. She
had no money. But the drug-store was closed and dark, and
the threat of Rudolph's return terrified her. She must get off
the hill, somehow.
There were still paths down the steep hill-side, dangerous
things that hugged the edge of small, rocky precipices, or
sloped steeply to sudden turns. But she had played over the
hill all her young life. She plunged down, slipping and fall-
ing a dozen times, and muttering, some times an oath, some
times a prayer.
"Oh, God, let me be in time. Oh, God, hold him up a while
until I—" then a slip. "If I fall now "
Only when she was down in the mill district did she try to
make any plan. It was almost eleven then, and her ears were
tense with listening for the sound she dreaded. She faced her
situation, then. She could not telephone from a private house,


318
DANGEROUS DAYS
either to the mill or to the Spencer house, what she feared, and
the pay-booths of the telephone company demanded cash in
advance. She was incapable of clear thought, or she would
have found some way out, undoubtedly. What she did, in the
end, was to board an up-town car and throw herself on the
mercy of the conductor.
“I've got to get up-town," she panted. “I'll not go in. See?
I'll stand here and you take me as far as you can. Look at
me! I don't look as though I'm just bumming a ride, do I?”
The conductor hesitated. He had very little faith in human
nature, but Anna's eyes were both truthful and desperate.
He gave the signal to go on.
"What's up?" he said. "Police after you ?”
“Yes,” Anna replied briefly.
There is, in certain ranks, a tacit conspiracy against the
police. The conductor hated them. They rode free on his
car, and sometimes kept an eye on him in the rush hours.
They had a way, too, of letting him settle his own disputes
with inebriated gentlemen who refused to pay their fares.
“Looks as though they'd come pretty close to grabbing you,"
he opened, by way of conversation. “But ten of 'em aren't a
match for one smart girl. They can't run. All got flat feet.”
Anna nodded. She was faint and dizzy, and the car seemed
to creep along. It was twenty minutes after eleven when she
got out. The conductor leaned down after her, hanging to the
handrail.
“Good luck to you !” he said. “And you'd better get a bet-
ter face on you than that. It's enough to send you up, on sus-
picion !”
She hardly heard him. She began to run, and again she
said over and over her little inarticulate prayer. She knew
the Spencer house. More than once she had walked past it,
on Sunday afternoons, for the sheer pleasure of seeing Gra-
ham's home. Well, all that was over now. Everything was
over, unless
The Spencer house was dark, save for a low light in the


DANGEROUS DAYS
319
hall. A new terror seized her. Suppose Graham saw her. He
might not believe her story. He might think it a ruse to see
his father. But, as it happened, Clayton had sent the butler
to bed, and himself answered the bell from the library.
He recognized her at once, and because he saw the distress
on her face he brought her in at once. In the brief moment
that it required to turn on the lights he had jumped to a
sickening conviction that Graham was at the bottom of her
visit, and her appearance in full light confirmed this.
"Come into the library," he said. "We can talk in there."
He led the way and drew up a chair for her. But she did not
sit down. She steadied herself by its back, instead.
“You think it's about Graham,” she began. “It isn't, not
directly, that is. And my coming is terrible, because it's my
own father. They're going to blow up the munition plant,
Mr. Spencer!"
“When?"
"To-night, I think. I came as fast as I could. I was locked
in.”
"Locked in?” He was studying her face.
“Yes. Don't bother about that now. I'm not crazy or
hysterical. I tell you I heard them. I've been a prisoner or
I'd have come sooner. To-day they brought something—dyna-
mite or a bomb in a suit-case-and it's gone to-night. He
took it-my father.”
He was already at the telephone as she spoke. He called
the mill first, and got the night superintendent. Then he
called a number Anna supposed was the police station, and at
the same time he was ringing the garage-signal steadily for
his car. By the time he had explained the situation to the po-
lice, his car was rolling under the porte-cochère beside the
house. He was starting out, forgetful of the girl, when she
caught him by the arm.
"You mustn't go!" she cried. “You'll be killed, too. It
will all go, all of it. You can't be spared, Mr. Spencer. You
can build another mill, but- "
theled a number anwas ringing the ined the situatipe beside the


320
DANGEROUS DAYS
He shook her off, gently.
“Of course I'm going," he said. “We'll get it in time.
Don't you worry. You sit down here and rest, and when it's
all straightened out I'll come back. I suppose you can't go
home, after this?"
"No," she said, dully.
He ran out, hatless, and a moment later she heard the car,
rush out into the night.
Five minutes passed. Ten. Anna Klein stood, staring
ahead of her. When nothing happened she moved around and
sat down in the chair. She was frightfully tired. She leaned
her head back and tried to think of something to calm her
shaking nerves,—that this was Graham's home, that he some-
times sat in that very chair. But she found that Graham meant
nothing to her. Nothing mattered, except that her warning
had been in time.
So intent was she on the thing that she was listening for
that smaller, near-by sounds escaped her. So she did not
hear a door open up-stairs and the soft rustle of a woman's
negligee as it swept from stair to stair. But as the foot-steps
outside the door she stood up quickly and looked back over
her shoulder.
Natalie stood framed in the doorway, staring at her.
"Well?” she said. And on receiving no answer from the
frightened girl, “What are you doing here?"
The ugly suspicion in her voice left Anna speechless for a
moment.
"Don't move, please," said Natalie's cold voice. “Stay just
where you are.” She reached behind the curtain at the door-
way, and Anna heard the far-away ringing of a bell, insistent
and prolonged. The girl roused herself with an effort.
"I came to see Mr. Spencer."
"That is a likely story! Who let you in ?"
"Mr. Spencer."
"Mr. Spencer is not in.”
“But he did. I'm telling you the truth. Indeed I am. I


DANGEROUS DAYS
321
rang the bell, and he came to the door. I had something
to tell him.”
"What could you possibly have to tell my husband at this
hour."
But Anna Klein did not answer. From far away there
came a dull report, followed almost immediately by a second
one. The windows rattled, and the house seemed to rock
rather gently on its foundation. Then silence.
Anna Klein picked up her empty pocket-book from the
table and looked at it.
"I was too late," she said dully, and the next moment she
was lying at Natalie's feet.


