Clayton Spencer remained grave.

"I've been away," he said, "and I don't know what Natalie and you
have cooked up between you. But just remember this: I want a
comfortable country house. I don't want a public library."

Page looked uncomfortable. The move into the drawing-room covered
his uneasiness, but he found a moment later on to revert to the
subject.

"I have tried to carry out Natalie's ideas, Clay," he said. "She
wanted a sizeable place, you know. A wing for house-parties, and
- that sort of thing."

Clayton's eyes roamed about the room, where portly Mrs. Haverford
was still knitting placidly, where the Chris Valentines were
quarreling under pretense of raillery, where Toots Hayden was
smoking a cigaret in a corner and smiling up at Graham, and where
Natalie, exquisite and precise, was supervising the laying out of
a bridge table.

"She would, of course," he observed, rather curtly, and, moving
through a French window, went out onto a small balcony into the night.

He was irritated with himself. What had come over him? He shook
himself, and drew a long breath of the sweet night air. His tall,
boyishly straight figure dominated the little place. In the
half-light he looked, indeed, like an overgrown boy. He always
looked like Graham's brother, anyhow; it was one of Natalie's
complaints against him. But he put the thought of Natalie away,