;> ^t Tl^ 
 
 TOEMEAfiil 
 
 R/OiAEl 
 
 
 KATHLEEN MORRIS 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
/ 
 
RACHAEL 
 
THE HEART OF 
 
 RACHAEL 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE, 
 MOTHER, SATURDAY'S CHILD, ETC. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY 
 
 CHARLES E. CHAMBERS 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1916, by 
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 AT 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
PS 
 
 TO MY TERESA 
 
BOOK! 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE day had opened so brightly, in such a welcome 
 Wave of April sunshine, that by mid-afternoon there 
 were two hundred players scattered over the links of the 
 Long Island Country Club at Belvedere Bay; the men 
 in thick plaid stockings and loose striped sweaters, the 
 women's scarlet coats and white skirts making splashes 
 of vivid color against the fresh green of grass and the 
 thick powdering of dandelions. It was Saturday, and 
 a half-holiday; it was that one day of all the year when 
 the seasons change places, when winter is visibly worsted, 
 and summer, with warmth and relaxation, bathing and 
 tennis and motor trips in the moonlight, becomes again 
 a reality. 
 
 There was a real warmth in the sunshine to-day, 
 there was a fragrance of lilac and early roses in the idle 
 breezes. "Hot!" shouted the players exultantly, as 
 they passed each other in the green valleys and over 
 the sunny mounds. "You bet it's hot!" agreed stout 
 and glowing gentlemen, wiping wet foreheads before 
 reaching for a particular club, and panting as they gazed 
 about at the unbroken turf, melting a few miles away 
 into the new green of maple and elm trees, and topped, 
 where the slope rose, by the white columns and brick 
 walls of the clubhouse. 
 
 Motor cars swept incessantly back and forth on the 
 smooth roadway; a few riders, their horses wheeling 
 and dancing, went down the bridle path, and there was a 
 sprinkling of young men and women and some shouting 
 and clapping on the tennis-courts. But golf was the 
 
4 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 order of the day. At the first tee at least two scores of 
 impatient players waited their turn to drive off, and at 
 the last green a group of twenty or thirty men and 
 women, mostly women, were interestedly watching the 
 putting. 
 
 Mrs. Archibald Buckney, a large, generously made 
 woman of perhaps fifty, who stood a little apart from 
 the group, with two young women and a mild-looking 
 blond young man, suddenly interrupted a general dis- 
 cussion of scores and play with a personality. 
 
 "Is Clarence Breckenridge playing to-day, I wonder? 
 Anybody seen him?" 
 
 "Must be," said the more definite of the two rather 
 indefinite girls, with an assumption of bright interest. 
 Leila Buckney, a few weeks ago, had announced her 
 engagement to the mild-looking blond young man, 
 Parker Hoyt, and she was just now attempting to hold 
 him by a charm she suspected she did not possess for 
 him, and at the same time to give her mother and sister 
 the impression that Parker was so deeply in her toils 
 that she need make no further effort to enslave him. 
 
 She had really nothing in common with Parker; their 
 conversation was composed entirely of personalities 
 about their various friends, and Leila felt it a great bur- 
 den, and dreaded the hours she must perforce spend 
 alone with her future husband. It would be much better 
 when they were married, of course, but they could not 
 even begin to talk wedding plans yet, because Parker 
 lived in nervous terror of his aunt's disapproval, and 
 Mrs. Watts Frothingham was just now in Europe, and 
 had not yet seen fit to answer her nephew's dignified 
 notification of his new plans, or the dutiful and gracious 
 note with which Miss Leila had accompanied it. 
 
 The truth, though Leila did not know it, was that 
 Mrs. Frothingham had a pretty social secretary named 
 Margaret Clay, a strange, attractive little person, 
 eighteen years old, whose mother had been the old 
 lady's companion for many years. And to Magsie, 
 as they all called her, young Mr. Hoyt had paid some 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 5 
 
 decided attention not many months before. Mrs. 
 Frothingham had seen fit to disapprove these advances 
 then, but she was an extraordinarily erratic and cross- 
 grained old lady, and her silence now had forced her 
 nephew uncomfortably to suspect that she might have 
 changed her mind. 
 
 "Darn it!" said the engaging youth to himself- 
 " It's none of her business, anyway, what I do ! " But it 
 made him acutely uneasy none the less. He was the 
 possessor of a good income, as he stood there, this mild 
 little blond; it came to him steadily and regularly, 
 with no effort at all on his part, but, with his aunt's 
 million it must be at least that he felt that he would 
 have been much happier. There it was, safe in the 
 family, and she was seventy-six, and without a direct 
 heir. It would be too bad to miss it now! 
 
 He thought of it a great deal, was thinking of it this 
 moment, in fact, and Leila suspected that he was. But 
 Mrs. Buckney, aside from a half-formed wish that 
 young persons were more demonstrative in these days, 
 and that the wedding might be soon, had not a care in 
 the world, and, after a moment's unresponsive silence, 
 returned blithely to her query about Clarence Brecken- 
 ridge. 
 
 "I haven't seen him," responded one of her daughters 
 presently. "Funny, too! Last year he didn't miss a 
 day." 
 
 "Of course he'll get the cup as usual, this year," Mrs. 
 Buckney said brightly. "But I don't suppose young 
 people with their heads full of wedding plans will care 
 much about the golf!" she added courageously. 
 
 To this Miss Leila answered only with a weary shrug. 
 
 "Been drinking lately," Mr. Hoyt volunteered. 
 
 "You say he has?" Mrs. Buckney took him up 
 promptly. "Is that so? I knew he did all the time, 
 
 of course, but I hadn't heard lately. Well ! Pretty 
 
 hard on Mrs. Breckenridge, isn't it?" 
 
 "Pretty hard on his daughter," Miss Leila drawled. 
 "He has all kinds of money, hasn't he, Park?" 
 
6 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Scads," said Mr. Hoyt succinctly. Conversation 
 languished. Miss Leila presently said decidedly that 
 unless her mother stood still, the sun, which was indeed 
 sinking low in the western sky, got in everyone's eyes. 
 Miss Edith said that she was dying for tea; Mr. Hoyt's 
 watch was consulted. Four o'clock; it was a little too 
 early for tea. 
 
 At about five o'clock the sunlight was softened by a 
 steadily rising bank of fog, which drifted in from the 
 east; a mist almost like a light rain beat upon the faces 
 of the last golfers. There were no riders on the bridle 
 path now, and the long line of motor cars parked by the 
 clubhouse doors began to move and shift and lessen. 
 People with dinner engagements melted mysteriously 
 away, lights bloomed suddenly in the dining-room, 
 shades were drawn and awnings furled. 
 
 But in the club's great central apartment which 
 was reception-room, lounging-room, and tea-room, and 
 which, opened to the immense porches, was used for 
 dances in summer, and closed and holly-trimmed, was 
 the scene of many a winter dance as well a dozen good 
 friends and neighbors lingered for tea. The women, 
 sunk in deep chairs about the blazing logs in the im- 
 mense fireplace, gossiped in low tones together, punctu- 
 ating their talk with an occasional burst of soft laughter. 
 The men watched teacups, adding an occasional com- 
 ment to the talk, but listening in silence for the most 
 part, their amused eyes on the women's interested faces. 
 
 Here was a representative group, ranging in age from 
 old Peter Pomeroy, who had been one of the club's 
 founders twelve years ago, and at sixty was one of its 
 prominent members to-day, to lovely Vivian Sartoris, a 
 demure, baby-faced little blonde of eighteen, who 
 might be confidently expected to make a brilliant match 
 in a year or two. Peter, slim, hard, gray-haired 
 and leaden-skinned, well-groomed and irreproachably 
 dressed, was discussing a cotillion with Mrs. Sartoris, a 
 stout, florid little woman who was only twice her daugh- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 7 
 
 ter's age. Mrs. Sartoris really did look young to 
 be the mother of a popular debutante; she rode and 
 played golf and tennis as briskly as ever; it was her pose 
 to bring up the subject of age at all times, and to 
 threaten Vivian with terrible penalties if she dared 
 marry before her mother was forty at least. 
 
 Old Peter Pomeroy, who had a shrewd and disillu- 
 sioned gray eye, thought, as everyone else thought, 
 that Mrs. Sartoris was an empty-headed little fool, but 
 he rarely talked to a woman who was anything else, and 
 no woman ever thought him anything but markedly 
 courteous and gallant. He was old now, rich, un- 
 married, quite alone in the world. For forty years he 
 had kept all the women of his acquaintance speculating 
 as to his plans; marriageable women especially per- 
 haps fifty of them had been able in all maidenliness 
 to indicate to him that they might easily be persuaded 
 to share the Pomeroy name and fortune. But Peter 
 went on kissing their hands, and thrilling them with 
 an intimate casual word now and then, and did no 
 more. 
 
 Perhaps he smiled about it sometimes, in the privacy 
 of his own apartments apartments which were vari- 
 ously located in a great city hotel, an Adirondacks 
 camp, a luxurious club, his own yacht, and the beautiful 
 home he had built for himself within a mile of the spot 
 where he was now having his tea. Sometimes it seemed 
 amusing to him that so many traps were laid for 
 him. He could appraise women quickly, and now and 
 then he teased a woman of his acquaintance with a 
 delightfully worded description of his ideal of a wife. 
 If the woman thereafter carelessly indicated the posses- 
 sion of the desired qualities in herself, Peter saw that, 
 too, but she never knew it, and never saw him laughing 
 at her. She went on for a month or two dressing bril- 
 liantly for his carefully chaperoned little dinners, lis- 
 tening absorbed to his dissertations upon Japanese 
 prints or draperies from Peshawar, until Peter grew 
 tired and drew off, when she must put a brave face upon 
 
8 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 it and do her share to show that she realized that the 
 little game was over. 
 
 He had not been entirely without feminine compan- 
 ionship, however, during the half-century of his life as 
 a man. Everybody knew something and suspected a 
 great deal more of various friendships of his. Even 
 the girls knew that Peter Pomeroy was not over- 
 cautious in the management of his affairs, but they did 
 not like him the less, nor did their mothers find him less 
 eligible, in a matrimonial sense. Sometimes he met the 
 older women's hints quite seriously, with brief allusions 
 to some "little girl" who was always as sweet and 
 deserving and virtuous as his own fatherly interference 
 in her affairs was disinterested and kind. "I did what 
 I could for her risking what might or might not be 
 said," Mr. Pomeroy might add, with a hero's modest 
 smile and shrug. And if nobody ever believed him, at 
 least nobody ever challenged him. 
 
 Vivian Sartoris, girlishly perched on the great square 
 leather fender that framed the fireplace, was merely 
 a modern, a very modern, little girl, demurely dressed 
 in the smartest of white taffeta ruffles, with her 
 small feet in white silk stockings and shoes, a dar- 
 ing little black-and-white hat mashed down upon her 
 soft, loose hair, and, slung about her shoulders, a woolly 
 coat of clearest lemon yellow. Vivian gave the impres- 
 sion of a soft little watchful cat, unfriendly, alert, sel- 
 fish. Her manner was studiedly rowdyish, her speech 
 marred by slang; she loved only a few persons in the 
 world besides herself. One of these few persons, how* 
 ever, was Clarence Brec ken ridge's daughter, Carol, 
 affectionately known to all these persons as "Billy," 
 and it was in Miss Breckenridge's defence that Vivian 
 was speaking now. A general yet desultory discussion 
 of the three Breckenridges had been going on for some 
 moments. And some particular criticism of the man of 
 the family had pierced Miss Sartoris' habitual attitude 
 of bored silence. 
 
 "That's all true about him," she said, idly spreading 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 9 
 
 a sturdy little hand to the blaze. "I have no use for 
 Clarence Breckenridge, and I think Mrs. Breckenridge 
 is absolutely the most cold-blooded woman I ever metf 
 She always makes me feel as if she were waiting to 
 see me make a fool of myself, so that she could smile 
 that smooth superior smile at me. But Carol's different 
 she's square, she is; she's just top-hole if you know 
 what I mean she's the finest ever," finished Miss Sar- 
 toris, with a carefully calculated boyishness, "and what 
 I mean to say is, she's never had a fair deal!" 
 
 There was a little murmur of assent and admiration 
 at this, and only one voice disputed it. 
 
 "You're not called upon to defend Billy Brecken- 
 ridge, Vivian," said Elinor Vanderwall, in her cool, 
 amused voice. "Nobody's blaming Billy, and Rachael 
 Breckenridge can stand on her own feet. But what 
 we're saying is that Clarence, in spite of what they 
 do to protect him, will get himself dropped by de- 
 cent people if he goes on as he is going on! He was 
 tennis champion four or five years ago; he played 
 against an Englishman named Waters, who was about 
 half his age; it was the most remarkable thing I ever 
 saw " 
 
 "Wonderful match!" said Peter Pomeroy, as she 
 paused. 
 
 "Wonderful I should say so!" Miss Vanderwall 
 sighed admiringly at the memory. " Do you remember 
 that one set went to nineteen twenty-one? Each 
 man won on his own service 'most remarkable match I 
 ever saw! But Clarence Breckenridge couldn't hold a 
 racket now, and his game of bridge is getting to be ab- 
 solutely rotten. Crime, I call it!" 
 
 Vivian Sartoris offered no further remark. Indeed 
 she had drifted into a low-toned conversation with a 
 young man on the fender. Elinor Vanderwall was 
 neither pretty nor rich, and she was unmarried at 
 thirty-four, her social importance being further lessened 
 by the fact that she had five sisters, all unmarried, too, 
 except Anna, the oldest, whose son was in college. Anna 
 
10 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 was Mrs. Prince; her wedding was only a long-ago mem- 
 ory now. Georgian a, who came next, was a calm, plain 
 woman of thirty-seven, interested in church work and 
 organized charities. Alice was musical and delicate. 
 Elinor was worldly, decisive, the social favorite among the 
 sisters. Jeanette was boyish and brisk, a splendid sports- 
 woman, and Phyllis, at twenty-six, was still babyish and 
 appealing, tiny in build, and full of feminine charms. 
 
 All five were good dancers, good tennis and golf 
 players, good horsewomen, and good managers. All 
 five dressed well, talked well, and played excellent 
 bridge. The fact of their not marrying was an eternal 
 mystery to their friends, to their wiry, nervous little 
 father, and their large, fat, serene mother; perhaps to 
 themselves as well. They met life, as they saw it, with 
 great cleverness, making it a rule to do little enter- 
 taining at home, where the preponderance of women was 
 most notable, and refusing to accept invitations except 
 singly. The Vanderwall girls were rarely seen to- 
 gether; each had her pose and kept to it, each helped 
 the others to maintain theirs in turn. Alice's music, 
 Georgiana's altruistic duties, these were matters of 
 sacred family tradition, and if outsiders sometimes 
 speculated as to the sisters' sincerity, at least no Van- 
 derwall ever betrayed another. And despite their 
 obvious handicaps, the five girls were regarded as social 
 authorities, and their names were prominently displayed 
 in newspaper accounts of all smart affairs. While 
 making a fine art of feminine friendships, they yet dif- 
 fused a general impression of being involved in endless 
 affairs of the heart. They were much in demand to fill 
 in bridge tables, to serve on club directorates, to amuse 
 week-end parties, to be present at house weddings, and 
 to remain with the family for the first blank day or two 
 after the bride and groom were gone. 
 
 "Queer fellow, Breckenridge," said George Pomeroy, 
 old Peter's nephew, a red-faced, florid, simple man of 
 forty. 
 
 "Well, he never should have married as he did, it's 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL H 
 
 all in a mess," a woman's voice said lazily. "Rachael's 
 extraordinary of course there's no one quite like her. 
 But she wasn't the woman for him. Clarence wanted 
 the little, clinging, adoring kind, who would put cracked 
 ice on his forehead, and wish those bad saloonkeepers 
 , would stop drugging her dear big boy. Rachael looks 
 right through him; she doesn't fight, she doesn't care 
 enough to fight. She's just supremely bored by his weak- 
 ness and stupidity. He isn't big enough for her, either 
 in goodness or badness. I never knew what she married 
 him for, and I don't believe anyone else ever did!" 
 
 "I did, for one," said Miss Vanderwall, flicking the 
 ashes from her cigarette with a well-groomed fingertip. 
 "Clarence Breckenridge never was in love but once in 
 his life no, I don't mean with Paula. I mean with 
 Billy." And as a general nodding of heads confirmed 
 this theory, the speaker went on decidedly: "Since that 
 child was born she's been all the world to him. When 
 he and Paula were divorced she was the offender he 
 fretted himself sick for fear he'd done that precious 
 five-year-old an injury. She didn't get on with her 
 grandmother, she drove governesses insane, for two or 
 three years there was simply no end of trouble. Finally 
 he took her abroad, for the excellent reason that she 
 Wanted to go. In Paris they ran into Rachael Fairfax 
 and her mother let's see, that was seven years ago. 
 Rachael was only about twenty-one or two then. But 
 she'd been out since she was sixteen. She had the bel 
 air, she was beautiful not as pretty as she is now, per- 
 haps and of course her father was dead, and Rachael 
 was absolutely on the make. She took both Clarence 
 and Billy in hand. I understand the child was wear- 
 ing jewelry and staying up until all hours every night. 
 Rachael mothered her, and of course the child came to 
 admire her. The funny thing is that Rachael and Billy 
 hit it off very well to this day. 
 
 "She and Clarence were married quietly, and came 
 home. And I don't think it was weeks, it was days 
 and not many days later, that Rachael realized 
 
12 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 what a fool she'd been. Clarence had eyes for no one 
 but the girl, and of course she was a fascinating little 
 creature, and she's more fascinating every year." 
 
 "She's not as attractive as Rachael at that," said 
 Peter Pomeroy. 
 
 "I know, my dear Peter," Miss Vanderwall assented 
 quickly. "But Billy's impulsive, and affectionate, at 
 least, and Rachael is neither. Anyway, Billy's at the 
 age now when she can't think of anything but herself. 
 Her frocks, her parties, her friends that's all Clarence 
 cares about!" 
 
 "Selfish ass!" said a man's voice in the firelight. 
 
 " I know Clarence takes Carol and her friends off on 
 week-end trips," some woman said, "and leaves Rachael 
 at home. If Rachael wants the car, she has to ask them 
 their plans. If she accepts a dinner invitation, why, 
 Clarence may drop out the last moment because Carol's 
 going to dine alone at home and wants her Daddy." 
 
 "Rachael's terribly decent about it," said the deep 
 voice of old Mrs. Torrence, who was chaperoning a 
 grandson, glad of any excuse to be at the club. "Upon 
 m' word I wouldn't be! She will breakfast upstairs 
 many a morning because Clarence likes Carol to pour 
 his coffee. And when that feller comes home tipsy ' 
 
 "Five nights a week!" supplemented Peter Pomeroy. 
 
 "Five nights a week," the old lady agreed, nodding, 
 "she makes him comfortable, quiets the house, and 
 telephones around generally that Clarence has come 
 home with a splitting headache, and they can't come 
 to dinner, or cards, or whatever it may be. But of 
 course I don't claim that she loves him, nor pretends to. 
 I can imagine the scornful look with which she goes 
 about it." 
 
 "Well, why does she stand it?" said Mrs. Barker 
 Emory, a handsome but somewhat hard-faced woman, 
 with a manner curiously compounded of eagerness and 
 uncertainty. 
 
 "Y' know, that's what I've been wondering," an 
 Englishman added interestedly. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 13 
 
 "Why, what else would she do?" Miss Vanderwall 
 asked briskly. 
 
 "Rachael's a perfectly adorable and brilliant and 
 delightful creature/' summarized Peter Pomeroy, 
 "but she's not got a penny nor a relative in the world 
 that I've ever heard of! She's got no grounds for 
 divorcing Clarence, and if she simply wanted to get out, 
 why, now that she's brought Billy up, introduced her 
 generally, whipped the girl into some sort of shape and 
 got her the right sort of friends, I suppose she might 
 get out and welcome!" 
 
 "No, Billy honestly likes her," objected Vivian Sar- 
 toris. 
 
 "She doesn't care for her enough to see that there's 
 fair play," Elinor Vanderwall said quickly. 
 
 "Why doesn't she take a leaf from Paula's book," 
 somebody suggested, "and marry again? She could go 
 out West and get a divorce on any grounds she might 
 choose to name." 
 
 "Well, Rachael's a cold woman, and a hard woman 
 in a way," Miss Vanderwall said musingly, after a pause, 
 when the troubles of the Breckenridges kept the group 
 silent for a moment. "But she's a good sport. She 
 gets a home, and clothes, and the club, and a car and all 
 the rest out of it, and she knows Billy and Clarence 
 do need her, in a way, to run things, and to keep up 
 the social end. More than that, Clarence can't keep up 
 this pace long he's going to pieces fast and Billy 
 may marry any day " 
 
 "I understand Joe Pickering's a little bit touched in 
 that quarter," said Mrs. Torrence. 
 
 "Yes well, Clarence will never stand for that" 
 somebody said. 
 
 Little Miss Sartoris neglected the Torrence grandson 
 long enough to say decidedly: 
 
 " She wouldn't look at Joe Pickering ! Joe drinks, and 
 Billy's had enough of that with her father. Besides, he 
 has no money of his own! He's impossible!" 
 
 "Where's the mother all this time?" asked the Eng- 
 
14 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 lishman. "I mean to say, she's living, isn't she, and all 
 that?" 
 
 "Very much alive," Miss Vanderwall said. "Mar- 
 ried to an Italian count Countess Luca d' Asafo. 
 His people have cut him off; they're Catholics. She 
 has two little girls; there's an uncle who's obliged to 
 leave property to a son, and it serves Paula quite right, 
 I think. Where they live, or what on, I haven't the 
 remotest idea. I saw her in a car on Fifth Avenue, not 
 so long ago, with two heavy little black-haired girls; 
 she looked sixty." 
 
 'Her sister, you know, was thick with my niece, 
 Barbara Olliphant," said Peter Pomeroy. "And funny 
 thing! when Barbara was married " 
 
 It was a long story, and fortunately moved away 
 from the previous topic; so that when it was pres- 
 ently interrupted by the arrival of two women, every- 
 body in the group had cause to feel gratitude for a 
 merciful deliverance. 
 
 The two women were Rachael and Carol Brecken- 
 ridge, who came in a little breathless, the throbbing 
 engine of their motor car still sounding faintly from the 
 direction of the club doorway. Carol, a slender, black- 
 eyed, dusky-skinned girl of seventeen, took her place 
 beside Miss Sartoris on the fender, granting a brief 
 unsmiling nod to one or two friends, and eying the 
 group between the loose locks of her smoky, cropped 
 black hair with the inscrutable, almost brooding, ex- 
 pression that was her favorite affectation. Her lithe, 
 loosely built little body was as flat as a boy's, she 
 clasped her crossed knees with slender, satin-smooth 
 little brown hands, exposing by her attitude a frill of 
 embroidered petticoat, a transparent stretch of ash- 
 gray silk stocking, and smart ash-gray buckskin slippers 
 with silver buckles. 
 
 She was an effective little figure in the mingled 
 twilight and firelight, but it was toward her beauti- 
 ful stepmother that everybody looked as Rachael 
 Breckenridge seated herself on the arm of old Mrs. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 15 
 
 Torrence's chair and sent a careless greeting about the 
 circle. 
 
 "Hello, everybody!" she said, in a voice of extraor- 
 dinary richness and sweetness, "Peter, Dolly, Vivian 
 hello, Elinor ! How do you do, Mrs. Emory ? " There 
 was an aside when the newcomer said imperatively 
 to a club attendant, "We'll have some light here, 
 please!" Then she resumed easily: "I do beg your 
 pardon, Mrs. Emory, I interrupted you " 
 
 "I only said that you were a little late for tea," said 
 Mrs. Emory, sweetly, wishing with a sort of futile rage 
 that she could learn to say almost nothing when this 
 other woman, with her insulting bright air of making 
 one feel inferior, was about. The Emory s had lived in 
 Belvedere Hills for two years, coming from Denver 
 with much money and irrefutable credentials. They 
 had been members of the club perhaps half that time, 
 members in good standing. But Mrs. Emory would 
 have paid a large sum to have Rachael Breckenridge 
 call her "Belle," and Rachael Breckenridge knew it. 
 
 The lights, duly poured in a soft flood from all sides 
 of the room, revealed in Mrs. Breckenridge one of those 
 beauties that an older generation of diarists and letter 
 writers frankly spelled with a capital letter as distin- 
 guishing her charms from those of a thousand of lesser 
 degree. When such beauty is unaccompanied by intel- 
 lect it is a royal dower, and its possessor may serenely 
 command half a century of unquestioning adoration 
 from the sons of men, and all the good things of life as 
 well. 
 
 But when there is a soul behind the matchless eyes, 
 and a keen wit animates the lovely mouth, and when 
 the indication of the white forehead is not belied, it 
 is a nice question whether great beauty be a gift 
 of benign or malicious fairies. Not a woman in this 
 room or in any room she entered could look at Rachael 
 Breckenridge without a pang; her supremacy was be* 
 yond all argument or dispute. And yet there was 
 neither complacency nor content in the lovely face; it 
 
16 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 wore its usual expression of arrogant amusement at a 
 somewhat tiresome world. 
 
 Both in the instant impression it made, and under 
 closest analysis, Rachael Breckenridge's beauty stood 
 all tests. Her colorless skin was as pure as ivory, her 
 dark-blue eyes, surrounded by that faint sooty color 
 that only Irish eyes know, were set far apart and evenly 
 arched by perfect brows. Her white forehead was low 
 and broad, the lustreless black hair was swept back 
 from it with almost startling simplicity, the line of her 
 mouth was long, her lips a living red. Her figure, as 
 she sat balancing carelessly on a chair-arm, showed the 
 exquisite curves of a woman slow to develop, who is 
 approaching the height of her beauty, and from the tip 
 of her white shoe to the poppies on her soft straw hat 
 there was that distinction in her clothing that betrayed 
 her to be one of the few who may be always individual 
 yet always in the fashion. She was a woman, quick, 
 dynamic, impatient, who vitalized the very atmosphere 
 in which she moved, challenging life by endless tests 
 and measures, scornful of admiration, and ambitious, 
 even in this recognized ambition of finding herself 
 beautiful, prominent, and a rich man's wife, for some- 
 thing further and greater, she knew not what. She was 
 an important figure in this world of hers; her word 
 was authority, her decree law. Never was censure so 
 quick as hers, never criticism so biting, or satire so 
 witty. No human emotion was too sacred to form a 
 target for her glancing arrows, nor was any affection 
 deep enough to arouse in her anything but doubt and 
 scorn. 
 
 "I don't want any tea, thank you, Peter," she said 
 now, in the astonishingly rich voice that seemed to fill 
 the words with new meaning. "And I won't allow the 
 Infant to have any no, Billy, you shall not. You've 
 got a complexion, child; respect it. Besides, you've 
 just had some. Besides, we're here for only two sec- 
 onds it's six o'clock. We're looking for Clarence 
 we seek a husband fond, a parent dear " 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 17 
 
 "Clarence hasn't showed up here at all to-day/' said 
 Peter Pomeroy, stretching back comfortably in his 
 chair, appreciative eyes upon Clarence's wife. "Shame, 
 too, for we had some good golf. Course is in splendid 
 condition. George beat me three up and two to play, 
 but I don't bear any malice. Here I am signing for his 
 highball." 
 
 "Well, then, we'll go on home," Mrs. Breckenridge 
 said, without, however, changing her relaxed position. 
 "Clarence is probably there; we've been playing cards 
 at the Parmalees', or at least I have. Billy and Katrina 
 were playing tennis with Kent and who's the red- 
 headed child you were enslaving this afternoon, Bill?" 
 
 "Porter Pinckard," Miss Breckenridge answered, 
 indifferently, before entering into a confidential ex- 
 change of brevities with Miss Sartoris. 
 
 "I'll call him out, and run him through the liver," 
 said Peter Pomeroy, "the miserable catiff! I'll brook 
 <io rivals, Billy." 
 
 Billy merely smiled lazily at this; her eyes were far 
 more eloquent than her tongue, as she was well aware. 
 
 "Let her alone, Fascination Fledgerby!" said Mrs. 
 Breckenridge briskly. "Why can't we take you home 
 with us, Elinor? We go your way." 
 
 "You may," said Miss Vanderwall, rising. "You're 
 dining at the Chases', aren't you, Billy? So am I. 
 But I was going to change here. Where are you dining, 
 Rachael?" 
 
 "Change at my house," Mrs. Breckenridge suggested, 
 or rather commanded. "I'm dining in my room, I 
 think. I'm all in." But the clear and candid eyes de- 
 ceived no one. Clarence was misbehaving again, 
 everybody decided, and poor Rachael could not bespeak 
 five minutes of her own time until this particular period 
 of intemperance was over. Miss Vanderwall, settling 
 herself in the beautiful Breckenridge car five minutes 
 later, faced the situation boldly. 
 
 "Where's Clarence, Rachael?" 
 
 "I haven't the remotest idea, my dear woman," said 
 
18 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 i 
 
 Mrs. Breckenridge frankly, yet with a warning glance 
 at the back of her stepdaughter's head. Billy was at 
 the wheel. "He didn't dine at home last night 
 
 "But we knew where he was," Billy said quickly, 
 r i 1 1* * 
 .half turning. 
 
 "We knew where he was," agreed the older woman. 
 "Watch where you're going, Bill! He told Alfred that 
 he was dining in town, with a friend, talking business." 
 
 "I thought it was the night of Berry Stokes' dinner," 
 suggested Miss Vanderwall. 
 
 "He wasn't there I asked him not to go," said 
 Billy. 
 
 "Oh " Miss Vanderwall began and then abruptly 
 
 stopped. "Oh!" said she mildly, in polite acquies- 
 cence. 
 
 They were sweeping through the April roadsides so 
 swiftly that it was only a moment later when Rachael, 
 reaching for the door, remarked cheerfully, "Here we 
 .are!" 
 
 The car had entered a white stone gateway, and was 
 approaching a certain charming country mansion, one 
 that was not conspicuous among a thousand others 
 strewn over the neighboring hills and valleys, but a 
 beautiful home nevertheless. Vines climbed the brick 
 chimneys, and budding hydrangeas, in pots, topped the 
 white balustrades of the porch. A hundred little de- 
 tails of perfect furnishing would have been taken for 
 granted by the casual onlooker, yet without its lawns, 
 its awnings, its window boxes and snowy curtaining, 
 its glimpse of screened veranda and wicker chairs, its 
 trim assembly of garage, stable, and servants' cottages, 
 its porte-cochere, sleeping porches, and tennis court, it 
 would have seemed incomplete and uncomfortable to 
 its owners. 
 
 Rachael Breckenridge neither liked it nor disliked it. 
 It had been her home for the seven years of her married 
 life, except for the month or two she spent every 
 winter in a New York hotel. She had never had any 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 19 
 
 great happiness in it, to be sure, but then her life had 
 been singularly lacking in moments of real happiness, 
 and she had valued other elements, and desired other ele- 
 ments more. She had not expected to be happy in this 
 house, she had expected to be rich and envied, and se- 
 cure, and she was all of these things. That they were 
 not worth attaining, no one knew better than Rachael 
 now. 
 
 The house was of course a great care to her, the more 
 so because Billy was in it so little, and was so frankly 
 eager for the time when she should leave it and go to a 
 house of her own, and because Clarence was absolutely 
 indifferent to it in his better moods, and pleased with 
 nothing when he was in the grip of his besetting sin. 
 The Breckenridges did little formal entertaining, but the 
 man of the house liked to bring men down from town for 
 week-end visits, and Billy brought her young friends in 
 and out with youthful indifference to domestic regula- 
 tions, so that on Rachael, as housekeeper, there fell no 
 light burden. 
 
 She carried it gracefully, knitting her handsome brows 
 as the seasons brought about their endless problems, 
 discussing bulbs with old Rafael in the garden when the 
 snow melted, discussing paper and paint in the first 
 glory of May, superintending the making of iced drinks 
 on the hot summer afternoons, and in October filling 
 her woodroom duly with the great logs that would blaze 
 neglected in the drawing-room fireplace all winter long. 
 The house was not large, as such houses go; top much 
 room was wasted by a very modern architect in linen 
 closets and coat closets, bathrooms and hall space, 
 dressing-rooms, passages, and nooks and corners gen- 
 erally. Yet Rachael's guest-rooms were models in their 
 way, and when she gave a luncheon the women who 
 came were always ready to exclaim in despairing admi- 
 ration over the beauty of the gardens, the flower-filled, 
 airy rooms, the table appointments, and the hostess her- 
 self. 
 
 But when they said that she was "wonderful" and 
 
20 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 it was the inevitable word for Rachael Breckenridge 
 the general meaning went deeper than this. She was 
 wonderful in her pride, the dignity and the silence of 
 her attitude toward her husband; she had been a won- 
 derful mother to Clarence's daughter; not a loving 
 mother, perhaps she was not loving to anyone but 
 a miracle of determination and clearness of vision. 
 
 Who else, her friends wondered, could have cleared 
 the social horizon for Paula Breckenridge's daughter so 
 effectively? With what brisk resoluteness the new 
 mother had cut short the aimless European wanderings, 
 cropped the child's artificially curled hair, given away 
 the unsuitable silk stockings and the ridiculous frocks 
 and hats. Billy, shorn and bewildered, had been 
 brought home; had entered Miss Proctor's select school, 
 entered Miss Roger's select dancing class, entered Pro- 
 fessor Darling's expensive riding classes. Billy, in 
 dark-blue Peter Thompsons, in black stockings and 
 laced boots, had been dropped in among other little 
 girls in Peter Thompsons and laced boots, little girls 
 with the approved names of Whittaker and Bowditch, 
 Moran and Merridew and Parmalee. 
 
 Billy had never doubted her stepmother's judgment; 
 like all of the new Mrs. Breckenridge's friends, she was 
 deeply, dumbly impressed with that lady's amazing 
 efficiency. She had been a spoiled and discontented 
 little rowdy. She became an entirely self-satisfied 
 little gentlewoman. Clarence, jealously watching her 
 progress, knew that Rachael was doing for his daughter 
 far more than he could ever do himself. 
 
 But Rachael, if she had expected reward, reaped 
 none. Her husband was a supremely selfish man, and 
 his daughter inherited his sublime ability to protect 
 his own pleasure at any cost. Carol admired her step- 
 mother, but she was an indolent and luxury-loving little 
 soul, and even as early as her twelfth or fourteenth 
 year she had been deeply flattered by the' evidences of 
 her own power over her father. Into her youthful 
 training no reverence for parents real or adopted had 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 21 
 
 been infused; she called her father "Clancy," as some of 
 his intimate friends called him, and he delighted to take 
 her orders and bow to her pretty tyranny. 
 
 Before she was sixteen he began to take her about 
 with him: to dances, to the theatre, and for long trips 
 in his car. He entered eagerly into her young friend- 
 ships, frantic to prove himself as young at heart as she. 
 He paid her the extravagant compliments of a lover, 
 and gave her her grandmother's beautiful jewelry, as 
 well as every trinket that caught her eye. 
 
 And Billy accepted his attentions with a finished 
 coquetry that was far from childlike, a flush on her 
 satin cheek, a dimple puckering the corner of her mouth, 
 and silky lashes lowered over her satisfied eyes. She 
 was inevitably precocious in many ways, but she was 
 young enough still to fancy herself one of the irresisti- 
 ble beauties and belles of the world, and to flaunt a 
 perfectly conscious arrogance in the eyes of all other 
 women. 
 
 All this was bewildering and painful to Rachael. 
 She had never loved her husband love entered into 
 none of her relationships her marriage had been only 
 a step in the steady progress of her life toward the posi- 
 tion she desired in the world. But she had liked him. 
 She had liked his child, and she had come into the new 
 arrangement kindly and gallantly determined to make 
 the venture at least as profitable to them both as it was 
 to her. 
 
 To be ignored, to be deliberately set aside, to be in- 
 sulted by a selfishness so calculating and so deliberate 
 as to make her own attitude seem all warmth and gen- 
 erosity by comparison, genuinely astonished her. At 
 first, indeed, a sort of magnificent impatience had pre- 
 vented her from feeling any stronger emotion than as- 
 tonishment. It was too ridiculous, said the bride to 
 herself tolerantly; it could not go on, of course, this 
 preposterous consideration of a child of ten, this belit- 
 tling consideration of her own place in the scheme as 
 less Clarence's wife than Billy's mother. It must ad- 
 
n THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 just itself with every week that they three lived to- 
 gether, the child slipping back to her own life, the 
 husband and wife sharing theirs. When Clarence's 
 first fears for his daughter's comfort under the new rule 
 were set at rest, when his confidence in the wisdom and 
 efficiency of his wife was fully established, then a nor- 
 mal relationship must ensue. " Surely Clarence wouldn't 
 ask a woman to marry him just to give Billy a home and 
 social backing?" Rachael asked herself, in those first 
 puzzled days in Paris. 
 
 That was seven years ago. She knew exactly that 
 for truth now. Long ago she had learned that what- 
 ever impulse had moved Clarence Breckenridge to ask 
 her to marry him was quickly displaced by his vision of 
 Billy's need as being greater than his own. 
 