DANGEROUS DAYS
323
“That was what he said. I was to find him and hold him
until he got here. But I couldn't find him. He may have
got out. There's no way of telling now."
Waves of fresh nausea swept over Graham. He sat down
on a pile of bricks and wiped his forehead, clammy with
sweat.
“I hope to God he was burned alive," muttered the other
man, surveying the scene. His eyes were reddened with
smoke from the fire, his clothing torn.
"I was knocked down myself,” he said. "I was out in the
yard looking for Klein, and I guess I lay there quite a while.
If I hadn't gone out- " He shrugged his shoulders.
“How many women were on the night shift?"
“Not a lot. Twenty, perhaps. If I had my way I'd take
every German in the country and boil 'em in oil. I didn't
want Klein back, but he was a good workman. Well, he's
done a good job now.”
It was after that that Graham saw his father, a strange,
wild-eyed Clayton who drove his pick with a sort of mad
strength, and at the same time gave orders in an unfamiliar
voice. Graham, himself a disordered figure, watched him for
a moment. He was divided between fear and resolution.
Some place in that debacle there lay his own responsibility.
He was still bewildered, but the fact that Anna's father had
done the thing was ominous.
The urge to confession was stronger than his fears. Some-
how, during the night, he had become a man. But now he
only felt that somehow, during the night, he had become a
murderer.
Clayton looked up, and he moved toward him."
"Father."
“Yes?”
"I've had some coffee made at a house down the street.
Vi'on't you come and have it?"
Clayton straightened. He was very tired, and the yard was


DANGEROUS DAYS
325
"Shall I tell you now, sir?"
Clayton drew a long breath.
“Yes."
"It was Herman Klein who did it?"
"Probably. I had a warning last night, but it was too late.
I should have known, of course, but somehow I didn't. He'd
been with us a long time. I'd have sworn he was loyal.”
For the first time in his life Graham saw his father weaken,
the pitiful, ashamed weakness of a strong man. His voice
broke, his face twitched. The boy drew himself up; they
couldn't both go to pieces. He could not know that Clayton
had worked all that night in that hell with the conviction that
in some way his own son was responsible; that he knew al-
ready what Graham was about to tell him.
"If Herman Klein did it, father, it was because he was the
tool of a gang. And the reason he was a tool was because
he thought I was living with Anna. I wasn't. I don't know
why I wasn't. There was every chance. I suppose I meant
to some time. Anyhow, he thought I was.”
If he had expected any outbreak from Clayton, he met
none. Clayton sat looking ahead, and listening. Inside of the
broken windows the curtains were stirring in the fresh breeze
of early morning, and in the kitchen the old woman was
piling the fallen bricks noisily.
"I had been flirting with her a little—it wasn't much more
than that, and I gave her a watch at Christmas. He found it
out, and he beat her. Awfully. She ran away and sent for
me, and I met her. She had to hide for days. Her face was
all bruised. Then she got sick from it. She was sick for
weeks."
"Did he know where she was?”
"I think not, or he'd have gone to get her. But Rudolph
Klein knew something. I took her out to dinner, to a road-
house, a few days ago, and she said she saw him there. I
didn't. All that time, weeks, I'd never-I'd never gone to
her room. That night I did. I don't know why. I- "


326
DANGEROUS DAYS
ospital, thason or orton and by
, covering ham was sobbing night when wyton found hi
“Go on."
"Well, I went, but I didn't stay. I couldn't. I guess she
thought I was crazy. I went away, that's all. And the next
day I felt that she might be feeling as though I'd turned her
down or something. And I felt responsible. Maybe you
won't understand. I don't quite myself. Anyhow, I went
back, to let her know I wasn't quite a brute, even if — But
she was gone. I'm not trying to excuse myself. It's a rotten
story, for I was engaged to Marion then.”
Suddenly he sat down beside Clayton and buried his face
in his hands. For some reason or other Clayton found him-
self back in the hospital, that night when Joey lay still and
quiet, and Graham was sobbing like a child, prostrate on the
white covering of the bed. With the incredible rapidity of
thought in a mental crisis, he saw the last months, the boy's
desire to go to France thwarted, his attempt to interest himself
in the business, the tool Marion Hayden had made of him,
Anna's doglike devotion, all leading inevitably to catastrophe.
And through it all he saw Natalie, holding Graham back from
war, providing him with extra money, excusing him, using
his confidences for her own ends, insidiously sapping the boy's
confidence in his father and himself.
"We'll have to stand up to this together, Graham.”
The boy looked up.
"Then you're not going to throw me over altogether?"
"No."
“But--all this !"
"If Herman Klein had not done it, there were others who
would, probably. It looks as though you had provided them
with a tool, but I suppose we were vulnerable in a dozen
ways."
He rose, and they stood, eyes level, father and son, in the
early morning sunlight. And suddenly Graham's arms were
around his shoulders, and something tight around Clayton's
heart relaxed. Once again, and now for good, he had found
his boy, the little boy who had not so long ago stood on a


DANGEROUS DAYS
327
chair for this very embrace. Only now the boy was a man.
"I'm going to France, father," he said. "I'm going to
pay them back for this. And out of every two shots I fire
one will be for you.”
Perhaps he had found his boy only to lose him, but that
would have to be as God willed.
At ten o'clock he went up to the house, to change his wet
and draggled clothing. The ruins were being guarded by
soldiers, and the work of rescue was still going on, more slow-
ly now, since there was little or no hope of finding any still
living thing in that flame-swept wreckage. He found Natalie
in bed, with Madeleine in attendance, and he learned that
her physician had just gone.
He felt that he could not talk to her just then. She had a
morbid interest in horrors, and with the sights of that night
fresh in his mind he could not discuss them. He stopped,
however, in her doorway.
"I'm glad you are resting," he said. "Better stay in bed
to-day. It's been a shock.”
"Resting! I've been frightfully ill.”
"I'm sorry, my dear. I'll come in again on my way out.”
“Clay!"
He turned in the doorway.
"Is it all gone? Everything?"
"Practically. Yes.”
“But you were insured?"
"I'll tell you about that later. I haven't given it much
thought yet. I don't know just how we stand."
"I shall never let Graham go back to it again. I warn you.
I've been lying here for hours, thinking that it might have
happened as easily as not while he was there."
He hardly listened. He had just remembered Anna.
"I left a girl here last night, Natalie,” he said. "Do you
happen to know what became of her?”
Natalie stirred on her pillows,
He it all ov. yesmisured?'t latetim w we sta


DANGEROUS DAYS
329
lathe. They'd told me I could teach her. She was picking
it up fast, too. And she liked it. She liked it- "
The fact that Audrey had liked it broke down his scanty
reserve of restraint. Clayton found himself looking down at
her from a great distance. She was very remote. Clare pulled
hịrself together.
'When the first explosion came it didn't touch us. But I
guss she knew it meant more. She said something about the
telo.phone and getting help and there'd be more, and she started
to run. I just stood there, watching her run, and waiting.
And then the second one came, and "
Suddenly Clare seemed to disappear altogether. He felt
something catch his arm, and the nurse's voice, very calm
and quiet:
"Sit down. I'll get you something."
Then he was swallowing a fluid that burned his throat, and
Clare was crying with the sheet drawn to her mouth, and
somewhere Audrey
He got up, and the nurse followed him out.
"You might look for the person here," she suggested. “We
have had several brought in.”
He was still dazed, but he followed her docilely. Audrey
was not there. He seemed to have known that, too. That
there would be a long search, and hours of agony, and at the
end-the one thing he did not know was what was to be at
the end.
All that afternoon he searched, going from hospital to hos-
pital. And at each one, as he stopped, that curious feeling of
itiner knowledge told him she was not there. But the same
instinct told him she was not dead. He would have known
j); if she was dead. There was no reasoning in it. He could
not reason. But he knew, somehow.
Then, late in the afternoon, he found her. He knew that
he had found her. It was as though, at the entrance of the
hospital, some sixth sense had told him this was right at last.
He was quite steady, all at once. She was here, waiting for
search, and hourdown that, too. They
the one thing


