There was a brief silence. Clayton found Natalie's eyes on him, uneasy, resentful.
“That's just it. I've promised mother not to, unless she gives her consent. And she won't give it.”
Clayton saw her appealing glance at Marion, but that young lady was lighting a cigaret, her eyelids lowered. He felt as though he were watching a play, in which he was the audience.
“It's rather a family affair, isn't it?” he asked. “Suppose we wait until we are alone. After all, there is no hurry.”
Marion looked at him, and he caught a resentment in her glance. The two glances struck fire.
“Say something, Marion,” Natalie implored her.
“I don't think my opinion is of any particular importance. As Mr. Spencer says, it's really a family matter.”
Her insolence was gone. Marion was easy. She knew Natalie's game; it was like her own. But this big square-jawed man at the head of the table frightened her. And he hated her. He hardly troubled to hide it, for all his civility. Even that civility was contemptuous.
In the drawing-room things were little better. Natalie had counted on Marion's cooperation, and she had failed her. She pleaded a headache and went up-stairs, leaving Clayton to play the host as best he could.
Marion wandered into the music-room, with its bare polished floor, its lovely painted piano, and played a little--gay, charming little things, clever and artful. Except when visitors came, the piano was never touched, but now and then Clayton had visualized Audrey there, singing in her husky sweet voice her little French songs.
Graham moved restlessly about the room, and Clayton felt that he had altered lately. He looked older, and not happy. He knew the boy wanted to talk about Natalie's opposition, but was hoping that he would broach the subject. And Clayton rather grimly refused to do it. Those next weeks would show how much of the man there was in Graham, but the struggle must be between his mother and himself.
“Give me your love for a day; A night; an hour. If the wages of sin are Death I'm willing to pay.”
She sang it in her clear passionless voice. Brave words, Clayton thought, but there were few who would pay such wages. This girl at the piano, what did she know of the thing she sang about? What did any of the young know?