CHAPTER IX
THE course of irresponsible amusement which C. Bailey, Jr., continued to pursue at intervals with the fair scion of the house—road-house—of Greensleeve, did not run as smoothly as it might have, and was not unmixed with carping reflections and sordid care on his part, and with an increasing number of interruptions, admonitions, and warnings on the part of his mother.
That pretty lady, flint-hardened in the igneous social lava-pot, continued to hear disquieting tales of her son's doings. They came to her right and left, from dance and card-table, opera-box and supper party, tea and bazaar and fashionable reception.
One grim-visaged old harridan of whom Manhattan stood in fawning fear, bluntly informed her that she'd better look out for her boy if she didn't want to become a grandmother.
Which infuriated and terrified Mrs. Bailey and set her thinking with all the implacable concentration of which she was capable.
So far in life she had accomplished whatever she set out to do.... And of all things on earth she dreaded most to become a grandmother of any description whatever.
But between Athalie and Clive, if there had been any doubts concerning the propriety or expediency of their companionship neither he nor she had, so far, expressed them.
Their comradeship, in fact, had now become an intimacy—the sort that permits long silences without excuse or embarrassment on either side. She continued to charm and surprise him; and to discover, daily, in him new traits to admire in a character which perhaps he did not really possess.
In this girl he seemed to find an infinite variety. Moods, impulsive or deliberate, and capricious or logical, continued to stimulate his interest in her every time they met. On no two days was she exactly the same—or so he seemed to think. And yet her basic qualities were, it appeared to him, characteristic and unvarying,—directness, loyalty, generosity, freedom from ulterior motive and a gay confidence in a world which, for the first time in her life, she had begun to find unexpectedly exciting.