332
DANGEROUS DAYS
When at last he went out to the stiffly furnished hospital
parlor, he found Mrs. Haverford sitting there alone, still
knitting. But he rather thought she had been crying. There
was an undeniably moist handkerchief on her knee.
"She roused a little while ago," he said, trying to speak
quietly, and as though Audrey's rousing were not the wonder
that it was. “She seemed very comfortable. And now she's
sleeping."
"The dear child !” said Mrs. Haverford. "If she had died
after everything- ” Her plump face quivered. “Things have
never been very happy for her, Clayton.”
"I'm afraid not.” He went to a window and stood looking
out. The city was not quiet, but its mighty roar of the day
was lowered to a monotonous, drowsy humming. From the
east, reflected against low-hanging clouds, was the dull red
of his own steel mills, looking like the reflection of a vast
conflagration.
"Not very happy," he repeated.
"Some times,” Mrs. Haverford was saying, "I wonder about
things. People go along missing the best things in life, and
- I suppose there is a reason for it, but some times I wonder
if He ever meant us to go on, crucifying our own souls."
So she did know!
“What would you have us do?”
“I don't know. I suppose there isn't any answer.”
Afterward, Clayton found that that bit of conversation with
Mrs. Haverford took on the unreality of the rest of that
twenty-four hours. But one part of it stood out real and
hopelessly true. There wasn't any answer!
e ther that bit of Cohe rest of, land


CHAPTER XLIII
A NNA KLEIN had gone home, at three o'clock that terri-
H ble morning, a trembling, white-faced girl. She had done
her best, and she had failed. Unlike Graham, she had no feel-
ing of personal responsibility, but she felt she could never
again face her father, with the thing that she knew between
them. There were other reasons, too. Herman would be ar-
rested, and she would be called to testify. She had known.
She had warned Mr. Spencer. The gang, Rudolph's gang,
would get her for that.
She knew where they were now. They would be at Gus's, in
the back room, drinking to the success of their scheme, and
Gus, who was a German too, would be with them, offering a
round of drinks on the house now and then as his share of
the night's rejoicing. Gus, who was already arranging to help
draft-dodgers by sending them over the Mexican border.
She would have to go back, to get in and out again if she
could, before Herman came back. She had no clothes, ex-
cept what she stood up in, and those in her haste that night
were only her print house-dress with a long coat. She would
have to find a new position, and she would have to have her
clothing to get about in. She dragged along, singularly un-
molested. Once or twice a man eyed her, but her white face
and vacant eyes were unattractive, almost sodden.
She was barely able to climb the hill, and as she neared the
house her trepidation increased. What if Herman had come
back? If he suspected her he would kill her. He must have
been half mad to have done the thing, anyhow. He would
surely be half mad now. And because she was young and
strong, and life was still a mystery to be solved, she did not
want to die. Strangely enough, face to face with danger,
233
vacant Barely zion increm ne we things she was, she djanger.


334
DANGEROUS DAYS
there was still, in the back of her head, an exultant thrill in her
very determination to live. She would start over again, and
she would work hard and make good.
"You bet I'll make good," she resolved. “Just give me a
chance and I'll work my fool head off.”
Which was by way of being a prayer.
It was the darkest hour before the dawn when she reached
the cottage. It was black and very still, and outside the gate
she stooped and slipped off her shoes. The window into the
shed by which she had escaped was still open, and she
crouched outside, listening. When the stillness remained un-
broken she climbed in, tense for a movement or.a blow.
Once inside, however, she drew a long breath. The doors
were still locked, and the keys gone. So Herman had not
returned. But as she stood there, hurried stealthy footsteps
came along the street and turned in at the gate. In a panic
she flew up the stairs and into her room, where the door
still hung crazily on its hinges. She stood there, listening, her
heart pounding in her ears, and below she distinctly heard a
key in the kitchen door. She did the only thing she could
think of. She lifted the door into place, and stood against it,
bracing it with her body.
Whoever it was was in the kitchen now, moving however
more swiftly than Herman. She heard matches striking.
Then:
"Hsst!”
She knew that it was Rudolph, and she braced herself
mentally. Rudolph was keener than Herman. If he found
her door in that condition, and she herself dressed ! Work-
ing silently and still holding the door in place, she flung off
her coat. She even unpinned her hair and unfastened her
dress.
When his signal remained unanswered a second time he
called her by name, and she heard him coming up.
“Anna!" he repeated.
“Yes?”


DANGEROUS DAYS
335
He was startled to hear her voice so close to the door. In
the dark she heard him fumbling for the knob. He happened
on the padlock instead, and he laughed a little. By that she
knew that he was not quite sober.
"Locked you in, has he?"
“What do you want?”
"Has Herman come home yet?"
“He doesn't get home until seven."
"Hasn't he been back at all, to-night?"
She hesitated.
"How do I know? I've been asleep!”
"Some sleep!” he said, and suddenly lurched against the
door. In spite of her it yielded, and although she braced
herself with all her strength, his weight against it caused it
to give way. It was a suspicious, crafty Rudolph who picked
himself up and made a clutch at her in the dark.
“You little liar," he said thickly. And struck a match. She
cowered away from him.
“I was going to run away, Rudolph," she cried. "He
hasn't any business locking me in. I won't stand for it.”
"You've been out."
"No!"
“Out--after him!”
"Honest to God, Rudolph, no. I hate him. I don't ever
want to see him again.”
He put a hand out into the darkness, and finding her, tried
to draw her to him. She struggled, and he released her. All
at once she knew that he was weak with fright. The bravado
had died out of him. The face she had touched was covered
with a clammy sweat.
"I wish to God Herman would come."
“What d' you want with him?"
"Have you got any whisky?”
"You've had enough of that stuff.”
Some one was walking along the street outside. She felt


DANGEROUS DAYS
337
death. Burely pyrotechnicate attention to shot
Froom and some back to bed raised, and
way into Katie's room he had gone. The garden below was
quiet, but there was yelling and the crackling of underbrush
from the hill-side. Then a scattering of shots again, and si-
lence. The yard was empty.
The hill paid but moderate attention to shots. They were
usually merely pyrotechnic, and indicated rejoicing rather than
death. But here and there she heard a window raised, and
then lowered again. The hill had gone back to bed.
Anna went into her room and dressed. For the first time
it had occurred to her that she might be held by the police,
and the thought was unbearable. It was when she was making
her escape that she found a prostrate figure in the yard, and
knew that one of Rudolph's shots had gone home. She could
not go away and leave that, not unless-
A terrible hatred of Herman and Rudolph and all their kind
suddenly swept over her. She would not run away. She
would stay and tell all the terrible truth. It was her big mo-
ment, and she rose to it. She would see it through. What
was her own safety to letting this band of murderers escape ?
And all that in the few seconds it took to reach the fallen
figure. It was only when she was very close that she saw it
was moving.
"Tell Dunbar he went to the left," a voice was saying. “The
left! They'll lose him yet.”
"Joey!”
"Hello,” said Joey's voice. He considered that he was
speaking very loud, but it was hardly more than a whisper.
“That wasn't your father, was it? The old boy couldn't
jump and run like that."
"Are you hurt ?"
He coughed a little, a gurgling cough that rather startled
himself. But he was determined to be a man.
"No. I just lay down here for a nap. Who was it that
jumped ?"
“My cousin Rudolph. Do you think I can help you into the
house ?"


