She was, she knew, not quite normal, but the fear gripped and held her.
These big strong men, no one ever looked after them. They spent their
lives caring for others, and were never cared for.
There were times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head
high, when the thing she was forced to give up seemed trifling compared
with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the
crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the
recruiting station. There was sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was
some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton were putting the
happiness of others above their own.
They had both, somehow, somewhere, missed the path. But they must never
go back and try to find it.
Delight's visit left her thoughtful. There must be some way to save
Graham. She wondered how much of Clayton's weariness was due to Graham.
And she wondered, too, if he knew of the talk about Natalie and Rodney
Page. There was a great deal of talk. Somehow such talk cheapened his
sacrifice and hers.
Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how little such gossip
actually meant. Practically every woman she knew, herself included, had
at one time or another laid herself open to such invidious comment. They
had all been idle, and they sought amusement in such spurious affairs as
this, harmless in the main, but taking on the appearance of evil. That
was part of the game, to appear worse than one really was. The older
the woman, the more eager she was often in her clutch at the vanishing
romance of youth.
Only--it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A fierce pride for
Clayton's name sent the color to her face.
On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to speak at a
recruiting station far down-town in a crowded tenement district, and
tired as she was, she took a bus and went down at seven o'clock. She was
uneasy and nervous. She had not spoken in the evening before, and in all
her sheltered life she had never seen the milling of a night crowd in a
slum district.
There was a wagon drawn up at the curb, and an earnest-eyed young
clergyman was speaking. The crowd was attentive, mildly curious. The
clergyman was emphatic without being convincing. Audrey watched the
faces about her, standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the
futility of it all gripped her. All these men, and only a feeble cheer
as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this effort for
such scant result, and over on the other side such dire need! But one
thing cheered her. Beside her, in the crowd, a portly elderly Jew was
standing with his hat in his hand, and when a man near him made some
jeering comment, the Jew brought his hand down on his shoulder.