She sat in the dusk, thinking, and he watched her. She looked very
lovely in the setting which he himself had designed for her. She hated
change; she loathed trouble, of any sort. And she was, those days, just
a little afraid of that strange, quiet Clayton who seemed eternally
engrossed in war and the things of war. She glanced about, at the white
trellises that gleamed in the garden, at the silvery fleur de lis which
was the fountain, at all the lovely things with which Clayton's wealth
had allowed her to surround herself. And suddenly she knew she could not
give them up.
"I don't see why you have to spoil everything," she said fretfully. "It
had been so perfect. Of course I'm not going to say anything to Clay. He
has enough to worry him now," she added, virtuously.
Suddenly Rodney stooped and kissed her, almost savagely.
"Then I'm going," he said. And to her great surprise he went.
Alone in his room up-stairs Rodney had, in his anger, a glimpse of
insight. He saw her, her life filled with small emotions, lacking the
courage for big ones. He saw her, like a child, clutching one piece
of cake and holding out a hand for another. He saw her, taking always,
giving never.
"She's not worth it," he muttered.
On the way to the station he reflected bitterly over the past year. He
did not blame her so much as he blamed himself. He had been playing a
game, an attractive game. During the first months of it his interest in
Natalie had been subordinate to his interest in her house. He had been
creating a beautiful thing, and he had had a very real joy in it. But
lately he knew that his work on the house had been that he might build a
background for Natalie. He had put into it the best of his ability, and
she was not worth it.
For some days he neither wrote nor called her up. He was not happy, but
he had a sense of relief. He held his head a trifle higher, was his own
man again, and he began to make tentative inquiries as to whether he
could be useful in the national emergency or not. He was half-hearted at
first, but he found out something. The mere fact that he wanted to work
in some capacity brought back some of his old friends. They had seemed
to drop away, before, but they came back heartily and with hands out.
"Work?" said Terry Mackenzie, at the club one day, looking up from the
billiard table, where he was knocking balls about, rather at haphazard.
"Why, of course you can work. What about these new cantonments we're
building all over the country? You ought to be useful there. They don't
want 'em pretty, tho." And Terry had laughed. But he put down his cue
and took Rodney by the arm.