She took unusual pains with her dress that afternoon, and it was a very
smart, slightly rouged and rather swaggering Audrey who made her first
call in weeks on Natalie that afternoon.
Natalie was a little stiff, still slightly affronted.
"I thought you must have left town," she said. "But you look as though
you'd been having a rest cure."
"Rouge," said Audrey, coolly. "No, I haven't been entirely resting."
"There are all sorts of stories going about. That you're going into
a hospital; that you're learning to fly; that you're in the secret
service?"
"Just because I find it stupid going about without a man!" Natalie eyed
her shrewdly, but there was no self-consciousness in Audrey's face.
If the stories were true, and there had been another woman, she was
carrying it off well.
"At least Chris is in France. I have to go, when I go, without Clay. And
there is no excuse whatever."
"You mean--he is working?"
"Not at night. He is simply obstinate. He says he is tired. I don't
really mind any more. He is so hatefully heavy these days."
"Heavy! Clay!"
"My dear!" Natalie drew her chair closer and lowered her voice. "What
can one do with a man who simply lives war? He spends hours over the
papers. He's up if the Allies make a gain, and impossible if they don't.
I can tell by the very way he slams the door of his room when he comes
home what the news is. It's dreadful."
Audrey flushed.
"I wish there were more like him."
But Natalie smiled tolerantly.
"You are not married to him. I suppose the war is important, but I don't
want it twenty-four hours a day. I want to forget it if I can. It's
hideous."
Audrey's mouth twitched. After all, what was the good of talking to
Natalie. She would only be resentful.
"How is the house coming on?" she asked.
She had Natalie on happy ground there. For a half-hour she looked at
blueprints and water-color sketches, heard Rodney's taste extolled,
listened to plans for a house-party which she gathered was, rather
belatedly, to include her. And through it all she was saying to herself, "This is his wife. This is the woman he loves. He has had a child by
her. He is building this house for her. He goes into her room as Chris
came into mine. And she is not good enough. She is not good enough."