 It had been an unpalatable revelation, for Rachael 
 was a woman proud as well as beautiful. But pres- 
 ently she had accepted the situation as it stood, some- 
 how fighting her way, as the years went by, to fresh 
 acceptances: the acceptance of Billy's ripening charms, 
 the acceptance of Clarence's more and more frequent 
 times of inebriated irresponsibility. Silently she made 
 her mental adjustments, moving through her gay and 
 empty life in an unsuspected bitterness of solitude, won 
 to protest and rebellion only when the cold surface she 
 presented to the world was threatened from within or 
 without. 
 
 It was distinctly threatened now, she realized with a 
 little sick twist of apprehension at heart, when her casual 
 inquiry to a maid upon entering was answered by a dis- 
 creet, "Yes, Mrs. Breckenridge, Mr. Breckenridge came 
 home half an hour ago. Alfred is with him." 
 
 This was unexpected. Rachael did not glance either 
 at her guest or her stepdaughter, but she disposed of 
 them both in a breath. 
 
 "Someone wants you on the telephone, Billy," she 
 repeated after the maid's information. "Take it in the 
 library. Run right up to my room, Elinor, and I'll be 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 23 
 
 there in two minutes. I'll send some one in with towels 
 and brushes; you've time for a tub. Take these things, 
 Helda, and give them to Annie, and tell her to lookout 
 for Miss Vanderwall." 
 
 The square entrance hall was sweet with flowers in 
 the early spring evening, Oriental rugs were spread on 
 the dull mirror of the floor, opened doors gave glimpses 
 of airy colonial interiors, English chintzes crowded with 
 gay colored fruits and flowers, brick fireplaces framed 
 in classic white and showing a brave gleam of brass 
 firedogs in the soft lamplight. Not a book on the long 
 tables, not an etching on the dull rich paper of the 
 walls, struck a false note. It was all exquisitely in 
 tone. 
 
 But Rachael Breckenridge, at best, saw less its positive 
 perfections than the tiniest opening through which an im- 
 perfection might push its way, and in such an hour as this 
 she saw it not at all. Her mouth a trifle firm in its outline, 
 her face a little pale, she went quickly up the wide white 
 stairway and along the open balcony above. There were 
 several doors on this balcony, which was indeed the upper 
 hall. Mrs. Breckenridge opened one of them without 
 knocking, and closed it noiselessly behind her. 
 
 The room into which she admitted herself presented 
 exactly the picture she had expected. The curtains, 
 again of richly colored cretonne, were drawn, a softly 
 toned lamp on the reading table, and another beside 
 the bed, cast circles of pleasant light on the comfortable 
 wicker chairs, the cream-colored woodwork, and the 
 scattered books and magazines. Several photographs 
 of Carol, beautifully framed, were on bookcase and 
 dresser, and a fine oil painting of the child at fourteen 
 looked down from the mantel. On the bed, a mahog- 
 any four-poster, with carved pineapples finishing the 
 posts, the frilled cretonne cover had been flung back; 
 Mr. Breckenridge had retired; his blond head was sunk 
 in the pillows; he clutched the blankets about him with 
 his arms, his face was not visible, 
 
 A quiet manservant, who was by turns butler, chauf* 
 
24 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 feur, and valet, was stepping softly about the room. 
 Rachael interrogated him in a low tone: 
 
 "Asleep, Alfred?" 
 
 "Oh, no, ma'am!" the man said quickly. "He's 
 been feeling ill. He says he has a chill." 
 
 "When did he get home?" the wife asked. 
 
 "About half an hour ago, Mrs. Breckenridge. Mr. 
 Butler telephoned me. Some of the gentlemen were 
 going on to one of the beach hotels for dinner, I be- 
 lieve, but Mr. Breckenridge felt himself too unwell to 
 join them, so I went for him with the little car, and Mr. 
 Joe Butler and Mr. Parks came home with him, Mrs. 
 Breckenridge." 
 
 "Do you know if he went to bed last night at all?" 
 
 "No, ma'am, he said he did not. All the gentlemen 
 
 looked as if they looked as if they might have ' 
 
 Alfred hesitated delicately. "It was Mr. Berry Stokes* 
 bachelor dinner," he presently added. 
 
 At this moment there was a convulsion in the bed, 
 and the red face of Clarence Breckenridge revealed 
 itself. The eyes were bloodstained, the usually pale 
 skin flushed and oily, the fair, thin hair tumbled across a 
 high and well-developed forehead. Rachael knew every 
 movement of the red and swollen lips, every tone of the 
 querulous voice. 
 
 "Does Alfred have to stay up here doing a chamber- 
 maid's work?" demanded the man of the house fret- 
 fully. "My God! Can you or can't you manage 
 between your teas and card parties to get someone 
 else to put this room in order?" He ended in a long 
 moan, and dropped his head again into the pillows. 
 
 "Do you know what he wants?" Rachael asked the 
 man in a quick whisper. "Go down and get it, then!" 
 
 "Fm co-o-old!" said the man in the bed, going into 
 a sudden and violent chill. "I've caught my death, I 
 think. Joe made a punch some sort of an eggnog 
 eggs were bad, I think. I'm poisoned. The stuff was 
 rotten!" He sank mumbling back into the pillows. 
 
 Rachael, who had been hanging his coat carefully in 
 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 25 
 
 the big closet adjoining his room, came to the bedside 
 and laid her cool fingers on his burning forehead. If 
 irrepressible distaste was visible in her face, it was only 
 a faint reflection of the burning resentment in her heart. 
 
 "You've got a fever, Clarence," she announced 
 quietly. The answer was only a furious and incoher- 
 ent burst of denunciation; the patient was in utter 
 physical discomfort, and could not choose his terms. 
 Rachael not for the first nor the hundredth time 
 felt within her an impulse to leave him here, leave 
 him to outwear his miseries without her help. But 
 this she could not do without throwing the house into an 
 uproar. Clarence at these times had no consideration 
 for public opinion, had no dignity, no self-control. Much 
 better satisfy him, as she had done so many times before, 
 and keep a brave face to the world. 
 
 So she placed a hot-water bag against his cold feet, 
 went to her own room adjoining to borrow a fluffy satin 
 comforter with which to augment his own bed covering, 
 laid an icy towel upon his throbbing forehead, and 
 when Alfred presently appeared with a decanter of 
 whisky, Rachael watched her husband eagerly gulp 
 down a glass of it without uttering one word of the 
 bitter protest that rose to her lips. 
 
 She was not a prude, with the sublime inconsistency 
 of most women whose lives are made the darker for 
 drink; she did not identify herself with any movement 
 toward prohibition, or refuse the cocktails, the claret, 
 and the wine that were customarily served at her own 
 and at other people's dinner-tables. But she hated 
 coarseness in any form, she hated contact with the sod- 
 den, self-pitying, ugly animal that Clarence Brecken- 
 ridge became under the influence of drink. 
 
 To-night, when he presently fell asleep, somewhat 
 more comfortable in body, and soothed in spirit by the 
 promise of a visit from the doctor, Rachael went into 
 her own room and sinking into a deep chair sat staring 
 stupidly at the floor. She did not think of the husband 
 she had just left, nor of the formal dinner party being 
 
26 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 given, only half a mile away, to a great English novelist 
 a dinner to which the Breckenridges had of course 
 been asked and upon which Rachael had weeks ago set 
 her heart. She was tired, and her thoughts floated 
 lazily about nothing at all, or into some opaque region 
 of their own knowing, where the ills of the body might 
 not follow. 
 
 Presently Miss Vanderwall, clothed in a trailing robe 
 | of soft Arabian cotton, came briskly out of the bath- 
 room, her short dark hair hanging in a mane about her 
 rosy face. 
 
 f "Why so pensive, Rachael?" she asked cheerfully, 
 pressing a button that lighted the circle of globes about 
 the dressing-table mirror, and seating herself before it. 
 But under her loose locks she sent s keen and concerned 
 look at her hostess' thoughtful face. 
 
 "Tired," Rachael answered briefly, not changing her 
 attitude, but with a fleeting shadow of a smile. 
 
 "How's Clancy?" 
 
 "Asleep. He's wretched, poor fellow! Berry Stokes* 
 bachelor dinner, you know. That crowd is bad for him." 
 
 "I knew it must have been an orgy!" Miss Vander- 
 wall declared vivaciously. "That was a silly slip of 
 mine in the car. Billy doesn't know he went, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 "No, he promised her he wouldn't. But everyone 
 was at the dinner. Some of them came home early, 
 I believe. But it was all kept quiet, because Aline 
 Pearsall is such a little shrinking violet, I suppose," 
 Mrs. Breckenridge said. "The Pearsalls are to think 
 it was just an impromptu affair. Billy and Aline of 
 course have no idea what a party it was. But Clarence 
 says that poor Berry was worse than he, and a few 
 of them are still keeping it up. It's a shame, of 
 course " 
 
 Her uninterested voice dropped into silence. 
 
 "Men are queer," Miss Vanderwall said profoundly,, 
 busy with ivory-backed brushes, powders, and pastes. 
 
 "The mystery to me about men," mused Mrs. 
 
THE HEAJRT OF RACHAEL 27 
 
 Breckenridge, her absent eyes upon the buckled slipper 
 she held in her hand, "is not that they are as helpless as 
 babies the moment anything goes wrong with their 
 poor little heads or their poor little tummies, but that 
 they work so hard, in spite of that, to increase the gen- 
 eral discomfort of living. Women have a great deal of 
 misery to bear, they are brave or cowardly about it as 
 the case may be, but at least they endure and renounce 
 and diet and keep early hours or whatever's to be done 
 they try to lessen the sum of physical misery. But 
 men go cheerily on they smoke too much, and eat too 
 much, and drink too much, and they bring the resulting 
 misery sweetly and confidently to some woman to bear 
 for them. It's hopeless!" 
 
 "H'm!" was Miss Vanderwall's thoughtful com- 
 ment. Presently she added dubiously: "Did you ever 
 think that another child might make a big difference to 
 Clarence, Rachael? That he might come to care for a 
 son as he does for Billy, don't you know " 
 
 "Oh, I wasn't speaking of Clarence," Mrs. Brecken- 
 ridge said coldly. And Elinor, recognizing a false step, 
 winced inwardly. 
 
 "No, I didn't suppose you were!" she assented 
 hastily. 
 
 "If there's one thing I am thankful for," Rachael 
 presently said moodily, "it's that I haven't a child. 
 I'm rather fond of kiddies nice kiddies, myself; and 
 Clarence likes children, too. But things are quite bad 
 enough now without that complication ! " She brushed 
 the loosened hair from her face restlessly, and sighed. 
 "Sometimes, when I see the other girls," said she, "I 
 think I'd make a rather good mother! However" 
 and getting suddenly to her feet, she flung up her head 
 as if to be rid of the subject "however, my dear, we 
 shall never know! Don't mind me to-night, Elinor, 
 I'm in a horrible mood, it will take nothing at all to set 
 me off in what Bill used to call a regilyer tant'um!" 
 
 "Tantrum nothing," said Elinor, in eager sympathy, 
 feeling with the greatest relief that she was reinstated 
 
28 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 in Rachael's good graces after her stupid blunder. "I 
 don't see how you stand it at all!" 
 
 "It isn't the drinking and headaches and general 
 stupidity in themselves, you know," Rachael said, re- 
 verting to her original argument, "but it's the atrocious 
 unnecessity of it! I don't mind Clarence's doing as 
 other men do, I certainly don't mind his caring so much 
 for his daughter" her fine brows drew together "but 
 where do / come in?" she demanded with a quizzical 
 smile. "What's my life? I ask only decency and 
 civility, and I don't get it. The very servants in this 
 house pity me they see it all. When Clarence isn't 
 himself, he needs me; when he is, he is all for Billy. I 
 must apologize for breaking engagements; people 
 ilon't ask us out any more, and no wonder! I have to 
 coax money out of him for bills; Billy has her own 
 check-book. I have to keep quiet when I'm boiling 
 all over. I have to defend myself when I know I'm 
 bitterly, cruelly wronged ! " 
 
 Neither woman had any scruples about the subject 
 under discussion, but even to Elinor Rachael had never 
 spoken so freely before, and the guest, desperately 
 attempting to remember every word for the delectation 
 of her family and friends later on, felt herself at once 
 honored and thrilled. 
 
 "Rachael but why do you stand it?" 
 
 Mrs. Breckenridge threw her a look full of all con- 
 scious forbearance. 
 
 "Well, what would you do?" 
 
 "Well. I'd" Miss Vanderwall arrested the hand 
 with which she was carefully spreading her lips with 
 red paste, to fling it, with a large gesture, into the air 
 "Pa why don't you get out? Simply drop it all?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "For several reasons," the other woman returned 
 promptly with a sort of hard, bright pride. "One very 
 excellent one is that I haven't one penny. But I tell 
 you, Elinor, if I knew how to put my hand on about a 
 thousand dollars a year there are little towns in, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 29 
 
 France, I have friends in London well" and with a 
 sudden straightening of her whole body Rachael Breck- 
 enridge visibly rallied herself "well, what's the use of 
 talking?" she said. But, as she rose abruptly, Elinor 
 saw the glint of tears on her lashes, and said to herself 
 with a sort of pleased terror that things between Clarence 
 and Rachael must be getting serious indeed. 
 
 She admired Mrs. Breckenridge deeply; more than 
 that, the younger woman's friendship and patronage 
 were valuable assets to Miss Vanderwall. But the social 
 circle of Belvedere Hills was a small circle, and Elinor had 
 spent every one of her thirty-five summers, or a part of 
 every one, in just this limited group. There was little 
 malice in her pleasure at getting this glimpse behind the 
 scenes in Rachael'slife; she would repeat her friend's con- 
 fidence, later, with the calm of a person doing the ac- 
 cepted and expected thing, with the complacence of one 
 who proves her right to other revelations from her lis- 
 teners in turn. It was by such proof judiciously dis- 
 Elayed that Elinor held her place in the front ranks of 
 er own select little group of gossips and intimates. She 
 wished the Breckenridges no harm, but if there were 
 dark elements in their lives, Elinor enjoyed being the 
 person to witness them. Thoughtfully adding a bloom 
 to her cheeks with her friend's exquisite powder, Miss 
 Vanderwall reflected sagely that, when one came to think 
 of it, it must really be rather rotten to be married to 
 Clarence Breckenridge. 
 
 Rachael presently came back, with the signs of her 
 recent emotion entirely effaced, and her wonderful skin 
 glowing faintly from a bath. Superbly independent of 
 cosmetics, independent even of her mirror, she massed 
 the thick short lengths of dark hair on the top of her 
 head, thrust a jewelled pin through the coil, and began 
 to hook herself into a lacy black evening gown that 
 was loose and comfortable. Before this was finished 
 her stepdaughter rapped on the door, and being 
 invited, came in with the full self-consciousness of seven- 
 teen. 
 
SO THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 r "All hooked up straight?" asked Rachael. "That 
 gown looks rather well." 
 
 "Do you good women realize what time it is? "Miss 
 Breckenridge asked, by way of reply. 
 
 "Has she got it a shade too short?" speculated 
 Rachael, thoughtful eyes on the girl's dress. 
 
 "Well I was wondering!" Carol said eagerly, fling- 
 ing down her wrap, to turn and twist before a door that 
 was a solid panel of mirror. "What do you think 
 we'll dance." 
 
 "Oh, not a bit," Rachael presently decided. "They're 
 all up to the knees this year, anyway. Car come 
 round?" 
 
 "Long ago," said Billy, and Elinor, reaching for her 
 own wrap, declared herself ready. "I wish you were 
 going, Rachael," the girl added as she turned to follow 
 their guest from the room. 
 
 "Come back here a moment, Bill," Mrs. Brecken- 
 ridge said casually, seating herself at the dressing-table 
 without a glance at her stepdaughter. For a moment 
 Miss Breckenridge stood irresolute in the doorway, 
 then she reluctantly came in. 
 
 " You're just seventeen, Billy," said the older woman 
 indifferently. "When you're eighteen, next March, I 
 suppose you may do as you please. But until then 
 either see a little less of Joe Pickering, or else come 
 right out in the open about it, and tell your father you 
 want to see him here. This silly business of telephon- 
 ing and writing and meeting him, here, there, and 
 everywhere, has got to stop." 
 
 Billy stared steadily at her stepmother, her breath 
 coming quick and high, her cheeks red. 
 
 "Who said I met him places?" she said, in a 
 seventeen-year-old-girl's idea of a tragic tone. Mrs. 
 Breckenridge's answer to this was a shrug, a smile, and 
 a motherly request not to be a fool. 
 
 There was silence for a moment. Then Billy said 
 recklessly: 
 
 "I like him. And you can't make me deny it!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 31 
 
 "Like him if you want to," said Mrs. Breckenridge, 
 "although what you can see in a man twice your age 
 
 with his particular history However, it's your 
 
 affair. But you'll have to tell your father." 
 
 Billy shut her lips mutinously, her cheeks still 
 scarlet. 
 
 "I don't see why!" she burst forth proudly, at last. 
 
 To this Mrs. Breckenridge offered no argument. 
 Carefully filing a polished fingertip she said quietly: 
 
 "I didn't suppose you would." 
 
 "And I think that if you tell him you interfere in a 
 matter that doesn't in the least concern you," Billy pur. 
 sued hotly, uncomfortably eager to strike an answering 
 spark, and reduce the conversation to a state where 
 mutual concessions might be in order. "You have no 
 business to!" 
 
 Her stepmother was silent. She put on a ring, re- 
 garded it thoughtfully on her spread fingers, and took 
 it off again. 
 
 "In the first place," Billy said sullenly, "you'll tell 
 him a lot of things that aren't so!" 
 
 Silence. Outside the motor horn sounded impa- 
 tiently. Billy suddenly came close to her stepmother, 
 her dark, mobile little face quite transformed by anger. 
 
 "You can tell him what you please," she said in a 
 cold fury, "but I'll know why you did it it's because 
 you're jealous, and you want everyone in the world to 
 be in love with you ! You hate me because my father 
 loves me, and you would do anything in the world to 
 make trouble between us! I've known it ever since I 
 was a little girl, even if I never have said it before! 
 
 I " She choked, and tears of youthful rage came 
 
 into her eyes. 
 
 " Don't be preposterous, Bill. You've said it before, 
 every time you've been angry, in the last five years," 
 the older woman said coolly. "This only means that 
 you will feel that you have to wake me up, when you 
 come in to-night, to say that you are sorry." 
 
 "I will not!" said the girl at white heat. 
 
32 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Well, I hope you won't," Rachael Breckenridge said 
 amiably, "for if there is one thing I loathe more than 
 another, it is being waked up for theatricals in the mid- 
 dle of the night. Good-bye. Be sure to thank Mrs. 
 Bowditch for chaperoning you." 
 
 "Are you going to speak to Clancy?" the girl de- 
 manded imperiously. 
 
 "Run along, Billy," Rachael said, with a faint show 
 of impatience. "Nobody could speak to your father 
 about anything to-night, as you ought to know." 
 
 For a moment Billy stood still, breathing hard and 
 with tightly closed lips, her angry eyes on her step- 
 mother. Then her breast rose on a childish, dry sob, 
 she dropped her eyes, and moved a shining slipper-toe 
 upon the rug with the immortal motion of embarrassed 
 youth. 
 
 "You you used to like Joe, Rachael," she said, after 
 a moment, in a low tone. 
 
 "I don't dislike him now," Rachael said composedly. 
 
 "He's awfully kind and and good, and Lucy never 
 understood him, or tried to understand him!" said 
 Billy in a burst. The other woman smiled. 
 
 "If Joe Pickering told you any sentimental non- 
 sense like that, kindly don't retail it to me," she said 
 amusedly. 
 
 In a second Billy was roused to utter fury. Her 
 cheeks blazed, her breath came short and deep. "I 
 hate you!" she said passionately, and ran from the 
 room. 
 
 Mrs. Breckenridge sat still for a few moments, but 
 there was no emotion but utter weariness visible in her 
 face. After a while she said, "Oh, Lord!" in a tone 
 compounded of amusement and disgust, and rising, she 
 took a new book from the table, and went slowly down- 
 stairs. 
 
 In the lower hall Alfred met her, his fat young face 
 duly mysterious and important in expression. 
 
 "Mr. Breckenridge got a telephone message from 
 Doctor Jordan, Mrs. Breckenridge; the doctor's been 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 33 
 
 called into town to a patient, so he can't see Mr. Breck- 
 enridge to-night." 
 
 "Oh! Well, he'll probably be here in the morning," 
 Rachael said carelessly. 
 
 "Excuse me, Mrs. Breckenridge, but Mr. Brecken- 
 ridge seemed to be a good deal worried about himself, 
 and he had me call Doctor Gregory," the man pursued 
 respectfully. 
 
 "Doctor Gregory !" echoed his mistress, with a laugh 
 like a wail. "Alfred, what were you thinking of! 
 Why didn't you call me?" 
 
 "He wouldn't have me call you," Alfred said unhap- 
 pily. "He spoke to the doctor himself. We got the 
 housekeeper first, and she said Doctor Gregory was 
 dressing. 'Tell him it's a matter of life and death,' 
 says Mr. Breckenridge. Then we got him. 'I'm 
 dining out,' he says, 'but I'll be there this evening." 
 
 "Oh, dear, dear, dear!" Mrs. Breckenridge said half 
 to herself in serio-comic desperation. "Gregory 
 called in for a for a for this! If I could get hold of 
 him! He didn't say where he was dining?" 
 
 "No, Mrs. Breckenridge," the man answered, with 
 , great air of efficiency. 
 
 "Well, Alfred, I wish sometimes you knew a little 
 more or a little less!" Rachael said dispassionately. 
 "Light a fire in the library, will you ? I'll have my din- 
 ner there. Tell Ellie to send me up something broiled 
 nothing messy and some strong coffee." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE coffee was strong. Mrs. Breckenridge found it 
 soothing to rasped nerves and tired body, and after the 
 dinner things had been cleared away she sat on beside the 
 library fire, under the soft arc of light from the library 
 lamp, sipping the stimulating fluid, and staring at the 
 snapping and flashing logs. 
 
 A sense of merely physical well-being crept through 
 her body, and for a little time even her active brain 
 was quieter; she forgot the man now heavily sleeping 
 upstairs, the pretty little tyrant who had rushed off to 
 dinner at the Chases', and the many perplexing elements 
 in her own immediate problem. She saw only the quiet 
 changes in the fire as yellow flame turned to blue 
 sank, rose, and sank again. 
 
 The house was still. Kitchenward, to be sure, there 
 was a great deal of cheerful laughter and chatter, as Ellie, 
 sitting heavily ensconced in the largest rocker, embroid- 
 ered a centrepiece for her sister's birthday, Annie read 
 fortunes in the teacups, Alfred imitated the supercilious 
 manner of a lady who had called that afternoon upon 
 Mrs. Breckenridge, and Helda, a milk-blond Dane with 
 pink-rimmed eyes, laughed with infantile indiscrimina- 
 tion at everything, blushing an agonized scarlet when- 
 ever Alfred's admiring eye met her own. 
 
 But the kitchen was not within hearing distance of 
 the quiet room where Rachael sat alone, and as the soft 
 spring night wore on no sound came to disturb her 
 revery. It was not the first solitary evening she had 
 had of late, for Clarence had been more than usually 
 reckless, and was developing in his wife, although she 
 did not realize it herself, a habit of introspection quite 
 foreign to her real nature. 
 
 34 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 35 
 
 She had never been a thoughtful woman, her days 
 for many years had run brilliantly on the surface of 
 life, she knew not whence the current was flowing, nor 
 why, nor where it led her; she did not naturally ana- 
 lyze, nor dispute events. Only a few years ago she 
 would have said that to an extraordinary degree fortune 
 had been kind to her. She had been born with an ad- 
 venturous spirit, she had played her game well and 
 boldly, and, according to all the standards of her type, 
 she had won. But sitting before this quiet fire, perhaps 
 it occurred to her to wonder how it happened that there 
 were no more hazards, no more cards left to play. She 
 was caught in a net of circumstances too tight for her 
 unravelling. Truly it might be cut, but when she stood 
 in the loose wreckage of it how should she use her 
 freedom ? If it was a cage, at least it was a comfortable 
 cage; at least it was better than the howling darkness of 
 the unfamiliar desert beyond. 
 
 And yet she raged, and her hurt spirit flung itself 
 again and again at the bars. Young and beautiful and 
 clever, how had life tricked her into this deadlock, where 
 had been the fault, and whose? 
 
 For some undefined reason Rachael rarely thought of 
 the past. She did not care to bring its certainties, its 
 panorama of blinded eyes and closed doors before her 
 mental vision. But to-night she found herself walking 
 again in those old avenues; her thoughts went back to 
 the memories of her girlhood. 
 
 Girlhood? Her eyes smiled, but with the smile a 
 little twinge of bitterness drew down her mouth. What 
 a discontented, eager, restless girlhood it had been, 
 after all. A girlhood eternally analyzing, comparing, 
 resenting, envying. How she had secretly despised the 
 other girls, typical of their class, the laughing, flirting, 
 dress-possessed girls of a small California town. How 
 she had despised her aunts, all comfortably married 
 and prosperous, her aunts' husbands, her stodgy, noisy 
 cousins! And, for that matter, there had never been 
 much reverence in her regard for her mother, although, 
 
36 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Rachael loved that complaining little woman in her 
 cool way. 
 
 But for her father, the tall, clever, unhappy girl had a 
 genuine admiration. She did not love him, no one who 
 knew Gerald Fairfax well could possibly have sus- 
 tained a deep affection for him, but she believed him to 
 be almost as remarkably educated and naturally gifted 
 as he believed himself to be. Her uncles were simply 
 country merchants, her mother's fat, cheerful father 
 dealt in furniture, and, incidentally, coffins, but her 
 father was an Englishman, and naturally held himself 
 above the ordinary folk of Los Lobos; 
 
 Nobody knew much about him, when he first made 
 his appearance in Los Lobos, this silky-haired, round- 
 faced, supercilious stranger, in his smart, shabby Norfolk 
 coat, which was perhaps one reason why every girl in 
 the village was at once willing to marry him, no ques- 
 tions asked. His speech was almost a different tongue 
 from theirs; he was thirty-five, he had dogs and a man- 
 servant, instead of the usual equipment of mother, sis- 
 ters, and "hired girl," and he seemed eternally bored and 
 ungracious. This was enough for the Los Lobos girls, 
 and for most of their mothers, too. 
 
 The newcomer bought a small ranch, three miles 
 out of town, and lounged about it in a highly edifying 
 condition of elegant idleness. He rode a good horse, 
 drank a great deal, and strode out of the post-office 
 once a week scattering monogrammed envelopes care- 
 lessly behind him. He had not been long in town be- 
 fore people began to say that his elder brother was a 
 lord; a duke, Mrs. Chess Baxter, the postmistress 
 said, because to her question regarding the rumor he 
 had answered carelessly: "Something of that sort." 
 
 Thirty years ago there were a great many detached 
 Englishmen in California, fourth and fifth sons, remit- 
 tance men, family scapegraces who had been banished 
 to the farthest frontier by relatives who regarded Cali- 
 fornia as beyond the reach of gossip, and almost beyond 
 the reach of letters. Checks, small but regular, arrived 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 37 
 
 quarterly for these gentry, who had only to drink, 
 sleep, play cards, and demoralize the girls of the coun- 
 try. Here and there among them, to be sure, were 
 pink-skinned boys as fresh and sweet as the apple- 
 blossoms under which they rode their horses, but for 
 the most part the emigrants were dissipated, disen- 
 chanted, clinging loyally to the traditions of the older 
 country that had discarded them, and scorning the 
 fragrant and inexhaustible richness of the new land 
 that had made them welcome. They were, as a class, 
 silent, only voluble on the subject of the despised coun- 
 try of their adoption, and absolutely non-committal as 
 to their own histories. But far from questioning their 
 credentials, the women and girls everywhere accepted 
 them eagerly, caught something of an English accent 
 and something of an English arrogance. 
 
 So Clara Mumford, a rose of a girl, cream-skinned, 
 blue-eyed, and innocent with the terrible innocence of- 
 the village girlhood that feels itself so wise Clara, who 
 knew, because her two older sisters were married, where 
 babies come from, and knew, because of Alt a Porter's 
 experience, that girls nice girls, who went with one 
 through the high school can yield to temptation and 
 be ruined Clara only felt, in shyly announcing her en- 
 gagement to Gerald Fairfax, that Fate had been too 
 kind. 
 
 That this glittering stranger twice her age why, 
 he was even a little bald a man who had travelled, 
 who knew people of title, knew books, and manners, 
 and languages that he should marry an undertaker's 
 daughter in Los Lobos! It was unbelievable. Clara's 
 only misgiving during her short engagement was that 
 he would disappear like a dream. She agreed with 
 everything he said; even carrying her new allegiance to 
 the point of laughing a little at her own people: the 
 layer cakes her mother made for the Sunday noonday 
 dinner; the red-handed, freckled swain who called on 
 her younger sister in the crisp, moonlighted winter eve- 
 nings; and the fact that her father shaved in the kitchen. 
 
38 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 A few weeks slipped by, and Clara duly confided her 
 youth and her innocence and her roses to her English 
 husband, a little ashamed of the wedding presents her 
 friends sent her, even a little doubtful of her parents' 
 handsome gift of a bird's-eye maple bedroom set and 
 a parlor set in upholstered cherry. 
 
 On her side she accepted everything unquestionably: 
 the shabby little ranch house that smelled of wood 
 smoke, and tobacco smoke, and dogs; the easy scorn of 
 her old friends on her husband's part that so soon alien- 
 ated her from them; the drink that she quickly learned 
 to regard with uneasiness and distrust. It was not that 
 Jerry ever got really intoxicated, but he got ugly, ex- 
 citable, irritable, even though quite in control of his 
 actions and his senses. 
 
 Clara was a good cook, although not as expert as her 
 fond mother's little substitutions and innocent ma- 
 nipulations during their engagement had led Gerald 
 to believe. But she loved to please him, and when 
 flushed and triumphant she put down some especially 
 tempting dish before him, and felt his arm about her 5 
 tears of actual joy would stand in her bright eyes. 
 They had some happy days, some happy hours, in the 
 first newness of being together. 
 
 Gerald's man, Thomas, was an early cause of annoy- 
 ance to Clara. She would not have objected to cooking 
 for a farm "hand"; that was a matter of course with all 
 good farmers' wives. But Thomas was more British, 
 in all that makes the British objectionable, than his 
 master, and Thomas was quite decidedly addicted to 
 drink. He never thought of wiping a dish, or bringing 
 Clara in a bucket of water from the well. He ate what 
 she set out upon the kitchen table for him, three times a 
 day, chatting pleasantly enough of the farm, the horses, 
 chickens, and vegetable garden, if Clara was in an amia- 
 ble mood, but if, busy at the sink, or clearing the dining- 
 room table, she was inwardly fuming with resentment 
 at his very existence, Thomas could be silent, too, 
 and would presently saunter away, stuffing his pipe- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 39 
 
 without even the common courtesy of piling his dishes 
 together for her washing. Thomas held long conversa- 
 tions with his master as they idled about the place; 
 Clara would hear their laughter. The manservant slept 
 in a small shed detached from the main house, and 
 there were times when he did not appear in the morning. 
 At such times Gerald with a pot of strong coffee 
 likewise disappeared into the cabin. 
 
 "Pore old rotter!" the husband would say gener- 
 ously. "He's a decentish sort, don't you know? I 
 meanter say, poor old Thomas did me an awfully good 
 turn once and that!" 
 
 Clara inferred from various hints that Gerald had 
 once been in the English army, and had met Thomas, 
 and befriended him, or been befriended by him, at that 
 period of his existence. But, greatly to the little 
 bride's disappointment, Gerald never spoke of his old 
 home or his connections there. Clara had to draw 
 what comfort she could from his intimation that all his 
 relatives were unbelievably eminent and distinguished, 
 the least of them superior in brain and achievement to 
 any American who ever drew the breath of life. 
 
 And presently she forgot Thomas, forgot the petty 
 annoyance of cooking and summer heat and dogs and 
 physical discomfort, in the overwhelming prayer that 
 the coming child, about whose advent Gerald, at first 
 annoyed, had later been so generously good-natured, 
 might prove a boy. Gerald, living uncomplainingly 
 in this dreadful little country town, enduring Western 
 conditions with such dignity, and loving his little wife 
 despite her undertaker father, would be seriously dis- 
 gusted, she knew, if she gave him a daughter. 
 
 "A a girl?" Clara stammered, her wet eyes on the 
 doctor's face, her panting little figure lost in the big 
 outline of her mother's spare-room bed. She managed 
 a brave smile, but there was a bitter lump in her throat. 
 
 A girl! 
 
 And she had been so brave, so sweet with Jerry, who 
 
40 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 had not enjoyed the three or four days of waiting at her 
 mother's house; so strong in her agonies, as became 
 the healthy, normal little country girl she was! Fate 
 owed her a son, she had done her share, she had not 
 flinched. And now a girl! Fresh tears of disap- 
 pointment came to take the place of tears of pain in her 
 eyes. She remembered that Jerry had said, a few days 
 before, "It'll be a boy, of course all the old women 
 about seem to have settled that and I believe I'll 
 cable Cousin Harold." 
 
 "Ma says it'll be a boy," Clara had submitted hope- 
 fully, longing to hear more of "Cousin Harold," to 
 whom Gerald alluded at long intervals. 
 
 "Of course it will good old girl!" Jerry had agreed. 
 And that was only Thursday night, and this was in the 
 late dawn of cold, wintry Saturday morning. 
 
 Her mother bent over her and kissed her wet forehead. 
 Mrs. Mumford's big kind face was radiant; she had 
 already four small grandsons; this was the first grand- 
 daughter. More than that, the nurse was not here 
 yet; she had been supreme through the ordeal; she had 
 managed one more birth extremely well, and she re- 
 joiced in the making of a nation. 
 
 "Such a nice baby, darling!" she whispered, "with 
 her dear little head all covered with black hair! Neta's 
 dressing her." 
 
 "Where's Gerald?" the young mother asked weakly. 
 
 "Right here! I'll let him in for a moment!" There 
 was a satisfaction in Mrs. Mumford's voice; every- 
 thing was proceeding absolutely by schedule. "And 
 just as anxious to see you as you are to see him!" 
 she added happily. These occasions were always the 
 same, and always far more enjoyable to this practised 
 parent than any pageant, any opera, any social dis- 
 tinction could have been. To comfortably, soothingly 
 lead the trembling novice through the long experience, 
 to whisk about the house capably and briskly busy 
 with the familiar paraphernalia, to cry in sympathy 
 with another's tears, to stand white-lipped, impotent, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 41 
 
 anguished through a few dreadful moments, and then 
 to laugh, and rejoice, and reassure, before the happy 
 hours of resting, and feeding, and cuddling began this 
 was the greatest satisfaction in her life. 
 
 Clara, afraid in this first moment to face his disap- 
 pointment, felt in another the most delicious reassur- 
 ance and comfort she had known in months. Jerry, 
 taking the chair by the bedside, was so dear about it! 
 The long night had much impressed the new-made 
 father. They had had coffee at about two o'clock - 
 Clara remembered wondering how they could sit en- 
 joying it, instead of dashing the hideous cups to the 
 floor, and rushing out of the horrible enclosure of walls 
 and curtains and as he bent over her she knew he had 
 had something stronger since but he was so dear! 
 
 "Well, we've had a night of it, eh?" he said kindly. 
 "Funny how much one takes the little beggars for 
 grawnted until it's one's own that kicks up the row? 
 You've not seen her she's a nice little beggar. You 
 might get some sleep, I should think. I'm going to 
 hang around until some sort of a family jamboree is 
 over, at one o'clock your mother insists that we have 
 dinner and then I'll go out to the rawnch. But I'll 
 be in in the morning!" 
 
 "Girl!" said Clara, apologetically, whimsically, dep- 
 recatingly, her weak fingers clinging tightly to his. 
 
 "Ah, well, one carn't help that!" he answered phil- 
 osophically. "We'll have a row of jolly little chaps 
 yet!" 
 
 But there was never another child. Clara, having 
 cast her fortunes in with her lord, was faithful to him 
 through every breath she drew. But before Rachael's 
 first crying, feverish little summer was over there had 
 been some definite changes at the ranch. Thomas was 
 gone, and Clara, pale and exhausted with the heat, en- 
 gaged Ella, a young woman servant of her mother's se- 
 lecting, to bake and wash and carry in stove-wood. 
 Clara managed them all, Gerald, the baby, and the maid. 
 Perhaps at first she was just a little astonished to find 
 
42 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 her husband as easily managed as Ella and far more 
 easily managed than Rachael. Gerald Fairfax was sur- 
 prised, too, lazily conceding his altered little wife her 
 new and energetic way with a mental reservation that 
 when she was strong and well again and the child less 
 a care, things would be as they were. But Clara, once 
 in power, never weakened for a moment again. Rachael 
 grew up, a solitary and unfriendly, yet a tactful and dip- 
 lomatic, little person on the ranch. She early devel- 
 oped a great admiration for her father, and a consequent 
 regard for herself as superior to her associates. She 
 ruled her mother absolutely from her fourth year, and 
 remained her grandmother's great favorite among a 
 constantly increasing flock of grandchildren. Some 
 innate pride and scorn and dignity in the child won her 
 her own way through school and school days; her young 
 cousins were bewildered themselves by the respect and 
 fealty they yielded her despite the contempt in which 
 they held her affectations. 
 
