cannot."

"I don't care to see them."

"Why?"

"They--I see them so often--and I seldom know who they are--"

"They?"

"The--people--I see."

"Don't they ever speak to you?"

"Seldom."

"Could you find out who they are?"

"I don't know.... Yes, I think so;--if I made an effort."

"Don't you ever use any effort to evoke--"

"Oh, Clive! _No!_ When I tell you I had rather not see so--so
clearly--"

"You dear girl!" he exclaimed, half smiling, half serious, "why should
it distress you?"

"It doesn't--except to talk about it."

"Let me ask one more question. May I?"

She nodded.

"Then--did you recognise whoever it was you saw a few moments ago?"

"Yes."

"Who was it, Athalie?"

"My mother."

CHAPTER X

Early in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely
notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for
stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing
immediately available.

Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who
demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the
expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any
unmarried young man.

They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there
came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent
inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy;
in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light
upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were
characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father.

"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away
your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she--your private
property?"

"No."

The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said:
"If _that's_ the case--why in the name of common sense do you spend so
much money on her?" Naive logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive
replied:

"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her
better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't
believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever--"

"I believe _that_!"

--"And," continued Clive--"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary."

"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her--materially
speaking."

"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very
beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me