338
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I'll walk there myself in a minute. Unless your cousin
Rudolph- ” His head dropped back on her arm. "I feel
sort of all in." His voice trailed off.
“Joey !"
"Lemme alone,” he muttered. "I'm the first casualty in the
American army! I- " He made a desperate effort to speak
in a man's voice, but the higher boyish notes of sixteen con-
quered. “They certainly gave us hell to-night. But we're go-
ing to build again, me and—Clayton Spen "
All at once he was very still. Anna spoke to him and, that
failing, gave him a frantic little shake. But Joey had gone to
another partnership beyond the stars,


CHAPTER XLIV
THE immediate outstanding result of the holocaust at the
1 munitions works was the end of Natalie's dominion over
Graham. She never quite forgave him the violence with
which he threw off her shackles.
"If I'd been half a man I'd have been over there long ago,"
he said, standing before her, tall and young and flushed. “I'd
have learned my job by now, and I'd be worth something, now
I'm needed.”
"And broken my heart.”
"Hearts don't break that way, mother.”
"Well, you say you are going now. I should think you'd
be satisfied. There's plenty of time for you to get the glory
you want.”
"Glory! I don't want any glory. And as for plenty of
time—that's exactly what there isn't."
During the next few days she preserved an obstinate si-
lence on the subject. She knew he had been admitted to one
of the officers' training-camps, and that he was making rather
helpless and puzzled purchases. Going into his room she
would find a dressing-case of khaki leather, perhaps, or flan-
nel shirts of the same indeterminate hue. She would shed
futile tears over them, and order them put out of sight. But
she never offered to assist him.
Graham was older, in many ways. He no longer ran up
and down the stairs whistling, and he sought every oppor-
tunity to be with his father. They spent long hours together
in the library, when, after a crowded day, filled with the thou-
sand problems of reconstructions, Clayton smoked a great
deal, talked a little, rather shame-facedly after the manner of
men, of personal responsibility in the war, and quietly watched
llie man who was Graham.
339


340
DANGEROUS DAYS
Out of those quiet hours, with Natalie at the theater or
reading up-stairs in bed, Clayton got the greatest comfort
of his life. He would neither look back nor peer anxiously
ahead.
The past, with its tragedy, was gone. The future might hold
even worse things. But just now he would live each day as
it came, working to the utmost, and giving his evenings to his
boy. The nights were the worst. He was not sleeping well,
and in those long hours of quiet he tried to rebuild his life
along stronger, sterner lines. Love could have no place in it,
but there was work left. He was strong and he was still
young. The country should have every ounce of energy in
him. He would re-build the plant, on bigger lines than be-
fore, and when that was done, he would build again. The
best he could do was not enough.
He scarcely noticed Natalie's withdrawal from Graham and
himself. When she was around he was his old punctilious
self, gravely kind, more than ever considerate. Beside his.
failure to her, her own failure to him faded into insignificance.
She was as she was, and through no fault of hers. But he
was what he had made himself.
Once or twice he had felt an overwhelming remorse to-
ward her, and on one such occasion he had made a useless ef-
fort to break down the barrier of her long silence.
"Don't go up-stairs, Natalie," he had begged. "I am not
very amusing, I know, but-I'll try my best. I'll promise not
to touch on anything disagreeable.” He had been standing in
the hall, looking up at her on the stair-case, and he smiled.
There was pleading behind the smile, an inarticulate feeling
that between them there might at least be friendship.
"You are never disagreeable,” she had said, looking down
with hostile eyes. “You are quite perfect.”
"Then won't you wait?".
“Perfection bores me to tears,” she said, and went on up
the stairs.
On the morning of Graham's departure, however, he found
Oncel at he had was anature to be in considers old


344
DANGEROUS DAYS
corrected himself. “But I'm getting my waist-line again.
How's the-whoa!” he called, as Elinor wrapped the rope
around his carefully putteed legs. "Infernal animal!” he
grumbled. “I just paid a quarter to have these puttees shined.
How's the family?
"Mother has gone to Linndale. The house is finished.
Have you been here long, sir?"
"Two weeks. Hang it all, Graham, I wish I'd let this crea-
ture commit suicide. She's— do you know Delight is
here?"
"Here? Why, no.”
"At the hostess house," said the chaplain, proudly. “Doing
her bit, too. Mrs. Haverford wanted to come too, and sew
buttons on, or something. But I told her two out of three
was a fair percentage. I hear that Washington has sent for
your father."
“I hadn't heard.”
"He's a big man, Graham. We're going to hear from him.
Only—I thought he looked tired when I saw him last. Some-
body ought to look after him a bit.” He was patiently un-
tangling himself from Elinor's rope. “You know there are
two kinds of people in the world: those who look after them-
selves and those who look after others. That's your father-
the last.”
Graham's face clouded. How true that was! He kriew
now, as he had not known before. He was thinking clearly
those days. Hard work and nothing to drink had clarified his
mind, and he saw things at home as they really were. Clay-
ton's infinite patience, his strength and his gentleness. But he
only said:
"He has had a hard year.” He raised his eyes and looked
at the chaplain. "I didn't help him any, you know, sir.”
"Well, well, that's all over now. We've just one thing to
think of, and that's to beat those German deyils back to Berlin.
And then burn Berlin,” he added, militantly.
The last Graham saw of him, he was dragging Elinor down


DANGEROUS DAYS
345
use. And that would lesome girl, some nic
the road, and a faint throaty humming came back, which
sounded suspiciously like "Where do we go from here, boys?
Where do we go from here?”
Candidate Spencer took great pains with his toilet that
afternoon. He polished his shoes, and shaved, and he spent
a half hour on some ten sadly neglected finger-nails. At re-
treat he stood at attention in the long line, and watched the
flag moving slowly and majestically to the stirring bugle notes.
Something swelled almost to bursting in his throat. That was
his flag. He was going to fight for it. And after that was
done he was going to find some girl, some nice girl—the sort,
for instance, that would leave her home to work in a hostess
house. And having found her, he would marry her, and love
and cherish her all his life. Unless, of course, she wouldn't
have him. He was inclined to think she wouldn't.
He ate very little supper that night, little being a compara-
tive term, of course. And then he went to discover Delight.
It appeared, however, that she had been already discovered.
She was entirely surrounded by uniforms, and Graham furi-
ously counted a colonel, two majors, and a captain.
“Pulling rank, of course!” he muttered, and retired to a
corner, where he had at least the mild gratification of seeing
that even the colonel could not keep Delight from her work.
"Silly asses !” said Graham, again, and then she saw him.
There was no question about her being pleased. She was
quite flushed with it, but a little uncomfortable, too, at
Graham's attitude. He was oddly humble, and yet he had a
look of determination that was almost grim. She filled in a
rather disquieting silence by trying to let him know, without
revealing that she had ever been anything else, how proud she
was of him. Then she realized that he was not listening, and
that he was looking at her with an almost painful intensity.
“When can you get away, Delight?” he asked abruptly.
“From here?” She cast an appraising glance over the room.
“Right away, I think. Why?"
"Because I want to talk to you, and I can't talk to you here."


