Clayton found Audrey in the hall as they moved at last toward the drawing-room. He was the last of the line of men, and as he paused before her she touched him lightly on the arm.
“I want to talk to you, Clay. Unless you're going to play.”
“I'd rather not, unless you need me.”
“I don't. I'm not playing either. And I must talk to some one.”
There was something wrong with Audrey. Her usual insouciance was gone, and her hands nervously fingered the opal beads of her long necklace.
“What I really want to do,” she added, “is to scream. But don't look like that. I shan't do it. Suppose we go up to Chris's study.”
She was always a casual hostess. Having got her parties together, and having fed them well, she consistently declined further responsibility. She kept open house, her side board and her servants at the call of her friends, but she was quite capable of withdrawing herself, without explanation, once things were moving well, to be found later by some one who was leaving, writing letters, fussing with her endless bills, or sending a check she could not possibly afford to some one in want whom she happened to have heard about. Her popularity was founded on something more substantial than her dinners.
Clayton was liking Audrey better that night than he had ever liked her, though even now he did not entirely approve of her. And to the call of any woman in trouble he always responded. It occurred to him, following her up the stairs, that not only was something wrong with Audrey, but that it was the first time he had ever known her to show weakness.
Chris's study was dark. She groped her way in and turned on the lamp, and then turned and faced him.
“I'm in an awful mess, Clay,” she said. “And the worst of it is, I don't know just what sort of a mess it is.”