“All right. I promise,” he said at last. “But you're worrying yourself for nothing, mother.”
She was quite content then, cheered at once, consulted the jewelled watch on her dressing table and rang for the maid.
“Heavens, how late it is!” she exclaimed. “Run out now, dear. And, Graham, tell Buckham to do up a dozen dinner-napkins in paper. Audrey Valentine has telephoned that she has just got in, and finds she hasn't enough. If that isn't like her!”
CHAPTER VI
Months afterward, Clayton Spencer, looking back, realized that the night of the dinner at the Chris Valentines marked the beginning of a new epoch for him. Yet he never quite understood what it was that had caused the change. All that was clear was that in retrospect he always commenced with that evening, when he was trying to trace his own course through the months that followed, with their various changes, to the momentous ones of the following Summer.
Everything pertaining to the dinner, save the food, stood out with odd distinctness. Natalie's silence during the drive, broken only by his few questions and her brief replies. Had the place looked well? Very. And was the planting going on all right? She supposed so. He had hesitated, rather discouraged. Then:
“I don't want to spoil your pleasure in the place, Natalie—” he had said, rather awkwardly. “After all, you will be there more than I shall. You'd better have it the way you like it.”
She had appeared mollified at that and had relaxed somewhat. He fancied that the silence that followed was no longer resentful, that she was busily planning. But when they had almost reached the house she turned to him.
“Please don't talk war all evening, Clay,” she said. “I'm so ghastly sick of it.”