R 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 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 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
l