 Clara had never been a religious woman and, married 
 to an utter unbeliever, she had little enough to give a 
 child of her own. But Clara's mother was a church 
 woman, and her father a deeply religious man. It was 
 his mother, "old lady Mumford" Rachael's great- 
 grandmother who taught the child her catechism 
 whenever she could get hold of that restless and lawless 
 little girl. 
 
 Rachael had great fear and respect for her great- 
 grandmother, and everything that was fine and good in 
 the child instinctively responded to the atmosphere of 
 her little home. It was an unpretentious home, even 
 for Los Lobos: only a whitewashed California cabin 
 with a dooryard full of wall flowers and geraniums, and 
 pungent marigolds, and marguerites that were budding, 
 blossoming, and gone to rusty decay on one and the 
 same bush. The narrow paths were outlined with white 
 stone ale-bottles, turned upside down and driven into 
 the soft ground, and under the rustling tent of a lilac 
 bush there were three or four clay pots filled with dry 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 43 
 
 earth. There was a railed porch on the east side of 
 the house, with vines climbing on strings about it, and 
 here the old woman, clean with the wonderful, cool- 
 fingered cleanness of frail yet energetic seventy-five, 
 would sit reading in the afternoon shade that fell from 
 the great shoulders of the blue mountains. 
 
 Inside were three rooms; there was no bathroom, no 
 light but the kerosene lamps the old hands tended daily, 
 no warmth but the small kitchen stove. All the furni- 
 ture was old and shabby and cheap, and the antimacas- 
 sars and pictures and teacups old Mrs. Mumford 
 prized so dearly were of no value except for associa- 
 tion's sake. RachaeFs great-grandmother lived upon 
 tea and toast and fruit sauce; sometimes she picked a 
 dish of peas in her own garden and sometimes made 
 herself a rice pudding, but if her children brought her in 
 'a chicken or a bowl of soup she always gave it away to 
 some poorer neighbor who was ill, or who was "nurs- 
 ing that great strapping baby." 
 
 She read the Bible to Rachael and exhorted the half- 
 believing, half-ashamed child to lay its lessons to heart. 
 
 "Your life will be full of change and of pleasure, 
 there will be many temptations and much responsibil- 
 ity/' said the sweet, stern, thin old voice. "Arm 
 yourself against the wickedness of the world!" 
 
 Rachael, pulling the old collie's silky ears, thought 
 nothing of the wickedness of the world but much of 
 j possible change and pleasure. She hoped her aged 
 relative was right; certainly one would suppose Granny 
 to be right in anything she said. 
 
 The time would have swiftly come when the child's 
 changing heart would have found no room for this 
 association, but before Rachael was twelve Granny was 
 gone, the little house, with its few poor treasures shut 
 inside it, was closed and empty. And only a year or 
 two later a far more important change came into the 
 girl's life. She had always disliked Los Lobos, had 
 schemed and brooded and fretted incessantly through 
 her childhood. It was with astonished delight that she 
 
44 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 heard that her parents, who had never, in a financial 
 sense, drawn a free breath since their marriage, who 
 had worried and contrived, who had tried indifference 
 and bravado and strictest economy by turns, had sold 
 their ranch for almost two thousand dollars more than 
 its accumulated mortgages, and were going to England. 
 
 It was a glorious adventure for Rachael, even though 
 she was too shrewd not to suspect the extreme hazard 
 of the move. She talked in Los Lobos of her father's 
 "people," hinted that "the family, you know, thinks 
 we'd better be there," but she knew in her heart that a 
 few months might find them all beggars. 
 
 Her father bought her a loose, big, soft blue coat in San 
 Francisco, and a dashing little soft hat for the steamer. 
 Rachael never forgot these garments throughout her 
 entire life. It mattered not how countrified the gown 
 under the coat, how plain the shoes on her slender feet. 
 Their beauty, their becomingness, their comfort, actu- 
 ally colored her days. For twenty dollars she was 
 transformed; she knew herself to be pretty and pictu- 
 resque. "That charming little girl with the dark braids, 
 going to England," she heard some man on the steamer 
 say. The ranch, the chickens, weeds, and preserving, 
 the dusty roads and shabby stores of Los Lobos were 
 gone; she was no longer a gawky child; she was a young 
 lady in a loose, soft, rough blue coat, with a black quill 
 in her soft blue hat. 
 
 England received her wandering son coolly, but 
 Rachael never knew it. Her radiant dream or was 
 it an awakening? went on. Her mother, a neat, faded, 
 querulous little woman, whose one great service was in 
 sparing her husband any of the jars of life, was keyed to 
 frantic anxiety lest Jerry be unappreciated, now that 
 he had come back. Clara met the few men to whom 
 her husband introduced her in London with feverish 
 eagerness; afraid after fifteen years to say one word 
 that might suggest her own concern in Jerry's future, 
 quivering to cross-examine him, when they were alone, 
 as to what had been said, and implied, and suggested. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 45 
 
 Nothing definite followed. They lived for a month 
 or two at a delightful roomy boarding-house in London, 
 where the modest meals Clara ordered appeared as if 
 by magic, and where Miss Fairfax never sullied her 
 pretty hands with dishwashing. Then they went to 
 visit "Aunt Elsie" in a suburban villa for several 
 weeks, a visit Rachael never thought of afterward 
 without a memory of stuffy, neat, warm rooms, and a 
 gushing of canaries' voices. Then they went down to 
 Sussex, in the delicious fullness of spring, to live with 
 several other persons in a dark country house, where 
 "Cousin Harold" died, and there was much odorous 
 crepe and a funeral. Cousin Harold evidently left 
 something to Gerald. Rachael knew money was not 
 an immediate problem. Hot weather came, and they 
 went to the seaside with an efficient relative called 
 Ethel, and Ethel's five children. Later, back in Lon- 
 don, Gerald said, in his daughter's hearing, that he 
 had made "rather a good thing of that little game of 
 Bobbie's. Enough to tide us over what? Especially 
 if the Dickies ask us down for a bit," he had added. 
 The Dickies did ask them down for a bit. They went 
 other places. Gerald made a little money on the 
 races, made "a good thing" of this, and "turned a bit 
 over on that." Weeks made months and months 
 years, and still they drifted cheerfully about, Gerald 
 happier than he had ever been in exile, Clara fearful,! 
 admiring, ill at ease, Rachael in a girl's paradise. 
 
 She grew beautiful, with a fine and distinguished 
 beauty definite in its appeal; before she was seven- 
 teen she had her little reputation for it; she moved 
 easily into a circle higher than even her father had 
 ever known. She was witty, young, lovely, and in this 
 happier atmosphere her natural gayety and generosity 
 might well develop. She went about continually, and 
 every year the circle of her friends was widened by more 
 distinguished names. 
 
 At seventeen Mrs. Gouveneur Pomeroy of New York 
 brought the young beauty back with her own daughter. 
 
46 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Persis, for a winter in the great American city, and 
 when Persis died Rachael indeed became almost as 
 dear to the stricken parents. When she went back to 
 London they gave her not only gifts but money, and 
 for two years she returned to them for long visits. So 
 America had a chance to admire the ravishing Miss 
 Fairfax, too, and Rachael had many conquests and one 
 or two serious affairs. The girls had their first dances 
 at the Belvedere Club; Rachael met them all, who were 
 later to be her neighbors: the Morans and Parmalees, 
 the Vanderwalls and the Torrences, and the Chases. 
 She met Clarence Breckenridge and his wife, and the 
 exquisitely dressed little girl who was Billy to-day. 
 
 And through all her adventures she looked calmly, 
 confidently, and with conscious enjoyment for a hus- 
 band. She flirted a little, and danced and swam and 
 drove and played golf and tennis a great deal, but she 
 never lost sight for an instant of the serious business of 
 life. Money she must have it was almost as essential 
 to her as air and money she could only secure through 
 a marriage. 
 
 The young Englishman who was her first choice, in 
 her twentieth year, had every qualification in the 
 world. When he died, two or three months before the 
 wedding-day, Rachael's mother was fond of saying in 
 an aside to close friends that the girl's heart was 
 broken. Rachael, lovely in her black, went down to 
 stay with Stephen's mother, and for several weeks was 
 that elderly lady's greatest comfort in life. Silent and 
 serious, her manner the perfection of quiet grief, only 
 Rachael herself knew how little the memory of Stephen 
 interfered with her long reveries as she took his collies 
 about in the soft autumn fogs. Only Rachael knew 
 how the sight of Trecastle Hall, the horses, the servants, 
 and the park filled her heart with despair. She might 
 have been Lady Trecastle! All this might so easily 
 have been her own! 
 
 She had loved Stephen, of course, she told herself; 
 loving, with Rachael, simply meant a willingness to 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 47 
 
 accept and to give. But love was of course a luxury; 
 she was after the necessities of life. Well, she had 
 played and lost, but she could play again. So she went 
 to the Pomeroys' for the winter, and in the spring was 
 brought back to London by her father's sudden 
 death. 
 
 Gerald Fairfax's life insurance gave his widow a far 
 more secured income than he had ever given his wife. 
 It was microscopic, to be sure, but Clara Fairfax was 
 a practised economist. The ladies settled in Paris, and 
 Rachael was seriously considering a French marriage 
 when, by the merest chance, in the street one day, a 
 small homesick girl clutched at her thin black skirt, 
 and sent her an imploring smile. Rachael, looking 
 graciously down from under the shade of her frilly 
 black parasol, recognized the little Breckenridge girl, 
 obviously afflicted with a cold and lonesomeness and 
 strangeness. Enslaving the French nurse with three 
 perfectly pronounced sentences, Rachael went home 
 with the clinging Carol, put her to bed, cheered her 
 empty little interior with soup, soothed her off to sleep, 
 and was ready to meet her crazed and terrified father 
 with a long lecture on the care of young children, when, 
 after an unavoidable afternoon of business, he came 
 back to his hotel. 
 
 The rest followed. Rachael liked Clarence, finding 
 it agreeable that he knew how to dress, how to order 
 a dinner, tip servants, and take care of a woman in 
 a crowd. His family was one of the oldest in Amer- 
 ica, and he was rich. She was sorry that Billy's mother 
 was living, but then one couldn't have everything, 
 and, after all, she was married again, which seemed 
 to mitigate the annoyance. Rachael said to herself 
 that this was a wiser marriage than the proposed 
 one with poor Stephen: Stephen had been a wild, ro- 
 mantic boy, full of fresh passion and dazed with 
 exultant dreams; Clarence was a man, longing less 
 for moonshine and roses and the presence of his be- 
 loved one than for a gracious, distinguished woman 
 
48 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 who would take her place before the world as mistress 
 of his home and guardian of his child. 
 
 She had sometimes doubted her power to make 
 Stephen happy Stephen, who talked with all a boy's 
 heavenly shyness of long days tramping the woods and 
 long nights over the fire, of little sons and daughters 
 romping in the Trecastle gardens; but she entered into 
 her marriage with Clarence Breckenridge with entire 
 self-confidence. She had been struggling more or less 
 definitely all her life toward just such a position as this; 
 it was a comparatively easy matter to fill it, now that 
 she had got it. 
 
 Carol she considered a decided asset. The child 
 adored her, and her services to Carol were so mudi 
 good added to the beauty, charm, and wisdom that she 
 brought into the bargain. That Clarence could ask 
 more in the way of beauty, wisdom, and charm was not 
 conceivable; Rachael knew her own value too well to 
 have any doubts on that score. 
 
 And had her husband been a strong man, her dignified 
 and ripened loveliness must inevitably have won him. 
 She stood ready to be won. She held to her bond in all 
 generosity. What heart and soul and body could do 
 for him was his to claim. She did not love him, but she 
 did not need love's glamour to show her what her exact 
 value to him might be; what was her natural return for 
 all her marriage gave her. 
 
 But quick-witted and cold-blooded as she was, she 
 could not see that Clarence was actually a little afraid 
 of her. He had been top rich all his life to count his 
 money as an argument in his favor, and although he 
 was not clever he knew Rachael did not love him, and 
 hardly supposed that she ever could. 
 
 He felt with paternal blindness that she had married 
 him partly for the child's sake, and returned to the 
 companionship of his daughter with a real sense of 
 relief. 
 
 Rachael, in turn, was puzzled. Carol was unde- 
 niably a pretty child, with all a spoiled child's confi- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 49 
 
 dent charm, but in all good-natured generosity Rachael 
 could not see in her the subtle and irresistible fascina- 
 tions that her father so eagerly exploited. Surely no 
 girl of ten, however gifted, could be reasonably supposed 
 to eclipse completely the woman Rachael knew herself 
 to be; surely no parental infatuation could extend itself 
 to the point of a remarriage with the bettering of a 
 small child's position alone the object. 
 
 Philosophy came promptly to the aid of the new-made 
 wife. Billy was a child, and Clarence a greater child, 
 The situation was annoying, was belittling to her own 
 pride, but she would meet it with dignity nevertheless. 
 After all, the visible benefits of the marriage were still 
 hers: the new car, the new furs, the new and wonderful 
 sense of financial ease, of social certainty. 
 
 She schooled herself to listen with an indulgent smile 
 to her husband's fond rhapsodies about his daughter. 
 She agreed amiably that Billy would be a great beauty, 
 a heart-breaker, that "the little monkey had all the 
 other women crazy with jealousy now, by Jove!" She 
 selected the little gowns and hats in which the radiant 
 Billy went off for long days alone with "Daddy," and 
 she presently graciously consented to share the little 
 girl's luxurious room because Billy sometimes awak- 
 ened nervously at night. Rachael had been accus- 
 tomed to difficulties in dealing with the persons nearest 
 her; she met them resolutely. Sometimes a baffling 
 sense of failure smote the surface of her life, like a cold 
 wind that turns to white metal the smooth waters of a 
 lake, but she held her head proudly above it, and even 
 Clarence and his daughter never guessed what she 
 endured. What did it matter? Rachael asked herself 
 wearily. She had not asked for love. She had reso- 
 lutely exchanged what she had to give for what she had 
 determined to get; Clarence had made no blind protesta- 
 tions, had expected no golden romance. He admired 
 her; she knew he thought it was splendid of her to man- 
 age the engagement and marriage with so little fuss; 
 perhaps his jaded pulses fluttered a little when Rachael. 
 
50 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 exquisite in her bridal newness, stooped at the railway 
 station to give the drooping Billy a good-bye kiss, and 
 promise that in three days they would be back to rescue 
 her from the hated governess; but paramount above all 
 other emotions, she suspected, was the tremendous 
 satisfaction of having gained just the right woman to 
 straighten out his tangled domestic affairs, just the 
 mother, as the years went by, to do the correct thing 
 for Billy. 
 
 Of some of these things the woman who sat idly be- 
 fore the library fire was thinking, as the quiet evening 
 wore on, and the purring of the flames and the ticking 
 of the little mantel clock accented rather than dis- 
 turbed the stillness. She was unhappy with a cold, 
 dry wretchedness that was deeper than any pang of 
 passion or of hate. The people she met, the books she 
 read, the gowns she planned so carefully, and the social 
 events that were her life, all all were dust and ashes. 
 Clarence was less a disappointment and a shame to her 
 than an annoyance; he neglected her, he humiliated her, 
 true, but this meant infinitely less than that he bored 
 her so mercilessly. Billy, with her youthful complacen- 
 cies and arts, bored her; the sympathy of a few close 
 friends bored her as much as the admiration and envy 
 of the many who were not close. Cards, golf, din- 
 ners, and dances bored her. Rachael thought to- 
 night of a woman she had known closely, a beautiful 
 woman, too, and a rich and gifted woman, who, not 
 many months ago, had quietly ended it all, had been 
 found by horrified maids in her gray-and-silver boudoir 
 lovelier than ever, in fixed and peaceful beauty, with 
 the soft folds of her lacy gown spreading like the petals 
 of a great flower about her and the little gleam of an 
 empty bottle in her still, ringed hand. . . . 
 
 A voice broke the library stillness. Rachael roused 
 herself. 
 
 "What is it, Helda?" she asked. "Doctor Gregory? 
 Ask him to come in. And ask Alfred is Alfred still 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 51 
 
 downstairs ? ask him to go up and see if Mr. Brecken- 
 ridge is awake. 
 
 "This is very decent of you, Greg," she said, a mo- 
 ment later, as the doctor came into the room. "It 
 doesn't seem right to interfere with your dinner for 
 the same old stupid thing!" 
 
 "Great pleasure to do anything for you, Rachael," 
 the newcomer said promptly and smilingly with the al- 
 most perfunctory courtesy that was a part of Warren 
 Gregory's stock in trade. "You don't call on me often ! 
 I wish you did!" 
 
 She said to herself, as they both sat down before the 
 fire, that it was probably true. Doctor Gregory was 
 notoriously glad of an opportunity to serve his friends. 
 He had not at all regretted the necessity of leaving his 
 dinner partner at the salad for a professional call. He 
 was quite ready to enjoy the Breckenridge sitting-room, 
 the fire, the lamplight, the company of a beautiful 
 woman. Rachael and he knew each other well, almost 
 intimately; they had been friends for many years. 
 She had often been his guest at the opera, had often 
 chaperoned his dinner-parties at the club, for Warren 
 Gregory's only woman relative was his old mother, 
 who was neither of an age nor a type to take any part 
 in his social life. 
 
 He was forty, handsome, dignified, with touches of 
 gray in his close-clipped hair, but no other sign of years 
 in his face or his big, well-built figure. He had clever, 
 fine eyes behind black-rimmed glasses, a surgeon's clever 
 hands, a pleasant voice. He lived with his mother in a 
 fine old house on Washington Square, in New York City, 
 and worked as tirelessly as if he were a penniless be- 
 ginner at his profession instead of a rich man, a rich 
 woman's heir, and already recognized as a genius in 
 his own line. 
 
 All women liked him, and he liked them all. He 
 sent them books, marked essays in magazines for their 
 individual consideration, took them to concerts, re- 
 membered their birthdays. But his only close friends 
 
52 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 were men, the men with whom he played tennis and 
 golf, or with whom he was associated in his work. 
 
 With all his cleverness and all his charm, Warren 
 Gregory was not a romantic figure in the eyes of most 
 women. He had inherited from his old Irish mother a 
 certain mildness, and a lenience, where they were con- 
 cerned. He neither judged them nor idolized them. 
 They belonged only to his leisure hours. His real life 
 was in his club, in his books, and in the hospital world 
 where there were children's tiny bones to set. He 
 was conscious, as a man born in a different circle 
 always is conscious, that he had, by a series of pleasant 
 chances, been pushed straight into the inner heart of 
 the social group whose doors are so resolutely closed 
 to many men and women, and he liked it. His grand- 
 father had had blood but no money, his mother money 
 but no social claim. He inherited, with the O'Connell 
 millions, the Gregory name, and for perhaps ten years 
 he had enjoyed an unchallenged popularity. He had 
 inherited also, without knowing it, a definitely different 
 standard from that held by all the men and women 
 about him. In his simple, unobtrusive way he held 
 aloof from much that they said and did. Greg, said 
 the woman, was a regular Puritan about gossip, about 
 drinking, about gambling. 
 
 They never suspected the truth: that he was shy. 
 Sure of his touch as a surgeon, pleasantly definite 
 about books and pictures, spontaneous and daring in 
 the tennis court or on the links, under his friendly 
 manner with women was the embarrassment of a young 
 boy. 
 
 Before his tenth year his rigidly conscientious mother 
 had instilled into the wondering little-boy mind cer- 
 tain mysterious yet positive moral laws. Purity and 
 self-control were in the air he breathed while at her 
 side, and although a few years later school and college 
 had claimed him, the effect of those early lessons was 
 definite upon his character. Diffidence and a sort of 
 fear had protected him, far more effectually than any 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 53 
 
 other means might have done, from the common vices 
 of his age, and in those days a certain good-natured 
 scorn from all his associates made him feel even more 
 than his natural shyness, and marked him rather apart 
 from other young men. 
 
 Keenly aware of this, it had been a tremendous sur- 
 prise to the young physician, returning from post- 
 graduate work in Germany a few years later, to find 
 that what had once been considered a sort of laughable 
 weakness in him was called strength of character now; 
 that what had been a clumsy boy's inarticulateness 
 was more charitably construed into the silence of a 
 clever man who will not waste his words; and that 
 mothers whose sons he had once envied for their 
 worldly wisdom were turning to him for advice as to the 
 extrication of these same sons from all sorts of difficul- 
 ties. 
 
 Being no fool, he accepted the changed attitude with 
 great readiness, devoting himself to his work and his 
 mother, and pleasantly conscious that he was a success. 
 He let women alone, except where music and art, golf 
 and the club theatricals were the topic of interest, and, 
 consequently, had come to his fortieth year with some 
 little awe and diffidence still left for them in his secret 
 heart. Rachael had told him, not long ago, that she be- 
 lieved he took no interest in women older than fourteen 
 and younger than fifty, and there was some truth in the 
 charge. But he was conscious to-night of taking a 
 distinct interest in her as he sat down beside her 
 fire. 
 
 He had never seen her so beautiful, he thought. 
 She had dressed so hastily, so carelessly, that an utter 
 simplicity enhanced the natural charm. Her dark 
 hair was simply massed, her gown was devoid of orna- 
 ment, her hands bare, except for her wedding-ring. 
 On her earnest, exquisite face the occasion had stamped 
 a certain soberness, she was neither hostess nor guest 
 to-night; just a heartsick wife under the shadow of 
 anger and shame. 
 
54 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Well, what is it to-night?" Warren Gregory asked 
 kindly. 
 
 "Oh, the same old thing, Greg. The Berry Stokes' 
 dinner, you know!" 
 
 "Shame!" the doctor said warmly, touched by her 
 obvious depression. "I'll go up. I can give him some 
 pills. But you know, he can't keep this up forever, 
 Rachael. He's killing himself! " 
 
 In her sensitive mood the mildly reproachful tone 
 was too much. RachaeFs breast rose, her eyes bright- 
 ened angrily. 
 
 "Perhaps you'll tell me what more I can do, Greg!" 
 
 He looked at her in surprise; the shell of Mrs. Breck- 
 enridge's cool reserve was not often pierced. 
 
 "My dear girl " he stammered. "Why, 
 
 Rachael : !" 
 
 For battling with a moment of emotion she had 
 flung her beautiful head back against the brilliant 
 cretonne of the chair, her eyes closed, her hands 
 grasping the chair-arms. A tear slipped from under 
 her lids. 
 
 "I didn't for one second mean " he began again 
 
 uncomfortably. 
 
 Suddenly she straightened herself in her chair, and 
 opened her eyes widely. He saw her lovely breast, 
 under its filmy black chiffon, rise stormily. Her voice 
 was rich with protest. 
 
 "No, you didn't mean anything, Greg, nobody means 
 anything! Nobody is anything but sorry for me: 
 you, Billy, Elinor, the woman who expected us at dinner 
 to-night, the servants at the club!" she said hotly. 
 "Nobody blames me, and yet every one wonders how 
 it happens! Nobody thinks it anything but a little 
 amusing, a little shocking. I am to write the notes, 
 and make the excuses, and be shamed and shamed 
 shamed 
 
 Her voice broke. She rose to her feet, and rested an 
 elbow on the mantel, and stared moodily at the fire. 
 There was a silence, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 55 
 
 "Rachael, I'm sorry!" Gregory said presently, im- 
 pulsively. 
 
 Instantly her April smile rewarded him. 
 
 "I know you are, Greg!" she answered gratefully. 
 "And I know," she added, in a low tone, "that you are 
 one of the persons who will understand when I end it 
 all!" 
 
 "End it all!" he echoed sharply. 
 
 "Not suicide," she reassured him smilingly. She 
 flung herself back in her chair again, holding her white 
 hand, with its ring, between her face and the fire. 
 "No," she said thoughtfully, "I mean divorce." 
 
 There eyes met; both were pale, serious. 
 
 "Divorce!" he echoed, after a pause. "I never 
 thought of it for you ! " 
 
 "I haven't thought of it myself, much," Rachael 
 admitted, with a troubled smile. 
 
 As a matter of fact she had thought of it, since the 
 early days of her marriage, but never as an actual 
 possibility. She had preferred bondage and social 
 position to freedom and the uncomfortable status of 
 the divorced woman. She realized now that she might 
 think of it in a slightly different way. She had been a 
 penniless nobody seven years ago; she was a personage 
 now. The mere fact that he was a Breckenridge would 
 win some sympathy for Clarence, but she would have 
 her faction, too. 
 
 More than that, she would never be younger, never , 
 handsomer, never better able to take the plunge, and 
 face the consequences. 
 
 "I'm twenty-eight, Greg," she said reasonably, "I'm 
 not stupid, I'm not plain don't interrupt me! Is this 
 to be my fate? I'm capable of loving of living 
 I don't want to be bored bored bored for the rest of 
 my life!" | 
 
 Warren Gregory, stunned and surprised, eyed her 5 
 sympathetically. 
 
 " Belvedere Bay bore you? " he asked, smiling a little 
 uneasily. 
 
56 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "No it's not that. I don't want more dinners and 
 dances and jewels and gowns!" Rachael answered 
 musingly. She stared sombrely at the fire, and there 
 was a moment's silence. 
 
 Suddenly her mood changed. She smiled, and lock- 
 ing her hands together, as she leaned far forward in 
 her chair, she looked straight into his eyes. 
 
 "Greg," she said, "do you know what I'd like to be? 
 I'd like to be far away from cities and people, a fisher- 
 man's wife on an ocean shore, with a baby coming 
 every year, and just the delicious sea to watch ! I could 
 be a good wife, Greg, if anybody really loved me ! " 
 
 Laughing as she looked at him, she did not disguise 
 the fact that tears misted her lashes. Warren Gregory 
 felt himself stirred as he had not been before in his life. 
 
 "Well," he said, with an unsteady laugh, "you 
 could be anything! With you for his wife, what 
 couldn't a man do!" 
 
 Hardly conscious of what he did or said, he got to his 
 feet, and she stood, too, smiling up at him. Both were 
 breathing hard. 
 
 "To think," he said, with a sort of repressed violence, 
 "that you, of all women, should be Clarence Brecken- 
 ridge's wife!" 
 
 "Not long!" she answered, in a whisper. 
 
 "You mean that you are really going to leave him, 
 Rachael?" 
 
 "I mean that I must, Greg, if I am not to go mad!" 
 
 "And where will you go ? " she asked. 
 
 "Oh to Vera, to Elinor." She paused, frowning. 
 "Or away by myself," she decided suddenly. "Away 
 from them all!" 
 
 "Rachael," he said quickly, "will you come to my 
 mother?" 
 
 Rachael smiled. "To your mother!" 
 
 He read her incredulity in her voice. 
 
 "But she loves you," he said eagerly. "And she'd 
 be we'd both be so proud to show people to prove 
 that we knew where the right lay!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 57 
 
 "My dear Don Quixote," she answered affection- 
 ately, "I love you for asking me! But I will be better 
 alone. I must think, and plan. Fve made a mess 
 of my life so far, Greg; I must take the next step care- 
 fully!" 
 
 He was clinging to her hands as she stood, in all her 
 grave beauty, before him. 
 
 "If I hadn't been such a bat, Rachael, all those 
 eleven years ago!" he said, daringly, breathlessly. 
 
 "Have we known each other so long, Greg?" 
 
 "Ever since that first visit of yours with little Persis 
 Pomeroy! And I remember you so well, Rachael. I 
 remember that Bobby Governeur was enslaved!" 
 
 " Dear old Bobby ! But I don't remember you, Greg ! " 
 
 "Because I was thirty then, my dear, and you were 
 seventeen! I was just home from four years' work in 
 Germany; I was afraid of girls your age!" 
 
 "Afraid of me ? " The three words were like a 
 caress, like holding her in his arms. 
 
 "I'm afraid so!" he said, not quite steadily. "I'm 
 afraid I've always liked you too well. I I care that 
 you're unhappy, that you're unkindly treated. I I 
 wish I could do something, Rachael." 
 
 "You do do something," she said, deeply stirred in 
 her turn. "I'm you don't know how fond I am of 
 you, Greg!" 
 
 For answer she felt his arms about her, and for a 
 throbbing minute they stood so; Rachael braced lightly, 
 her beautiful breast rising and falling, her breath com- 
 ing quickly. Her magnificent eyes, wide-open, like a 
 frightened child's, were fixed steadily upon him. He 
 caught the fragrance of her hair, of her fresh skin; he 
 felt the softness and firmness of her slender arms. 
 
 "Rachael!" he said, in a sharp whisper. "Don't 
 don't say that if you don't mean it!" 
 
 "Greg!" she answered, in the same tone. "Don't 
 frighten me!" 
 
 Instantly she was free, and he was standing by the 
 fire with folded arms, looking at her. 
 
58 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "You have missed love, and I have missed it," 
 Warren Gregory said presently. "We'll be patient, 
 Rachael. I'll wait; we'll both wait " 
 
 "Greg!" she could only answer still in that stricken 
 whisper, still pale. She stood just as he had left her. 
 
 A silence fell between them. The physician took 
 out a cigarette from his gold case with trembling fingers. 
 
 "I'm a little giddy, Rachael," he said after a moment. 
 "I on my honor I don't know what's happened to me! 
 You're the most wonderful woman in the world I've 
 always thought that but it never occurred to me - 
 the possibility ' 
 
 He paused, confused, unable to find the right words. 
 
 "You've been facing this all alone," he continued 
 presently. "Poor Rachael! You've been splendid 
 wonderfully brave! You have me beside you now; 
 I'll help you if I may. Some day we may find a way 
 out! Well," he finished abruptly, "suppose I go up 
 and see Clarence?" 
 
 For answer she rose, and without speaking again 
 went ahead of him up the stairway and left him at the 
 door of her husband's room. He did not see her again 
 that night. 
 
 Half an hour later he came down, dismissed his car, 
 and walked home under the spring stars. In his veins, 
 like a fire, still ran the excited, glorious consciousness 
 of his madness. In his ears still echoed the wonderful 
 golden voice; he could hear her very words, and he 
 took certain phrases from his memory, and gloated 
 over them as another man might have gloated over 
 strings of pearls: "I'd like to be far away from cities 
 and people, a fisherman's wife on an ocean shore with a 
 baby coming every year and just the delicious sea to 
 watch!" "Greg don't frighten me!" 
 
 Exquisite, desirable, enchanting every inch of her 
 her voice, her eyes, her slender hand with its gold 
 circle. What a woman! What a wife! What radiant 
 youth and beauty and charm and all trampled in the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 59 
 
 mire by Clarence Breckenridge, of all insensate brutes! 
 How could laughter and courage and beauty survive it ? 
 
 He was going to the club, a mile away from the 
 Breckenridge house, but long before the visions born 
 that evening were exhausted, he saw the familiar lights, 
 and the awninged porches, and heard the faint echoes 
 of the orchestra. They were dancing. 
 
 Warren Gregory turned away again, and plunged into 
 the darkness of the roadside afresh. "My dear Don 
 Quixote!" With what a look of motherly amusement 
 and tenderness she had said it. What a woman! He 
 had never kissed her. He had never even thought of 
 kissing Clarence Breckenridge's wife. 
 
 He thought of his mother, tried to forget her with a 
 philosophical shrug, and found that the slender, black- 
 clad, quiet-voiced vision was not to be so easily dis- 
 missed. It was said of old Madam Gregory that she 
 had never been heard to raise her voice in the course of 
 her sixty honored years. Of the four sons she had 
 borne, three were dead, and the husband she had loved 
 so faithfully lay beside them. She was slightly crippled, 
 her outings confined to a slow drive every day. She 
 was solitary in a retinue of servants. But that modu- 
 lated voice and those cool, temperate eyes were still a 
 power. His mother's displeasure was a very real thing 
 to Warren Gregory, and the thought of adding another 
 sorrow to the weight on those thin shoulders was not 
 an easy one for him to entertain. 
 
 It would be a sorrow. Mrs. Gregory was a rigid 
 Catholic, her life's one prayer nowadays was that her 
 beloved son might become one, too. Her marriage 
 at seventeen to a non-Catholic had been undertaken in 
 the firm conviction that faith like hers must win the 
 conversion of her beloved James, the best, the most 
 honorable of men. When her oldest son was born, 
 and given his father's name, she saw, in her husband's 
 willingness to further plans for the baptism, definite 
 cause for hope. Another son was born, there was an- 
 other christening; it was the father's own hand that 
 
60 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 gave the third baby lay-baptism only a few moments 
 before the tiny life slipped back into the eternity from 
 which it had so lately come. 
 
 A year or two later a fourth son was born. Pres- 
 ently the dignified Mrs. Gregory was taking a trio of 
 small, sleek-headed boys to Sunday-school, watching 
 every phase in the development of their awakening 
 souls with terror and with hope. What fears she suf- 
 fered in spirit during those years no one but herself 
 knew. Outwardly, the hospitable, gracious life of the 
 great house went on; the Gregorys were prominent in 
 charities, they opened their mountain camp for the sum- 
 mer, they travelled abroad, they had an audience with 
 the Pope. Time went on, and the twelve-year-old 
 George was taken from them, breaking the father's 
 heart, said the watching world. But there was a 
 strange calm in the mother's eyes as they rested on the 
 dead child's serene face: Heaven had her free offering, 
 now she must have her reward. 
 
 A few months later James Gregory became a convert 
 to her religion. Charles, the second son, had never 
 wavered from his mother's faith, and rejoiced with her 
 in this great event. But the first-born, Warren, as all 
 but his mother called him, to avoid confusion with his 
 father, was a junior in college when these changes 
 took place, and when he came home for the long vaca- 
 tion his mother knew what her cross must be for the 
 years to come. He listened to her with the appalling 
 silence of the nineteen-year-old male, he kissed her, he 
 returned gruff, embarrassed answers to her searching 
 questions of his soul, and he escaped from her with 
 visibly expanding lungs and averted eyes. She knew 
 that she had lost him. 
 
 Men called him a good man, and she assented with 
 dry lips and heavy eyelids. Charles died, leaving a 
 young widow and an infant son, the father shortly fol- 
 lowed, and Warren came home from his interne year, 
 and was a good son to her in her dark hour. When 
 they began to say of him that he would be great, she 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 61 
 
 smiled sadly. "My father was a doctor," she said once to 
 an old friend, "and James inherits it!" But at a mem- 
 ory of her own father, erect and rosy, among his girls and 
 boys in the family pew, she burst into tears. "I would 
 rather have him with his father, with George and 
 Charles, and with my angel Francis, than have him the 
 greatest man that ever lived!" she said. 
 
 But if she had not made him a good Catholic she 
 had made him a good man, and it was a fair and 
 honorable record that Warren Gregory could offer to 
 the woman he loved. Love it had come to him at 
 last. His thoughts went back to Rachael. It seemed 
 to him that he had always known how deeply, how 
 recklessly he loved her. 
 
 He had a thrilling memory of her as Persis Pomeroy's 
 guest, years ago, an awkward, delightful seventeen- 
 year-old, with her hair in two thick braids, looped up 
 at the neck, and tied with a flaring black bow. He 
 remembered watching her, hearing for the first time the 
 delicious voice with its English accent: "Well, I should 
 say it was indeed!" 
 
 "Well, I should say it was indeed!" Across more 
 than ten years he recalled the careless, crisp little an- 
 swer to some comment from Persis, his first precious 
 memory of Rachael. The girls, he remembered, were 
 supposedly too young for a certain dance that was 
 imminent, they were opposing their youthful petulance 
 baffled roses and sunshine to Mrs. Pomeroy's big, 
 placid negatives. Gregory could still see the matron's 
 comfortably shaking head, see Persis attacking again 
 and again like a frantic butterfly, and see "the little 
 English girl," perched on the porch rail, looking from 
 mother to daughter smilingly, with her blue, serious 
 eyes. 
 
 Why had he never thought of her again until Clar- 
 ence Breckenridge brought her back with him, a bride, 
 six years later? Or, rather, having thought of her, as 
 he undoubtedly had, why had he not found the time to 
 cross the water and go to see her? Nothing might 
 
62 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 have come of it, true. But she might have yielded to 
 him as readily as to Clarence Breckenridge! 
 
 "I love her!" he said to himself, and it seemed 
 wonderful, sad, and sweet, joyous and terrible to admit 
 it. "I love her. But she doesn't love me or anyone, 
 poor Rachael! She's forgotten me already!" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 As A matter of fact, Rachael thought about him very 
 often during the course of the next two or three days, 
 and after he had left her that night she could think of 
 nothing else. To the admiration of men she was cheer- 
 fully accustomed; perhaps it would be safe to say that 
 not in the course of the past ten years had she ever 
 found herself alone in a man's company without evok- 
 ing a more or less definite declaration of his admiration 
 for her. But to-night's affair was a little distinctive for 
 several reasons. Warren Gregory was a most excep- 
 tional man, for one thing; he was reputedly a cold- 
 blooded man, for another; and for a third, he had been 
 extraordinarily in earnest. There had been no hesita- 
 tion, he had committed himself wholeheartedly. She 
 was conscious of a pleasurable thrill. However gra- 
 cious, however gallant Warren was, there had been no 
 social pretence in his attitude to-night. 
 