DANGEROUS DAYS 347
stood the Marion Hayden situation, she was totally at a loss
as to Anna.
"But I don't understand!” she cried. “How could you make
love to her if you didn't love her?"
"I don't know. Fellows do those things. It's just mischief
--some sort of a devil in them, I suppose.”
When he reached the beating and Anna's flight, however,
she understood a little better.
"Of course you had to stand by her,” she agreed.
"You haven't heard it all," he said quietly. “When I'm
through, if you get up and leave me, I'll understand, Delight,
and I won't blame you."
He told her the rest of the story in a voice strained with
anxiety. It was as though he had come to a tribunal for judg-
ment. He spared her nothing, the dinner at the road-house
with Rudolph at the window, his visit to Anna's room, and her
subsequent disappearance.
"She told the Department of Justice people that Rudolph
found her that night, and took her home. She was a prisoner
then, poor little kid. But she overheard her father and Ru-
dolph plotting to blow up the mill. That's where I came in,
Delight. He was crazy at me. He was a German, of course,
and he might have done it anyhow. But Rudolph told him a
lot of lies about me, and he did it. When I think about it
all, and about Joey, I'm crazy.”
She slipped her hand over his.
"Of course they would have done it anyhow," she said
softly.
"You aren't going to get up and go away?"
“Why should I?" she asked. “I only feel-oh, Graham,
how wretched you must have been."
Something in her voice made him sit up straighter. He
knew now that it had always been Delight, always. Only she
had been too good for him. She had set a standard he had
not hoped to reach. But now things were different. He
hadn't amounted to much in other things, but he was a soldier


354
DANGEROUS DAYS
The division was about to move, and at the last minute five
girls turned up to be married to fellows who were leaving.
They came from all over, and believe me there was some ex-
citement. All day the General and Chaplain Haverford were
fussing about licenses, and those girls sat around and waited,
and looked droopy but sort of happy-you know what I mean.
"It was nine o'clock in the evening before everything was
ready. Delight had trimmed up the little church which is in
the camp and has a flag over the altar. Then we had a multi-
ple wedding. Honestly! The organ played a squeaky wedding
march, and we went in, six couples. The church was full of
soldiers, and I don't mind saying I was ready to shed tears.
"We lined up, and Doctor Haverford married us. Delight
says she is sure we are only one-sixth married. Quiet! You
never heard such quiet-except for the General blowing his
nose. I think myself he was weeping, and there was a rumor
about the camp to that effect. You know—the flag over the
altar, and all that. I tell you it made a fellow think.
"Well, I'm going over now. Quick work, isn't it? And to
think that a few months ago I was hanging around the club
and generally making a mess of life. That's all over now,
thank God. I'm going to make good. Try to buck mother up.
It's pretty hard for her. It's hard for all women, just wait-
ing. And while I know I'm coming back, safe and sound,
I'd like to feel that you are going to keep an eye on Delight.
She's the most important thing in the world to me now."
Then scrawled in a corner he had added,
“You've been mighty fine with me always, dad. I was a
good bit of a pup last winter. If I make anything of myself
at all, it will be because I want to be like you."
Clayton sat for a long time with the letter in his hand. The
happiness and hope that fairly radiated from it cheered and
warmed him. He was nearly happy. And it came to him
then that, while every man had the right to happiness, only
those achieved it who craved it for others, and having craved
it for them, at last saw the realization of their longing.


356
DANGEROUS DAYS
He had made an impulsive gesture.
"I'm not coming. I've been seeing too much of you as it
is. If you want the truth, I'm just wretchedly unhappy,
Natalie. You know I'm in love with you, don't you?"
“I believe you think you are."
“Don't laugh.” He almost snarled. "I may laugh at iny
idiocy, but you haven't any right to. I know I'm ridiculous.
I've known it for months. But it's pretty serious for me.”
He had meant it. There could be no doubt of that. It is
the curious quality of very selfish women that they inspire
a certain sort of love. They are likely to be loved often, even
tho the devotion they inspire is neither deep nor lasting. Big
and single-hearted women are loved by one man, and that
forever.
Natalie had not laughed, but she had done what was almost
as bad. She had patted him on the arm.
"Don't talk like that,” she said, gently. “You are all I have
now, Rodney, and I don't want to lose you. I'm suffering
horribly these days. You're my greatest comfort."
"I've heard you say that of a chair.”
"As for loving me, you must not talk like that. Under the
circumstances, it's indelicate.”
"Oh!” he had said, and looked at her quickly. “I can love
you, but it's indelicate to tell you about it !”
“I am married, Rodney.”
“Good God, do you think I ever forget it?"
There was a real change in their relationship, but neither
of them understood it. The change was that Rodney was no
longer playing. Little by little he had dropped his artistic
posing for her benefit, his cynical cleverness, his adroit simu-
lation of passion. He no longer dramatized himself, because
rather often he forgot himself entirely. His passion had
ceased to be spurious, and it was none the less real because he
loved not a real woman, but one of his own artistic creation.
He saw in Natalie a misunderstood and suffering woman,
bearing the burdens he knew of with dignity and a certain


DANGEROUS DAYS
359
“Where is he now ???
"In France, I think. Probably telling them how to run the
war."
“When is he coming back?"
"I don't know. What do you mean by wishing you could
go?"
“Do you want me to tell you the truth?”
"Not if it's disagreeable.”
"Well, I will, and it's not very agreeable. I can't keep this
up, Natalie. I can't keep on coming here, being in Clayton's
house, and eating his bread, while I'm in love with his wife.
It isn't decent."
He flung away his cigaret, and bent forward.
"Don't you see that?” he asked gently. "Not while he is
working for the country, and Graham is abroad.”
“I don't see why war needs to deprive me of my friends.
I've lost everything else."
His morals were matters of his private life, and they had
been neither better nor worse than the average. But he had
breeding and a sure sense of the fitness of things, and this
present week-end visit, with the ostentatious care the younger
crowd took to allow him time to see Natalie alone, was gal-
ling to him. It put him in a false position; what hurt more,
perhaps, in an unfavorable light. The war had changed stand-
ards, too. Men were being measured, especially by women,
and those who failed to measure up were being eliminated
with cruel swiftness, especially the men who stayed at home.
With all this, too, there was a growing admiration for Clay-
ton Spencer in their small circle. His name had been men-
tioned in connection with an important position in Washing-
ton. In the clubs there was considerable praise and some
envy. And Rodney knew that his affair with Natalie was the
subject of much invidious comment.
"Do you love him?" he asked, suddenly.
"I—why, of course I do."
“Do you mean that?"


