CHAPTER XXII
In the evening of the thirty-first of January Clayton and Graham were waiting for Natalie to come down to dinner when the bell rang, and Dunbar was announced. Graham welcomed the interruption. He had been vaguely uneasy with his father since that day in his office when Clayton had found him on Anna Klein's desk. Clayton had tried to restore the old friendliness of their relation, but the boy had only half-heartedly met his advances. Now and then he himself made an overture, but it was the almost timid advance of a puppy that has been beaten. It left Clayton discouraged and alarmed, set him to going back over the past for any severity on his part to justify it. Now and then he wondered if, in Graham's frequent closetings with Natalie, she did not covertly undermine his influence with the boy, to increase her own.
But if she did, why? What was going on behind the impassive, lovely mask that was her face.
Dunbar was abrupt, as usual.
“I've brought you some news, Mr. Spencer,” he said. He looked oddly vital and alive in the subdued and quiet room. “They've shown their hand at last. But maybe you've heard it.”
“I've heard nothing new.”
“Then listen,” said Dunbar, bending forward over a table, much as it was his habit to bend over Clayton's desk. “We're in it at last. Or as good as in it. Unrestricted submarine warfare! All merchant-ships bound to and from Allied ports to be sunk without warning! We're to be allowed—mark this, it's funny!—we're to be allowed to send one ship a week to England, nicely marked and carrying passengers only.”
There was a little pause. Clayton drew a long breath.
“That means war,” he said finally.