 And for a few moments she let her imagination play 
 pleasantly with the situation. It was at least a new 
 thought, and life had run in a groove for a long, long 
 time. Granted the preliminaries safely managed, it 
 would be a great triumph for the woman whom Clar- 
 ence Breckenridge had ignored to come back into this 
 group as Warren Gregory's wife. 
 
 Rachael got into bed, flinging two or three books 
 down beside her pillow and lighting the shaded lamp 
 that stood at the bedside. She found herself unable 
 to read. 
 
 "Wouldn't Florence and Gardner buzz!" she thought 
 with a smile. "And if they buzzed at the divorce, 
 what wouldn't they say if I really did remarry? But 
 the worst of it is" and Rachael reaching for The Way 
 
 63 
 
64 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 of All Flesh sighed wearily "the worst of it is that 
 one never does carry out plans, or / never do, any more. 
 I used to feel equal to any situation, now I don't 
 getting old, perhaps. I wonder" she stared dreamily 
 at the soft shadows in the big room "I wonder if things 
 are as queer to most people as they are to me? I don't 
 get much joy out of life, as it is, and yet I don't dare 
 cut loose and go away. No maid, no club, living at 
 some cheap hotel no, I couldn't do that! I wish 
 there was someone who could advise me some disin- 
 terested person, someone who well, who loved me, 
 and who knew that I've always tried to be decent, 
 always tried to play the game. All I want is to be 
 reasonably well treated; to have a good time and be 
 among pleasant people " 
 
 Her thoughts wandered about among the various 
 friends whose judgment might serve at this crisis to 
 clear her own thoughts and simplify the road before 
 her. Strangely enough, Warren Gregory's own mother 
 was the first of whom she thought; that pure and au- 
 stere and uncompromising heart would certainly find 
 the way. Whether Rachael had the courage to follow 
 it was another question. She loved old Mrs. Gregory; 
 they were good friends. But Rachael dismissed her 
 with a little shudder, as from the spatter of icy water 
 against her bared breast. The bishop? Rachael and 
 Clarence duly kept a pew in one of the city's fashionable 
 churches; it was the Breckenridge family pew, rented 
 by the family for a hundred years. But they never sat 
 in it, although Rachael felt vaguely sometimes that for 
 reasons undefined they should, and Clarence was apt 
 in moments of sentiment to reproach his wife with the 
 statement that his grandmother had been a faithful 
 church woman, and his mother had always attended 
 church on pleasant mornings in winter. 
 
 But the bishop called on Rachael once a year, and 
 Rachael liked him, and mingled an air of pretty peni* 
 tence for past negligences with a gracious promise 
 of better conduct in future. His Grace was a fine, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 65 
 
 breezy, broadminded man, polished in manner, sym- 
 pathetic, and tolerant. He had not risen to his present 
 eminence by too harsh a rebuke of the sinner. 
 
 His handsome young assistant, Father Graves, as 
 he liked to be called, was far more radical. But a great 
 deal was forgiven this attractive boyish celibate by 
 the women of the Episcopal parish. They enjoyed his 
 scoldings, gave him their confidences, and asked his 
 advice, though they never followed it. His slender, 
 black-clad figure, with the Roman collar, was admired 
 by many bright eyes at receptions and church bazaars. 
 
 Still, Rachael could not somehow consider herself as 
 seriously asking either of these two clergymen for advice. 
 She could see the bishop, fitting finely groomed fingers 
 together, pursing his lips for a judicial reply. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Breckenridge, that Clarence is now 
 passing through a most unfortunate, most lamentable, 
 period in his life is, alas, perfectly true. His mother 
 a lovely woman was one of my wife's dearest 
 friends, one of my own. His first marriage was much 
 against her wishes, poor dear lady, and as my wife 
 was saying the other day had she lived to see him 
 happily married again, and her grandchild in such 
 
 food hands, it could not but have been a great joy to 
 er. Yes. . . . Now, you and I know Clarence 
 know his good points, and know his faults. That's 
 one of the sad things about us poor human beings, we 
 get to know each other so well! And isn't it equally 
 true that we're not patient enough with each other? 
 oh, yes, I know we try. But do we try hard enough? 
 Isn't there generally some fault on both sides, quick 
 words, angry, hasty actions, argument and blame, when 
 we say things we don't mean and that we are sure to 
 regret, eh? We all get tired of the stupid round of 
 daily duty, and of the people we are nearest to that's 
 a sad thing, too. We'd all like a change, like to see if 
 we couldn't do something else better! And so comes 
 the break, and the cloud on a fine old name, and all 
 because we aren't better soldiers we don't want to 
 
66 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 march in line! Bless me, don't I know the feeling my- 
 self? Why, that good little wife of mine could tell you 
 some tales of discouragement and disenchantment 
 ;that would make you open your eyes! But she braces 
 me up, she puts heart into me and the first thing I 
 know I'm marching again!" 
 
 And having comfortably shifted the entire trend of 
 the conversation from his parishioner to himself and 
 found nothing insurmountable in his own problem, the 
 good bishop would chuckle mischievously at finding his 
 eminent self quite human after all, and would suggest 
 their going in to find Mrs. Bishop, and having a cup of 
 tea. These women, always restless and dissatisfied, 
 were a part of his work; he prided himself upon the 
 swiftness and tact with which he disposed of them. 
 
 Rachael's mouth twisted wryly at the thought of 
 him. No, she could not bare her soul to the bishop. 
 
 Nor could she approach Father Graves with any real 
 hope of a helping word. To seek him out in his study 
 that esthetically bare and yet beautiful room, with its 
 tobacco-brown hangings and monastic furnishing in 
 black oak would be to invite mischief. To sit there, 
 with her eloquent eyes fixed upon his, her haunting 
 voice wrapping itself about his senses, would be a gen- 
 uine cruelty toward a harmless, well-intentioned youth 
 whose heroism in abjuring the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil had not yet been great enough to combat his su- 
 perb and dignified egotism. At best, he would be won 
 by Rachael's revelation of her soul to a long and frankly 
 indiscreet talk of his own; at worst, he would construe 
 her confidences in an entirely personal sense, and feel 
 that she came not at all to the priest and all to the 
 man. 
 
 Dismissing him from her councils, Rachael thought of 
 Florence Haviland, the good and kind-hearted and 
 capable matron who was Clarence's sister and only near 
 relative. She and Florence had always been good 
 friends, had often discussed Clarence of late. What 
 sort of advice would Florence's forty-five years be apt 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 67 
 
 to give to Rachael's twenty-eight? "Don't be so ab- 
 surd, Rachael, half the men in our set drink as much as 
 Clarence does. Don't jump from the frying-pan into 
 the fire. Remember Elsie Rowland and Marian 
 Cowles when you talk so lightly of divorce!" 
 
 That would be Florence's probable attitude. Still, 
 it was a bracing attitude, heartily positive, like every- 
 thing Florence did and said. And Florence was above 
 everything else a church member, a prominent Chris- 
 tian in her self-sacrificing wifehood and motherhood, 
 her social and charitable and civic work. She might be 
 unflattering, but she would be right. Rachael's last 
 conscious thought, as she went ofFto sleep, was that she 
 would take the earliest possible moment to extract a 
 verdict from Florence. 
 
 She went into her husband's room at ten o'clock 
 the next morning to find Billy radiantly presiding over 
 a loaded breakfast tray, and the invalid, pale and 
 pasty, and with no particular interest in food evinced 
 by the twitching muscles of his face, nevertheless neatly 
 brushed and shaved, propped up in pillows, and making 
 a visible effort to appear convalescent. 
 
 "How are you this morning?" Rachael asked per- 
 functorily, with her quick glance moving from the books 
 on the table to the wood fire burning lazily behind brass 
 firedogs. Everything was in perfect order, Helda's 
 touch visible everywhere. 
 
 "Fine," Clarence answered, also perfunctorily. His 
 coffee was untouched, and the cigarette in his long 
 holder had gone out, but Billy was disposing of eggs r 
 toast, bacon, and cream with youthful zest. Clar- 
 ence's hot, sick gaze rested almost with hostility upon 
 his wife's cool beauty; in a gray linen gown, with a 
 transparent white ruffle turned back from her white 
 throat, she looked as fresh as the fresh spring morning. 
 
 "Headache?" said the nicely modulated, indifferent 
 voice. 
 
 To this solicitude Clarence made no answer. A 
 
68 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 dark, ugly look came into his face, and he turned his 
 eyes sullenly and wearily away. 
 
 "How was the Chase dinner, Bill?^ pursued the 
 cheerful visitor, unabashed. 
 
 "Same old thing/' Carol answered briefly. 
 
 ''You're not up to the Perrys' lunch to-day, are you, 
 Clancy?" 
 
 "Oh, my God, no!" burst from the sufferer. 
 
 "Well, I'll telephone them. If Florence comes in 
 this morning Fm going to say you're asleep, so keep 
 quiet up here. Do you want to see Greg again ? " 
 
 "No, I don't!" said Clarence, with unexpected vigor. 
 "Steer him off if you can. Preaching at me last night 
 as if he'd never touched anything stronger than malted 
 milk!" 
 
 "I don't imagine I'll have much trouble steering him 
 off," Rachael said coldly. "His Sundays are pretty 
 well occupied without sick calls ! " 
 
 There was a delicate and scornful emphasis on the 
 word "sick" that brought the blood to Clarence Breck- 
 enridge's face. Billy flushed, too, and an angry light 
 flamed into her eyes. 
 
 "That's not fair, Rachael!" the girl said hotly, "and 
 you know it's not!" 
 
 The glances of the three crossed. Billy was breathing 
 hard; Clarence, shakily holding a fresh match to his 
 cold cigarette, sent a lowering look from daughter to 
 wife. Rachael shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Well, Pll have my breakfast," she said, and turning 
 she went from the room and downstairs to the sun- 
 shiny breakfast porch. There were flowers on the little 
 round table, a bright glitter was struck from silver and 
 glass, an icy grapefruit, brimming with juice, stood at 
 her place. The little room was all windows, and to-day 
 the cretonne curtains had been pushed back to show 
 the garden brave in new spring green, the exquisite 
 freshness of elm and locust trees that bordered it, and 
 far away the slopes of the golf green, with the scarlet 
 and white dots that were early players moving over it. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 69 
 
 Sunshine flooded the world, great plumes of white and 
 purple lilac rustled in their tents of green leaves, a bee 
 blundered from the blossoming wistaria vine into the 
 room, and blundered out again. Far off Rachael heard 
 a cock breaking the Sabbath stillness with a prolonged 
 crow, and as the clock in the dining-room chimed one 
 silver note for the half-hour, the bells of the church 
 in the little village of Belvedere Bay began to ring. 
 
 Of the comfort, the beauty, and the harmony of 
 all this, however, Rachael saw and felt nothing. Her 
 brief interview with her husband had left a bitter taste 
 in her mouth. She felt neither courage nor appetite 
 for the new day. Annie carried away the blue bowl of 
 porridge untouched, reporting to Ellie: "She don't 
 want no eggs, nor sausage, nor waffles nothing more!" 
 
 Ellie, the cook, who boarded a four-year-old daughter 
 with the gardener and his wife, at the gate-lodge, was 
 deep in the robust charms of this young person, and not 
 sorry to be uninterrupted. 
 
 "Thank goodness she don't," she said. "Do you 
 want a little waffle all for yourself, Lovey? Do you 
 want to pour the batter into Ma's iron yourself? Pin 
 a napkin round her, Annie! An* then you can eat it 
 out on the steps, darlin', because it just seems to be a 
 shame to spend a minute indoors when God sends us a 
 mornin' like this!" 
 
 "It must have been grand, walking to church this 
 morning, all right," said Alfred, who was busy with golf 
 sticks and emery on the vine-shaded porch. 
 
 "It was!" said Ellie and Annie together, and Annie 
 added : " Rose from Bowditch's was there, and she says 
 she can't get away but about once a month. She al- 
 ways has to wait on the children's breakfast at eight, 
 and then down comes the others at half-past nine, or 
 later, the way she never has a moment until it's too late 
 for High! I told her she had a right to look for another 
 place!" 
 
 "There's worse places than this," Ellie said, watch- 
 ing her small daughter begin on her waffle. A general 
 
70 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 nodding of heads in a contented silence indicated that 
 there was some happiness in the Breckenridge household 
 even though it was below stairs. 
 
 Rachael's sombre revery was presently interrupted 
 by the smooth crushing of wheels on the pebbled drive 
 and the announcement of Mrs. Haviland, who followed 
 her name promptly into the breakfast-room. A fine, 
 large, beautifully gowned woman, with a prayer book 
 in her white-gloved hand, and a veil holding her close, 
 handsome spring hat in place, she glanced at the coffee 
 and hot bread with superiority only possible to a per- 
 son whose own breakfast is several hours past. 
 
 "Rachael, you lazy woman!" said Florence Havi- 
 land lightly, breathing deep, as a heavy womafi in tight 
 corsets must perforce breathe on a warm spring morn- 
 ing. " Do you realize that it's almost eleven o'clock ? " 
 
 "Perfectly!" Mrs. Breckenridge said. "I slept until 
 nine, and felt quite proud of myself to think that I had 
 got through so much of the day!" 
 
 Mrs. Haviland gave her a sharp look in answer, not 
 quite disapproving, yet far from pleased. 
 
 " I started the girlies off to eight o'clock service," she 
 said capably. "Fraulien went with them, and that leaves 
 the maids free to go when they please." This was one 
 of Mrs. Haviland's favorite illusions. "Gardner begged 
 off this morning, he's been so good about going lately that 
 I couldn't very well refuse, so I started early and have 
 just dropped him at the club." 
 
 "Was Gardner at the Berry Stokes bachelor dinner 
 on Friday night?" asked Rachael. Mrs. Haviland was 
 ^all comprehension at once. 
 
 "No, he couldn't. Mr. Payne of the London 
 branch was here you know, and Gardner's been terri- 
 bly tied. He left yesterday, thank goodness. Clar- 
 ence went of course? Oh, dear, dear, dear!" 
 
 The last three words came on a gentle sigh. Clar- 
 ence's sister compressed her lips and shook her hand- 
 some head 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 71 
 
 "Is he very bad?" she asked reluctantly. 
 
 "Pretty much as usual," Rachael answered philo- 
 sophically. "I had Greg in." And suddenly, unex- 
 pectedly, she felt a quick happy flutter at her heart, 
 and a roseate mist drifted before her eyes. 
 
 "It's disgraceful!" Mrs. Haviland said, eying Rachael 
 hopefully for a wifely denial. As this was not forth- 
 coming, she went on briskly: "However, my dear, 
 Clarence isn't the only one! They say Fred Bowditch 
 is actually" her voice sank to a discreet undertone 
 as she added the word "violent; and poor Lucy 
 Pickering needed a rest cure the moment she got her 
 divorce, she was in such a nervous state. I'm not de- 
 fending Clarence " 
 
 "What are you doing, then?" Rachael asked, with 
 her cool smile. 
 
 "Well, I " Mrs. Haviland, who had been drift- 
 ing comfortably along on a tide of words, stopped, a 
 Jittle at a loss. "I hope I don't have to defend your 
 own husband to you, Rachael," she said reproachfully. 
 
 " I'm getting pretty tired of it," said Rachael moodily. 
 
 Mrs. Haviland watched the downcast beautiful face 
 opposite her with a sense of growing alarm. 
 
 "My dear," she said impressively, "of course it's 
 hard for you; we all know that. But just at this time, 
 Rachael, it would be absolutely fatal to have any open 
 break with Clarence " 
 
 Rachael flung up her head impatiently, then dropped 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 "I don't want any open break," she muttered. 
 
 "You do? Oh, you don't?" Mrs. Haviland ques- 
 tioned anxiously. "No, of course you don't. He's 
 not himself now, for several reasons. For one and 
 that's what I specially came to speak to you about for 
 one thing, he's terribly worried about Carol. Carol," 
 repeated Mrs. Haviland significantly, "and Joe Pick- 
 ering." 
 
 Rachael raised sombre eyes, but did not speak. 
 
 "Is Carol here?" her aunt asked delicately. 
 
72 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 " Dressing," Rachael answered briefly. 
 
 "Do you realize," Mrs. Haviland said, "that every- 
 one is beginning to talk ? " 
 
 "Perfectly," Rachael admitted. "But what do you 
 expect me to do ? " 
 
 "Something must be done," said the other woman 
 firmly. 
 
 By whom?" Rachael countered lightly. 
 
 "Well by Clarence, I suppose," Mrs. Haviland 
 suggested discontentedly. 
 
 "Clarence!" Rachael's tone was but a scornful 
 breath. Her glance toward the ceiling evoked more 
 clearly than any words a vision of Clarence's condition 
 at the moment. 
 
 "Well, I suppose he can't do anything just now, any- 
 way," his sister conceded ruefully. "Can't you 
 couldn't you talk to her, Rachael?" 
 
 "Talk to her?" Mrs. Breckenridge smiled at some 
 memory. "My dear Florence, you don't suppose I 
 haven't talked to her!" 
 
 "Well, I suppose of course you have," Mrs. Haviland 
 said hastily. "But my dear, it's dreadful! People 
 are beginning to ask questions; a reporter we don't 
 know who he was telephoned Gardner. Of course 
 Gardner hung up 
 
 "I can say no more than I have said," Rachael ob- 
 served thoughtfully. "What authority have I? Clar- 
 ence could influence her, I think, but she lies simply 
 and flatly to Clarence." 
 
 Mrs. Haviland winced at the ugly word. 
 
 "Joe drinks," Rachael went on, "but he doesn't 
 drink as much as her adored Daddy does. Joe is thirty- 
 nine and Billy is seventeen well, that's not his fault. 
 Joe is divorced well, but Carol's mother is living, and 
 Clarence's second wife isn't exactly ostracised by 
 society! A clergyman of your own church married 
 
 Clarence and me " The little scornful twist of the 
 
 beautiful mouth stung a church woman conscious of 
 personal integrity, and Mrs. Haviland said : 
 
THE HEAKT OF HACHAEL 73 
 
 "A great many of them won't! The church is going 
 to take a stand in the matter. The bishops are consid- 
 ering a canon. ..." 
 
 Mrs. Breckenridge shrugged her shoulders indiffer- 
 ently. Theology did not interest her. 
 
 "And as Billy is too young and too blind to see that 
 Joe isn't a gentleman," she continued, "or to realize 
 that Lucy got her divorce against his will, to believe 
 that her money might well influence a gentleman of 
 Joe's luxurious tastes and dislike for office work why, 
 I suppose they will be married ! " 
 
 "Never!" said Florence Haviland, with some heat 
 "Don't!" 
 
 "Unless Clarence shoots him," submitted Rachael. 
 A look of intense anxiety clouded Mrs. Haviland's eyes. 
 
 "I believe he would," she said, in a wretched whis- 
 per, with a cautious glance about. 
 
 "He might," his wife said seriously. "If ever it 
 comes to that, we shall simply have to keep them apart. 
 You see Billy the clever little devil 
 
 "Oh, Rachael, don't use such words!" said the church 
 woman. " Father Graves was saying only the other day 
 that one's speech should be 'yea, yea' and " 
 
 "I daresay!" Mrs. Breckenridge's smile was indul- 
 gent. It had been many years since Florence had 
 succeeded in ruffling her. "Billy, then," she resumed, 
 "keeps her father happy in the thought that he is all 
 the world to her, and that her occasional chats with 
 Joe are of an entirely uplifting and impersonal char- 
 
 acter." 
 
 "Impersonal! Uplifting!" Mrs. Haviland repeated 
 indignantly. "There wasn't very much uplift about 
 them the other night. Gardner and I stopped in to see 
 if we couldn't take you to the Hoyts', but you'd gone. 
 Carol had on that flame-colored dress of hers, her 
 hair was fluffed all over her ears in that silly way the 
 girls do now; Joe couldn't take his eyes off her. The 
 only light they had in the drawing-room was the yellow 
 lamp and the fire; it was the coziest thing I ever saw!" 
 
74 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Vivvy Sartoris was here!" Rachael said quickly. 
 
 "Don't you believe it, my dear!" Mrs. Haviland re 
 turned triumphantly. "Carol was very demure, 
 'Tante' this and 'Tante' that, but I knew right away 
 that something was amiss! 'Oh/ I said right out 
 flatly, 'are you alone here, Carol?' and she answered 
 very prettily: 'Vivian was to be here, but she hasn't 
 come yet!' This was after half-past seven." 
 
 "I understood Vivian was here," said Rachael, flush- 
 ing darkly. "Let me see the next morning where 
 was I? Oh, yes, it was your luncheon, and Billy had 
 gone out for some tennis when I came downstairs. I 
 supposed of course but I didn't ask. I did ask Helda 
 what time she had let the gentleman out and she 
 said before eleven not much after half-past ten, in 
 fact." 
 
 "You see, we mustn't go on suppositions and half- 
 truths any more," said Mrs. Haviland in delicate re- 
 proach. "When we have that wonderful and delicate 
 thing, a girl's soul, to deal with, we must be sure" 
 
 "I suppose I'd better tell Clarence that about Wed- 
 nesday night," Rachael said, downing with some effort 
 an impulse to ask Florence not to be so smug. 
 
 "Well, I think you had," the other agreed, with visi- 
 ble relief. 
 
 "As for me," Mrs. Breckenridge said, nettled by her 
 sister-in-law's attitude, and mischievously interested in 
 the effect of her thunderbolt, "I'm just desperately 
 tired of it. I can't see that I'm doing Clarence, or 
 Billy, or myself, any good! I'd like to resign, and let 
 somebody else try for a while!" 
 
 Steel leaped into Mrs. Haviland's light-blue eyes. 
 She felt the shock in every fibre of body and soul, but 
 she flung herself gallantly into the charge. Her large 
 form straightened, her expression achieved a certain 
 remoteness. 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "The usual thing, I suppose," Rachael answered in* 
 differently. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 75 
 
 The older woman, watching her closely, essayed a 
 brief, dry laugh. 
 
 "Don't talk absurdities," she said boldly. But 
 Rachael saw the uneasiness under the assured manner, 
 and smiled to herself. 
 
 "It's not absurd at all," she protested, still with her 
 smiling, half-negligent air; "I've put it off years longer 
 than most women would; now I'm getting rather 
 tired.'; 
 
 "It's a great mistake to talk that way, whether you 
 mean it or not," Mrs. Haviland said, after an uncom- 
 fortable moment, during which her face flushed, and 
 her breath began to come rather fast. "But you're 
 joking, of course; you're too sensible to take any step 
 that would only plunge you into fresh difficulties. Clar- 
 ence is very trying, I know we all know that but 
 let's try to face the situation sensibly, and not fly off 
 the handle like this! Why, Rachael dear, I can hardly 
 believe it's your cool-headed, reasonable self talking," 
 she went on more quietly. "Don't don't even think 
 about it! In the first place, you couldn't get it!" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I could. Clarence wouldn't contest it," 
 Rachael said. "He'd agree to anything to be rid of me. 
 If not if he wouldn't agree to my filing suit under the 
 New York law, I could establish my residence in Cali- 
 fornia or Nevada, and bring suit there. ..." 
 
 Mrs. Haviland gasped. 
 
 "Give up your home and your car and your maids 
 for some small hotel?" she questioned, with her favor- 
 ite air of neatly placing her fingertip upon the weak 
 spot in her opponent's armor. "No clubs, no din- 
 ners, none of your old friends have you thought of 
 that?" 
 
 "You may imagine that I've thought of it from a 
 good many angles, Florence," Rachael said coldly, 
 finding that what had been a mere drifting idea was 
 beginning to take rather definite form in her mind. It 
 was delightful to see the usually complacent and dom- 
 ineering Florence so agitated and at a loss, 
 
76 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I never dreamed " Mrs. Haviland mused 
 
 dazedly. " How long, in Heaven's name, have you been 
 thinking about it?" 
 
 "Oh, quite some time," said Rachael. 
 
 "Well, it's awful!" the other woman said. "It'll 
 make the most awful and as if poor Clarence hadn't 
 been all through it all once! I declare it makes me sick! 
 But I can't believe you're serious. Rachael, think 
 think what it means!" 
 
 "It's a very serious thing," the other assented 
 placidly. "But Clarence has no one but himself to 
 blame." 
 
 "Only Clarence won't be blamed, my dear; men never 
 are!" Mrs. Haviland suggested unkindly. Rachael 
 reddened. 
 
 "/ don't care what they say or whom they blame!" 
 she answered proudly. 
 
 "Ah, well, my dear, we aren't any of us really indiffer- 
 ent to criticism," the older woman said, watching 
 closely the effect of her words. "People are censori- 
 ous it's too bad, it's a pity but there you are. * There 
 must have been something we didn't understand/ 
 they say, 'there must be another man!' 3 
 
 Rachael raised her head a little, and managed a smile. 
 
 "That's what they say," Mrs. Haviland went on, 
 mildly triumphant. "And no matter how brave or how 
 independent a woman is, she doesn't like that.' 9 There 
 came to the speaker suddenly, under her smooth flow of 
 words, a sickening shock of realization: it was of 
 Rachael and Clarence she was speaking, her nearest 
 relatives; it was one of the bulwarks of her world that 
 was threatened! Without her knowledge her tone 
 became less sure and more sincere. "For God's sake, 
 think what you are doing, dear," she said pleadingly; 
 "think of Carol and of us all! Don't drag us all 
 through the papers again! I know what Clarence is, 
 poor wretched boy; he's always had too much money, 
 he's always had his own way. I know what you put 
 up with week in and week out " 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 77 
 
 Mrs. HavilancTs usual attitude of assured superiority 
 never impressed her sister-in-law. Her pompous mag- 
 nificence was a source of unmitigated amusement to 
 Rachael. But now the older woman's emotion had 
 carried her on to genuine and honest expression in spite 
 of herself, and listening, Rachael found herself curiously 
 stirred. She looked down, conscious of a sudden melt- 
 ing in her heart, a thickening in her throat. 
 
 "I've always been so fond of you, Rachael," Florence 
 went on. "I've always stood your friend you know 
 that- 
 
 "I know," Rachael said huskily, her lashes dropped. 
 
 "Long before I knew how much you would be liked, 
 Rachael, and what a fuss people were going to make over 
 you, I made you welcome," continued Florence simply, 
 with tears in her eyes. "I thanked God that Clarence 
 had married a good woman, and that Carol would have 
 a refined and a I may say a Christian home. Isn't 
 that true?" 
 
 "I know," Rachael said again with an effort, as she 
 paused. 
 
 "Then think it over," besought the other woman 
 eagerly. "Think that Carol will marry, and that Clar- 
 ence Her ardent tone dropped suddenly. There 
 was a moment's pause. Then she added dryly, "How 
 do, dear?" 
 
 "How do, Tante Firenze!" said Carol, who had come 
 abruptly into the room. "How are the girls? Say, 
 listen ! Is Isabelle going to the Bowditches' ? " 
 
 "I don't even know that Charlotte is going," Mrs. 
 Haviland said, with an auntly smile of baffling sweet^ 
 ness that yet contained a subtle reproof. "Uncle 
 Gardner and I haven't made up our minds. Isabelle 
 in any case would only go to look on, so she is not so 
 much interested, but poor Charlotte is simply on ten- 
 terhooks to know whether it's to be yes or no. Girls' 
 first parties" her indulgent smile included Rachael 
 "dear me, how important they seem!" 
 
 "I should think you'd have to answer Mrs. Bow- 
 
78 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ditch," said Carol in plain disgust at this maternal 
 vacillation. 
 
 "Mrs. Bpwditch is fortunately an old enough friend, 
 dear, to waive the usual formalities," her aunt answered 
 sweetly. 
 
 "But, my gracious Charlotte's two months older 
 than I am, and she won't know any of the men!" Carol 
 protested. 
 
 "Don't speak in that precocious way, Bill," Rachael 
 said sharply. "You went to yor first dances last 
 winter!" 
 
 Carol gave her stepmother a look conspicuously de- 
 void of affection, and turned to adjust her smart little 
 hat with the aid of a narrow mirror hanging between 
 the glass dining-room doors. 
 
 "You couldn't drop me at the club, on your way to 
 church, Tante?" she presently inquired. And to 
 Rachael she added, with youthful impatience, "I told 
 Dad where I was going!" 
 
 Mrs. Haviland rose somewhat heavily. 
 
 "Glad to. Any chance of you coming to lunch, 
 Rachael? What are your plans?" 
 
 "Thank you, no, woman dear! I may go over to 
 Gertrude's for tea." 
 
 The little group broke up. Mrs. Haviland and her 
 niece went out to the waiting motor car purring on the 
 pebbled drive. Rachael idly watched them out of 
 sight, sighed at the thought of wasting so beautiful a 
 day indoors, and went slowly upstairs. Her husband, 
 comfortably propped in pillows, looked better. 
 
 "Clarence," said she, depositing several pounds of 
 morning papers upon the foot of his bed, "who's Billy 
 lunching with at the club?" 
 
 Clarence picked up the uppermost paper, fixed his 
 eyes attentively upon it, and puffed upon his cigarette 
 for reply. 
 
 "Do you know?" Rachael asked vigorously. 
 
 No answer. Mr. Breckenridge, his eyes still intent 
 upon what he was reading, held his cigarette at arm's 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 79 
 
 length over the brass bowl on the table beside the bed, 
 and dislodged a quarter-inch of ash with his little 
 finger. 
 
 Rachael, briskly setting his cluttered table to rights, 
 gave him an angry glance that, so far as any effect 
 upon him was concerned, was thrown away. 
 
 " Don't be so rude, Clarence," she said, in annoyance. 
 "Billy said you agreed to her going to the club for golf. 
 Who's she with?" 
 
 At last Mr. Breckenridge raised sodden and redshot 
 eyes to his wife's face, moistening his dark and swollen 
 lips carefully ' with his tongue before he spoke. He 
 was a fat-faced man, who, despite evidences of dissipa- 
 tion, did not look his more than forty years. There was 
 no gray in his thin, silky hair, and there still lingered an 
 air of youth and innocence in his round face. This 
 morning he was in a bad temper because his whole body 
 was still upset from the Friday night dinner and drink- 
 ing party, and in his soul he knew that he had cut rather 
 a poor figure before Billy, and that the little minx had 
 taken instant advantage of the situation. 
 
 "I just want to say this, Rachael," Clarence said, 
 with an icy dignity only slightly impaired by the linger- 
 ing influences of drink. " I'm Billy's father, and I under- 
 stand her, and she understands me. That's all that's 
 necessary; do you get me ? " He put his cigarette holder 
 back in his mouth, gripped it firmly between his teeth, 
 and turned again to his paper. " If some of you damned 
 jealous women who are always running around trying 
 to make trouble would let her alone" he went on sulk- 
 ily, "I'd be obliged to you that's all!" 
 
 Rachael settled her ruffles in a big wing-chair with 
 the innocent expression of a casual caller. She took a 
 book from the reading table, and fluttered a few pages 
 indifferently. 
 
 "Listen, Clancy," said she placatingly. "Florence 
 was just here, and she says and I agree that there is 
 no question that Joe Pickering is devoted to Bill. Now, 
 I don't say that Billy is equally devoted " 
 
80 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Ha! Better not!" said Clarence at white heat, one 
 eye watchful over the top of the paper. 
 
 "But I do say," pursued Rachael steadily, "that she 
 is with him a good deal more than she will admit. Yes- 
 terday, for instance, when she was playing tennis with 
 the Parmalees and the Pinckard boy, Kent came up to 
 the house to get some ginger ale. I happened to be 
 dummy, and I went out on the terrace. Joe's horse 
 was down near the courts, and Joe and Billy were sitting 
 there on one of the benches where the others were I 
 don't know. When Kent went down with the ginger 
 ale, Joe got on his horse and went off*. Of course it 
 was only for a few minutes, but Billy didn't say any- 
 thing about it " 
 
 Her voice, with a tentative question in it, rested in 
 air. Clarence turned a page with some rustling of 
 paper. 
 
 "Then Florence says," Rachael went on after a mo- 
 ment, "that when she and Gardner stopped here Wed- 
 nesday night Joe was here, and Vivvie Sartoris wasn't 
 here. Now, of course, I don't know, for I didn't ask 
 Alfred " 
 
 "There you go," said the sick man witheringly. 
 "That's right ask the maids, and get all the servants 
 talking; all come down on the heels of a poor little 
 girl like a pack of yapping wolves! I suppose if she 
 was plain and unattractive I should think you'd be 
 ashamed," he went on, changing his high and querulous 
 key to one of almost priestly authority and reproof. 
 "Upon my word, it's beneath your dignity. My little 
 girl comes to me, and she explains the whole matter. 
 Pickering admires her she can't help that and she 
 has an influence over him. She tells me he hasn't 
 touched a thing but beer for six weeks, just because she 
 asked him to give up heavy drinking. He told her the 
 other day that if he had met her a few years ago, Lucy 
 never would have left him. She's wakened the boy 
 up, he's a different fellow 3 
 
 "All that may be true," Rachael said quickly, the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 81 
 
 color that his preposterous rebuke had summoned to 
 her cheeks still flushing them, "still, you don't want 
 Billy to marry Joe Pickering! You know that sort of 
 
 pity, and that business of reforming a man " She 
 
 paused, but Clarence did not speak. "Not that Billy 
 herself realizes it, I daresay," Rachael added presently, 
 watching the reader's absorbed face for an answering 
 look. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 "Clarence!" she began imperatively. 
 
 Clarence withdrew his attention from the paper with 
 an obvious effort, and spoke in a laboriously polite 
 tone. 
 
 "I don't care to discuss it, Rachael." 
 
 "But " Rachael stopped short on the word. 
 
 Silence reigned in the big, bright room except for the 
 occasional rustle of Clarence's newspaper. His wife 
 sat idle, her eyes roving indifferently from the gayly 
 papered walls to the gayly flowered hangings, the 
 great bowl of daffodils on the bookcase, the portrait of 
 Carol that, youthful and self-conscious, looked down 
 from the mantel. On the desk a later photograph of 
 Carol, in a silver frame, was duly flanked by one of 
 Rachael, the girl in the gown she had worn for her 
 first big dance, the woman looking out from under the 
 narrow brim of a snug winter hat, great furs framing 
 her beautiful face, and her slender figure wrapped in 
 furs. Here also was a picture of Florence Haviland, 
 her handsome face self-satisfied, her trio of homely, 
 distinguished-looking girls about her, and a small 
 picture of Gardner, and two of Clarence's dead mother: 
 one, as they all remembered her, a prim-looking woman 
 with gray hair and magnificent lace on her unfashion- 
 able gown, the other, taken thirty years before, show- 
 ing her as cheerful and youthful, a cascade of ringlets 
 falling over her shoulder, the arm that coquettishly 
 supported her head resting upon an upholstered ped- 
 estal, a voluminous striped silk gown sweeping away 
 from her in rich folds. There was even a picture of 
 
82 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Clarence and Florence when they were respectively 
 eight and twelve, Clarence in a buttoned serge kilt 
 and plaid stockings, his fat, gentle little face framed 
 in damp careful curls, Florence also with plaid stock- 
 ings and a scalloped frock. Clarence sat in a swing; 
 Florence, just behind him, leaned on an open gate, her 
 legs crossed carelessly as she rested on her elbows. 
 And there was a picture of their father, a simple-faced 
 man in an ample beard, taken at that period when 
 photographs were highly glazed, and raised in bas 
 relief. Least conspicuous of all was a snapshot framed 
 in a circle of battered blue-enamel daisies, the picture 
 of a baby girl laughing against a background of dande- 
 lions and meadow grass. And Rachael knew that this 
 was Clarence's greatest treasure, that it went wherever 
 he went, and that it was worn shabby and tarnished 
 from his hands and his lips. 
 
 Sometimes she looked at it and wondered. What a 
 bright-faced, gay little thing Billy had been! Who had 
 set her down in that field, and quieted the rioting eyes 
 and curls and dimples, and anchored the restless little 
 feet, while Baby watched Dad and the black box with 
 the birdie in it? Paula? Once, idly interested in 
 those old days before she had known him, she had 
 asked about the picture. But Clarence, glad to talk 
 of it, had not mentioned his wife. 
 
 "It was before my father died; we were up in 
 the old Maine place," he had said. "Gosh, Bill was 
 cute that day! We went on a drive no motor cars 
 then and took our lunch, and after lunch the kid 
 comes and settles herself in my arms for a nap, if 
 you please! 'Say, look-a-here,' I said, 'what do you 
 think I am a Pullman?' I wanted a smoke, by 
 George! She wasn't two, you know. Her fat little 
 legs were bare, we'd put her into socks, and her face 
 was flushed, and she just looked up at me through her 
 hair and said, 'Ring!' Well, it was good-bye smoke 
 for me! I sang all right, and she cuddled down as 
 pleased as a kitten, and off she went! " 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 83 
 
 To-day Rachael's eyes wandered from the picture 
 to Clarence's face. She tried to study it dispassion- 
 ately, but, still shaken by their recent conversation, 
 and sitting there, as she knew she was sitting there, 
 merely to prove that it had had no effect upon her, 
 she felt this to be a little difficult. 
 