360
DANGEROUS DAYS
"I don't see what that has to do with our friendship.”
"Oh-friendship! You know how I feel, and yet you go on,
hringing up that silly word. If you love him, you don't love
ne, and yet you've let me hang around all these months, knowy
ing I am mad about you. You don't play the game, Natalie.”
"What do you want me to say?"
"If you don't love Clayton, why don't you tell him so?
He's honest enough. And I miss my guess if he wants a
wife whocares for somebody else.”
She sat in the dusk, thinking, and he watched her. She
looked very lovely in the setting which he himself had designed
for her. She hated change; she loathed trouble, of any sort.
And she was, those days, just a little afraid of that strange,
quiet Clayton who seemed eternally engrossed in war and the
things of war. She glanced about, at the white trellises that
gleamed in the garden, at the silvery fleur de lis which was
the fountain, at all the lovely things with which Clayton's
wealth had allowed her to surround herself. And suddenly
she knew she could not give them up.
"I don't see why you have to spoil everything," she said
fretfully. “It had been so perfect. Of course I'm not going
to say anything to Clay. He has enough to worry him now,"
she added, virtuously.
Suddenly Rodney stooped and kissed her, almost savagely,
“Then I'm going," he said. And to her great surprise he
went.
Alone in his room up-stairs Rodney had, in his anger, a
glimpse of insight. He saw her, her life filled with small
emotions, lacking the courage for big ones. He saw her, like
a child, clutching one piece of cake and holding out a hand
for another. He saw her, taking always, giving never.
“She's not worth it,” he muttered.
On the way to the station he reflected bitterly over the past
ycar. He did not blame her so much as he blamed himself,
He had been playing a game, an attractive game. During the
first months of it his interest in Natalie had been subordinate


364
DANGEROUS DAYS
He found Natalie in the drawing-room, pacing the floor.
She was still in her morning dress, and her eyes were red and
swollen. She gave him both her hands, and he was surprised
to find them cold as ice.
"I knew you would come,” she said. "I am so alone, so
terrified."
He could hardly articulate.
“What is it?"
“Graham has been ordered abroad.”
He stood still, staring at her, and then he dropped her
hands.
"Is that all?” he asked, dully.
"No."
"Good heavens, Natalie! Tell me. I've been frantic with
anxiety about you."
“He was married to-night to Delight Haverford.”
And still he stared at her.
“Then he's not hurt, or ill?”
“I didn't say he was. Good gracious, Rodney, isn't that
had enough?”
“But what did you expect? He would have to go abroad
some time. You knew that I'm sorry, but-why in God's
name didn't you say in your wire what the trouble was?”
“You sound exactly like Clay.”
She was entirely incapable of understanding. She stood
before him, straight and resentful, and yet strangely wistful
and appealing.
“I send you word that my only son is going to France, that
he has married without so much as consulting me, that he is
going to war and may never come back. I needed you, and you
said once that when I needed you, wherever you were, you
would come. So I sent for you, and now you act like-like
Clay,"
"Have you any one here?"
“The servants. Good gracious, Rodney, are you worrying
about that ?"


DANGEROUS DAYS
365
1
"Only for you, Natalie."
"We resent anything that reflects on a name we respect
rather highly." That was what Nolan had said.
"I'm sorry about Graham, dearest. I am sorry about any
trouble that comes to you. You know that, Natalie. I'm only
regretful that you have let me place you in an uncomfortable
position. If my being here is known-Look here, Natalie,
dear, I hate to bother you, but I'll have to take one of the
cars and go back to the city to-night.”
“Aren't you being rather absurd?”
He hesitated. He could not tell her of that awkward talk
with Nolan. There were many things he would not tell her;
his own desire to rehabilitate himself among the men he knew,
his own new-born feeling that to take advantage of Clay-
ton's absence on business connected with the war was pecu-
liarly indefensible.
"I shall order the car at once," she said, and touched a
bell. When she turned he was just behind her, but altho he
held out his arms she evaded them, her eyes hard and angry.
“I wish you would try to understand," he said.
"I do, very thoroughly. Too thoroughly. You are afraid
for yourself, not for me. I am in trouble, but that is a sec-
ondary consideration. Don't bother about me, Rodney. I
have borne a great deal alone in my life, and I can bear this."
She turned, and went with considerable dignity out of the
door.
"Natalie!” he called. But he heard her with a gentle rustle
of silks going up the staircase. It did not add to his comfort
that she had left him to order the car.
All through the night Rodney rode and thought. He was
angry at Natalie, but he was angrier at himself. He felt that
he had been brutal, unnecessarily callous. After all, her only
son was on his way to war. It was on the cards that he might
not come back., And he had let his uneasiness dominate his
sympathy. He had lost her, but then he had never had her.
He never could have her.


370
DANGEROUS DAYS
.
sisted. “Oh, I know it was noble of you, and all that. The
country's crazy about you. But still I think it was silly,
Every one else is making money out of things, and you—a lot
of thanks you'll get, when the war's over."
"I don't particularly want thanks."
Then the door-bell rang in the back of the house, and
Buckham answered it. He was conscious at once that Natalie
stiffened, and that she was watchful and a trifle pale. Buck-
ham brought in a telegram on a tray.
“Give it to me, Buckham," Natalie said, in a strained voice.
And held out her hand for it. When she saw it was for
Clayton, however, she relaxed. As he tore it open, Clayton
was thinking. Evidently Natalie had been afraid of his seeing
some message for her. Was it possible that Natalie
He opened it.
After what seemed a long time he looked up. Her eyes
were on him.
"Don't be alarmed, my dear," he said. "It is not very bad.
But Graham has been slightly wounded. Sit down,” he said
sharply, as he saw her sway.
"You are lying to me,” she said in a dreadful voice. "He's
dead!"
"He is not dead, Natalie.” He tried to put her into a chair,
but she resisted him fiercely.
“Let me alone. I want to see that telegram.”
And, very reluctantly, at last he gave it to her. Graham
was severely wounded. It was from a man in his own depart-
ment at Washington who had just seen the official list. The
nature of his wounding had not been stated.
Natalie looked up from the telegram with a face like a
painted mask.
“This is your doing,” she said. "You wanted him to go.
You sent him into this. He will die, and you will have mur-
dered him."
The thought came to him, in that hour of stress, that she
was right. Pitifully, damnably right. He had not wanted
ment at Washiounded. It was from gave it to her. Graha


