"You are compelling me to do a strange and hateful thing," he said. "If
you intend to use your influence to keep him out, I shall have to offset
it by urging him to go. That is putting a very terrible responsibility
on me."
He heard her draw her breath sharply.
"If you do that I shall leave you," she said, in a frozen voice.
Suddenly he felt sorry for her. She was so weak, so childish, so
cowardly. And this was the nearest they had come to a complete break.
"You're tired and nervous," he said. "We have come a long way from what
I started out to say. And a long way from--the way things used to
be between us. If this thing, to-night, does not bring two people
together--"
"Together!" she cried shrilly. "When have we been together? Not
in years. You have been married to your business. I am only your
housekeeper, and Graham's mother. And even Graham you are trying to take
away from me. Oh, go away and let me alone."
Down-stairs, thoughts that were almost great had formulated themselves
in his mind; that to die that others might live might be better than to
live oneself; that he loved his country, although he had been shamefaced
about it; that America was really the melting-pot of the world, and
that, perhaps, only the white flame of war would fuse it into a great
nation.
But Natalie made all these thoughts tawdry. She cheapened them. She
found in him nothing fine; therefore there was probably nothing fine in
him. He went away, to lie awake most of the night.