Athalie

His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion, discreetly kissed him good night.

"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the matter with you."

They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood.

"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk through the dressing-room door."

"No; I think I'll turn in."

The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say.

And after some fidgeting about he said it:

"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?"

His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve girl?"

"I mean Athalie Greensleeve."

"She is pretty in a rather common way."

"Common!"

"Did you think she is not?"

"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common about her?"

"If you can't see it any woman of your own class can."

Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology:

"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there about her that you find common?"

His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her placid mask and her attitude of toleration.

She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters."

"I was asking you to instruct me," he said.

"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart."

Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space.

After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue talking."

His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good night."

"Good night, dear."

He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's heavy breathing where he lay asleep.

The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick.

For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug under foot.

Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party."

"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly.

"Is it you, Athalie?"

"Yes… Oh, Clive!"

"Didn't you recognise my voice?"

"Not immediately."

"When did you come in?"

"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap."

"Did you have an agreeable evening?"

"Yes."

"Are you tired?"

"No."

"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?"

"Yes."

"All right," he said briefly.

CHAPTER XI

THE door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap.

"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand.

"It's good of you, Athalie, to let me come."

"Let you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely perceptible.

He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself beside her.

"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?"