376
DANGEROUS DAYS
“Won't you let me come in and try to comfort you?”
But Madeleine brought the box out again, and there was
pity in her eyes.
"Mrs. Spencer can not have them in the room, sir. She
says the odor of flowers makes her ill.”
He knew Madeleine had invented the excuse, that Natalie
had simply rejected his offering. He went down-stairs, and
made a pretense of dining alone in the great room.
It was there that Audrey's daily cable found him. Buck-
ham brought it in in shaking fingers, and stood by, white and
still, while he opened it.
Clayton stood up. He was very white, but his voice was
full and strong.
“He is better, Buckham! Better !"
Suddenly Buckham was crying. His austere face was dis-
torted, his lean body trembling. Clayton put his arm around
the bowed old shoulders.
And in that moment, as they stood there master and man,
Clayton Spencer had a flash of revelation. There was love
and love. The love of a man for a woman, and of a woman
for a man, of a mother for the child at her knee, of that child
for its mother. But that the great actuating motive of a
man's maturity, of the middle span, was vested along with
his dreams, his pride and his love, in his son, his man-child.
Buckham, carrying his coffee into the library somewhat
later, found him with his head down on his desk, and the
cablegram clutched in his outstretched hands. He tir-
out, very quietly.


DANGEROUS DAYS
379
life and look toward the sunset. If he faced that sunset
alone-
He heard Madeleine carrying down Natalie's dinner-tray,
and when she left the pantry she came to the door of the
library.
“Mrs. Spencer would like to see you, sir.”
“Thank you, Madeleine. I'll go up very soon.”
Suddenly he knew that he did not want to go up to Natalie's
scented room. She had shut him out when she was in
trouble. She had not cared that he, too, was in distress.
She had done her best to invalidate that compact he had
made. She had always invalidated him.
To go back to the old way, to the tribute she enforced to
feed her inordinate vanity, to the old hypocricy of their rela-
tionship, to live again the old lie, was impossible.
He got up. He would not try to buy himself happiness at
the cost of turning her adrift. But he must, some way, buy
his self-respect.
He heard her then, on the staircase, that soft rustle which,
it seemed to him, had rasped the silk of his nerves all their
years together with its insistence on her dainty helplessness,
her femininity, her right to protection. The tap of her high
heels came closer. He drew a long breath and turned, de-
terminedly smiling, to face the door.
Almost at once he saw that she was frightened. She had
taken pains to look her best-but then she always did that.
She was rouged to the eyes, and the floating white chiffon of
her negligee gave to her slim body the illusion of youth, that
last illusion to which she so desperately clung. But-she was
frightened.
She stood in the doorway, one hand holding aside the heavy
velvet curtain, and looked at him with wide, penciled eyes.
“Clay?”
“Yes. Come in. Shall I have Buckham light a fire?”
She came in, slowly.
"Do you suppose that cable is reliable?”


382
DANGEROUS DAYS
think, if you have anything to say to me, we would better
talk alone."
Natalie went out, her draperies trailing behind her. Clayton
listened, as she moved slowly up the stairs. For the last time
he heard that soft rustling which had been the accompani-
ment to so many of the most poignant hours of his life. He
listened until it had died away.


DANGEROUS DAYS
387
a map with water-holes marked, a canteen covered with a
dirty plaid-cloth casing, a small supply of condensed foods,
in tins mostly, and a letter to certain Germans in Mexico
City who would receive hospitably any American fugitives
and ask no questions.
“How about money?" Rudolph inquired.
The German shrugged his shoulders.
"You will not need money in the desert,” he said. “And
you haf spent much money here, on the women. You should
have safed it.”
"I was told you would give me money."
But the German shook his head.
"You vill find money in Mexico City, if you get there,” he
said, cryptically. And Rudolph found neither threats nor en-
treaties of any avail.
He started out of the town, turning toward the south and
west. Before him there stretched days of lonely traveling
through the sand and cactus of the desert, of blistering sun
and cold nights, of anxious searches for water-holes. It was
because of the water-holes that he headed southwest, for such
as they were they lay in tiny hidden oases in the cañons. Al-
most as soon as he left the town he was in the desert; a de-
tached ranch, a suggestion of a road, a fenced-in cotton-field
or two, an irigation ditch, and then-sand.
He was soft from months of inaction, from the cactus
whisky of Mexico, too, that ate into a man like a corrosive
acid. But he went on steadily, putting behind him as rapidly
as possible the border, and the girls who had laughed at him.
He traveled by a pointed mountain which cut off the stars at
the horizon, and as the milės behind him increased, in spite
of his growing fatigue his spirits rose. Before him lay the
fulness of life again. Mexico City was a stake worth gam-
bling for. He was gambling, he knew. He had put up his
life, and his opponent was thirst. He knew that, well enough,
too, and the figure rather amused him.
"Playing against that, all right," he muttered. He paused
Gulness of litas fatigue hiniles behind high cut off thed at him.


DANGEROUS DAYS
“Poor devil!” muttered the rider.
He dismounted and turned the figure over.
“God!” he said. “And water under him all the time!"
Then he dragged the quiet figure outside the ring of stones,
and getting a spade from his saddle, fell to digging in the
center. A foot below the surface water began to appear, clear,
cold water. He lay down flat and drank out of the pool.
* * * * * * *
Clayton Spencer was alone in his house. In the months
since Natalie had gone, he had not been there a great deal.
He had been working very hard. He had not been able to
shoulder arms, but he had, nevertheless, fought a good fight.
He was very tired. During the day, a sort of fierce energy
upheld him. Because in certain things he had failed he was
the more determined to succeed in others. Not for himself;
ambition of that sort had died of the higher desire to serve his
country. But because the sense of failure in his private life
haunted him.
The house was very quiet. Buckham came in to mend the
fire, issuing from the shadows like a lean old ghost and eyeing
him with tender, faded old eyes.
"Is there anything else, sir?"
“Thanks, no. Buckham.”
"Yes, Mr. Spencer.”
"I have not spoken about it, but I think you have under-
stood. Mrs. Spencer is—not coming back.”
“Yes, Mr. Spencer.”
"I had meant to close the house, but certain things—Captain
Spencer's wife expects a child. I would rather like to have
her come here, for the birth. After that, if the war is over,
I shall turn the house over to them. You would stay on, I
hope, Buckham.”
"I'll stay, sir. I- " His face worked nervously. "I feel
toward the Captain as I would to my own son, sir. I have
already thought that perhaps—the old nursery has been
cleaned and aired for weeks, Mr. Spencer.”


