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the Electronic Frontier Foundation - "Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet"

Rainer Maria Rilke - "Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurid Brigge"

Marthy Cannary Burk - "Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane"

Unknown - "The Crimson Fairy Book"

DANGEROUS DAYS

M >> Mary Roberts Rinehart >> DANGEROUS DAYS




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

Natalie 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 dressing-gown flung 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 quarter 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 glistening 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 tramping 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.

"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 Valentine? Of course
not! Her back - You just drive me to despair, Clay. Nothing I do
pleases you. The very tone of 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 attacking the British
government.

"We get out of this world largely what we put into it," he 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 happiness -

"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 indignant. "But
of course you would think that. This house runs itself, I suppose."

"Let's be honest, Natalie," he said, with a touch of impatience.
"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 actually 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?"

"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 country."

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.

"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'd 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 I 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 Graham 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 go, Clay?"
she begged. You - you'll let him make his own decision?"

"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 influence 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 her papers.

"All right," she said, indifferently. "Have you any preerence 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 asleep. Clayton touched him on the shoulder,
but he slept on, his head to one side, his breathing slow and heavy.
It required some little effort to waken him.

"Graham!" said Clayton sharply.

"Yes." He stirred, but did not open his eyes.

"Graham! Wake up, boy."

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 yourself."

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 switching off of the light.

"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 something to
build up it would be different, but it's all done. You've done it.
I'm only a sort of sublimated clerk. I don't mean," he added
hastily, "that I think I ought to have anything more. It's only
that - well, the struggle's over, if you know what I mean."

"I'll talk to you about that to-morrow. Get to bed now. It's one
o'clock."

He moved to the doorway. Graham, carafe in hand, stood staring
ahead of him. He had the courage of the last whiskey-and-soda, and
a sort of desperate contrition.

"Father."

"Yes, Graham."

"I wish you'd let me go to France and fly."

Something like a cold hand seemed to close round Clayton's heart.

"Fly! Why?"

"Because I'm not doing any good here. And - because I'd like to
see if I have any good stuff in me. All the fellows are going," he
added, rather weakly.

"That's not a particularly worthy reason, is it?"

"It's about as worthy as making money out of shells, when we haven't
any reason for selling them to the Allies more than the Germans,
except that we can't ship to the Germans."

He looked rather frightened then. But Clayton was not angry. He
saw Natalie's fine hand there, and the boy's impressionable nature.

"Think that over, Graham," he said gravely. "I don't believe you
quite mean it. Good-night."

He went across to his own bedroom, where his silk pajamas, neatly
folded, lay on his painted Louis XVI bed. Under his reading lamp
there was a book. It was a part of Natalie's decorative scheme for
the room; it's binding was mauve, to match the hangings. For the
first time since the room had been done over during his absence he
picked up the book.

"Rodney's idea, for a cent!" he reflected, looking rather grimly at
the cover.

He undressed slowly, his mind full of Graham and the problem he
presented. Then he thought of Natalie, and of the little things
that made up her life and filled her days. He glanced about the
room, beautiful, formal, exquisitely appointed. His father's
portrait was gone from over the mantel, and an old French
water-color hung there instead. That was too bad of Natalie. Or
had it been Rodney? He would bring it back. And he gave a fleeting
thought to Graham and his request to go abroad. He had not meant
it. It was sheer reaction. But he would talk to Graham.

He lighted a cigaret, and getting into bed turned on his reading
lamp. Queer how a man could build, and then find that after all he
did not care for the achievement. It was the building alone that
was worth while.

He picked up the book from the table, and opened it casually.

"When first I loved I gave my very soul
Utterly unreserved to Love's control,
But Love deceived me, wrenched my youth away,
And made the gold of life forever gray.
Long I lived lonely, yet I tried in vain
With any other joy to stifle pain;
There is no other joy, I learned to know,
And so returned to love, as long ago,
Yet I, this little while ere I go hence,
Love very lightly now, in self defense."

"Twaddle," said Clayton Spencer, and put the book away. That was
the sort of stuff men like Rodney lived on. In a mauve binding, too.

After he had put out the light he lay for a long time, staring into
the darkness. It was not love he wanted: he was through with all
that. Power was the thing, integrity and power. To yield to no
man, to achieve independence for one's soul - not that he put it
that way. He formulated it, drowsily: 'Not to give a damn for any
one, so long as you're right.' Of course, it was not always possible
to know if one was right. He yawned. His conscious mind was
drowsing, and from the depths below, released of the sentry of his
waking hours, came the call of his starved imagination.




CHAPTER III

There was no moral to be adduced from Graham's waking the next
morning. He roused, reluctantly enough, but blithe and hungry. He
sang as he splashed in his shower, chose his tie whistling, and went
down the staircase two steps at a time to a ravenous breakfast.

Clayton was already at the table in the breakfast room, sitting back
with the newspaper, his coffee at his elbow, the first cigarette of
the morning half smoked. He looked rather older in the morning light.
Small fine threads had 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
persisted, at that.

There was no awkwardness in Graham's "Morning, dad." He had not
forgotten the night before, but he had already forgiven 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-naturedly.

"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."

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 Natalie 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, perfunctorily, and he was quick to see that her
resentment of the evening before bad 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 today."

She picked up the newspaper as though to end the discussion. 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 announced 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 responsibility 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 fingers,
do you?"

"I didn't come up to quarrel, Natalie. I wish you wouldn't force
it on me."

"I force it on you," she cried, and laughed in a forced and
high-pitched note. "Just because I won't be over-ridden without a
protest! I'm through, that's all. I shan't go near the place again."

"You don't understand," he persisted patiently. "I happen to like
gardens. I had an idea - I told you about it - of trying to
duplicate the old garden at home. You remember it. When we went
there on our honeymoon - "

"You don't call that a garden?"

"Of course I didn't want to copy it exactly. It was old and out of
condition. But there were a lot of old-fashioned flowers - However,
if you intend to build an Italian villa, naturally - "

"I don't intend to build anything, or to plant anything." Her voice
was frozen. "You go ahead. Do it in your own way. And then you
can live there, if you like. I won't."

Which was what he carried away with him that morning to the mill.
He was not greatly disturbed by her threat to keep her hands off.
He knew quite well, indeed, that the afternoon would find her, with
Rodney Page, picking her way in her high-heeled shoes over the waste
that was some day to bloom, not like the rose of his desire but
according to the formal and rigid blueprint which Rodney would be
carrying. But in five minutes he had put the incident out of his
mind. After all, if it gave her happiness and occupation, certainly
she needed both. And his powers of inhibition were strong. For
many years he had walled up the small frictions of his married life
and its disappointments, and outside that wall had built up an
existence of his own, which was the mill.

When he went down-stairs he found that Graham had ordered his own
car and was already in it, drawing on his gloves.

"Have to come back up-town early, dad," he called in explanation,
and drove off, going at the reckless speed he affected.

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
shining 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 same 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 Allied 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 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 conference 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 English, 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 l" He pointed, without intentional drama, at the
shell-case. "I can't make those shells for you, Mr. Spencer, and
me a German."

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