Early in March Clayton put Graham in charge of the first of the long
buildings to be running full, and was rewarded by a new look in the
boy's face. He was almost startled at the way he took it.
"I'll do my very best, sir," he said, rather huskily. "If I can't fight,
I can help put the swine out of business, anyhow."
He was by that time quite sure that Natalie had extracted a promise of
some sort from the boy. On the rare occasions when Graham was at home he
was quiet and suppressed.
He was almost always at Marion Hayden's in the evenings, and from
things he let fall, Clayton gathered that the irresponsible group which
centered about Marion was, in the boy's own vernacular, rather "shot to
pieces." Tommy Hale had gone to England to join the Royal Flying Corps.
One or two of them were in Canada, trying to enlist there, and one
evening Graham brought home to dinner an inordinately tall and thin
youngster in the kilts of a Scotch-Canadian regiment, with an astounding
length of thin leg below his skirts, who had been one of Marion's most
reckless satellites.
"Look like a fool, I know, sir," said the tall individual sheepishly.
"Just had to get in it somehow. No camouflage about these skirts, is
there?"
And Clayton had noticed, with a thrill of sympathy, how wistfully Graham
eyed the debonnair young Scot by adoption, and how Buckham had hovered
over him, filling his plate and his glass. Even Graham noticed Buckham.
"Old boy looks as though he'd like to kiss you, Sid," he said. "It's the
petticoats. Probably thinks you're a woman."
"I look better with my legs under the table," said the tall boy,
modestly.
Clayton was still determined that Graham should fight the thing out for
himself. He wished, sometimes, that he knew Marion Hayden's attitude.
Was she like Natalie? Would she, if the time came, use her undeniable
influence for or against? And there again he resented the influence of
women in the boy's life. Why couldn't he make his own decisions? Why
couldn't they let him make his own decisions?
He remembered his father, and how his grandmother, in '61, had put a
Bible into one pocket and a housewife into another, and had sent him off
to war. Had the fiber of our women weakened since then? But he knew
it had not. All day, in the new plant, women were working with
high-explosives quite calmly. And there were Audrey and the Haverford
women, strong enough, in all conscience.