“Button, my secretary,” Terry announced, “is in Washington. He is to call me here when the message is finished.”
“Isn't it possible,” said Natalie, recalling a headline from the evening paper, “that the House may cause an indefinite delay?”
And, as usual, Clayton wondered at the adroitness with which, in the talk that followed, she escaped detection.
They sat long at the table, rather as though they clung together. And Nolan insisted on figuring the cost of war in money.
“Queer thing,” he said. “In ancient times the cost of war fell almost entirely on the poor. But it's the rich who will pay for this war. All taxation is directed primarily against the rich.”
“The poor pay in blood,” said Audrey, rather sharply. “They give their lives, and that is all they have.”
“Rich and poor are going to do that, now,” old Terry broke in. “Fight against it all you like, you members of the privileged class, the draft is coming. This is every man's war.”
But Clayton Spencer was watching Natalie. She had paled and was fingering her liqueur-glass absently. Behind her lowered eyelids he surmised that again she was planning. But what? Then it came to him, like a flash. Old Terry had said the draft would exempt married men. She meant to marry Graham to a girl she detested, to save him from danger.
Through it all, however, and in spite of his anger and apprehension, he was sorry for her. Sorry for her craven spirit. Sorry even with an understanding that came from his own fears. Sorry for her, that she had remained an essential child in a time that would tax the utmost maturity. She was a child. Even her selfishness was the selfishness of a spoiled child. She craved things, and the spirit, the essence of life, escaped her.
And beside him was Audrey, valiant-eyed, courageous, honest. Natalie and Audrey! Some time during the evening his thoughts took this form: that there were two sorts of people in the world: those who seized their own happiness, at any cost; and those who saw the promised land from a far hill, and having seen it, turned back.