 What sort of a little boy had he been? A fat little 
 boy, of course. She disliked fat little boys. A spoiled 
 little boy, never crossed in any way. His mother made 
 him go to Sunday-school, and dancing school, and to 
 Miss Nesmith's private academy, where he was coaxed 
 and praised and indulged even more than at home. 
 And old Fanny, who was still with Florence, super- 
 intended his baths and took care of his clothes, and 
 ran her finger over the bristles of his toothbrush every 
 morning, to see if he had told her the truth. He rarely 
 did; they used to laugh about those old deceptions. 
 Clarence used to laugh as violently as the old woman 
 when she accused him of occasional kicking and biting. 
 
 Other boys came in to play with him. Was it be- 
 cause of his magic lantern and his velocipede, his un- 
 ending supply of cream puffs and licorice sticks, or 
 because they liked him? Rachael knew only a detail 
 here and there: that he had danced a fancy dance 
 with Anna Vanderwall when he was a fat sixteen, at a 
 Kermess, and that he had given a stag dinner to twenty 
 youths of his own age a few days before he went off 
 to college, and that they had drunk a hundred and 
 fifty dollars' worth of champagne. She knew that his 
 allowance at college was three hundred dollars a month, 
 and that he never stayed within it, and it was old 
 Fanny's boast that every stitch the boy ever wore from 
 the day he was born came from London or Paris. 
 His underwear was as dainty as a bride's; he had his 
 first dress suit at fifteen; at college he had his suite of 
 three big rooms furnished like showrooms, his mono- 
 grammed cigarettes, his boat, and his horse. 
 
 The thought of all these things used to distress his 
 mother when she was old and much alone. She at- 
 
84 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 tempted to belittle the luxury of Clarence's boyhood. 
 She told Rachael that he was treated just as the other 
 boys were. Her conscience was never quite easy about 
 his upbringing. 
 
 "You can't hold a boy too tight, you know, or else 
 he'll break away altogether/' old lady Breckenridge 
 would say to Rachael, sitting before a coal fire in the 
 gloomy magnificence of her old-fashioned drawing- 
 room and pressing the white fingers of one hand against 
 the agonized joints of the other. "I was often severe 
 with Clarence, and he was a good boy until he got 
 with other boys; he was always loving to me. He 
 never should have married Paula Verlaine," she would 
 add fretfully. "A good woman would have overlooked 
 his faults and made a fine man of him, but she was 
 always an empty-headed little thing! Ah, well" 
 and the poor old woman would sigh as she drew her 
 fluffy shawl about her shoulders "I cannot blame 
 myself, that's my great consolation now, Rachael, 
 when I think of facing my Master and rendering an 
 account. I have been heavily afflicted, but I am not 
 the first God-fearing woman who has been visited with 
 sorrow through her children!" 
 
 Clarence had visited his mother often in the weeks 
 that preceded her death, but she did not take much heed 
 of his somewhat embarrassed presence, nor, to Rachael's 
 surprise, did her last hours contain any of those heroic 
 joys that are supposedly the reward of long suffering 
 and virtue. An unexpressed terror seemed to linger 
 in her sickroom, indeed to pervade the whole house; 
 the invalid lay staring drearily at the heavy furnish- 
 ings of her immense dark room, a nurse slipped in and 
 out; the bloody light of the westering sun, falling 
 through stairway windows of colored glass, blazed in 
 the great hallway all through the chilly October after- 
 noons. Callers came and went, there were subdued 
 voices and soft footsteps; flowers came, their wet 
 fragrance breaking from oiled paper and soaked card- 
 board boxes, the cards that were wired to them re- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 85 
 
 sisting all attempts at detachment. Clergymen came, 
 and Rachael imitated their manner afterward, to the 
 general delight. 
 
 On the day before she died Mrs. Breckenridge 
 caught her son's plump cool hand in her own hot one, 
 and made him promise to stop drinking, and to go to 
 church, and to have Carol confirmed. Clarence prom- 
 ised everything. 
 
 But he did not keep his promises. Rachael had not 
 thought he would; perhaps the old lady herself had not 
 thought he would. He was sobered at the funeral, 
 but not sober. Six weeks later all the bills against 
 the estate were in. Florence had some of the family 
 jewels and the family silver, Rachael had some, some 
 was put away for Billy; the furniture was sold, the 
 house rented for a men's club, and a nondescript man, 
 calling upon young Mrs. Breckenridge, notified her 
 that the stone had been set in place as ordered. They 
 never saw it; they paid a small sum annually for keep- 
 ing the plot in order, and the episode of Ada Martin 
 Langhorne Breckenridge's life was over. 
 
 Clarence drank so heavily after that, and squandered 
 his magnificent heritage so recklessly, that people 
 began to say that he would soon follow his mother. 
 But that was four years ago, and Rachael looking dis- 
 passionately at him, where he lay dozing in his pillows, 
 had to admit that he had shown no change in the past 
 four or eight, or twelve years. Like many a better 
 woman, and many a better wife, she wondered if she 
 would outlive him, vaguely saw herself, correct and re- 
 mote, in her new black. 
 
 Involuntarily she sighed. How free she would be! 
 She wished Clarence no ill, but the fact remained that, 
 loose as was the bond between them, it galled and 
 checked them both at every step. Their conversa- 
 tions were embittered by a thousand personalities, 
 they instinctively knew how to hurt each other; a look 
 from Clarence could crush his poised and accomplished 
 wife into a mere sullen shrew, and she knew that it 
 
86 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 took less than a look from her it took the mere exist- 
 ence of her youth and health and freshness to in- 
 furiate him sometimes. At best, their relationship 
 consciously avoided hostility. Rachael was silent, 
 fuming; Clarence fumed and was silent; they sank to 
 light monosyllables; they parted as quickly as possible. 
 Would Clarence like to dine with this friend or that? 
 Rachael didn't think he would, but might as well ask 
 him. No, thank you! he wouldn't be found dead in 
 that bunch. Did Rachael want to go with the Smiths 
 and the Joneses to dine at the Highway, and dance 
 afterward ? Oh, horrors ! no, thank you ! 
 
 It was only when she spoke of Billy that Rachael 
 was sure of his interest and attention, and of late she 
 perforce had for Billy only criticism and disapproval. 
 Rachael read the girl's vain and shallow and pleasure- 
 loving little heart far more truly than her father could, 
 and she was conscious of a genuine fear lest Billy bring 
 sorrow to them all. Society was indulgent, yes, but 
 an insolent and undeveloped little girl like Billy could 
 not snap her fingers at the law without suffering the 
 full penalty. Rachael would suffer, too. Florence and 
 her girls would suffer, and Clarence well, Clarence 
 would not bear it. 
 
 "What an awful mix-up it is!" Rachael thought 
 wearily. "And what a sickening, tiresome place this 
 world is!" 
 
 And then suddenly the thought of Warren Gregory 
 came back, and the new curious sensation of warmth 
 tugged at her heart. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. GARDNER HAVILAND, whirling home in her big 
 car, after church, was hardly more pleased with life 
 than was her beautiful sister-in-law, although she was 
 not quite as conscious of dissatisfaction as was Rachael. 
 Her position as a successful mother, wife, housekeeper, 
 and member of society was theoretically so perfect 
 that she derived from it, necessarily, an enormous 
 amount of theoretical satisfaction. She could find no 
 fault with herself or her environment; she was pleas- 
 antly ready with advice or with an opinion or with a 
 verJict in every contingency that might arise in human 
 affairs, as a Christian woman of unimpeachable moral 
 standing. She knew her value in a hectic and reckless 
 world. She did not approve of women smoking, or of 
 suffrage, but she played a brilliant game of bridge, 
 and did not object to an infinitesimal stake. She 
 belonged to clubs and to their directorates, yet it was 
 her boast that she knew every thought in her chil- 
 dren's hearts, and the personal lives and hopes and 
 ambitions of her maids were as an open book to her. 
 
 Still, she had her moments of weakness, and on 
 this warm day of the spring she felt vaguely dis- 
 appointed with life. RachaeFs hints of divorce had 
 filled her with a real apprehension; she felt a good 
 aunt's concern at Billy's reckless course, and a good 
 sister's disapproval of Clarence and his besetting sin. 
 
 But it was not these considerations that darkened 
 her full handsome face as she went up the steps of her 
 big, widespread country mansion; it was some vaguer, 
 more subtle discontent. She had not dressed herself 
 for the sudden warmth of the day, and her heavy 
 flowered hat and trim veil had given her a headache. 
 
 87 
 
88 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 The blazing sunlight on white steps and blooming 
 flowers blinded her, and when she stepped into the dark, 
 cool hall she could hardly see. 
 
 The three girls were there, well-bred, homely girls, 
 in their simple linens: Charlotte, a rather severe type, 
 eyeglassed at eighteen, her thick, light-brown hair 
 plainly brushed off her face and knotted on her neck, 
 was obviously the opposite of everything Billy was; 
 conscientious, intellectual, and conscious of her own 
 righteousness, she could not compete with her cousin 
 in Billy's field; she very sensibly made the best of her 
 own field. Isabelle was a stout, clumsy girl of sixteen, 
 with a metal bar across her large white teeth, red hair, 
 and a creamy skin. Little Florence was only nine, a 
 thin, freckled, sensitive child, with a shy, unsmiling 
 passion for dogs and horses, and little in common with 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 Their mother had expected sons in every case, and 
 still felt a little baffled by the fact of her children's 
 sex. Charlotte proving a girl, she had said gallantly 
 that she must have a little brother "to play with 
 Charlotte." Isabelle, duly arriving, probably played 
 with Charlotte much more amiably than a brother 
 would have done, and Mrs. Haviland blandly accepted 
 her existence, but in her heart she was far from feeling 
 satisfied. She was, of course, an absolutely competent 
 mother to girls, but she felt that she would have been 
 a more capable and wonderful mother to boys. 
 
 More than six years after Isabelle' s birth Florence 
 Haviland began to talk smilingly of "my boy." " Gard- 
 ner worships the girls," she said, with wifely indulgence, 
 "but I know he wants a son and the girlies need a 
 brother!" A resigned shrug ended the sentence with: 
 "So I'm in for the whole thing again!" 
 
 It was said that Mrs. Haviland greeted the news that 
 the third child was a daughter with a mechanically 
 bright smile, as one puzzled beyond all words by per- 
 verse event, and that her spoken comment was the 
 single mild ejaculation: "Extraordinary!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 89 
 
 Now the two older Haviland girls, following their 
 mother into her bedroom, seated themselves there 
 while she changed her dress. Florence junior, in 
 passionate argument with the butler over the death 
 of one of the drawing-room goldfish, remained down- 
 stairs. Mrs. Haviland, casting the hot, high-collared 
 silk upon the bed, took a new embroidered pongee 
 from a box, and busied herself with its unfamiliar 
 hooks and straps. Charlotte and Isabelle were never 
 quite spontaneous in their conversations with their 
 mother, their attitude in talking with her being one 
 of alert and cautious self-consciousness; they did 
 not breathe quite naturally, and they laughed con- 
 stantly. Yet they both loved this big, firm, omnipo- 
 tent being, and believed in her utterly and com- 
 pletely. 
 
 "We met Doctor Gregory and Charlie near the club 
 this morning, M'ma," volunteered Isabelle. 
 
 "And they asked about Mrs. Bowditch's dance," 
 Charlotte added with a little innocent craft. "But 
 I said that M'ma had been unable to decide. Of course 
 I said that we would like to go, and that you knew that, 
 and would allow it if you possibly could." 
 
 "That was quite right, dear," Mrs. Haviland said 
 to her oldest daughter, calmly ignoring the implied 
 question, and to Isabelle she added kindly: "M'ma 
 doesn't quite like to hear you calling a young man you 
 hardly know by his first name, Isabelle. Of course, 
 there's no harm in it, but it cheapens a girl just a little. 
 While Charlotte might do it because she is older, and 
 has seen Charlie Gregory at some of the little informal 
 affairs last winter, you are younger, and haven't really 
 seen much of him since he went to college. Don't 
 let M'ma hear you do that again." 
 
 Isabelle turned a lively scarlet, and even Charlotte 
 colored and was silent. The younger girl's shamed 
 eyes met her mother's, and she nodded in quick em- 
 barrassment. But this tacit consent did not satisfy 
 Mrs. Haviland. 
 
90 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "You understand M'ma, don't you, dear?" she asked. 
 Isabelle murmured something indistinguishable. 
 
 "Yes, M'ma!" said that lady herself, encouragingly 
 and briskly. Isabelle duly echoed a husky "Yes, 
 M'ma!" 
 
 "Did you give my message to Miss Roper, Char- 
 lotte ? " pursued the matron. 
 
 "She wasn't at church, M'ma," said Charlotte, taken 
 unawares and instinctively uneasy. "Mrs. Roper 
 said she had a heavy cold; she said she'd been sleeping 
 on the sleeping porch." 
 
 "So M'ma's message was forgotten?" the mother 
 asked pleasantly. 
 
 Charlotte perceived herself to be in an extremely 
 dangerous position. Long ago both girls had lost, 
 under this close surveillance and skilful system of 
 cross-examination, their original regard for truth as 
 truth. That they usually said what was true was 
 because policy and self-protection suggested it. Char- 
 lotte had time now for a flying survey of the situation 
 and its possibilities before she answered, somewhat 
 uncertainly: 
 
 "I asked Mrs. Roper to deliver it, M'ma. Wasn't 
 
 that " Her voice faltered nervously. "Was it 
 
 something you would have rather telephoned about?" 
 
 "Would rather have telephoned about?" Mrs. Havi- 
 land corrected automatically. "Well, M'ma would 
 rather/^/ that when she sends a message it is given to 
 just the person to whom she sent it, in just the way 
 she sent it. However, in this case no harm was done. 
 Don't hook your heel over the rung of your chair, 
 dear! Ring the bell, Isabelle, I want Alice." 
 
 "I'll hook you, M'ma!" volunteered Charlotte. 
 
 " Thank you, dear, but I want to speak to Alice. 
 And now you girls might run along. I'll be down di- 
 rectly." 
 
 A moment later she submitted herself patiently to 
 the maid's hands. Florence was a conscientious woman, 
 and she felt that she owed Alice as well as herself 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 91 
 
 this little office. Charlotte might have hooked her 
 gown for her; indeed, she might with a small effort 
 have done it herself, but it was Alice's duty, and noth- 
 ing could be worse for Alice, or any servant, than to 
 have her duties erratically assumed by others on one 
 day and left to her on the next. This was the quickest 
 way to spoil servants, and Florence never spoiled her 
 servants. 
 
 "They have a pleasant day for their picnic," she 
 observed now, kindly. Alice was on her knees, her 
 face puckered as she busied herself with the hooks of a 
 girdle, but she smiled gratefully. Her two brothers 
 had borrowed their employer's coal barge to-day, and 
 with a score of cherished associates, several hundred 
 sandwiches, sardines, camp-chairs, and bottles of root 
 beer, with a smaller number of chaperoning mothers 
 and concertinas, and the inevitable baby or two, were 
 making a day of it on the river. Alice had timidly 
 asked, a few days before, for a holiday to-day, that 
 she might join them, but Mrs. Haviland had pointed 
 out to her reasonably that she, Alice, had been at 
 home, unexpectedly, because of her mother's illness, 
 not only the previous Sunday, but the Saturday, too, 
 and had got half-a-day's leave of absence for her 
 cousin's wedding only the week before that. Alice 
 was only eighteen, and her little spurt of bravery had 
 been entirely exhausted long before her mistress's 
 pleasant voice had stopped. Nothing more was said 
 of the excursion until to-day. 
 
 "I guess they'll be eating their lunch, now, at Old 
 Dock Point," said Alice, rising from her knees. 
 
 "Well, I hope they'll be careful; one hears of so 
 many accidents among foolish young people there!" 
 Mrs. Haviland answered, going downstairs to join her 
 daughters in the hall, and, surrounded by them, pro- 
 ceeding to her own lunch. 
 
 For a while she was thoughtfully silent, and the 
 conversation was maintained between the older girls 
 and their governess. Charlotte and Isabelle chatted 
 
92 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 both German and French charmingly. Little Florence 
 presently began to talk of her goldfish, meanwhile 
 cutting a channel across her timbale through which 
 the gravy ran in a stream. 
 
 Usually their mother listened to them with a quiet 
 smile; they were well-educated girls, and any mother's 
 heart must have been proud of them. But to-day 
 she felt herself singularly dissatisfied with them. She 
 said to herself that she hated Sundays, of all the days 
 of the week. Other days had their duties: music, 
 studies, riding, tennis, or walks, but on Sundays the 
 girls were a dead weight upon her. Somehow, they 
 were not in the current of good times that the other 
 girls and boys of their ages were having. If she sug- 
 gested brightly that they go over to the Parmalees' or 
 the Morans' and see if the young people were playing 
 tennis, she knew that Charlotte would delicately nega- 
 tive the idea: "They've got their sets all made up, 
 M'ma, and one hates to, unless they specially ask 
 one, don't you know?" They might go, of course, and 
 greet their friends decorously, and watch the game 
 smilingly for a while. Then they would come home 
 with Fraiilein, not forgetting to say good-bye to their 
 hostess. But, although Charlotte played a better 
 game than many of the other girls, and Isabelle played 
 a good game, too, there were always gay little creatures 
 in dashing costumes who monopolized the courts and 
 the young men, and made the Haviland girls feel hope- 
 lessly heavy and dull. THtav would come home and 
 tell their mother that Vivian Sartoris let two of the 
 boys jump her over the net, and that Cousin Carol 
 wore Kent Parmalee's panama all afternoon, and called 
 out to him, right across the court, "Come on down to 
 the boathouse, Kent, and let's have a smoke!" 
 
 "Poor Vivian poor Billy!" Mrs. Haviland would 
 say. "Men don't really admire girls who allow them 
 such familiarities, although the silly girls may think 
 they do! But when it comes to marrying, it is the 
 sweet, womanly girls to whom the men turn!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 93 
 
 She did not believe this herself, nor did the girls 
 believe it, but, if they discussed it when they were 
 alone together, before Mamma, they were always dec- 
 orously impressed. 
 
 "Any plans for the afternoon, girlies?" she asked 
 now, when the forced strawberries were on the table, 
 and little Florence was trying to eat the nuts out of 
 her cake, and at the same time carefully avoid the cake 
 itself and the frosting. 
 
 "What's Carol doing, M'ma?" 
 
 "When M'ma asks you a question, Isabelle, do not 
 answer with another question, dear. I dropped Carol 
 at the club, but I think Aunt Rachael means to pick 
 her up there later, and go on to Mrs. Whittaker's for 
 
 tea.' 3 
 
 "We met Mrs. Whittaker in the Exchange yester- 
 day, M'ma, and she very sweetly said that you were to 
 that is, that she hoped you would bring us in for a 
 little while this afternoon. Didn't she, Isabelle?" 
 
 "I don't want to go!" Isabelle grumbled. But her 
 mother ignored her. 
 
 "That was very sweet of Aunt Gertrude. I think 
 I will go over to the club and see what Papa is planning 
 and how his game is going, and then I could pick you 
 girls up here." 
 
 "Fm going over to play with Georgie and Robbie 
 Royce!" shrilled Florence. "They're mean to me, 
 but I don't care ! I hit George in the stomach " 
 
 Mrs. Haviland looked as pained as if the reported 
 blow had fallen upon her own person, but she was 
 strangely indulgent to her youngest born, and now did 
 no more than signal to the nurse, old Fanny, who 
 stood grinning behind the child's chair, that Miss 
 Florence might be excused. Florence was accordingly 
 borne off, and the girls drifted idly upstairs, Isabelle 
 confiding to her sister as she dutifully brushed her teeth 
 that she wished "something" would happen! Alice 
 muttered to Sally, another maid, over her strong hot 
 tea, that you might as well be dead as never do a thing 
 
94 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 in God's world you wanted to do, but the rest of the 
 large staff enjoyed a hearty meal, and when Percival 
 brought the car around at three o'clock, Mrs. Havi- 
 land, magnificent in a change of costume, spent the 
 entire trip to the club in the resentful reflection that the 
 man had obviously had coffee and cream and mutton 
 for his lunchy- disgusting of him to come straight to 
 his car and his mistress still redolent of his meal, but 
 what could one do? In Mrs. Haviland's upper rear 
 hall was a framed and typewritten list of rules for the 
 maids, conspicuous upon which were those for daily 
 baths and regular use of toothbrushes. But Percival 
 never had seen this list, and he was a wonderful driver 
 and a special favorite with her husband. She decided 
 that there was nothing to be done, unless of course the 
 thing recurred, although the moment's talk with Per- 
 cival haunted and distressed her all day. 
 
 She duly returned to the house for her daughters a 
 little after four o'clock, and in amicable conversation 
 they went together to the tea, a crowded, informal 
 affair, in another large house full of rugs and flowers, 
 rooms dark and rich with expensive tapestries and 
 mahogany, rooms bright and gay with white enamel 
 and chintz and wicker furniture. 
 
 Everybody was here. Jeanette and Phyllis, as well 
 as Elinor Vanderwall, Peter Pomeroy and George, 
 the Buckneys and Parker Hoyt, the Emorys, the Chases, 
 Mrs. Sartoris and old Mrs. Torrence 'and Jack, all 
 jumbled a greeting to the Havilands. Of Carol they 
 presently caught a glimpse standing on a sheltered 
 little porch with Joe Pickering's sleek head beside her. 
 They were apparently not talking, just staring quietly 
 down at the green terraces of the garden. Rachael 
 was pouring tea, her face radiant under a narrow- 
 brimmed, close hat loaded with cherries, her gown of 
 narrow green and white stripes the target for every 
 pair of female eyes in the room. 
 
 Charlotte Haviland, in her mother's wake, chanced 
 to encounter Kenneth Moran, a red-faced, well-dressed 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 95 
 
 and blushing youth of her own age. Her complacent 
 mother was witness to the blameless conversation be- 
 tween them. 
 
 "How do you do, Kenneth ? I didn't know you were 
 here!" 
 
 "Oh, how do you do, Charlotte r How do you do, 
 Isabelle? I didn't know you were here!" 
 
 Isabelle grinned silently in horrible embarrassment 
 but Charlotte said, quick-wittedly : 
 
 "How is your mother, Kenneth, and Dorothy?" 
 
 "She's well they're well, thank you. They're here 
 somewhere at least Mother is. I think Dorothy's 
 still over at the Clays', playing tennis!" 
 
 He laughed violently at this admission, and Char- 
 lotte laughed, too. 
 
 "It's lovely weather for tennis," she said encourag- 
 ingly. "We- 
 
 "You " Mr. Moran began. "I beg your par- 
 don!" 
 
 "No, I interrupted you!" 
 
 "No, that was my fault. I was only going to say 
 that we ought to have a game some morning. Going 
 to have your courts in order this year?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," Charlotte said, with what was great 
 vivacity for her. "Papa has had them all rolled; some 
 men came down from town we had it all sodded, you 
 know, last year." 
 
 "Is that right?" asked Mr. Moran, as one deeply 
 impressed. "We must go to it what?" 
 
 "We must!" Charlotte said happily. "Any morn- 
 ing, Kenneth!" 
 
 "Sure, I'll telephone!" agreed the youth enthu- 
 siastically. "I'm trying to find Kent Parmalee; his 
 aunt wants him!" he added mumblingly, as he began 
 to vaguely shoulder his way through the crowd again. 
 
 "You'd better take a microscope!" said Charlotte 
 wittily. And Mr. Moran's burst of laughter and his 
 "That's right, too!" came back to them as he went 
 away. 
 
96 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Dear fellow!" Mrs. Haviland said warmly. 
 
 "Isn't he nice!" Charlotte said, fluttered and glow- 
 ing. She hoped in her heart that she would meet him 
 again, but although the Havilands stayed until nearly 
 six o'clock they did not do so; perhaps because shortly 
 after this conversation Kenneth Moran met Miss 
 Vivian Sartoris, and they took a plateful of rich, crushy 
 little cakes and went and sat under the stairs, where 
 they took alternate bites of each other's mocha and 
 chocolate confections, and where Vivian told Kenneth 
 all about a complicated and thrilling love affair be- 
 tween herself and one of the popular actors of the day. 
 This narrative reflected more credit upon the young 
 woman's imagination than upon her charms had the 
 listener but suspected it, but Kenneth was not a bril- 
 liant boy, and they had a lovely time over their con- 
 fidences. 
 
 Charlotte's romantic encounter with the gentleman, 
 however, made her happy for several hours, and colored 
 her cheeks rosily. 
 
 "You're getting pretty, Carlotta!" said her Aunt 
 Rachael, observing this. "Don't drink tea, that's a 
 good child! You can stuff on cakes and chocolate of 
 course, Isabelle," she added, "but Charlotte's com- 
 plexion ought to be her first thought for the next five 
 years ! " 
 
 "I don't really want any," asserted Charlotte, feel- 
 ing wonderfully grown-up and superior to the claims 
 of a nursery appetite. "But can't I help you, Aunt 
 Rachael?" 
 
 "No, my dear, you can't! I'm through the worst of 
 it, and being bored slowly but firmly to death! Ger- 
 trude, I'm just saying that your party bores me." 
 
 "So sorry about you, Rachael!" said the slim, lace- 
 clad hostess calmly. "Here's Judy Moran! Nearly 
 six, Judy, and we dine at seven on Sundays. But 
 never mind, eat and drink your fill, my child." 
 
 "Billy's flirtin' her head off out there!" wheezed 
 stout Mrs. Moran, dropping into a chair. "Joe and 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 97 
 
 Kent and young Gregory and half a dozen others are 
 out there with her. " 
 
 Mrs. Breckenridge, who had begun to frown, relaxed 
 in her chair. 
 
 "Ah, well, there's safety in numbers!" she said, re- 
 assured. "You take cream, Judy, and two lumps? 
 Give Mrs. Moran some of those little damp, brown 
 sandwiches, Isabelle. A minute ago she had some of 
 the most heavenly hot toast here, but she's taken it 
 away again! I wish I could get some tea myself, but 
 I've tried three times and I can't!" 
 
 She busied herself resignedly with tongs and teapot, 
 and as Mrs. Moran bit into her first sandwiches, and 
 the Haviland girls moved away at a word from their 
 mother, Rachael raised her eyes and met Warren 
 Gregory's look. 
 
 He was standing, ten feet away, in a doorway, his 
 eyelids half dropped over amused eyes, his hands sunk 
 in his coat pockets. Rachael knew that he had been 
 there for some moments, and her heart struggled and 
 fluttered like a bird in a snare, and with a thrill as girlish 
 as Charlotte's own she felt the color rise in her cheeks. 
 
 "Come have some tea, Greg," she said, indicating the 
 empty chair beside her. 
 
 "Thank you, dear," he answered, his head close to 
 hers for a moment as he sat down. The -little word set 
 Rachael's heart to hammering again. She glanced 
 quickly to see if Mrs. Moran had overheard, but that 
 lady had at last caught sight of the maid with the hot 
 toast, and her ample back was turned toward the tea- 
 table. 
 
 Indeed, in the noisy, disordered room, which was 
 beginning to be deserted by straggling groups of guests, 
 they were quite unobserved. To both it was a delicious 
 moment, this little domestic interlude of tea and talk 
 in the curved window of the dining-room, lighted by 
 the last light of a spring day, and sweet with the scent 
 of wilting spring flowers. 
 
 "You make my heart behave in a manner not to be 
 
98 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 described in words!" said Rachael, her fingers touching 
 his as she handed him his tea. 
 
 "It must be mine you feel/' suggested Warren 
 Gregory; "you haven't one by all accounts!" 
 
 "I thought I hadn't, Greg, but, upon my word " 
 
 She puckered her lips and raised her eyebrows whim- 
 sically, and gave her head a little shake. Doctor 
 Gregory gave her a shre\vdly appraising look, sighed, 
 and stirred his tea. 
 
 "If ever you discover yourself to be the possessor of 
 such an organ, Rachael," said he dispassionately, 
 "you won't joke about it over a tea-table! You'll 
 wake up, my friend; we'll see something besides laughter 
 in those eyes of yours, and hear something besides cool 
 reason in your voice! I may not be the man to do 
 it, but some man will, some day, and when John 
 Gilpin rides " 
 
 The eyes to which he referred had been fixed in 
 serene confidence upon his as he began to speak. But 
 a second later Rachael dropped them, and they rested 
 upon her own slender hand, lying idle upon the tea- 
 table, with its plain gold ring guarded by a dozen 
 blazing stones. Had he really stirred her, Warren 
 Gregory wondered, as he watched the thoughtful face 
 under the bright, cherry-loaded hat. 
 
 "You know how often there is neither cool reason 
 nor any cause for laughter in my life, Greg," she said, 
 after a moment. "As for love I don't think I know 
 what love is! I am an absolutely calculating woman, 
 and my first, last, and only view of anything is just 
 how much it affects me and my comfort." 
 
 "I don't believe it!" said the doctor. 
 
 "It's true. And why shouldn't it be?" Rachael 
 gave him a grave smile. "No one," said she seriously, 
 "ever ever ever suggested to me that there was 
 anything amiss in that point of view! Why is there?" 
 
 "I don't understand you," said the doctor simply. 
 
 "One doesn't often talk this way, I suppose," she 
 said slowly. " But there is a funny streak of what shall 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 99 
 
 I call it? conscience, or soul, or whatever you like, in 
 me. Whether I get it from rny mother's Irish father 
 or my father's clergyman grandfather, I don't know ri 
 but I'm eternally defending myself. I have long ses^ 
 sions with myself, when I'm judge and jury, and invari- 
 ably I find 'Not Guilty!''' 
 
 "Not guilty of what?" the man asked, stirring his 
 untasted cup. 
 
 "Not guilty of anything!" she answered, with a 
 child's puzzled laugh. "I stick to my bond, I dress and 
 
 talk and eat and go about " Her voice dropped; 
 
 she stared absently at the table. 
 
 "But " the doctor prompted. 
 
 "But that's just it but I'm so unhappy all the 
 time!" Rachael confessed. "We all seem like a lot of 
 puppets, to me like Bander-log! What are we all 
 going round and round in circles for, and who gets any 
 fun out of it ? What's your answer, Greg what makes 
 the wheels go round ? " 
 
 " Tis love 'tis love that makes etcetera, etcet- 
 era," supplied the doctor, his tone less flippant than 
 his words. 
 
 "Oh love!" Rachael's voice was full of delicate 
 scorn. "I've seen a great deal of all sorts and kinds of 
 love," she went on, "and I must say that I consider 
 love a very much overrated article! You're laughing 
 at me, you bold gossoon, but I mean it. Clarence loved 
 Paula madly, kidnapped her from a boarding-school 
 and all that, but I don't know how much their seven 
 years together helped the world go round. He never 
 loved me, never once said he did, but I've made him 
 a better wife than she did. He loves Bill, now, and 
 it's the worst thing in the world for her!" 
 
 " There's some love for you," said Doctor Gregory, 
 glancing across the room to the figures of Miss Leila 
 Buckney and Mr. Parker Hoyt, who were laughing over 
 a cabinet full of ivories. 
 
 "I wonder just what would happen there if Parker 
 lost his money to-morrow if Aunt Frothy died and 
 
100 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 left it all to Magsie Clay?" Rachael suggested, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 The doctor answered only with a shrug. 
 
 "More than that," pursued Rachael, "suppose that 
 Parker woke up to-morrow morning and found his 
 engagement was all a dream, found that he really 
 hadn't asked Leila to marry him, and that he was as 
 free as air. Do you suppose that the minute he'd had 
 his breakfast he would go straight over to Leila's house 
 and make his dream a heavenly reality? Or would he 
 decide that there was no hurry about it, and that he 
 might as well rather keep away from the Buckney house 
 until he'd made up his mind?" 
 
 "I suppose he might convince himself that an hour or 
 two's delay wouldn't matter!" said the doctor, laughing. 
 
 "If you talk to me of clothes, or of jewelry, or of 
 what one ought to send a bride, and what to say in a 
 letter of condolence, I know where I am," said Rachael, 
 "but love, I freely confess, is something else again!" 
 
 "I suppose my mother has known great love," said 
 the man, after a pause. "She spends her days in 
 that quiet old house dreaming about my father, and 
 my brothers, looking at their pictures, and reading their 
 letters ' 
 
 "But, Greg, she's so unhappy!" Rachael objected 
 briskly. "And love surely the contention is that love 
 ought to make one happy?" 
 
 "Well, I think her memories do make her happy, in 
 a way. Although my mother is really too conscien- 
 tious a woman to be happy, she worries about events 
 that are dead issues these twenty years. She wonders 
 if my brother George might have been saved if she had 
 noticed his cough before she did; there was a child who 
 died at birth, and then there are all the memories of 
 my father's death the time he wanted ice water and 
 the doctors forbade it, and he looked at her reproach- 
 fully. Poor Mother!" 
 
 "You're a joy to her anyway, Greg," Rachael said, 
 as he paused. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 101 
 
 "Charley is," he conceded thoughtfully, "and in a 
 way I know I am! But not in every way, of course,", 
 Warren Gregory smiled a little ruefully. 
 
 "So the case for love is far from proved," Rachael 
 summarized cheerfully. "There's no such thing!" 
 
 "On the contrary, there isn't anything else, really, 
 in the world," smiled the man. "I've seen it shining 
 here and there; we get away from it here, somewhat, 
 I'll admit" his glance and gesture indicated the other 
 occupants of the room "and, like you, I don't quite 
 know where we miss it, and what it's all about, but 
 there have been cases in our wards, for instance: girls 
 whose husbands have been brought in all smashed 
 up- 
 
 " Girls who saw themselves worried about rent and 
 bread and butter!" suggested Rachael in delicate 
 irony. 
 
 "No, I don't think so. And mothers mothers 
 hanging over sick children " 
 
 The women nodded quickly. 
 
 "Yes, I know, Greg. There's something very ap- 
 pealing about a sick kiddie. Bill was ill once, just after 
 we were married, such a little thing she looked, with her 
 hair all cut! And that did now that I remember it < 
 it really did bring Clarence and me tremendously 
 close. We'd sit and wait for news, and slip out for 
 little meals, and I'd make him coffee late at night.; 
 I remember thinking then that I never wanted a child, 
 to make me suffer as we suffered then!" 
 
 "Mother love, then, we concede," Doctor Gregory 
 said, smiling. 
 
 "Well, yes, I suppose so. Some mothers. I don't 
 believe a mother like Florence ever was really made to 
 suffer through loving. However, there is mother love ! " ; 
 
 "And married love." 
 
 "No, there I don't agree. While the novelty lasts, 
 while the passion lasts not more than a year or two. ( 
 Then there's just civility opening the city house, 
 opening the country house, entertaining, going about, 
 
102 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 liking some things about each other, loathing others, 
 keeping off the dangerous places until the crash comes, 
 or, perhaps, for some lucky ones, doesn't come!" 
 
 "What a mushy little sentimentalist you are, 
 Rachael!" Gregory said with a rather uncomfortable 
 laugh. "You're too dear and sweet to talk that wayr 
 It's too bad it's too bad to have you feel so! I wish 
 that I could carry you away from all these people 
 here just for a while! I'd like to prescribe that sea 
 beach you spoke about last night! Wouldn't we love 
 our desert island! Would you help me build a thatched 
 hut, and a mud oven, and string shells in your hair, 
 and swim way out in the green breakers with me ? " 
 
 "And what makes you think that there would be 
 some saving element in our relationship?" Rachael 
 asked in a low voice. "What makes you think that 
 our love would survive the the dry-rot of life ? People 
 would send us silver and rugs, and there would be a lot 
 of engraving, and barrels of champagne, and newspaper 
 men trying to cross-examine the maids, and caterers 
 all over the place, but a few years later, wouldn't it 
 be the same old story? You talk of a desert island, 
 and swimming, and seaweed, Greg! But my ideas of a 
 desert island isn't Palm Beach with commercial photog- 
 raphers snapping at whoever sits down in the sand! 
 Look about us, Greg who's happy ? Who isn't watch- 
 ing the future for just this or just that to happen before 
 she can really feel content? Young girls all want to 
 be older and more experienced, older girls want to be 
 young; this one is waiting for the new house to be 
 ready, that one like Florence is worrying a little 
 for fear the girls won't quite make a hit! Clarence 
 worries about Billy, I worry about Clarence " 
 
 "I worry about you!" said Doctor Gregory as she 
 paused. 
 
