Athalie Part 25

It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy midnight.

"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter.

Clive said he didn't.

"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?"

Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma Mater.

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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy midnight."]

"Oh, that's just amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 debutante 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He rather liked being with his own sort again."]

"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 friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p and me are blameless.

Where lies the wrong?

"_Some_ aspects of the affair _have_ troubled me lately.