counted. Was it indifference, 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 curious mixture of
intelligence and frivolity. She was a good fellow. 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.

The rector was the other, and he was relieved to find Doctor Haverford
moving up to the vacant place at his right.

"I've been wanting to see you, Clay," he said in an undertone. "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