"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 contracted.

He went back to his vigil, and let Graham sleep on.

Some time later he roused from a doze in his chair. Graham was across the bed from him, looking down. Audrey was gone. And the injured boy stirred and opened his eyes.

"H-h.e.l.lo, 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 together.

The boy's grip on his hand was tight. Please G.o.d, they would always be together from now on.

CHAPTER IX

Clayton did not care to tell Natalie of Chris's flight. She would learn it soon enough, he knew, and he felt unwilling to discuss the affair as Natalie would want to discuss 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 connection 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 amazement.

"It's Delight," explained Mrs. Haverford. "She's driving me round. She won't come in, and she's forgotten her fur 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 window.

"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 quarreled, 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 exists, 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 country 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."

"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 coming, 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 pa.s.s.

"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 something. Anyhow, he sailed from Halifax last week."

Natalie straightened in her chair.

"Are you certain?"