CHAPTER L
UDREY was in Paris on the eleventh of November. Now
n and then she got back there, and reveled for a day or two
in the mere joy of paved streets and great orderly buildings.
She liked the streets and the crowds. She liked watching the
American boys swaggering along, smoking innumerable
cigarets and surveying the city with interested, patronizing
eyes. And, always, walking briskly along the Rue Royale
or the Avenue de l'Opera, or in the garden of the Tuileries
where the school-boys played their odd French games, her
eyes were searching the faces of the men she met.
Any tall man in civilian clothes set her heart beating faster.
She was quite honest with herself; she knew that she was
watching for Clay, and she had a magnificent shamelessness
in her quest. And now at last The Daily Mail had announced
his arrival in France, and at first every ring of her telephone
had sent her to it, somewhat breathless but quite confident.
He would, she considered, call up the Red Cross at the Hotel
Regina, and they would, by her instructions, give her hotel.
Then, on that Monday morning, which was the eleventh, she
realized that he would not call her up. She knew it suddenly
and absolutely. She sat down, when the knowledge came to
her, with a sickening feeling that if he did not come to her
now he never would come. Yet even then she did not doubt
that he cared. Cared as desperately as she did. The bond
still held.
She tried very hard, sitting there by her wood fire in the
orderly uniform which made her so quaintly young and boyish,
to understand the twisted mental processes that kept him away
from her, now that he was free. And, in the end, she came
rather close to the truth: his sense of failure; his loss of con-
392


DANGEROUS DAYS
395
had apparently determined not to take her back into his
life.
She went out onto her small stone balcony, on the Rue
Danou, and looked out to where, on the Rue de la Paix, the
city traffic moved with a sort of sporadic expectancy. Men
stopped and consulted their watches. A few stood along the
curb, and talked in low voices. Groups of men in khaki walked
by, or stopped to glance into the shop windows. They, too,
were waiting. She could see, far below, her valet de chambre
in his green felt apron, and the concierge in his blue frock
coat and brass buttons, unbending in the new democracy of
hope to talk to a cabman.
Suddenly Audrey felt the same exaltation that had been in
Suzanne's eyes. Those boys below in uniform—they were not
tragic now. They were the hope of the world, not its sacri-
fice. They were going to live. They were going to live.
She went into her bedroom and put on her service hat. And
as she opened the door Suzanne was standing outside, one
hand upraised. Into the quiet hallway there came the distant
sound of the signal guns.
"C'est l'armistice !” cried Suzanne, and suddenly broke into
wild hysterical sobbing.
All the way down-stairs Audrey was praying, not articu-
lately, but in her heart, that this was indeed the end; that
the grapes of wrath had all been trampled; that the nations
of the world might again look forward instead of back. And
-because she was not of the great of the earth, but only a
loving woman-that somewhere Clay was hearing the guns,
as she was, and would find hope in them, and a future.
When a great burden is lifted, the relief is not always
felt at once. The galled places still ache. The sense of
weight persists. And so with Paris. Not at once did the city
rejoice openly. It prayed first, and then it counted the sore
spots, and they were many. And it was dazed, too. There
had been no time to discount peace in advance.
The streets filled at once, but at first it was with a chastened


398
DANGEROUS DAYS
legs or on crutches; they rode in wheeled chairs; they were
led, who could not see. And they smiled and cheered. None
of them was whole, but every one was a full man, for all that.
Audrey cried, shamelessly like Suzanne, but quietly. And,
not for the first time that day, she thought of Chris. She
had never loved him, but it was pitiful that he could not
have lived. He had so loved life. He would have so relished
all this, the pageantry of it, and the gayety, and the night's
revelry that was to follow. Poor Chris! He had thrown
everything away, even life. The world perhaps was better
that these mutilées below had given what they had. But Chris
had gone like a pebble thrown into a lake. He had made his
tiny ripple and had vanished.
Then she remembered that she was not quite fair. Per-
haps she had never been fair to Chris. He had given all he
had. He had not lived well, but he had died well. And
there was something to be said for death. For the first time
in her healthy life she wondered about death, standing here
an the Crillon balcony, with the city gone mad with life be-
low her. Death was' quiet. It might be rather wonderful.
She thought, if Clay did not want her, that perhaps it would
be very comforting just to die and forget about everything.
From beneath the balcony there came again, lustily, the
shouts of a dozen doughboys hauling a German gun:
"Hail! hail! the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?
Hail, hail, the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care now?"
Then, that night, Clay came. The roistering city outside
had made of her little sitting-room a sort of sanctuary, into
which came only faintly the blasts of horns, hoarse strains of
the “Marseillaise" sung by an un-vocal people, the shuffling of
myriad feet, the occasional semi-hysterical screams of women.
"Mr. Spencer is calling," said the concierge over the tele-


DANGEROUS DAYS
399
phone, in his slow English. And suddenly a tight band
snapped which had seemed to bind Audrey's head all day. She
was calm. She was herself again. Life was very wonderful;
peace was very wonderful. The dear old world. The good
old world. The kind, loving, tender old world, which separat-
ed people that they might know the joy of coming together
again. She wanted to sing, she wanted to hang over her
balcony and teach the un-vocal French the “Marseillaise."
Yet, when she had opened the door, she could not even
speak. And Clay, too, after one long look at her, only held
out his arms. It was rather a long time, indeed, before they
found any words at all. Audrey was the first, and what she
said astounded her. For she said:
“What a dreadful noise outside.”
And Clay responded, with equal gravity: “Yes, isn't it !”
Then he took off his overcoat and put it down, and placed
his hat on the table, and said, very simply: “I couldn't stay
away. I tried to."
"You hadn't a chance in the world, Clay, when I was willing
you to come."
Then there was one of those silences which come when
words have shown their absolute absurdity. It seemed a long
time before he broke it.
"I'm not young, Audrey. And I have failed once."
"It takes two to make a failure,” she said dauntlessly. "I
-wouldn't let you fai? again, Clay. Not if you love me."
"If I love you!" Then he was, somehow, in that grotesque
position that is only absurd to the on-looker, on his knees
beside her. His terrible self-consciousness was gone. He
only knew that, somehow, some way, he must prove to her
his humility, his love, his terrible fear of losing her again, his
hope that together they might make up for the wasted years
of their lives. “I worship you," he said.
The little room was a sanctuary. The war lay behind them.
Wasted and troubled years lay behind them. Youth, first
youth, was gone, with its illusions and its dreams. But be-


400
DANGEROUS DAYS
fore them lay the years of fulfilment, years of understanding.
Youth demanded everything, and was discontented that it se-
cured less than its demands. Now they asked but three things,
work, and peace, and love. And the greatest of these was
love.
Something like that he said to her, when the first inarticu-
lateness had passed, and when, as is the way of a man with
the woman who loves him, he tried to lay his soul as well as
his heart at her feet. The knowledge that the years brought.
That love in youth was a plant of easy growth, springing up
in many soils. But that the love of the middle span of a
man's life, whether that love be the early love purified by
fire, or a new love, sowed in sacrifice and watered with tears,
the love that was to carry a man and a woman through to the
end, the last love, was God's infinitely precious gift. A gift to
take the place of the things that had gone with youth, of high
adventure and the lilt of the singing heart.
The last gift.
THE END