 "Of course you do, bless your heart!" Rachael 
 laughed. "So here we are, the rich and fashionable and 
 fortunate people of the world, having a cloudless 
 time!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 103 
 
 "You know, it's a shame to eat this way ruin our 
 dinners!" said Mrs. Moran, suddenly entering the 
 conversation. "Stop flirting with Greg, Rachael, and 
 give me some more tea. One lump, and only about half 
 a cup, dear. Tell me a good way to get thin, Greg! 
 Agnes Chase says her doctor has a diet you eat all 
 you want, and you get thin. Agnes says Lou has a 
 friend who has taken off forty-eight pounds. Do you 
 believe it, Greg? Fm too fat, you know " 
 
 "You carry it well, Judy," said Rachael, still a little 
 shaken by the abruptly closed conversation, as the 
 doctor, with a conscious thrill, perceived. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear, that's what they all say. 
 But Fd just as soon somebody else should carry it for 
 awhile!" 
 
 "Listen, Rachael," said their hostess, coming up 
 suddenly, and speaking quickly and lightly, "Clarence 
 is here. Where in the name of everything sensible is 
 Billy?" 
 
 "Clarence!" said Rachael, uncomfortable premoni- 
 tion clutching at her heart. 
 
 "Yes; you come and talk to him, Rachael," Mrs. 
 Whittaker said, in the same quick undertone. "He's 
 all right, of course, but he's just a little fussy " 
 
 "Oh, if he wouldn't do these things!" Rachael said 
 apprehensively as she rose. "I left him all comfort- 
 able Joe Butler was coming in to see him! It does 
 exasperate me so! However!" 
 
 "Of course it does, but we all know Clarence!" Mrs. 
 Whittaker said soothingly. "He seems to have got it 
 
 into his head that Billy You go talk to him, 
 
 Rachael, and Fll send her in." 
 
 " Billy's doing no harm ! What did he say ? " Rachael 
 asked impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, nothing definite, of course. But as soon as I 
 said that Billy was here he'd asked if she was he 
 said, 'Then I suppose Mr. Pickering is here, too!" 
 
 "He's the one person in the world afraid of talk 
 about Billy, yet if he starts it, he can blame no one but 
 
104 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 himself!" Rachael said, as she turned toward the ad- 
 joining room. An unexpected ordeal like this always 
 annoyed her. She was equal to it, of course; she could 
 smooth Clarence's ruffled feelings, keep a serene front 
 to the world, and get her family safely home before the 
 storm; she had done it many times before. But it 
 was so unnecessary! It was so unnecessary to exhibit 
 the Breckenridge weaknesses before the observant 
 Emorys, before that unconscionable old gossip Peter 
 Pomeroy, and to the cool, pitying gaze of all her world ! 
 
 She found Clarence the centre of a small group in the 
 long drawing-room. He and Frank Whittaker were 
 drinking cocktails; the others Jeanette VanderwalL 
 Vera Villalonga, a flushed, excitable woman older than 
 Rachael, and Jimmy and Estelle Hoyt had refused 
 the drink, but were adding much noise and laughter to 
 the newcomer's welcome. 
 
 "Hello, Clarence" Rachael said, appraising the 
 situation rapidly as she came up. "I would have 
 waited for you if I had thought you would come!" 
 
 "I just just thought I would look in," Clarence 
 said slowly but steadily. "Didn't want to miss any- 
 thing. You all seem to be having having a pretty 
 good time!" 
 
 "It's been a lovely tea," Rachael assured him en- 
 thusiastically. "But I'm just going. Billy's out here 
 on the porch with a bunch of youngsters; I was just 
 going after her. Don't let Frank give you any more of 
 that stuff, Clancy. Stop it, Frank! It always gives 
 him a splitting headache ! " 
 
 The tone was irreproachably casual and cheerful, 
 but Clarence scowled at his wife significantly. His 
 dignity, as he answered, was tremendous. 
 
 "I can judge pretty well of what hurts me and what 
 doesn't, thank you, Rachael," he said coldly, with a 
 look ominous with warning. 
 
 "That's just what you can't, dear," Mrs. Whittaker, 
 who had joined the group, said pleasantly. "Take 
 that stuff away, Frank, and don't be so silly! If 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 105 
 
 Frank," she added to the group, "hadn't been at it all 
 afternoon himself he wouldn't be such an idiot." 
 
 "Greg says he'll take us home, Clarence," Rachael 
 said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's a shame to carry 
 you off when you've just got here, but I'm going." 
 
 "Where's Billy?'; Clarence asked stubbornly. 
 
 " Right here!" his wife answered reassuringly. And 
 to her great relief Billy substantiated the statement by 
 coming up to them, a little uneasy, as her stepmother 
 was, over her father's appearance, yet confident that 
 there was no real cause for a scene. To get him home as 
 fast as possible, and let the trouble, whatever it might 
 be, break there, was the thought in both their minds. 
 
 "Had enough tea, Monkey?" said Rachael pleas- 
 antly, aware of her husband's sulphurous gaze, but 
 carefully ignoring it. "Then say day-day to Aunt 
 Gertrude!" 
 
 "If Greg takes you home, send Alfred back with the 
 runabout for me," Billy suggested. 
 
 "So that you can stay a little longer, eh?" said 
 Clarence, in so ugly a tone and with so leering a look 
 for his daughter that Rachael's heart for a moment 
 failed her. "That's a very nice little plan, my dear, 
 but, as it happens, I came over in the runabout! I'm 
 a fool, you know," said Clarence sullenly. "I can be 
 hoodwinked and deceived and made a fool of oh, 
 sure! But there's a limit! There's a limit," he said 
 in stupid anger to his wife. "And if I say that I don't 
 like certain friendships for my daughter, it means that 
 / don't like certain friendships for my daughter, do you 
 get me ? That's clear enough, isn't it, Gertrude ? " 
 
 "It's perfectly clear that you're acting like an idiot, 
 Clancy," Mrs. Whittaker said briskly. "Nobody's 
 trying to hoodwink you; it isn't being done this year! 
 You've got an awful katzenjammer from the Stokes' din- 
 ner, and all you men ought to be horsewhipped for letting 
 yourselves in for such a party. Now if you and Rachael 
 want to go home in the runabout, I'll send Billy straight 
 after you with Kenneth or Kent " 
 
106 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I'll take Billy home," Clarence said heavily. 
 
 By this time Rachael was so exquisitely conscious of 
 watching eyes and listening ears, so agonized over the 
 realization that the fuss Clarence Breckenridge made 
 at the Whittakers' over Joe Pickering would be handed 
 down, a precious tradition, over every tea and dinner 
 table for weeks to come, so miserably aware that a 
 dozen persons, at least, among the audience were rind- 
 ing in this scene welcome confirmation of all the odds 
 and ends of gossip that were floating about concerning 
 Billy, that she would have consented blindly to any ar- 
 rangement that might terminate the episode. 
 
 It was not the first time that Clarence had made 
 himself ridiculous and his family conspicuous when not 
 quite himself. At almost every tea party and at every 
 dance and dinner at least one of the guests similarly 
 distinguished himself. Rachael knew that there would 
 be no blame in her friends' minds, but she hated their 
 laughter. 
 
 "Do that, then," she agreed quickly. "Greg will 
 bring me!" 
 
 "By George," said Clarence darkly to his hostess, 
 "I'd be a long time doing that to you, Gertrude! If 
 you had a daughter-* " 
 
 "My dear Clarence, your daughter is old enough to 
 know her own mind!" Mrs. Whittaker said impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "And you're only making me conspicuous for some- 
 thing that's entirely in your own brain!" blazed Billy. 
 As usual, her influence over her father was instantane- 
 ous. 
 
 "Because I love you, you know that," he said 
 meekly. "I I may be too careful, Billy. But '' 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Billy in a nervous undertone close 
 to tears. "If you loved me you'd have some con- 
 sideration for me!" 
 
 "When I say a thing, don't you say it's nonsense," 
 Clarence said with heavy fatherly dignity. "I'll tell 
 you why because I won't stand for it!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 107 
 
 "Oh, aren't they hopeless!" Mrs. Whittaker asked 
 with an indulgent laugh and a glance for Rachael. 
 
 "Well, I won't be taken home like a bad child!" 
 flamed Billy. 
 
 "I'd like to bump both your silly heads together, ' 
 Rachael exclaimed, steering them toward the porch. 
 "Yes, you bring the car around, Kent," she added to 
 one of the onlookers in an urgent aside. "Come on, 
 Bill, get in. Get in, Clarence! Don't be an utter 
 fool " 
 
 In another moment it was settled. Billy, looking 
 
 fretty and sulky, said: "Good-bye, Aunt Gertrude! 
 'm sorry for this, but it's not my fault ! " Frank Whit- 
 taker almost bodily lifted his somewhat befuddled 
 guestvinto the car, the door of the runabout went home 
 with a bang. Billy snatched the wheel, and Clarence, 
 with an attempt at a martyred expression, sank back 
 in his seat. The car rocked out of sight, and was 
 gone. 
 
 Rachael, in silent dignity, turned about on the wide 
 brick steps to reenter the house. Where there had 
 been a dozen interested faces a moment ago there 
 was no one now except Gertrude Whittaker, whose 
 expression betrayed her as tactfully divided between 
 unconcern and sympathy, and Frank Whittaker, who 
 was looking thoughtfully at the cloudless spring sky 
 as one anticipating a change of weather. 
 
 Rachael caught Mrs. Whittaker's eye and shrugged 
 her shoulders wearily. She began slowly to mount the 
 steps. 
 
 "It was nothing at all!" said the hostess cheerfully, 
 adding immediately, "You poor thing!" 
 
 "All in the day's work!" Rachael said, on a long 
 sigh. And turning to the man who stood silently in 
 the doorway she asked, with all the confidence of a 
 weary child, "Will you take me home, Greg?" 
 
 Her glance and the doctor's met. In the last soft, 
 brilliant light of the afternoon long shadows fell from 
 the great trees nearby. Rachael's green and white 
 
108 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 gown was dappled with blots of golden light, her 
 troubled, glowing eyes were of an almost unearthly 
 beauty, and her slender figure, against the background 
 of colonial white paint and red brick, had all the tremu- 
 lous, reedy grace of a young girl's figure. In the long 
 look the two exchanged there was some new element 
 born of this wonderful hour of spring, and of the 
 woman's need, and the man's nearness. Both knew it, 
 although Rachael did not speak again, and, also in 
 silence, the doctor nodded, and went past her down the 
 steps for his car. 
 
 "Too bad!" Mrs. Whittaker said, coming back from 
 a brief disappearance beyond the doorway. " But such 
 things will happen! It's too bad, Rachael, but what 
 can one do ? Are you going to be warm enough ? Sure ? 
 Don't give it another thought, dear, nobody noticed 
 it, anyway. And listen any chance of a game to- 
 night? I could send over for you. Marian's with 
 me, you know, and we could get Peter or Greg for a 
 fourth." 
 
 "No chance at all," Rachael said bitterly. She had 
 always loved to play bridge with Greg; under the 
 circumstances it would be a delicious experience. She 
 played brilliantly, and Greg, when he was matched 
 by partner and opponents, became absorbed in the 
 game with absolutely fanatic fervor. Rachael had a 
 vision of her own white hand spreading out the cards, 
 of the nod and glance that said clearly: "Great bid- 
 ding, Rachael; we're as safe as a church!" 
 
 Clarence did not play bridge, he did not care for 
 music, for books, for pictures. He played poker, and 
 sometimes tennis, and often golf; a selfish, solitary 
 game of golf, in which he cared only for his own play 
 and his own score, and paid no attention to anyone 
 else. 
 
 Gregory's great car came round the drive. "Good- 
 bye, Gertrude," said Rachael with an unsmiling nod of 
 farewell, and Mrs. Whittaker thought, as Elinor Van- 
 derwall had thought the night before, that she had 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 109 
 
 never seen Rachael look so serious before, and that 
 things in the Breckenridge family must be coming rap- 
 idly to a crisis. 
 
 Doctor Gregory, as the lovely Mrs. Breckenridge 
 packed her striped green and white ruffles trimly beside 
 him, turned upon her a quick and affectionate smile. 
 It asked no confidence, it expressed no sympathy, it 
 was simply the satisfied glance of a man pleased with 
 the moment and with the company in which he found 
 himself. To Rachael, overwrought, nervous, and 
 ashamed, no mood could have been more delicately 
 tuned. She sank back against the deep upholstery 
 luxuriously, and drew a long breath, inhaling the de- 
 licious air of early summer twilight. What a sweet, 
 clean, solid sort of friend Greg was, thought Rachael, 
 noticing the clever, well-groomed hands on the wheel, 
 the kindly earnestness of the handsome, sun-browned 
 face, the little wrinkle between the dark eyes that 
 meant that Doctor Gregory was thinking. 
 
 "Straight home?" said he, giving her a smiling 
 glance. 
 
 "If you please, Greg," Rachael answered, a sudden 
 vision of the probable state of affairs at home causing 
 her to end the words with a quick sigh. 
 
 Silence. They were running smoothly along the 
 lovely country roads that were bowered so generously 
 in fresh green that great feathery boughs of maple and 
 locust brushed against the car. The birds were still 
 now, and the sunlight gone, although all the world was 
 still flooded with a soft golden light. The first dew 
 had fallen, bringing forth from the dust a sweet and pun- 
 gent odor. 
 
 "Thinking about what I said to you last night?" 
 asked the doctor suddenly. 
 
 "I am afraid I am a little," Rachael answered, 
 meeting his quick side glance with another as fleet. 
 
 "And what do you think about it?" he asked. For 
 answer Rachael only sighed wearily, and for a while 
 they went on in silence. But when they had almost 
 
110 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 reached the Breckenridge gateway Doctor Gregory spoke 
 again. 
 
 "Do you often have a scene like that one just now 
 to get through ? " 
 
 The color rushed into Rachael's face at his friendly, 
 not too sympathetic, tone. She was still shaken from 
 the encounter with Clarence, and still thrilling to the 
 memory of her talk with Warren Gregory last night, 
 and it was with some new quality of hesitation, almost 
 of bewilderment, that she said: 
 
 "That that wasn't anything unusual, Greg." 
 
 Doctor Gregory stopped the car at the foot of her 
 own steps, the noise of the engine suddenly ceased, 
 and they faced each other, their heads close together. 
 
 "But since last night/ 5 Rachael added, smiling after 
 a moment's thought, "I know I have a friend. I 
 believe now, when the crash comes, and the whole 
 world begins to talk, that one person will not misjudge 
 me, and one person will not misunderstand." 
 
 "Only that?" he asked. She raised her glorious 
 eyes quickly, trying to smile, and it brought his heart 
 to a quick stop to see that they were brimming with 
 tears. 
 
 "Only that?" she echoed. "My dear Greg, after 
 seven such years as I have had as Clarence's wife, that 
 is not a small thing!" 
 
 Their hands were together now, and he felt hers 
 cling suddenly as she said: 
 
 "Don't don't let me drag you into this, Greg!" 
 
 "This is what I want you to believe," Warren Greg- 
 ory told her, "that you are not his wife, you are noth- 
 ing to him any more. And some day, some day, you're 
 going to be happy again!" 
 
 A wonderful color flooded her face; she gave him a 
 look half-frightened, half-won. Then with an almost 
 inaudible "Good-night," she was gone. 
 
 Warren Gregory stood watching the slender figure 
 mount the steps. She did not turn to nod him a fare- 
 well, but vanished like a shadow into the soft shadows 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 111 
 
 of the doorway! Yet he was enough a lover to find 
 consolation in that. Rachael Breckenridge was not 
 flirting now, forces far greater than any she had ever 
 known were threatening the shallow waters of her life, 
 and she might well be troubled and afraid. 
 
 "She is not his wife any more," Warren Gregory 
 said, half aloud, as he turned back to his car. "From 
 now on she belongs to me! She shall be mine!" 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM that day on a bright undercurrent made 
 bearable the trying monotony of her life. Rachael 
 did not at once recognize the rapid change that began 
 to take place in her own feelings, but she did realize 
 that Warren Gregory's attitude had altered every- 
 thing in her world. He was flirting, of course, he was 
 only half in earnest; but it was such delicious flirting, 
 it was a half-earnestness so wonderfully satisfying and 
 sweet. 
 
 She did not see him every day, sometimes she did 
 not see him for two or three days, but no twenty-four 
 hours went by without a message from him. A day 
 or two after the troubled Sunday on which he had 
 driven her home she stood silent a moment, in the 
 lower hall, one hand resting on the little box of damp, 
 delicious Freesia lilies, the fingers of the other twisting 
 his card. The little message scribbled on the card 
 meant nothing to other eyes, just the two words "Good 
 morning!" but in some subtle way they signified to 
 her a morning in a wider sense, a dawning of love and 
 joy and peace in her life. The next day they met 
 and how wonderful these casual meetings among a 
 hundred gay, unseeing folk, had suddenly become! - 
 and on the following day he came to tea with her, a 
 little hour whose dramatic and emotional beauty was 
 enhanced rather than spoiled for them both when 
 Clarence and Billy and some friends came in to end it. 
 
 On Thursday the doctor's man delivered into Mrs. 
 Breckenridge's hand a package which proved to be a 
 little book on Browning of which he had spoken to 
 her. On the fly leaf was written in the donor's small, 
 fine handwriting, "R. from G. The way was Cap- 
 
 112 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 113 
 
 onsacchi." Rachael put the book on her bedside table, 
 and wore June colors all day for the giver's sake. 
 Greg, she thought with a fluttering heart, was cer- 
 tainly taking things with rather a high hand. Could it 
 be possible, could it be possible, that he cared for a 
 woman at last, and was she, Rachael Breckenridge, a 
 neglected wife, a penniless dependent upon an unloving 
 husband, that woman? 
 
 Half-forgotten emotions of girlhood began to stir 
 within her; she flushed, smiled, sighed at her own 
 thoughts, she dreamed, and came bewildered out of her 
 dreams, like a child. What Clarence did, what Carol 
 did, mattered no longer; she, Rachael, again had the 
 centre of the stage. 
 
 Weeks flew by. The question of summer plans arose : 
 the Villalongas wanted all the Breckenridges in their 
 Canadian camp for as much as possible of July and 
 August. Clarence regarded the project with the em- 
 bittered eye of utter boredom, Billy was far from en- 
 thusiastic, Rachael made no comment. She stood, 
 like a diver, ready for the chilling plunge from which 
 she might never rise, yet, after which, there was one 
 glorious chance: she might find herself swimming 
 strongly to freedom. The sunny, safe meadows and 
 the warm, blue sky were there in sight, there was only 
 that dark and menacing stretch of waters to breast, 
 that black, smothering descent to endure. 
 
 Now was the time. The pretence that was her 
 married life must end, she must be free. In her thought 
 she went no farther. Rachael outwardly was no better 
 than the other women of her world; inwardly there 
 was in her nature an instinctive niceness, a hatred 
 for what was coarse or base. For years the bond be- 
 tween her and Clarence Breckenridge had been only 
 ; an empty word. But it was there, none the less, and 
 before she could put any new plan into definite form, 
 even in her own heart, it must be broken. 
 
 Many of the women she knew would not have been 
 so fine. For more than one of them no tie was sacred. 
 
114 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 and no principle as strong as their own desire for pleas- 
 ure. But she was different, as all the world should 
 see. No carefully chaperoned girl could be more care- 
 fully guarded than Rachael would be guarded by her- 
 self until that time the thought of it put her senses 
 to utter rout until such time as she might put her 
 hand boldly in Gregory's, and take her place honorably 
 by his side. 
 
 The taste of freedom already began to intoxicate her 
 even while she still went about Clarence's house, bore 
 his moods in silence, and imparted to Billy that half- 
 scornful, half-humorous advice that alone seemed to 
 penetrate the younger woman's shell of utter perversity. 
 Mrs. Breckenridge, as usual followed by admiring and 
 envious and curious eyes, walked in a world of her own, 
 entirely oblivious of the persons and events about her, 
 wrapped in a breathless dream too exquisitely bright to 
 be real. 
 
 It was a dream still so simple and vague that she was 
 not conscious of wishing for Warren Gregory's presence, 
 or of being much happier when they were together than 
 when she was deliciously alone with her thoughts of 
 him. 
 
 About a month after the Whittaker tea Rachael 
 found herself seated in the tile-floored tea-room at the 
 country club with Florence. There had been others 
 in the group, theoretically for tea, but these were scat- 
 tered now, and among the various bottles and glasses 
 on the table there was no sign of a teacup. 
 
 "So glad to see you alone a moment, Rachael 
 one never does," said Florence. "Tell me, do you go to 
 theVillalongas'?" 
 
 "Clarence and Billy will, I suppose," the other 
 woman said with an enigmatic smile. 
 
 "But not you?" 
 
 "Perhaps; I don't know, Florence." Rachael's 
 serene eyes roved the summer landscape contentedly. 
 Mrs. Haviland looked a little puzzled. 
 
THE HEART OP RACHAEL 115 
 
 "Things are better, aren't they, dear?" she asked 
 delicately. 
 
 "Things?" 
 
 "Between you and Clarence, I mean." 
 
 "Oh! Yes, perhaps they are. Changed, perhaps." 
 
 "How do you mean changed?" Florence was in- 
 stantly in arms. 
 
 "Well, it couldn't go on that way forever, Florence," 
 Rachael said pleasantly. 
 
 Rendered profoundly uneasy by her tone, the other 
 woman was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Perhaps it is just as well to make different plans 
 for the summer," she said presently. "We all get on 
 each other's nerves sometimes, and change or separation 
 does us a world of good." 
 
 "Doctor Gregory! Doctor Gregory! At the tele- 
 phone ! " chanted a club attendant, passing through the 
 tea-room. 
 
 "On the tennis courts," Mrs. Breckenridge said, 
 without turning her head. "You had better make it a 
 message: explain that he's playing!" 
 
 "I didn't see him go down," remarked Florence, 
 diverted. 
 
 "His car came in about half an hour ago; he and 
 Joe Butler went down to the courts without coming into 
 the club at all," Rachael said. 
 
 "I wonder what he's doing this summer?" mused the 
 older lady. 
 
 "I believe he's going to take his mother abroad 
 with him," said the well-informed Rachael. "She'll 
 visit some friends in England and Ireland, and then 
 join him. He's to do the Alps with someone, and 
 meet her in Rome." 
 
 "She tell you?" asked Mrs. Haviland, interested. 
 
 "He did," the other said briefly. 
 
 "I didn't know she had any friends," was Florence's 
 next comment. "I don't see her visiting, somehow!" 
 
 "Oh, my dear. Old Catholic families with chapels 
 in their houses, and nuns, and Mother Superiors!" 
 
U6 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Rachael's tone was light, but as she spoke a cold prem- 
 onition seized her heart. She fell silent. 
 
 A moment later Charlotte, who had been hovering 
 uncertainly in the doorway of the room, came out to 
 join her mother with a brightly spontaneous air. 
 
 "Oh, here you are, M'ma!" said Charlotte. "Are 
 you ready to go ? " 
 
 "Been having a nice time, dear?" her mother asked 
 fondly. 
 
 "Very," Charlotte said. "I've been looking over 
 old magazines in the library so interesting!" 
 
 This literary enthusiasm struck no answering spark 
 from the matron 
 
 "In the library!" said Florence quickly. "Why, I 
 thought you were with Charley!' 
 
 "Oh, no, M'ma," answered Charlotte, with her little 
 air that was not quite prim and not quite mincing, 
 and that yet suggested both. "Charley left me just 
 after you did; he had an engagement with Straker." 
 She reached for a macaroon, and ate it with a brightly 
 disengaged air, her eyes, behind their not unbecom- 
 ing glasses, studying the golf links with absorbed 
 interest. 
 
 "Anyone else in the library?" Florence asked in a 
 dissatisfied tone. 
 
 "No. I had it all to myself!" the girl answered 
 pleasantly. 
 
 "Why didn't you go down to the courts, dear? I 
 think Papa is playing!" 
 
 "I didn't think of it, M'ma," said Charlotte lucidly. 
 
 "What a dreadful age it is," mused Rachael. "I 
 wonder which phase is hardest to deal with: Billy or 
 poor little Carlotta ? " Aloud, from the fulness of her 
 own happiness, she said: "Suppose you walk down to 
 the courts with me, Infant, and we will see what's 
 going on * " 
 
 f M'ma doesn't object," said the dutiful daughter. 
 "No, go along," Florence said with vague discon- 
 tent. "I've got to do some telephoning, anyway." 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 117 
 
 Charlotte, being eighteen, could think of nothing 
 but herself, and Rachael, wrapped in her own romance, 
 was amused, as they walked along, to see how different 
 her display of youthful egotism was from Billy's, and 
 yet how typical of all adolescence. 
 
 "Isn't it a wonderful afternoon, Aunt Rachael?" 
 Charlotte said, as one in duty bound to be entertaining. 
 "I do think they've picked out such a charming site 
 for the club!" And then, as Rachael did not answer, 
 being indeed content to drink in the last of the long 
 summer day in silence, Charlotte went on, with an air 
 blended of comprehension and amusement: "Poor 
 M'ma, she would so like me to be a little, fluffy, 
 empty-headed butterfly of a girl, and I know I dis- 
 appoint her! It isn't that I don't like boys," pursued 
 Charlotte, the smooth and even stream of her words 
 beginning to remind Rachael of Florence, "or that they 
 don't like me; they're always coming to me with their 
 confidences and asking my advice, but it's just that I 
 can't take them seriously. If a boy wants to kiss me, 
 why, I say to him in perfect good faith, 'Why shouldn't 
 you kiss me, John? When I'm fond of a person I 
 always like to kiss him, and I'm sure I'm fond of you!" ; 
 Charlotte stopped for a short laugh full of relish. "Of 
 course that takes the wind out of their sails com- 
 pletely," she went on, "and we have a good laugh over 
 it, and are all the better friends! That is," said Char- 
 lotte, thoroughly enjoying herself, "I treat my men 
 friends exactly as I do my girl friends. Do you think 
 that's so extraordinary, Aunt Rachael? Because I 
 can't do anything different, you know really I can't!" 
 
 "Just be natural that's the best way," said Rachael 
 from the depths of an icy boredom. 
 
 "Of course, some day I shall marry," the girl added 
 in brisk decision, "because I love a home, and I love 
 children, and I think I would be a good mother to 
 children. But meanwhile, my books and my friends 
 mean a thousand times more to me than all these 
 stupid boys! Why is it other girls are so crazy about 
 
118 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 boys, Aunt Rachael?" asked Charlotte, brightly sen- 
 sible. "Of course I like them, and all that, but I can't 
 see the sense of all these notes and telephones and 
 flirtations. I told Vivvie Sartoris that I was afraid I 
 knew all these boys too well; of course Jack and Kent 
 and Charley are just like brothers! It all" Charlotte 
 smiled, sighed, shook her disillusioned young head 
 "it all seems so awfully silly to me!" she said, and before 
 Rachael could speak she had caught breath again.and 
 added laughingly: "Of course I know Billy doesn't 
 agree with me, and Billy has plenty of admiration of a 
 sort, and I suppose that satisfies her! But, in short," 
 finished Charlotte, giving Raphael's arm a squeeze as 
 they came out upon the tennis courts, "in short, you 
 have an exacting little niece, Auntie dear, and I'm 
 afraid the man who is going to make her happy must 
 be out of the ordinary!" 
 
 Rachael sighed a long deep sigh, but no other answer 
 was demanded, for the knot of onlookers welcomed them 
 eagerly to the benches beside the courts, and even the 
 players Gardner Haviland, Louis Chase, a fat young 
 man in an irreproachable tennis costume; Warren 
 Gregory and Joe Butler found time for a shouted 
 "Hello!" 
 
 "How do you do, Kent?" said Charlotte to a young 
 man who was sprawling on the sloping grass between 
 the benches and the court. The young man blinked, 
 sat up, and snatched off his hat. 
 
 "Oh, how do you do, Charlotte? I didn't know you 
 were here," he said enthusiastically. "Some game 
 what?" 
 
 "It seems to be," said Charlotte with smiling, deep 
 significance. Both young persons laughed heartily at 
 this spirited exchange. A silence fell. Then Mr. 
 Parmalee turned back to watch the players, and Char^ 
 lotte, who had seated herself, leaned back in her seat 
 and gave a devoted attention to the game. 
 
 Gregory came to Rachael the instant the game was 
 over; she had known, since the first triumphant instant 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 119 
 
 when his eyes fell upon her, that he would. She had 
 seen the color rush under his brown skin, and, alone 
 among all the onlookers, had known why Greg put three 
 balls into the net, and why he laughed so inexplicably 
 as he did so. And Rachael thought, for the first time, 
 how sweet it would be to be his wife, to sit here lovely 
 in lavender stripes and loose white coat: Warren Greg- 
 ory's wife. 
 
 "You mustn't do that," he said, sitting down on the 
 bench beside her, and wiping his hot face. 
 
 "Mustn't do what?" she asked. 
 
 "Mustn't turn up suddenly when I don't expect you. 
 It makes me dizzy. Look here what are you doing? 
 I'm going up to the pool. I've got to get back into 
 town to-night. When can I see you?" 
 
 "Why" Rachael rose slowly, and slowly unfurled 
 her parasol "why, suppose we walk up together?" 
 
 They strolled away from the courts deliberately, 
 openly. Several persons remembered weeks later that 
 they went slowly, stopped now and then. No one 
 thought much of it at the time, for only a week later 
 Doctor Gregory took his mother to England, and 
 during that week it was ascertained that he and Mrs. 
 Breckenridge saw each other only once, and then were 
 in the presence of his mother and of Carol Brecken- 
 ridge and young Charles Gregory as well. There was 
 no tiniest peg for gossip to hang scandal upon, for 
 where old Mrs. James Gregory was, decorum of an 
 absolutely puritanic order prevailed. 
 
 Yet that stroll across the grass of the golf links was 
 a milestone in Rachael Breckenridge's life, and every 
 word that passed between Gregory and herself was 
 graven upon her heart for all time. The aspect of 
 laughter, of flirtation, was utterly absent to-day. His 
 tone was crisp and serious, he spoke almost before 
 they were out of the hearing of the group on the courts. 
 
 "I've been wanting to talk to you, Rachael; in fact" 
 he laughed briefly "in fact, I am talking to you all 
 day long, these days," he said, "arguing and consult- 
 
120 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ing and advising and planning. But before we can 
 talk, there's Clarence. What about Clarence?" 
 
 Something in the gravity of his expression as their 
 eyes met impressed Rachael as she had rarely been im- 
 
 Eressed in her life before. He was in deadly earnest, 
 e had planned his campaign, and he must take the 
 first step by clearing the way. How sure he was, how 
 wonderfully, quietly certain of his course. 
 
 "We are facing a miserable situation, but it's a 
 commonplace one, after all," said Warren Gregory, 
 as she did not speak. "I you can see the position 
 I'm in. I have to ask you to be free before I can move. 
 I can't go to Breckenridge's wife 
 
 The color burned in both their faces as they looked 
 at each other. 
 
 "It is a miserable position, Greg," Rachael said, 
 after a moment's silence. "And although, as you say, 
 it's commonplace enough, somehow I never thought 
 before just what this sort of thing involves! However, 
 the future must take care of itself. For the present 
 there's only this. I'm going to leave Clarence." 
 
 Warren Gregory drew a long breath. 
 
 "He won't fight it?" 
 
 "I don't think he will." Rachael frowned. "I 
 think he'll be willing to furnish the evidence. Es- 
 pecially if he has no reason to suspect that I have any 
 other plans," she added thoughtfully. 
 
 "Then he mustn't suspect," the doctor said instantly. 
 'Nor anyone," she finished, with a look of alarm. 
 
 "Nor anyone, of course," he repeated. 
 
 "I don't know that I have any other plans," Rachael 
 said sadly. "I won't think beyond that one thing. 
 Our marriage has been an utter and absolute failure, 
 we are both wretched. It must end. I hate the fuss, 
 of course " 
 
 He was watching her closely, too keenly tuned to 
 her mood to disquiet her with any hint of the lover's 
 attitude now. 
 
 "And just how will you go about it ?" he asked. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 121 
 
 "I shall slip off to some quiet place, I think. I'll 
 tell him before he goes away. My attorneys will 
 handle the matter for me it's a sickening business!" 
 Rachael's beautiful face expressed distaste. 
 
 "It's done every day," Warren Gregory said. 
 
 "Of course divorce is not a new idea to me/' Rachael 
 presently pursued. "But it is only in the last two or 
 three days for a week, perhaps that it has seemed to 
 have that inevitable quality that the-sooner-over- 
 the-better sort of urgency. I wonder why I didn't do 
 it years ago. I shall" she laughed sadly "I shall 
 hate myself as a divorced woman," she said. "It's a 
 survival of some old instinct, I suppose, but it doesn't 
 seem right." 
 
 "It's done all the time," was the doctor's simple 
 defence. "And oh, my dear," he added, "you will 
 know and I will know we can't keep knowing " 
 
 She stopped short, her lovely face serious in the 
 shade of her parasol, her dark-blue eyes burning with a 
 sort of noble shame. 
 
 "Greg!" she said quickly and breathlessly. "Please 
 
 Let's not let's not say it. Let me feel, all 
 
 this summer, that it wasn't said. Let me feel that 
 while I was living under one man's roof, and spending 
 his money, that I didn't even think of another man. 
 It's done all the time, you say, that's true. But I 
 hate it. Whether I leave Clarence, and make my own 
 life under new conditions, and never remarry, or whe- 
 ther, in a year or two but I won't think of that!" 
 And to his surprise and concern, as she stopped short 
 on the grassy path, the eyes that Rachael turned to- 
 ward him were brimming with tears. "You s-see what 
 a baby I am becoming, Greg," she said unsteadily. 
 "It's all your doing, I'm afraid! I haven't cried for 
 years loneliness and injustice and unhappiness don't 
 make me cry! But just lately I've known what it 
 was to dream of of joy, Greg. And if that joy is 
 ever really coming to us, I want to be worthy of it. 
 I want to start right this time. I want to spend the 
 
122 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 summer quietly somewhere, thinking and reading. 
 I'm going to give up cards and even cocktails. You 
 smile, Greg, but I truly am! Just for this time, I 
 mean. And it's come to me, just lately, that I wouldn't 
 leave Clarence if he really needed me, or if it would 
 make him unhappy. I'm going to be different every- 
 thing seems different already 
 
 "Don't you know why?" he said with his grave 
 smile, as she paused. It was enchanting to him to 
 see the color flood her face, to see her shy eyes suddenly 
 averted. She did not answer, and they walked slowly 
 toward the clubhouse steps. 
 
 "There's only one thing more to say," Warren Greg- 
 ory said, arresting her for one more moment. "It's 
 this : as soon as you're free, I'm coming for you. You 
 may not have made up your mind by that time, Rachael. 
 My mind will never change." 
 
 Shaken beyond all control by his tone, Rachael did 
 not even raise her eyes. Her flush died away, leaving 
 her face pale. He saw her breast rise on a quick breath. 
 
 "Will you write me?" he asked, after a moment. 
 
 "Oh, yes, Greg!" she answered quickly, in a voice 
 hardly above a whisper. "When do you go?" 
 
 "On Wednesday a week from to-day, in fact. And 
 that reminds me, Billy says you are coming into town 
 early next week?" 
 
 "Monday, probably." Rachael was coming back 
 to the normal. "She needs things for camp, and I've 
 got a little shopping to do." 
 
 "Then could you lunch with Mother? Little Char- 
 ley'll be there : no one else. Bring Billy. Mother'd love 
 it. You're a great favorite there, you know." 
 
 "I may not always be a favorite there," Rachael 
 said with a rueful smile. 
 
 "Don't worry about Mother," Warren Gregory said 
 with a confidence that in this moment of excitement 
 and exhilaration he almost felt was justified. " Mother's 
 a dear!" 
 
 That was all their conversation. When they entered 
 
THE HEART OF EACHAEL 123 
 
 the clubhouse Doctor Gregory turned toward the 
 swimming pool and Rachael was instantly drawn into 
 a game of bridge. She played like a woman in a dream, 
 was joined by Billy, went home in a dream, and pres- 
 ently found herself and her husband fellow guests at a 
 dreamlike dinner-party. 
 
 Why not? why not? why not? The question 
 drummed in head and heart day and night. Why not 
 end bondage, and taste freedom? Why not end un- 
 happiness, and try joy? She had done her best to 
 make her first marriage a success, and she had failed. 
 Why not, with all kindness, with all generous good 
 wishes, end the long experiment ? Who, in all her wide 
 range of acquaintances, would think the less of her 
 for the obviously sensible step ? The world recognized 
 divorce as an indispensable institution: one marriage 
 in every twelve was dissolved. 
 
 And remarriage, a brilliant second marriage, was 
 universally approved. Even such a stern old judge as 
 Warren's mother counted among her acquaintances the 
 divorced and remarried. To reappear, triumphant, 
 beloved, beautiful, before one's old world 
 
 But no-^-of this Rachael would not permit herself to 
 think. Time alone could tell what her next step must 
 be. The only consideration now must be that, even 
 if Warren Gregory had never existed, even if there 
 were no other man than Clarence Breckenridge in the 
 world, she must take the step. Better poverty, and 
 work, and obscurity, if need be, with freedom, than 
 all Clarence could offer her in this absurd and empty 
 bondage. 
 
