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
victory"; the deportation of the Belgians, the recent leak in Washington
to certain stock-brokers, and more and more imminent, 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?"

"I can't let you outshine me," he said. "And I don't want to think of
your going over there without me. My dear! My dear!"

She ignored that, and gave him his tea, gravely.

CHAPTER XXVIII

When Natalie roused from her nap that Sunday afternoon, 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 deliberately to make a
conquest of her son as she had ever done to conquer Rodney Page, or the
long list of Rodney's predecessors.