Athalie

There was much honour done her that evening.

Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night, Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?"

"Bank a bit."

"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?"

"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the latter discouraged.

"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine party! I know a little girl – "

"Oh, shut up!"

"She's a fine little girl, Clive – "

"This is no hour to send out invitations."

"Why not? Her name is Catharine – "

"Dry up!"

"Catharine Greensleeve – "

"What!"

"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach. Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for Lucullus."

Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better mean it anyway!"

"Is that so?"

"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them are all right. You understand, don't you?"

"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And she's some plum, believe me!"

"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive sharply.

"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister, will you?"

Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still further.

He went to one or two dances during the week – a thing he had not done lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of débutante theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve, and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily papers.

He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the following day.

About the end of April he wrote:

"Dear Athalie,

"About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing you; business – in a measure, – social duties; and, to tell the truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's part.

"She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me, and ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never did affect the other sort.

"Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm concerning us blows over.

"It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and undisturbed.

"I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery.

"Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? Please! What is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you saving part of your salary?

"Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours. Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your sisters now and then.

"As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't: business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at home for me.

    "Always yours,
    "C Bailey, Jr."

"P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I can't. There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it. Good night, dear Athalie!

    "Clive."

His answer came by return mail as usual:

"Dear Clive,

"Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to see each other?

"It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing you and in being your friend. I know that I never had an unworthy thought concerning you. And I feel confident that your thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless. Where lies the wrong?

"Some aspects of the affair have troubled me lately. Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I admit to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to accepting anything from you.

"What I have accepted has been for your own sake – for the pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake.

"I wanted only your friendship. That was enough – more than enough to make me happy and contented.

"I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting, and – forgive and understand me, Clive – a little more self-respecting than I now am.

"It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life is before me.

"This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all you have done for me – all I have taken from you.

"But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be told. Because this is, and has always been, a source of self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am to make a clean breast to you, partial confession is not worth while, not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred friendship that inspires it.

"So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me even if they understand mine for you – which they say they do.

"I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately expect me to be dishonest.