 Once firmly decided, she began to chafe against the 
 delays that made an immediate announcement of her 
 intentions unwise. If a thing was to be done, as well 
 do it quickly, thought Rachael, as she listened pa- 
 tiently to the vacillating decisions of Carol and her 
 father in regard to the Villalonga camping plan. At 
 one time Clarence completely abandoned the idea, 
 throwing the watchful and silent Rachael into utter 
 
124 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 consternation. Carol was alternately bored by the 
 plan and wearily interested in it. Their characteristic 
 absorption in their own comfort was a great advantage 
 to Rachael at this particular juncture; she had been 
 included in Mrs. Villalonga's invitation as a matter of 
 course, but such was the life of the big, luxurious estab- 
 lishment known as the "camp" that all three of the 
 Breckenridges, and three more of them had there been 
 so many, might easily have spent six weeks therein 
 without crossing each other's paths more than once or 
 twice a week. It never occurred to either Carol or 
 her father to question Rachael closely as to her pleas- 
 ure in the matter. They took it for granted that she 
 would be there if no pleasanter invitation interfered, 
 exactly as they themselves would. 
 
 An enormous income enabled the sprightly Mrs. 
 Villalonga to conduct her midsummer residence in the 
 Canadian forests upon a scale that may only be com- 
 pared to a hotel. She usually asked about one hundred 
 friends to visit her for an indefinite time, and of this 
 number perhaps half availed themselves of the privilege, 
 drifting in upon her at any time, remaining only while 
 the spirit moved, and departing unceremoniously, per- 
 haps, if the hostess chanced to be away at the moment, 
 with no farewells at all, when any pleasanter prospect 
 offered. 
 
 Mrs. Villalonga was a large, coarse-voiced woman, 
 with a heart of gold, and the facial characteristics that in 
 certain unfortunate persons suggest nothing so much as 
 a horse. She sent a troop of servants up to the woods 
 every year, following them in a week or two with her 
 first detachment of guests. She paid her chef six 
 thousand dollars a year, and would have paid more for 
 a better chef, if there had been one. She expected 
 three formal meals every day, including in their scope 
 every delicacy that could be procured at any city hotel, 
 and also an indefinite number of lesser meals, to be 
 served in tennis pavilion, or after cards at night, or 
 whenever a guest arrived. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 125 
 
 By the time she reached the camp everything must 
 be complete for another summer, awnings flapping 
 gently outside the striped canvas "tents'* that were 
 really roomy cabins provided with shower baths and 
 wide piazzas. The great cement-walled swimming 
 pool must be cleaned, the courts rolled, the cars all in 
 order, the boats and bath-houses in readiness. A 
 miniature grocery and drug store must be established 
 in the building especially designed for this use; the little 
 laundry concealed far up in the woods must be oper- 
 ating briskly. 
 
 Then, from the middle of June to the first of Septem- 
 ber, the camp was in full swing. There were dances 
 and campfires and theatricals and fancy-dress affairs 
 innumerable. Ice and champagne and California 
 peaches and avocados from Hawaii poured from the 
 housekeeping department in an unending stream; 
 there were new toothbrushes and new pajamas for the 
 unexpected guest, there were new bathing suits in 
 boxes for the girls who had driven over from Taramac 
 House and who wanted a swim, there were new packs 
 of cards and new boxes of cigars, and there were maids 
 maids maids to run for these things when they 
 were wanted, and carry them away when their brief 
 use was over. 
 
 Then it would be September, and everything would 
 end as suddenly as it began. The Villalongas would go 
 to Europe, or to Newport, Vera loudly, joyously, in- 
 sistently urging everyone to visit them there if it 
 were the latter. In November they would be in their 
 town house with new paintings and new rugs to show 
 their guests: a portrait of Vera, a rug stolen from a 
 Sultan's palace. 
 
 Everybody said that Vera Villalonga did this sort 
 of thing extremely well; indeed she had no rival in 
 her own particular field. The weekly society journals 
 depended upon her to supply them with spectacular 
 pictures of a Chinese ball every November and a Mi- 
 careme dance every spring; they sent photographers 
 
126 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 all the way up to her camp that their readers might not 
 miss a yearly glimpse of the way Mrs. Villalonga enter- 
 tained. 
 
 But Rachael, who had spent a portion of six summers 
 with the Villalongas, found herself, in her newly ana- 
 lytical mood, wondering just who got any particular 
 pleasure out of it all. Vera herself, perhaps. Cer- 
 tainly her husband, who would spend all his time play- 
 ing poker and tennis, would have been as happy else- 
 where. Her two sons, tall, dark young men, in con- 
 nection with whose characters the world in general 
 contented itself merely with the word "wild," would 
 be there only for a week or two at most. Billy would 
 wait for Joe Pickering's letters, Clarence would drink, 
 and watch Billy. Little Mina Villalonga, who had a 
 minor nervous ailment, would wander about after 
 Billy. The Parmalees would come up for a visit, and 
 the Morans would come. Jack Torrence, spoiled out 
 of all reason, would promise a week and come for two 
 days; Porter Pinckard would compromise upon a mere 
 hour or two, charging into the camp in his racing car, 
 introducing hilarious friends, accepting a sandwich and 
 a bottle of beer, and then tearing off again. Straker 
 Thomas, silent, mysterious, ill, would drift about for a 
 week or two; Peter Pomeroy would go up late in July, 
 and be adored by everyone, and take charge of the 
 theatricals. 
 
 "The maids probably get any amount of fun out of 
 it," mused Rachael. Vera was notably generous to 
 her servants: a certain pool was reserved for them, and 
 their numbers formed a most congenial society every 
 summer. "I don't believe Til go to Vera's this year," 
 Mrs. Breckenridge said aloud to her husband and step- 
 daughter. 
 
 "I'm not crazy about it," Billy agreed fretfully. 
 
 "Might as well," was the man's enthusiastic con- 
 tribution. 
 
 "Oh, I'm going!" Billy said discontentedly. "But I 
 don't see why you and Rachael have to go." 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 127 
 
 "Don't you?" her father said significantly. 
 
 "Joe Pickering's going to be in Texas this whole 
 summer, if that's what you mean!" flamed Billy. 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it," Clarence commented. 
 
 "Anyway, you might depend upon Vera to take 
 absolute good care of Bill," Rachael said soothingly. 
 "It's time you both got away to some cooler place, if 
 you are going to fight so about nothing! Why do 
 you do it? Billy can't marry anyone for eleven 
 months, and if she wants to marry the man in the 
 moon then you can't stop her. So there you are!" 
 
 "And I'm capable of running my own affairs," 
 finished Billy with a look far from filial. 
 
 "You only waste your breath arguing with Clarence 
 when he's got one of his headaches," Rachael said to 
 her stepdaughter an hour or two later when they were 
 spinning smoothly into the city for the planned shop- 
 ping. "Of course he'll go to Vera's, and of course you'll 
 go, too! Just don't tease him when he's all upset." 
 
 "Well, what does he drink and smoke so much, and 
 get this way for? " Billy demanded sullenly. 
 
 "What does anybody do it for?" Rachael countered. 
 And a second later her singing heart was with Gregory 
 again. He did not dp it! 
 
 She entered into Billy's purchasing perplexities with 
 great sympathy; a successful hat was found, several de- 
 liciously extravagant and fragile dresses for camping. 
 
 "You're awfully decent about all this, Rachael," 
 Billy said once; "it must be a sweet life we lead you 
 sometimes!" 
 
 Something in the girl's young glance touched Rachael 
 strangely. They were in the car again now, going 
 toward Mrs. Gregory's handsome, old-fashioned house 
 on Washington Square. Rachael was inspired to seize 
 the propitious second. 
 
 "Listen, Bill," she said, and paused. Billy eyed her 
 curiously. Obtuse as she was, a certain change in 
 Rachael had not entirely escaped the younger woman, 
 
 "Well?" she asked, on guard. 
 
128 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Well " Rachael faltered. Motherly advice was 
 
 not much in her line. "It's just this, Bill," she resumed 
 slowly, "when you think of marriage, don't think of 
 just a few weeks or a few months; think of all the time. 
 Think of other things than just that sort of love. 
 Children, you know, and and books, don't you know? 
 Things that count. Be I don't say be guided en- 
 tirely by what your father and lots of other persons 
 think, but be influenced by it! Realize that we have 
 no motive but but affection, in advising you to be 
 
 sure." 
 
 The stumbling, uncertain words were unlike Mrs. 
 Breckenridge's usual certain flow of reasoning. But in 
 spite of this, or because of it, Billy was somewhat im- 
 pressed. 
 
 "I had an aunt in California," Rachael continued, 
 "who cried, and got whipped and locked up, and all the 
 rest of it, and she carried her point. But she was 
 unhappy. . . ." 
 
 "You mean because Joe is divorced?" Billy asked 
 in a somewhat troubled voice. 
 
 The scarlet rushed to Rachael's face. 
 
 "N-not entirely," she answered in some confusion. 
 
 "That is, you don't think divorced people ought to 
 remarry, even if the divorce is fair enough?" Billy 
 pursued, determined to be clear. 
 
 "Well, I suppose every case is different, Bill." 
 
 "That's what you've always said!" Billy accused 
 her vivaciously. "You said, time and time again, 
 that if people can't live together in peace they ought 
 to separate, but that it was another thing if they married 
 again!" 
 
 "Did I?" Rachael asked weakly, adding a moment 
 later, with obvious relief in her tone: "Here we are! 
 It's only this, Bill, " she finished, as they mounted the 
 brownstone steps, "be sure. You can do anything, I 
 suppose. Only be sure!" 
 
 Mrs. Gregory would be down in a few minutes, old 
 Dennison said. Rachael murmured something ami- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 129 
 
 able, and the two went into the dark, handsome parlors; 
 the house was full of parlors; on both sides of the hall 
 stately, crowded rooms could be glimosed through open 
 doors. 
 
 "Isn't it fierce?" Billy said with a helpless shrug. 
 Rachael smiled and shook her head slowly in puzzled 
 consent. "Don't you suppose they ever air it?" pur- 
 sued the younger woman in a low tone. The air had a 
 peculiarly close, dry smell. 
 
 "It wouldn't seem so," Rachael said, looking at the 
 life-size statues of Moorish and Neopolitan girls, the 
 mantel clock representing a Dutch windmill, the mantel 
 itself, of black marble, gilded and columned, with a 
 mirror in a carved walnut frame stretching ten feet 
 above it, the beaded fire screen, the voluminous window 
 curtains of tasselled rep, and the ornate walnut table 
 across whose marble top a strip of lace had been laid. 
 Everything was ugly and expensive and almost every- 
 thing was old-fashioned, all the level surfaces of tables, 
 mantel, and piano top were filled with small articles, 
 bits of ivory carving from China, leather boxes, ma- 
 jolica jars, photographs in heavy frames, enormous 
 illustrated books, candlesticks, and odd teacups and 
 trays. 
 
 Smiling down how Rachael knew that smile, half- 
 quizzical and half-tender from a corner of the room 
 was a beautiful oil portrait of Warren Gregory, the one 
 really fine thing in the room. By some chance the 
 painter had caught on his face the very look with which 
 he might, in the flesh, have studied this dreadful room. 
 Rachael felt a thrill go to her heels as she looked back 
 at the canvas, and far down in the deeps of her being 
 the thought stirred that some day her hand might be 
 the one to change all this to make the woodwork 
 colonial white, and the paper rich with color, to have 
 the black marble changed to creamy tiles, and the rep 
 curtains torn away. Then how charming the place 
 would be when visitors came in from the hot street! 
 
 "A million apologies all my fault!" said Doctor 
 
130 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Gregory in the doorway. His mother, in rustling 
 black silk, was on his arm. She had given up her cane 
 to-day to use the living support, and no lover could 
 have wished to appear more charming in his lady's 
 eyes than did Warren Gregory appear to Rachael as 
 he lowered the frail old figure to a chair and neglected 
 his guests while he made his mother comfortable. 
 
 "He would have you think, now, that I was the 
 cause of the delay," said the old lady in a sweet voice 
 that betrayed curiously the weakness of the flesh and 
 the strength of the spirit. "But I assure you my 
 beauty is no longer a matter of great importance to 
 me!" 
 
 "So it was Greg who was curling his hair?" Rachael 
 asked, with one swift and eloquent glance for him before 
 she drew a much-fringed hassock to his mother's knee 
 and seated herself there with the confidence of a cap- 
 tivating child. "I always thought he was rather vain! 
 But let's not talk about him, we only make him worse. 
 Tell me about yourself? " 
 
 Mrs. Gregory was a rather spirited old lady, and 
 liked to fancy, with the pathetic complacency of the 
 passing generation, that her sense of humor quite kept 
 up with the times. Rachael knew her well, and knew 
 all her stories, but this only made her the pleasanter 
 companion. She quickly carried the conversation into 
 the past, and was content to be a listener; indeed, 
 with a hostess far removed in type from herself it 
 was the only safe role to play. The conversation was 
 full of pitfalls for this charming and dutiful worldling, 
 and Rachael was too clever to risk a fall. 
 
 She was afraid of the crippled little gentlewoman in 
 the big chair, and Warren Gregory was afraid, too. 
 Some mysterious element in her regard for them made 
 luncheon an ordeal for them both, although Billy's 
 healthy young eyes saw only an old woman, impotent 
 and alone; the maids were respectful and pitying, and 
 young Charles Gregory, who joined them at luncheon, 
 was obviously unimpressed by his grandmother's 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 131 
 
 power, but was smitten red and inarticulate at the 
 first glimpse of Billy. 
 
 This youth, after silently disposing of several courses, 
 finally asked in a husky voice for Miss Charlotte 
 Haviland, and relapsed into silence again. Billy flirted 
 youthfully with her host, Rachael devoted herself to 
 the old lady. 
 
 She had always been happy here, a marked favorite 
 with old Mrs. Gregory to whom her audacious nonsense 
 had always seemed a great delight before. But to-day 
 she was conscious of a change, she could not control 
 the conversation with her usual sure touch, she floun^ 
 dered and contradicted herself like a schoolgirl. One 
 of her brilliant stories fell rather flat because its humor 
 was largely supplied by an intoxicated man "of 
 course it was dreadful, but then it was funny, too!" 
 Rachael finished lamely. Another flashing account 
 won from the old hostess the single words *0n Sun- 
 day?" 
 
 "Well, yes. It was on Sunday. I am afraid we are 
 absolute pagans; we don't always remember to go to 
 church, by any means!" Rachael began to feel that a 
 cloud of midges were buzzing about her face. Every 
 topic led her deeper into the quicksand. There was a 
 definite touch of resentment under the gracious manner 
 in which she presently said her good-bye, and they 
 were no sooner in the motor car than she exclaimed to 
 Billy: 
 
 "Didn't Mrs. Gregory seem horribly cross to you 
 to-day? She made me feel as if I'd broken all the 
 Commandments and was dancing on the pieces!" 
 
 "What do you know about Charles asking for Char- 
 lotte?" was Billy's only answer. "Isn't he just the 
 sort of mutt who would ask for Charlotte!" 
 
 "Isn't she quite lovely?" said Mrs. Gregory from 
 over the fleecy yarn she was knitting, when the guests 
 had gone. 
 
 "Carol?" the doctor countered. 
 
132 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Yes, Carol, too. But I was thinking of Mrs, 
 Breckenridge. Do you see her very often, James ? " 
 
 "Quite a bit. Do you mind my smoking?" 
 
 "I often wonder," pursued the old lady innocently, 
 "what such a sweet, gay, lovely girl could see in a 
 fellow like poor Clarence Breckenridge!" 
 
 "Great marvel she doesn't throw him over!" Warren 
 said casually. 
 
 "It distresses me to hear you talk so recklessly, my 
 son," Mrs. Gregory said after a brief pause. 
 
 "Lord, Mother," her son presently observed im- 
 patiently, "is it reasonable to expect that because a 
 girl like that makes a mistake when she is twenty or 
 twenty-one, that she shall pay for it for the rest of her 
 life?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, we are not left in any doubt about 
 it," the old lady said dryly. And as Warren was silent 
 she went on with quavering vigor: "It is not for us 
 to judge her husband's infirmities. She is his wife." 
 
 "Oh, well, there's no use arguing it," the man said 
 
 Eleasantly after a sulphurous interval. "Fortunately 
 :>r her, most people don't feel as you do." 
 
 "You surely don't think that 7 originated this 
 theory?" his mother asked quietly after a silence, 
 during which her long needles moved a little more 
 swiftly than was natural. 
 
 "I don't think anything about it. I know that 
 you're much, much narrower about such things than 
 your religion or any religion gives you any right to 
 be," Warren asserted hotly. "It is nothing to me, 
 but I hate this smug parcelling out of other people's 
 affairs," he went on. "Mrs. Breckenridge is a very 
 wonderful and a most unfortunate woman; her husband 
 isn't fit to lace her shoes " 
 
 "All that may be true," his mother interrupted with 
 some agitation. 
 
 "All that may be true, you say! And yet if Rachael 
 left him, and tried to find happiness somewhere else " 
 
 "The law is not of my making, James," the old lady 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 133 
 
 intervened mildly, noting his use of the discussed 
 woman's name with a pang. 
 
 "But it is of your making you people who sit 
 around and say what's respectable and what's not 
 respectable! Who are you to judge?" 
 
 "I try not to judge," Mrs. Gregory said so simply 
 that the man's anger cooled in spite of himself. "And 
 perhaps I am foolish, James, all mothers are. But you 
 are the last of my four sons, and I am a widow in my 
 old age, and I tremble for you. When a woman with 
 beauty as great as that confides in you, my child, when 
 she turns to you, your soul is in danger, and your mother 
 sees it. I cannot I cannot be silent - " 
 
 Rachael herself, an hour ago, had not used her youth 
 and beauty with more definite design than was this 
 other woman using her age and infirmity now. Warren 
 Gregory was almost as readily affected. 
 
 "My dear Mother," he said sensibly and charm- 
 ingly, "don't think for one instant that I do not ajx 
 preciate your devotion to me. What has suddenly put 
 into your head this concern about Mrs. Breckenridge, 
 I can't imagine. I know that if she were ever in any 
 trouble or need you would be the first to defend her. 
 She is in a peculiarly difficult position, and in a pro- 
 fessional way I am somewhat in her confidence, that's 
 
 "I should think she could do something with Clar- 
 ence," the old lady said, somewhat mollified. "Inter- 
 est him in something new; lead him away from bad 
 influences." 
 
 "Clarence is rather a hopeless problem," Warren 
 Gregory said. The talk drifted away to other persons 
 and affairs, but when they presently parted, with great 
 amiability on both sides, Warren Gregory knew that 
 his mother's suspicions had in some mysterious way 
 been aroused, and old MrsJ Gregory, sitting alone in 
 the heat of the afternoon, writhed in the grip of a 
 definite apprehension. Absurd absurd to interpret 
 that married woman's brightly innocent glances into a 
 
134 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 declaration of love, absurd to find passion concealed 
 in Warren's cheerfully hospitable manner. But she 
 could not shake off the terrified conviction that it was 
 so. 
 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Moulton of England have 
 rented for the season the house of Mr. and Mrs. Clar- 
 ence Breckenridge, at Belvedere Bay," stated the social 
 columns authoritatively. "Mr. Breckenridge and Miss 
 Carol Breckenridge will leave at once for the summer 
 camp of Mrs. Booth Villalonga, at Elks Leap, where 
 Mrs. Breckenridge will join them after spending a few 
 weeks with friends." 
 
 Rachael saw the notice on the morning of the last 
 day that she and Clarence were together. In the 
 afternoon Billy and Clarence were to leave for the 
 north, and Rachael was to go to Florence for a day or 
 two. She had been unusually indefinite about her 
 plans for the summer, but in the general confusion of 
 all plans this had not been noticed. She had super- 
 intended the packing and assorting and storing of 
 silver and linen, as a matter of course, and it was easy 
 to see that certain things indisputably her own went 
 into certain crates. Nobody questioned her authority, 
 and Clarence and Billy paid no attention whatever to 
 the stupid proceeding of getting the house in order for 
 tenants. 
 
 On this last morning she sat at the breakfast table 
 studying these two who had been her companions for 
 seven years, and who suspected so little that this com- 
 panionship was not to last for another seven years, for 
 an indefinite time. Billy was in a bad temper because 
 her father was not taking Alfred and the car with them 
 to the camp, as he had done for the two previous years. 
 Clarence, sullen as always under Billy's disapproval, 
 was pretending to read his paper. He had a severe 
 headache this morning, his face looked flushed and 
 swollen. He was dreading the twenty-four hours in a 
 hot train, even though the Bowditches, going up in 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 135 
 
 their own car to their own camp, had offered the Breck- 
 enridges its comparative comfort and coolness for the 
 entire trip. 
 
 "Makes me so sick/' grumbled Billy, who looked 
 extremely pretty in a Chinese coat of blue and purple 
 embroideries; "every time I want to move I'll have to 
 ask Aunt Vera if I may have a car! No fun at all!' 
 
 "Loads of horses and cars up there, my dear," 
 Rachael said pacifically. She was quivering from 
 head to foot with nervous excitement; the next few 
 hours were all-important to her. And, under the 
 pressure of her own great emotions, Billy seemed only 
 rather pitiful and young to-day, and even Clarence less 
 a conscious tyrant, and more a blundering boy, than he 
 had seemed. She bore them no ill will after these 
 seven hard years; indeed a great peace and kindliness 
 pervaded her spirit and softened her manner toward 
 them both. Her marriage had been a great disap- 
 pointment, composed of a thousand small disappoint- 
 ments, but she was surprised to find that some intangi- 
 ble and elementary emotion was about to make this 
 parting strangely hard. 
 
 "Yes, but it's not the same thing," Billy raged. 
 Rachael began a low-voiced reassurance to which the 
 younger woman listened reluctantly, scowling over her 
 omelette, and interposing an occasional protest. 
 
 "Oh, yap yap yap! My God, I do get tired of 
 hearing you two go on and on and on!" Clarence pres- 
 ently burst out angrily. "If you don't want to go, 
 Billy, say so. I'm sick of the whole thing, anyway!" 
 
 "You know very well I never wanted to go," Billy 
 answered. And because, being now committed to the 
 Villalonga visit, she perversely dreaded it, she pursued 
 aggrievedly, "I'd ever so much rather have gone to 
 California, Dad!" 
 
 How sure the youngster was of her power, Rachael 
 thought, watching him instantly soften under his 
 daughter's skilful touch. 
 
 "For five cents," he said eagerly, "Fd wire Verai 
 
136 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 and you and I'd beat it to Santa Barbara! What do 
 you say?" 
 
 "And if Rachael promised to be awfully good, she 
 could come, too!" Billy laughed. But the girl's gay 
 patronage was never again to be extended to Rachael 
 Breckenridge. 
 
 "You couldn't disappoint Vera now," she protested. 
 
 "Oh, Lord! make some objections!" Clarence growled. 
 
 "My dear boy, it's nothing to me, whatever you do," 
 Rachael said quickly. "But Vera Villalonga is a very 
 important friend for Bill. There's no sense in antago- 
 nizing her " 
 
 "No, I suppose there isn't," Billy said slowly. "But 
 I wish she'd not ask us every summer. I suppose we 
 shall be doing this for the rest of our lives ! " 
 
 She trailed slowly from the room, and Clarence took 
 one or two fretful glances at his paper. 
 
 "Gosh, how you do love to spoil things!" he said 
 bitterly to his wife in a sudden burst. 
 
 Rachael did not answer. She rose after a few mo- 
 ments, and carried her letters into the adjoining room. 
 When Clarence presently passed the door she called 
 him in. 
 
 "Now or never now or never!" said Rachael's fast- 
 beating heart. She was pale and breathing quickly 
 as he came in. But Clarence, sick and headachy, did 
 not notice these signs of strong emotion. 
 
 "Clarence, I need some money," Rachael said sim- 
 ply. 
 
 "What for?" he asked unencouragingly. 
 
 The color came into his wife's face. She did not ask 
 often for money, although he was rich, and she had been 
 his wife for seven years. It was a continual humili- 
 ation to Rachael that she must ask him at all for the 
 little actual money she spent, and tell him what she 
 did with it when she got it. Clarence might lose more 
 money at poker in a single night than Rachael touched 
 in a month; it had come to him without effort, and or 
 the two, she was the one who made a real effort to 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 137 
 
 hold the home together. Yet she was a pensioner on 
 his bounty, obliged to wait for the propitious mood and 
 moment. Under her hand at this moment was Mary 
 Moulton's check for one thousand dollars, more than 
 she had ever had at one time in her life. She could not 
 touch it, but Clarence would turn it into bills, and stuff 
 them carelessly into his pocket, to be scattered in the 
 next week or two wherever his idle fancy saw fit. 
 
 "Why, for living, and travelling expenses," she 
 answered, with what dignity she could muster. 
 
 "Thought you had some money," he grumbled in 
 evident distaste. 
 
 "Come in here a moment," Rachael said in a voice 
 that rather to his surprise he obeyed. "Sit down 
 there," she went on, and Clarence, staring at her a little 
 stupidly, duly seated himself. His wife twisted about 
 in her desk chair so that she could rest an arm upon the 
 back of it, and faced him seriously across that arm. 
 
 "Clarence," said she, conscious of a certain dryness 
 in her mouth, and a sick quivering and weakness through- 
 out her whole body, "I want to end this." 
 
 "What?" asked Clarence, puzzled and dull, as she 
 paused. 
 
 "I want to be free," Rachael said, stumbling awk- 
 wardly over the phrase that sounded so artificial and 
 dramatic. They looked at each other, Clarence's be- 
 wildered look slowly changing to one of comprehension 
 under his wife's significant expression. There was a 
 silence. 
 
 "Well?" Clarence said, ending it with an indifferent 
 shrug. 
 
 "Our marriage has been a farce for years almost 
 from the beginning," Rachael asserted eagerly. "You 
 know it, and I know it everyone does. You're not 
 happy, and I'm wretched. I'm sick of excuses, and 
 pretending, and prevaricating. There isn't a thing in 
 the world we feel alike about; our life has become an 
 absolute sham. It isn't as if I could have any real 
 influence over you you go your way, and do as you 
 
138 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 please, and I take the consequences. I realize now 
 that every word I say jars on you. Why, sometimes 
 when you come into a room and find me there I can 
 tell by the expression on your face that you're angry 
 just at that! I've too much self-respect, I've too much 
 pride, to go on this way. You know how I hate divorce 
 no woman in the world hates it more but tell me, 
 honestly, what do we gain by keeping up a life like this ? 
 I used to be happy and confident and full of energy a 
 few years ago; now Fm bored all the time. What's 
 the use, what's the use that's the way I feel about 
 everything " 
 
 ''You're not any more tired of it than I am!" Clar- 
 ence interrupted sullenly. 
 
 "Then why keep it up?" she asked urgently. 
 "You've Billy, and your clubs, and your car, to fill 
 your time. There'll be a fuss, of course, and I hate 
 that, but we'll both be away. We've given it a fair 
 trial, but we simply aren't meant for each other. 
 Good heavens ! it isn't as if we were the first man and 
 woman who " 
 
 "Don't talk as if I were opposing you," Clarence 
 said with a weary frown. 
 
 Rachael, snubbed, instantly fell silent. 
 
 "I've got my side in all this dissatisfied business, 
 too," the man presently said with unsteady dignity. 
 "You never cared a damn for me, or what became of me! 
 Fve had you ding-donging your troubles at me day 
 and night; it never occurs to you what I'm up against." 
 He looked at his watch. "You want some money?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " If you please," Rachael answered, scarlet-cheeked. 
 
 "Well, I can write a check " he began. 
 
 "Here's this check of Mary Moulton's for July," 
 Rachael said, nervously adding: "She wants to pay 
 month by month, because I think she hopes you'll rent 
 after August. I believe she'd keep the place indefi- 
 nitely, on account of being near her mother, and for 
 the boys." 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 139 
 
 Clarence took the check, and, hardly glancing at it, 
 scrawled his slovenly "C. L. Breckenridge" across the 
 back with a gold-mounted fountain pen. Rachael, 
 whose face was burning, received it back from his hand 
 with a husky "Thank you. You'll have to furnish 
 the grounds, I presume there will be a referee noth- 
 ing need get out beyond the fact that I am the com- 
 plainant. You won't contest? You won't oppose 
 anything?" She hated herself for the question, but it 
 had to be asked. 
 
 "Nope," the man said impatiently. 
 
 "And" Rachael hesitated "and you won't say 
 anything, Clarence," she suggested, "because the 
 papers will get hold of it fast enough!" 
 
 "You can't tell me anything about that," he said 
 sullenly. Then there came a silence. Rachael, look- 
 ing at him, wished that she could hate him a little more, 
 wished that his neglects and faults had made a little 
 deeper impression. For a minute or two neither spoke. 
 Then Clarence got up and left the room, and Rachael 
 sat still, the little slip held lightly between her fingers. 
 The color ebbed slowly from her face, her heart resumed 
 its normal beat, moments went by, the little clock on 
 her desk ticked on and on. It was all over; she was 
 free. She felt strangely shaken and cold, and deso- 
 lately lonely. 
 
 He loved her as little as she loved him. They had 
 never needed each other, yet there was in this severance 
 of the bond between them a strange and unexpected 
 pain. It was as if Rachael's heart yearned over the 
 wasted years, the love and happiness that might have 
 been. Not even the thought of Warren Gregory seemed 
 warm or real to-day; a great void surrounded her spirit; 
 she felt a chilled weariness with the world, with all 
 men she was sick of life. 
 
 On the following day she gave Florence a hint of the 
 situation. It was only fair to warn the important, 
 bustling matron a trifle in advance of the rest of the 
 world. Rachael had had a long night's sleep; she al- 
 
140 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ready began to feel deliciously young and free. She 
 was to spend a few nights at the Havilands', and the 
 next week supposedly go to the Princes' at Bar Harbor; 
 really she planned to disappear for a time from her 
 world. She must go up to town for a consultation 
 with her lawyer, and then, when the storm broke, she 
 would slip away to little Quaker Bridge, the tiny village 
 far down on Long Island upon which, quite by chance, 
 she had stumbled two years before. No one would 
 recognize her there, no one of her old world could find 
 her, and there for a month or two she could walk and 
 bathe and dream in wonderful solitude. Then then 
 Greg would be home again. 
 
 "I want to tell you something, Florence," Rachael 
 said to her sister-in-law when she was stretched upon 
 the wide couch in Florence's room, watching with the 
 placidity of a good baby that lady's process of dressing 
 for an afternoon of bridge, or rather the operations with 
 cold cream, rubber face brush, hair tonic, eyebrow 
 stick, powder, rouge, and lip paste that preceded the 
 process of dressing. Mrs. Haviland, even with this 
 assistance, would never be beautiful; in justice it must 
 be admitted that she never thought herself beautiful. 
 But she thought rouge and powder and paste improved 
 her appearance, and if through fatigue or haste she 
 was ever led to omit any or all of these embellishments, 
 she presented herself to the eyes of her family and 
 friends with a genuine sensation of guilt. Perhaps 
 three hours out of all her days were spent in some such 
 occupation; between bathing, manicuring, hair-dressing, 
 and intervals with her dressmaker and her corset 
 woman it is improbable that the subject of her appear- 
 ance was long out of the lady's mind. Yet she was 
 not vain, nor was she particularly well satisfied with 
 herself when it was done. That about one-fifth of 
 her waking time something more than two months 
 out of the year was spent in an unprofitable effort to 
 make herself, not beautiful nor attractive, but something 
 only a little nearer than was natural to a vague standard 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 141 
 
 of beauty and attractiveness, never occurred, and never 
 would occur, to Florence Haviland. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked now sharply, pausing with 
 one eyebrow beautifully pencilled and the other less 
 definite than ever by contrast. 
 
 "I don't suppose it will surprise you to hear that 
 Clarence and I have decided to try a change/' Rachael 
 said slowly. 
 
 "How do you mean a change?" the other woman 
 said, instantly alert and suspicious. 
 
 "The usual thing," Rachael smiled. 
 
 "What madness has got hold of that boy now?" 
 his sister exclaimed aghast. 
 
 "It's not entirely Clarence," Rachael explained 
 with a touch of pride. 
 
 "Well, then, you're mad!" the older woman said 
 shortly. 
 
 "Not necessarily, my dear," Rachael answered, res- 
 olutely serene. 
 
 "Go talk to someone who's been through it," Flor- 
 ence warned her. "You don't know what it is! It's 
 bad enough for him, but it's simple suicide for you!" 
 
 "Well, I wanted you to hear it from me," Rachael 
 submitted mildly. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you've decided, seriously, to 
 do it?" 
 
 "Very seriously, I assure you!" 
 
 "How do you propose to do it?" Florence asked 
 after a pause, during which she stared with growing 
 discomfort at her sister-in-law. 
 
 "The way other people do it," Rachael said with 
 assumed lightness. "Clarence agrees. There will be 
 evidence." 
 
 Mrs. Haviland flushed. 
 
 "You think that's fair to Clarence?" she asked pres- 
 ently. 
 
 "I think that in any question of fairness between 
 Clarence and me the balance is decidedly in my favor!' 1 
 Rachael said crisply. "Personally, I shall have noth- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ing to do with it, and Clarence very little. Charlie 
 Sturgis will represent me. I suppose Coates and Cran- 
 dall will take care of Clarence I don't know. That's 
 all there is to it!" 
 
 Her placid gaze roved about the ceiling. Mrs. 
 Haviland gazed at her in silence. 
 
 "Rachael," she said desperately, "will you talk to 
 someone will you talk to Gardner?" 
 
 "Why should I?" Rachael sat up on the couch, the 
 loosened mass of her beautiful hair falling about her 
 shoulders. "What has Gardner or anyone else to 
 do with it? It's Clarence's business, and my business, 
 and it concerns nobody else!" she said warmly. "You 
 look on from the outside. I've borne it for seven years ! 
 I'm young, I'm only twenty-eight, and what is my life? 
 Keeping house for a man who insults me, and ignores 
 me, who puts me second to his daughter, and has put 
 me second since our wedding day making excuses for 
 him to his friends, giving up what I want to do, never 
 knowing from day to day what his mood will be, never 
 having one cent of money to call my own ! I tell you 
 there are days and days when I'm too sick at heart to 
 read, too sick at heart to think! Last summer, for 
 instance, when we were down at Easthampton with 
 the Parmalees, when everyone was so wild over bathing, 
 and tennis, and dancing, Clarence wasn't sober one 
 moment of the time, not one! One night, when we were 
 dancing but I won't go into it!" 
 
 "I know," Florence said hastily, rather frightened 
 at this magnificent fury. "I know, dear, it's too bad 
 it's dreadful it's a great shame. But men are like 
 that ! Now Gardner " 
 
 "All men aren't like that! Gardner does that sort 
 of thing now and then, I know," Rachael rushed on, 
 "but Gardner is always sorry. Gardner takes his 
 place as a man of dignity in the world. I am nothing 
 to Clarence; I have never been to him one-tenth of 
 what Billy is! I have borne it, and borne it, and 
 now I just can't bear it any longer!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 143 
 
 And Rachael, to her own surprise and disgust, burst 
 into bitter crying, and, stammering some incoherency 
 about an aching head, she went to her own room and 
 flung herself across the bed. The suppressed excite- 
 ment of the last few days found relief in a long fit of 
 sobbing; Florence did not dare go near her. The 
 older woman tried to persuade herself that the resent- 
 ment and bitterness of this unusual mood would be 
 washed away, and that Rachael, after a nap and a 
 bath, would feel more like herself, but nevertheless 
 she went off to her game in a rather worried frame of 
 mind, and gave but an imperfect attention to the ques- 
 tion of hearts or lilies. 
 
 Rachael, heartily ashamed of what she would have 
 termed her schoolgirlish display of emotion, came 
 slowly to herself, dozed over a magazine, plunged into 
 a cold bath, and at four o'clock dressed herself ex- 
 quisitely for Mrs. Whittaker's informal dinner. Glow- 
 ing like a rose in her artfully simple gown of pink and 
 white checks, she went downstairs. 
 
 Florence had come in late, bearing a beautiful bit 
 of pottery, the first prize, and was again in the throes of 
 dressing, but Gardner was downstairs restlessly wan- 
 dering about the dimly lighted rooms and halls. He 
 was fond of Rachael, and as they walked up and down 
 the lawn together he tried, in a blunt and clumsy way, 
 to show her his sympathy. 
 
 " Floss tells me you're about at the end of your rope 
 - what?" said Gardner. "Clarence is the limit, of 
 course, but don't be too much in a hurry, old girl. 
 We'd be we'd be awfully sorry to have you come to a 
 smash, don't you know now!" 
 
 Thus Gardner. Rachaei gave him a glimmering 
 smile in the early dusk. 
 
 "Not much fun for me, Gardner," she said 
 gravely. 
 
 "Sure it's not," Gardner answered, clearing his 
 throat tremendously. Neither spoke again until Flor- 
 ence came down, but later, in all honesty, he told his 
 
144 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 wife that he had pitched into Rachael no end, and she 
 had agreed to go slow. 
 
