Suddenly he sat down beside Clayton and buried his face in his hands.
For some reason or other Clayton found himself back in the hospital,
that night when Joey lay still and quiet, and Graham was sobbing like a
child, prostrate on the white covering of the bed. With the incredible
rapidity of thought in a mental crisis, he saw the last months, the
boy's desire to go to France thwarted, his attempt to interest himself
in the business, the tool Marion Hayden had made of him, Anna's doglike
devotion, all leading inevitably to catastrophe. And through it all
he saw Natalie, holding Graham back from war, providing him with extra
money, excusing him, using his confidences for her own ends, insidiously
sapping the boy's confidence in his father and himself.
"We'll have to stand up to this together, Graham."
The boy looked up.
"Then--you're not going to throw me over altogether--"
"No."
"But--all this--!"
"If Herman Klein had not done it, there were others who would, probably.
It looks as though you had provided them with a tool, but I suppose we
were vulnerable in a dozen ways."
He rose, and they stood, eyes level, father and son, in the early
morning sunlight. And suddenly Graham's arms were around his shoulders,
and something tight around Clayton's heart relaxed. Once again, and now
for good, he had found his boy, the little boy who had not so long ago
stood on a chair for this very embrace. Only now the boy was a man.
"I'm going to France, father," he said. "I'm going to pay them back for
this. And out of every two shots I fire one will be for you."
Perhaps he had found his boy only to lose him, but that would have to be
as God willed.
At ten o'clock he went up to the house, to change his wet and draggled
clothing. The ruins were being guarded by soldiers, and the work of
rescue was still going on, more slowly now, since there was little or no
hope of finding any still living thing in that flame-swept wreckage. He
found Natalie in bed, with Madeleine in attendance, and he learned that
her physician had just gone.
He felt that he could not talk to her just then. She had a morbid
interest in horrors, and with the sights of that night fresh in his mind
he could not discuss them. He stopped, however, in her doorway.
"I'm glad you are resting," he said, "Better stay in bed to-day. It's
been a shock."