Part 18 (1/2)

”If you really like and respect her.”

”How am I to show myself generous, as you put it?”

”By keeping away from her.”

”Because people gossip?”

”Because,” said his mother sharply, ”they'll think the girl is your mistress if you continue to decorate public resorts with her.”

”Would--_you_ think so, mother?”

”No. You happen to be my son. And you're truthful. Otherwise I'd think so.”

”You would?”

”Certainly.”

”That's rotten,” he said, slowly.

”Oh, Clive, don't be a fool. You can't do what you're doing without arousing suspicion everywhere--from a village sewing-circle to the smartest gathering on Manhattan Island! You know it.”

”I have never thought about it.”

”Then think of it now. Whether it's rotten, as you say, or not, it's so. It's one of the folk-ways of the human species. And if it is, merely saying it's rotten can't alter it.”

Mrs. Bailey's car was at the door; Clive took the great sable coat from the maid who brought it and slipped it over the handsome afternoon gown that his handsome mother wore.

For a moment he stood, looking at her almost curiously--at the brilliant black eyes, the clear smooth olive skin still youthful enough to be attractive, at the red lips, mostly nature's hue, at the cheeks where the delicate carmine flush was still mostly nature's.

He said: ”You have so much, mother.... It seems strange you should not be more generous to a girl you have never seen.”

His handsome, capable, and experienced mother gazed at him out of friendly and amused eyes from which delusion had long since fled. And that is where she fell short, for delusion is the offspring of imagination; and without imagination no intelligence is complete. She said: ”I can be generous with any woman except where my son concerns himself with her. Where anybody else's son is involved I could be generous to any girl, even--” she smiled her brilliant smile--”even perhaps not too maliciously generous. But the situation in your case doesn't appeal to me as humorous. Keep away from her, Clive; it's easier than ultimately to run away from her.”

CHAPTER IX

The course of irresponsible amus.e.m.e.nt 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 companions.h.i.+p neither he nor she had, so far, expressed them.

Their comrades.h.i.+p, in fact, had now become an intimacy--the sort that permits long silences without excuse or embarra.s.sment on either side.