ton began to wonder what she was planning.

He came home late one afternoon to find that they were spending the
evening in, and to find a very serious Natalie waiting, when he came
down-stairs dressed for dinner. She made an effort to be conversational,
but it was a failure. He was uneasily aware that she was watching him,
inspecting, calculating, choosing her moment. But it was not until they
were having coffee that she spoke.

"I'm uneasy about Graham, Clay."

He looked up quickly.

"Yes?"

"I think he ought to go away somewhere."

"He ought to stay here, and make a man of himself," he came out, almost
in spite of himself. He knew well enough that such a note always roused
Natalie's antagonism, and he waited for the storm. But none came.

"He's not doing very well, is he?"

"He's not failing entirely. But he gives the best of himself outside the
mill. That's all."

She puzzled him. Had she heard of Marion?

"Don't you think, if he was away from this silly crowd he plays with, as
he calls it, that he would be better off?"

"Where, for instance?"

"You keep an agent in England. He could go there. Or to Russia, if the
Russian contract goes through."

He was still puzzled.

"But why England or Russia?"

"Anywhere out of this country."

"He doesn't have to leave this country to get away from a designing
woman."

From her astonished expression, he knew that he had been wrong. She was
not trying to get him away from Marion. From what?

She bent forward, her face set hard.

"What woman?"

Well, it was out. She might as well know it. "Don't you think it
possible, Natalie, that he may intend to marry Marion Hayden?"

There was a very unpleasant half-hour after that. Marion was a parasite
of the rich. She had abused Natalie's hospitality. She was designing.
She played bridge for her dress money. She had ensnared the boy.

And then:

"That settles it, I should think. He ought to leave America. If you have
a single thought for his welfare you'll send him to England."

"Then you hadn't known about Marion when you proposed that before?"

"No. I knew he was not doing well. And I'm anxious. After all, he's my
boy. He is--"

"I know," he supplemented gravely. "He is all you have. But I still
don't understand why he must leave America."

It was not until she had gone up-stairs to her room, leaving him
uneasily pacing the library floor, that he found the solution. Old Terry
Mackenzie and his statement