“Will you?'
“Yes, of course,” she had agreed, indifferently. And he had notified her that the money was in the bank. But two months later the list of contributors was published, and neither his name nor Natalie's was among them.
Toward personal service she had no inclination whatever. She would promise anything, but the hour of fulfilling always found her with something else to do. Yet she had kindly impulses, at times, when something occurred to take her mind from herself. She gave liberally to street mendicants. She sent her car to be used by those of her friends who had none. She was lavish with flowers to the sick—although Clayton paid her florist bills.
She was lavish with money—but never with herself.
In the weeks after the opening of the new year Clayton found himself watching her. He wondered sometimes just what went on in her mind during the hours when she sat, her hands folded, gazing into space. He could not tell. He surmised her planning, always planning; the new house, a gown, a hat, a party.
But late in January he began to think that she was planning something else. Old Terry Mackenzie had been there one night, and he had asserted not only that war was coming, but that we would be driven to conscription to raise an army.
“They've all had to come to it,” he insisted. “And we will, as sure as God made little fishes. You can't raise a million volunteers for a war that's three thousand miles away.”
“You mean, conscription among the laboring class?” Natalie had asked naively, and there had been a roar of laughter.
“Not at all,” Terry had said. And chuckled. “This war, if it comes, is every man's burden, rich and poor. Only the rich will give most, because they have most to give.”
“I think that's ridiculous,” Natalie had said.