 Florence, however, was not satisfied with so brief a 
 campaign. She and Rachael did not speak of the 
 topic again until the last afternoon of Rachael's stay. 
 Then the visitor, coming innocently downstairs at tea 
 time, was a little confused to see that besides Mrs. 
 Bowditch and her oldest daughter, and old Mrs. Tor- 
 rence, the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas were calling. In- 
 stantly she suspected a trap. 
 
 "Rachael, dear/' Florence said sweetly, when the 
 greetings were over, "will you take the bishop down to 
 look at the sundial? I've been boasting about it." 
 
 "You sound like a play, Florence," her sister-in-law 
 said with a little nervous laugh. ''Exit Rachael and 
 Bishop, L.' Surely you've seen the sundial, Bishop?" 
 
 "I had such a brief glimpse of it on the day of the 
 tea," Bishop Thomas said pleasantly, "that I feel as if 
 I must have another look at that inscription!" Smiling 
 and benign, rather impressive in his clerical black, the 
 clergyman got to his feet- and turned an inviting smile 
 to Rachael. 
 
 "Shall I take you down, Bishop?" Charlotte asked, 
 her eagerness to be socially useful fading into sick ap- 
 prehension at her mother's look. 
 
 "No, I'll go!" Rachael ended the little scene by 
 catching up her wide hat. "Come on, Bishop," she 
 said courageously, adding, as soon as they were out of 
 hearing, "and if you're going to be dreadful, begin this 
 moment!" 
 
 "And why, pray, should I be dreadful?" the bishop 
 asked, smiling reproachfully. "Am I usually so dread- 
 ful ? I don't believe it would be possible, among these 
 lovely roses" he drew in a great breath of the sweet 
 afternoon air "and with such a wonderful sunset 
 telling us to lift up our hearts." And sauntering con- 
 tentedly along, the bishop gave her an encouraging 
 smile, but as Rachael continued to walk beside him 
 without raising her eyes, presently he added, whim- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 sically: "Would it be dreadful, Mrs. Breckenridge, if 
 one saw a heedless little child oh, a sweet and dear, 
 but a heedless little child going too near the cliffs 
 would it be dreadful to say: 'Look out, little child! 
 There's a terrible fall there, and the water's cold and 
 dark. Be careful!' ' The bishop sat down on the 
 carved stone bench that had been set in the circle of 
 shrubs that surrounded the sundial, and Rachael sat 
 down, too. 
 
 "Well, what about the child?" he persisted, when 
 there had been a silence. 
 
 Rachael raised sombre eyes, her breast rose on a long 
 sigh. 
 
 "I am not a child," she said slowly. 
 
 "Aren't we all children?" asked the bishop, mildly 
 triumphant. 
 
 Rachael, sitting there in Florence's garden, looking 
 down at the white roofs of the village and the smooth 
 sheet of blue that was Belvedere Bay, felt a burning 
 resentment enter her heart. How calm and smug and 
 sure of themselves they were, these bishops and Flor- 
 ences and old lady Gregorys! How easy for them to 
 advise and admonish, to bottle her up with their little 
 laws and platitudes, these good people married to other 
 good people, and wrapped in the warmth of mutual 
 approval and admiration! The bishop was talking 
 
 "Children, yes, the best and wisest of us is no more 
 than that," he was saying dreamily, "and we must 
 bear and forbear with each other. Not easy? Of 
 course it's not easy! But no cross no crown, you know. 
 I have known Clarence a great many years ' 
 
 "I am sorry to hurt Florence God knows I'm sorry 
 for the whole thing!" Rachael said, "but you must 
 admit that I am the best judge of this matter. I've 
 borne it long enough. My mind is made up. You 
 and I have always been good friends, Bishop Thomas" 
 she laid a beautiful hand impulsively on his arm 
 "and you know that what you say has weight with 
 me. But believe me, I'm not jumping hastily into 
 
146 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 this: it's come after long, serious thought. Clarence 
 wants to be free as well " 
 
 "Clarence does?" the clergyman asked, with a dis- 
 approving shake of his head. 
 
 "He has said so," Rachael answered briefly. 
 
 "And what will your life be after this, my child ?" 
 
 To this she responded merely with a shrug. Per- 
 haps the bishop suspected that such a calm confidence 
 in the future indicated more or less definite plans, for 
 he gave her a shrewd and searching look, but there was 
 nothing to be said. The lovely lady continued to 
 stare at the soft turf with unsmiling eyes, and the 
 clergyman could only watch her in puzzled silence. 
 
 "After all," Rachael said presently, giving him a 
 rueful glance, "what are the statistics? One marriage 
 in twelve fails fails openly, I mean for of course there 
 are hundreds that don't get that far. Sixty thousand 
 last year!" 
 
 "If those are the statistics," said the bishop warmly, 
 "it is a disgrace to a Christian country!" 
 
 "But you don't call this a Christian country?" 
 Rachael said perversely. 
 
 "It is supposedly so," the clergyman asserted. 
 
 "Supposedly Christian," she mused, "and yet one 
 marriage out of every twelve ends in divorce, and you 
 Christians well, you don't cut us! We may not keep 
 holy the Sabbath day, we may not honor our fathers 
 and mothers, we may envy our neighbor's goods, yes, 
 and his wife, if we like, but still you don't refusejio 
 come to our houses ! " 
 
 "I don't know you in this mood," said Bishop 
 Thomas coldly. 
 
 "Call it Neroism, or Commonsensism, or Modernism, 
 or anything you like," Rachael said with sudden fire, 
 "but while you go on calling what you profess Chris- 
 tianity, Bishop, you simply subscribe to an untruth. 
 You know what our lives are, myself and Florence 
 and Gardner and Clarence; is there a Commandment 
 we don't break all day long and every day? Do we 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 147 
 
 give our coats away, do we possess neither silver nor 
 gold in our purses, do we love our neighbors? Why 
 don't you denounce us? Why don't you shun the 
 women in your parish who won't have children as 
 murderers ? Why don't you brand some of the men 
 who come to your church men whose business meth- 
 ods you know, and I know, and all the world knows as 
 thieves!" 
 
 "And what would my branding them as murderers 
 and thieves avail?" asked the bishop, actually a little 
 pale now, and rising to face her as she rose. "Are we 
 to judge our fellowmen?" 
 
 "I'm not," Rachael said, suddenly weary, "but I 
 should think you might. It would be at least refresh- 
 ing to have you, or someone, demonstrate what 
 Christianity is. It would be good for our souls. In- 
 stead," she added bitterly, "instead, you select one 
 little thing here, and one little thing there, and putter, 
 and tinker, and temporize, and gloss over, and build big 
 churches, with mortgages and taxes and insurance to 
 pay, in the name of Christianity! If I were little 
 Annie Smith, down in the village here, I could get a 
 divorce for twenty-five dollars, and you would never 
 hear of it. But Clarence Breckenridge is a millionaire, 
 and the Breckenridges have gone to your church for 
 a hundred years, and so it's a scandal that must be 
 averted if possible!" 
 
 "The church frowns on divorce," said the bishop 
 sternly. "At the very present moment the House of 
 Bishops, to which I have the distinguished honor to 
 belong, is considering taking a decided stand in the 
 matter. Divorce is a sin a sin against one of God's 
 institutions. But when I find a lady in this mood," 
 he continued, with a sort of magnificent forbearance, 
 "I never attempt to combat her views, no matter how 
 extraordinarily jumbled and and childish they are. 
 As a clergyman, and as an old friend, I am grieved when 
 I see a hasty and an undisciplined nature about to do 
 that which will wreck its own happiness, but I can only 
 
148 i THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 give a friendly warning, and pass on. I do not pro- 
 pose to defend the institution to which I have dedicated 
 my life before you or before anyone. Shall we go 
 back to the house?" 
 
 "Perhaps we had better," Rachael agreed. And as 
 they went slowly along the wide brick walk she added 
 in a softened tone: "I do appreciate your affectionate 
 interest in in us, Bishop. But but it does exasper^ 
 ate me, when so many strange things are done in the 
 name of Christianity, to have well, Florence for 
 instance calmly decreeing that just these other cer- 
 tain things shall not be done!" 
 
 "Then, because we can't all be perfect, it would be 
 better not to try to be good at all?" the bishop asked, 
 restored to equanimity by what he chose to consider 
 an unqualified apology, and resuming his favorite at- 
 titude of benignant adviser. 
 
 Rachael sighed wearily in the depth of her soul. 
 She knew that kindly admonitory tone, that compla- 
 cent misconception of her meaning. She said to her- 
 self that in a moment he would begin to ask himself 
 questions, and answer them himself. 
 
 "We are not perfect ourselves," said the clergyman 
 benevolently, "yet we expect perfection in others. Be- 
 fore we will even change our own lives we like to look 
 around and see what other people are doing. Perfectly 
 natural? Of course it's perfectly natural, but at the 
 same time it's one of the things we must fight. I shall 
 have to tell you a little story of our Rose, as I sometimes 
 tell some of my boys at the College of Divinity," 
 continued the good man. Rose, an exemplary un- 
 married woman of thirty, was the bishop's daughter. 
 "Rose," resumed her father, "wanted to study the 
 violin when she was about twelve, and her peculiar 
 old pater decided that first she must learn to cook. 
 Her mother quite agreed with me, and the young lady 
 was accordingly taken out to the kitchen and intro- 
 duced to some pots and pans. I also got her some 
 book, I've forgotten its name her mother would 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 149 
 
 remember; 'Complete Manual of Cookery' some- 
 thing of that sort. A day or two later I asked her 
 mother how the cooking went. 'Oh/ she said, 'Rose 
 has been reading that book, and she knows more than 
 all the rest of us!" 
 
 Rachael laughed generously. They had reached 
 the house again now, and Florence, glancing eagerly 
 toward them, was charmed to see both smiling. She 
 felt that the bishop must have influenced Rachael, 
 and indeed the clergyman himself was sure that her 
 mood was softer, and found opportunity before he 
 departed to say to his hostess in a low tone that he 
 fancied that they would hear no more of the whole 
 miserable business. 
 
 "Oh, Bishop, how wonderful of you!" said Florence 
 thankfully. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Two weeks later the news of the Breckenridge 
 divorce burst like a bomb in the social sky. Immedi- 
 ately pictures of the lovely wife, of Clarence, of the 
 town house and the country house began to flood the 
 evening papers, and even the morning journals found 
 room for a column or two of the affair on inside pages. 
 Clarence was tracked to his mountain retreat, and as 
 much as possible was made of his refusal to be inter- 
 viewed. Mrs. Breckenridge was nowhere to be found. 
 
 The cold wind of publicity could not indeed reach 
 her in the quiet lanes and along the sandy shore of 
 Quaker Bridge. Rachael, known to everyone but her 
 kind old landlady as "Mrs. Prescott," could even 
 glance interestedly at the papers now and then. Her 
 identity, in three long and peaceful months, was not 
 even so much as suspected. She did not mind the 
 plain country table, the inconvenient old farmhouse; 
 she loved her new solitude. Unquestioned, she dreamed 
 through the idle days, reading, thinking, sleeping like 
 a child. She spent long hours on the seashore watch- 
 ing the lazy, punctual flow and tumble of the waves 
 that were never hurried, never delayed; her eyes fol- 
 lowed the flashing wings of the gulls, the even, steady 
 upward beat of strong pinions, the downward drifting 
 through blue air that was of all motion the most per- 
 fect. 
 
 And sometimes in those hours it seemed to Rachael 
 that she was no more in the great scheme of things than 
 one of these myriad gulls, than one of the grains of 
 sand through which she ran her white, unringed fingers. 
 Clarence was a dream, Belvedere Bay was a dream; 
 it was all a hazy, dim memory now: the cards and the 
 
 ISO. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 151 
 
 cocktails, the dancing and tennis, the powder and lip- 
 red in hot rooms and about glittering dinner tables. 
 What a hurry and bustle and rush it alt was for noth- 
 ing. The only actualities were the white sand and the 
 cool green water, and the summer sun beating down 
 warmly upon her bare head. 
 
 She awakened every morning in a large, bright, bare 
 room whose three big windows looked into rustling 
 maple boughs. The steady rushing of surf could be 
 heard just beyond the maples. Sometimes a soft fog 
 wrapped the trees and the lawn in its pale folds, and 
 the bell down at the lighthouse ding-donged through 
 the whole warm, silent morning, but more often there 
 was sunshine, and Rachael took her book to the beach, 
 got into her stiff, dry bathing suit, in a small, hot bath- 
 house furnished only by a plank bench and a few rusty 
 nails, and plunged into the delicious breakers she loved 
 so well. Busy babies, digging on the beach, befriended 
 her, and she grew to love their sudden tears and more 
 sudden laughter, their stammered confidences, and 
 the touch of their warm, sandy little hands. She 
 became an adept at pinning up their tiny bagging under- 
 garments, and at disentangling hat elastics from the 
 soft hair at the back of moist little necks. If a mother 
 occasionally showed signs of friendliness, Rachael ac- 
 cepted the overture pleasantly, but managed to wander 
 next day to some other part of the beach, and so evade 
 the definite beginning of a friendship. 
 
 The warm sunshine, flavored by the salty sea, soaked 
 into her very bones. Everything about Quaker Bridge 
 was bare, and worn, and clean; nothing was crowded, 
 or hurried, or false. Barren dunes, and white, bleach- 
 ing sand, colorless little houses facing the elm-lined 
 main street, colorless planks outlining the road to 
 the water; the monotonous austerity, the pure severity 
 of the little ocean village was full of satisfying charm 
 for her. If she climbed a sandy rise beyond Mrs. 
 Dimmick's cottage, and faced the north, she could see 
 the white roadway, winding down to Clark's Bar, 
 
152 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 where the ocean fretted year after year to free the 
 waters of the bay only twelve feet away. Beyond, 
 on the slope, was the village known as Clark's Hills, a 
 smother of great trees with . a weather-whipped spire 
 and an occasional bit of roof or fence in evidence, to 
 show the habitation of man. 
 
 In other directions, facing east or west or south, 
 there was nothing but the sand, and the coarse strag- 
 gling bushes that rooted in the sand, and the clear 
 blue dome of the sky. Rachael, whose life had been 
 too crowded, gloried in the honey-scented emptiness 
 of the sand hills, the measureless, heaving surf ace of the 
 ocean, the dizzying breadth and space in which, an 
 infinitesimal speck, she moved. 
 
 She had sensibly taken her landlady, old Mrs. Dim- 
 mick, into her confidence, and pleased to be part of 
 the little intrigue, and perhaps pleased as well to rent 
 her two best rooms to this charming stranger, the old 
 lady protected the secret gallantly. It was all much 
 more simple than Rachael had feared it would be. 
 Nobody questioned her, nobody indeed paid attention 
 to her; she wandered about in a blissful isolation as 
 good for her tired soul as was the primitive life she 
 led for her tired body. 
 
 Yet every one of the idle days left its mark upon her 
 spirit; gradually a great many things that had seemed 
 worth while in the old life showed their true and petty 
 and sordid natures now; gradually the purifying waters 
 of solitude washed her soul clean. She began to plan 
 for the future a future so different from the crowded 
 and hurried past! 
 
 Warren Gregory's letters came regularly, postmarked 
 London, Paris, Rome. They were utterly and wholly 
 satisfying to Rachael, and they went far to make these 
 days the happiest in her life. Her heart would throb 
 like a girl's when she saw, on the little drop-leaf table 
 in the hallway, the big square envelope addressed in 
 the doctor's fine hand; sometimes again like a girl 
 she carried it down to the beach before breaking the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 seal, thrilled with a thousand hopes, unready to put 
 them to the test. Yesterday's letter had said: "My 
 dearest," had said: "Do you realize that I will see 
 you in five weeks?" Could to-day's be half as sweet? 
 
 She was never disappointed. The strong tide of his 
 devotion for her rose steadily through letter after 
 letter; in August the glowing letters of July seemed cold 
 by contrast, in September every envelope brought her 
 a flaming brand to add to the fires that were beginning 
 to blaze within her. In late September there was 
 an interval; and Rachael told herself that now he was 
 on the ocean now he was on the ocean 
 
 By this time the digging babies were gone, the beach 
 was almost deserted. Little office clerks, men and 
 women, coming down for the two weeks of rest that 
 break the fifty of work, still arrived on the late train 
 Saturday, and went away on the last train two weeks 
 from the following Sunday, but there were no more 
 dances at the one big hotel, and some of the smaller 
 hotels were closed. The tall, plain, attractive woman 
 with the three children and the baby, who drove over 
 from Clark's Hills every day, and, who, for all her gray- 
 ing hair and sun-bleached linens, seemed to be of 
 Rachael's own world still brought her shrieking and 
 splashing trio to the beach, but she had confided to 
 Mrs. Dimmick, who had known her for many summers, 
 that even her long holiday was drawing to a close. 
 Mrs. Dimmick brought extra blankets down from the 
 attic, and began to talk of seeing her daughter in Cali- 
 fornia. Rachael, drinking in the glory of the dying 
 summer, found each day more exquisite than the last, 
 and gratified her old hostess by expressing her desire 
 to spend all the rest of her life in Quaker Bridge. 
 
 She had, indeed, come to like the villagers thoroughly; 
 not the summer population, for the guests at all summer 
 hotels are alike uninteresting, but for the quiet life 
 that went on year in and year out in the little side 
 streets: the women who washed clothes and swept 
 porchesj, who gardened with tow-headed babies turn- 
 
154 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 bling around them, who went on Sundays to the little 
 bald-faced church at ten o'clock. Rachael got into 
 talk with them, trying to realize what it must be to 
 walk a hot mile for the small transaction of selling a 
 dozen eggs for thirty cents, to spend a long morning 
 carefully darning an old, clean Nottingham lace cur- 
 tain that could be replaced for three dollars. She 
 read their lives as if they had been an absorbing book 
 laid open for her eyes. The coming of the Holladay 
 baby, the decline and death of old Mrs. Bird, the nar- 
 row escape of Sammy Tew from drowning, and the 
 thorough old-fashioned thrashing that Mary Trimble 
 gave her oldest son for taking a little boy like Sammy 
 put beyond the "heads," all these things sank deep 
 into the consciousness of the new Rachael. She liked 
 the whitewashed cottages with their blazing geraniums 
 and climbing honeysuckle, and the back-door yards, 
 with chickens fluffing in the dust, and old men, seated 
 on upturned old boats, smoking and whittling as they 
 watched the babies "while Lou gets her work caught 
 up/' 
 
 October came in on a storm, the most terrifying 
 storm Rachael had ever seen. Late in the afternoon 
 of September's last golden day a wind began to rise 
 among the dunes, and Rachael, who, wrapped in a 
 white wooly coat and deep in a book, had been lying 
 for an hour or two on the beach, was suddenly roused 
 by a shower of sand, and sat up to look at the sky. 
 Clouds, low and gray, were moving rapidly overhead, 
 and although the tide was only making, and high water 
 would not be due for another hour, the waves, emerald 
 green, swift, and capped with white, were already touch- 
 ing the landmost water-mark. 
 
 Quickly getting to her feet, she started briskly for 
 home, following the broken line of kelp and weeds, 
 grasses, driftwood, and cocoanut shells that fringed 
 the tide-mark, and rather fascinated by the sudden 
 ominous change in sea and sky. In the little village 
 there was great clapping of shutters and straining of 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 155 
 
 clotheslines, distracted, bareheaded women ran about 
 their dooryards, doors banged, everywhere was rush 
 and flutter. 
 
 "D'clare if don't think th' folks at Clark's Hills going 
 to be shut of completely," said Mrs. Dimmick, bustling 
 about with housewifely activity, and evidently, like 
 all the village and like Rachael herself, a little exhila- 
 rated by the oncoming siege. 
 
 "What will they do?" Rachael demanded, unhook- 
 ing a writhing hammock from the porch as the old 
 woman briskly dragged the big cane rockers indoors. 
 
 "Oh, ther' wunt no hurt come t'um," Mrs. Dimmick 
 said. "But come an awful mean tide, Clark's Bar 
 is under water. They'll jest have to wait until she 
 goes down, that's all." 
 
 "Shell I bring up some candles from suller; we ain't 
 got much karosene!" Florrie, the one maid, demanded 
 excitedly. Chess, the hired man, who was Florae's 
 "steady," began to bring wood in by the armful, and 
 fling it down by the airtight stove that had been set 
 up only a few days before. 
 
 The wind began to howl about the roof; trees in the 
 dooryard rocked and arched. Darkness fell at four 
 o'clock, and the deafening roar of the ocean seemed an 
 actual menace as the night came down. Chess and 
 Florrie, after supper, frankly joined the family group 
 in the sitting-room, a group composed only of Rachael 
 and Mrs. Dimmick and two rather terrified young ste- 
 nographers from the city. 
 
 These two did not go to bed, but Rachael went up- 
 stairs as usual at ten o'clock, and drifted to sleep in a 
 world of creaking, banging, and roaring. A confusion 
 and excited voices below stairs brought her down again 
 rather pale, in her long wrapper, at three. The Bar- 
 wicks, mother, father, and three babies, had left their 
 beach cottage in the night and the storm to seek safer 
 shelter and the welcome sound of other voices than their 
 own. 
 
 After that there was little sleep for anyone. Still 
 
156 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 in the roaring darkness the clocks presently announced 
 morning, and a neighbor's boy, breathless, dripping in 
 tarpaulins, was blown against the door, and burst in 
 to say with youthful relish that the porches of the 
 Holcomb house were under water, and the boardwalk 
 washed away, and folks said that the road was all gone 
 betwixt here and the lighthouse. Rain was still fall- 
 ing in sheets, and the wind was still high. Rachael 
 braved it, late in the afternoon, to go out and see with 
 her own eyes that the surf was foaming and frothing 
 over the deserted bandstand at the end of the main 
 street, and got back to the shelter of the house wet and 
 gasping, and with the first little twist of personal fear 
 at her heart. Suppose that limitless raging green wall 
 down there rose another ten another twenty feet, 
 swept deep and roaring and resistless over little Quaker 
 Bridge, plunged them all for a few struggling, hopeless 
 moments into its emerald depths, and then washed the 
 little loosely drifting bodies that had been men and 
 women far out to sea again? 
 
 What could one do? No trains came into Quaker 
 Bridge to-day; it was understood that there were wash- 
 outs all along the line. Rachael sat in the dark, stuffy 
 little sitting-room with the placid Barwick baby 
 drowsing in her lap, and at last her face reflected the 
 nervous uneasiness of the other women. Every time 
 an especially heavy rush of rain or wind struck the 
 unsubstantial little house, Mrs. Barwick said, "Oh, 
 my!" in patient, hopeless terror, and the two young 
 women looked at each other with a quick hissing breath 
 of fear. 
 
 The night was long with horror. There were other 
 refugees in Mrs. Dimmick's house now; there were in 
 all fifteen people sitting around her little stove listen- 
 ing to the wind and the ocean. The old lady herself 
 was the most cheerful of the group, although Rachael 
 and one or two of the others managed an appearance at 
 least of calm. 
 
 "Declare," said the hostess, more than once, "dunt 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 157 
 
 see what we's all thinkin' of not to git over to Clark's 
 Hills 'fore the bar was under water! They've got 
 sixty-foot elevation there ! " 
 
 "I'd just as soon try to get there now," said Miss 
 Stokes of New York eagerly. 
 
 "There's waves eight feet high washin' over that 
 bar," Ernest Barwick said, and something in the simple 
 words made little Miss Stokes look sick for a moment. 
 
 "What's our elevation?" Rachael asked. 
 
 " 'Bout " Mr. Barwick paused. "But you can't 
 
 tell nothing by that," he contented himself with re- 
 marking after a moment's thought. 
 
 " But I never heard I never heard of the sea coming 
 right over a whole village!" Rachael hated herself for 
 the fear that dragged the words out, and the white 
 lips that spoke them. 
 
 "Neither did I!" said half a dozen voices. There 
 was silence while the old clock on the mantel wheezed 
 out a lugubrious eight strokes. "Lord, how it rains!" 
 muttered Emily Barwick. 
 
 Nine o'clock ten o'clock. The young women, the 
 old woman, the maid and man who would be married 
 some day if they lived, the husband and wife who had 
 been lovers like them only a few years ago, and who 
 now had these three little lives to guard, all sat wrapped 
 in their own thoughts. Rachael sat staring at the 
 stove's red eye, thinking, thinking, thinking. She 
 thought of Warren Gregory; his steamer must be in 
 now, he must be with his mother in the old house, and 
 planning to see her any day. To-morrow if there 
 was a to-morrow might bring his telegram. What 
 would his life be if he might never see her again ? She 
 could not even leave him a note, or a word; on this 
 eve of their meeting, were they to be parted forever? 
 Should she never tell him how dearly how dearly 
 she loved him ? Tears came to her eyes, her heart was 
 wrung with exquisite sorrow. 
 
 She thought of Billy poor little Billy who had 
 never had a mother, who needed a mother so sadly, 
 
158 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 and of her own mother, dead now, and of the old blue 
 coat of thirteen years ago, and the rough blue hat. 
 She thought of her great-grandmother in the little 
 whitewashed California cottage under the shadow of 
 the blue mountains, with the lilacs and marigolds in 
 the yard. And colored by her new great love, and 
 by the solemn fears of this endless night, Rachael 
 found a tenderness in her heart for all those shadowy 
 figures that had played a part in her life. 
 
 At midnight there came a thundering crash on the 
 ocean side of the house. 
 
 "Oh, God, it's the sea!" screamed Emily Barwick. 
 They all rushed to the door and flung it open, and in a 
 second were out in the wild blackness of the night. 
 Still the roaring and howling and shrieking of the ele- 
 ments, still the infuriated booming of the surf, but 
 thank God no new sound. There was no break in 
 the flying darkness above them; the street was a running 
 sheet of water in the dark. 
 
 Yet strangely they all went back into the house 
 vaguely quieted. Rachael presently said that no 
 matter what was going to happen, she was too cold 
 and tired to stay up any longer, and went upstairs to 
 bed. Miss Stokes and Miss Me Kim settled them- 
 selves in their chairs; Emily Barwick went to sleep 
 with her head against her husband's thin young shoul- 
 der. Somebody suggested coffee, and there was a gen- 
 eral move toward the kitchen. 
 
 Rachael, a little bewildered, woke in heavenly sun- 
 light in exactly the position she had taken when she 
 crept into bed the night before. For a few minutes 
 she lay staring at the bright old homely room, and at 
 the clock ticking briskly toward nine. 
 
 "Dear Lord, what a thing sunshine is!" she said then 
 slowly. No need to ask of the storm with this celestial 
 reassurance flooding the room. But after a few mo- 
 ments she got up and went to the window. The trees, 
 battered and torn, were ruffling such leaves as were left 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 them gallantly in the wind, the paths still ran yellow 
 water, the roadway was a muddy waste, eaves were 
 still gurgling, and everywhere was the drip and splash 
 of water. But the sky was clear and blue, and the air 
 as soft as milk. 
 
 As eager as a child Rachael dressed and ran down- 
 stairs, and was put in the new world. The fresh wind 
 whipped a glorious color into her face; the whole of 
 sea and sky and earth seemed to be singing. 
 
 Trees were down, fences were down, autumn gardens 
 were all a wreck; and the ocean, when she came to the 
 shore, was still rolling wild and high. But it was 
 blue now, and the pure sky above it was blue, and there 
 was utter protection and peace in the sunny air. Land- 
 marks all along the shore were washed away, and be- 
 yond the first line of dunes were pools left by the great 
 tide, scummy and sinking fast into the sand, to leave 
 only a fringe of bubbles behind. Minor wreckages of 
 all sorts lay scattered all along the beach: poles and 
 ropes, boxes and barrels. 
 
 Rachael walked on and on, breathing deep, swept out 
 of herself by the fresh glory of the singing morning. 
 Presently she would go back, and there would be 
 Warren's letter, or his telegram, or perhaps himself, 
 and then their golden days would begin their happy 
 time! But even Warren to-day could not intrude upon 
 her mood of utter gratitude and joy in just living just 
 being young and alive in a world that could hold such a 
 sea and such a sky. 
 
 A full mile from the village, along the ocean shore, a 
 stream came down from under a cliff, a stream, as/ 
 Rachael and investigating children had often proved 
 to their own satisfaction, that rose in a small but 
 eminently satisfactory cave. The storm had washed 
 several great smooth logs of driftwood into the cave, 
 and beyond them to-day there was such a gurgling 
 and churning going on that Rachael, eager not to miss 
 any effect of the storm, stepped cautiously inside. 
 
 The augmented little river was three times its usual 
 
160 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 size, and was further made unmanageable by the im- 
 peding logs swept in by the high tide. Straw and 
 weeds and rubbish of every description choked its 
 course, and little foaming currents and backwaters 
 almost filled the cave with their bubbling and swirling. 
 
 Rachael, with a few casual pushes of a sturdy little 
 shoe, accomplished such surprising results in freeing 
 and directing the stream that she fell upon it in sudden 
 serious earnest, grasping a long pole the better to push 
 obstructing matters aside, and growing rosy and breath- 
 less over her self-imposed and senseless undertaking. 
 
 She had just loosened a whole tangle of wreckage, 
 and had straightened herself up with a long, triumphant 
 "Ah-h ! " of relief, as the current rushed it away, when 
 a shadow fell over the mouth of the cave. Looking 
 about in quick, instinctive fear, she saw Warren Greg- 
 ory smiling at her. 
 
 For only one second she hesitated, all girlhood's 
 radiant shyness in her face. Then she was in his arms, 
 and clinging to him, and for a few minutes they did not 
 speak, eyes and lips together in the wild rapture of 
 meeting. 
 
 "Oh, Greg Greg Greg!" Rachael laughed and 
 cried and sang the words together. "When did you 
 come, and how did you get here? Tell me tell me 
 all about it!" But before he could begin to answer 
 her their eager joy carried them both far away from 
 all the conversational landmarks, and again they had 
 breath only for monosyllables, instinct only to cling 
 to each other. 
 
 "My girl, my own girl!" Warren Gregory said. 
 "Oh, how I've missed you and you're more beautiful 
 than ever did you know it? More beautiful even 
 than I remembered you to be, and that was beautiful 
 enough ! " 
 
 "Oh, hush!" she said, laughing, her fingers over the 
 aiouth that praised her, his arm still holding her tight. 
 
 "I'll never hush again, my darling! Never, never 
 in all the years we spend together! I am going to tell 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 161 
 
 you a hundred times a day that you are the most beauti- 
 ful, and the dearest Oh, Rachael, Rachael, shall 
 
 I tell you something? It's October! Do you know 
 what that means?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I do!" She laughed, and colored 
 exquisitely, drawing herself back the length of their 
 linked arms. 
 
 "Do you know what you're going to be in about 
 thirty-six hours?" 
 
 "Now you embarrass me! Was was anything 
 settled?" 
 
 "Shall you like being Mrs. Gregory?" 
 
 "Greg Tears came to her eyes. "You don't 
 
 know how much ! " she said in a whisper. 
 
 They sat down on a great log, washed silver white 
 with long years of riding unguided through the seas, 
 and all the wonderful world of blue sky and white sand 
 might have been made for them. Rachael's hand lay 
 in her lover's, her glorious eyes rarely left his face. 
 Browned by his summer of travel, she found him better 
 than ever to look upon; hungry after these waiting 
 months, every tone of his voice held for her a separate 
 delight. 
 
 "Did you ever dream of happiness like this. 
 Rachael?" 
 
 "Never never in my wildest flights. Not even in 
 the past few months!" 
 
 "What didn't trust me?" 
 
 "No, not that. But I've been rebuilding, body and 
 soul. I didn't think of the future or the past. It 
 was all present." 
 
 "With me," he said, "it was all future. I've been 
 counting the days. I've not done that since I was at 
 school! Rachael, do you remember our talk the night 
 after the Berry Stokes' dinner?" 
 
 "Do I remember it?" 
 
 "Ah, my dear, if anyone had said that night that 
 in six months we would be sitting here, and that you 
 would have promised yourself to me! You don't 
 
162 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 to mean to me, my dear- 
 
 know what my wife is going 
 est. I can't believe it yet!" 
 
 It is going to mean everything in life to me," she 
 said seriously. "I mean to be the best wife a man 
 ever had. If loving counts " 
 
 "Do you mean that?" he said eagerly. "Say it 
 do you mean that you love me?" 
 
 "Love you?" She stood up, pressing both hands 
 over her heart as if there were real pain there. For 
 a few paces she walked away from him, and, as he 
 followed her, she turned upon him the extraordinary 
 beauty of her face transfigured with strong emotion. 
 
 "Greg," she said quietly, "I didn't know there was 
 such love! I've heard it called fire and pain and rest- 
 lessness, but this thing is me I It is burning in me like 
 flame, it is consuming me. To be with you" she 
 caught his wrist with one hand, and with her free hand 
 pointed out across the smiling ocean "to be with 
 you and know you were mine, I could walk straight 
 out into that water, and end it all, and be glad glad 
 glad of the chance! I loved you yesterday, but 
 what is this to-day, when you have kissed me, and held 
 me in your arms!" Her voice broke on something 
 like a sob, but her eyes were smiling. "All my life 
 I've been asleep," said Rachael. "I'm awake now 
 I'm awake now! I begin to realize how helpless one 
 is to realize what I should have done if you hadn't 
 come- 
 
 "My darling," Gregory said, his arms about her 
 "what else feeling as we feel could I have done?" 
 
 Held in his embrace, she rested her hands upon his 
 shoulders, and looked wistfully into his eyes. 
 
 "It is as we feel, isn't it?" she said. "I mean, it 
 isn't only me? You you love me?" 
 
 Looking down at her dropped, velvety lashes, feel- 
 ing the warm strong beat of her heart against his, 
 holding close as he did all her glowing and fragrant 
 beauty, Warren Gregory felt it the most exquisite 
 moment of his life. Her youth, her history, her won- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 163 
 
 derful poise and sureness so intoxicatingly linked with 
 all a girl's unexpected shyness and adorable uncer- 
 tainties, all these combined to enthrall the man who 
 had admired her for many years and loved her for 
 more than one. 
 
 "Love you?" he asked, claiming again the lips she 
 yielded with such a delicious widening of her eyes and 
 quickening of breath. 
 
 "You see, Warren," she said presently, "I'm not a 
 girl. I give myself to you with a knowledge and a joy 
 no girl could possibly have. I don't want to coquette 
 and delay. I want to be your wife, and to learn your 
 faults, and have you learn mine, and settle down into 
 harness one year, five years ten years married! Oh, 
 you don't know how I long to be ten years married. I 
 shan't mind a bit being nearly forty. ^ Forty doesn't 
 it sound settled, and sedate and that's what I want. 
 I I shall love getting gray, and feeling that you and 
 I don't care so much about going places, don't you know? 
 We'll like better just being home together, won't we? 
 We're older than most people now, aren't we?" 
 
 He laughed aloud at the bright face so enchantingly 
 young in its restored beauty. He had expected to 
 find her charming, but in this new phase of girlishness, 
 of happiness, she was a thousand times more charm- 
 ing than he had dreamed. It was hard to believe that 
 this eager girl in a striped blue and yellow and purple 
 skirt, and rough white crash hat, was the bored, the 
 remote, the much-feared Mrs. Clarence Breckenridge. 
 Something free and sweet and virginal had come back 
 to her, or been born in her. She was like no phase of 
 the many phases in which he had known her; she was 
 a Rachael who had never known the sordid, the dis- 
 illusioning side of life. Even her seriousness had the 
 confident, eager quality of youth, and her gayety was 
 as pure as a child's. She had cast off the old sophis- 
 tication, the old recklessness of speech; she was not 
 even interested in the old associates. The world for 
 her was all in him and their love for each other, and 
 
164 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 she walked back to Quaker Bridge, at his side, too 
 wholly swept away from all self-consciousness to know 
 or to care that they were at once the target for all eyes. 
 
 A wonderful day followed, many wonderful days. 
 Doctor Gregory's great touring car and his liveried 
 man were at Mrs. Dimmick's door when they got back, 
 an incongruous note in little Quaker Bridge, still gasp- 
 ing from the great storm. 
 
 "Your car?" Rachael said. "You drove down?" 
 
 "Yesterday. I put up at Valentine's George Val- 
 entine's, you know, at Clark's Hills." 
 
 "Oh, that's my nice lady gray haired, and with 
 three children ? " Rachael said eagerly. " Do you know 
 her?" 
 
 "Know her? Valentine is my closest associate. 
 They meet us in town to-morrow: he's to be best man. 
 You'll have to have them to dinner once a month for 
 the rest of your life!" 
 
 The picture brought her happy color, the shy look 
 he loved. 
 
 "I'm glad, Greg. I like her immensely!" 
 
 They were at the car; she must flush again at the 
 chauffeur's greeting, finding a certain grave significance, 
 a certain acceptance, in his manner. 
 
 "Wife and baby well, Martin?" 
 
 "Very well, thank you, Mrs. Breckenridge." 
 
 "Still in Belvedere Hills?" 
 
 "Well, just at present, yes, Madam." 
 
 "You see, I am looking for suitable quarters for all 
 hands," Doctor Gregory said, his laugh drowning hers, 
 his eyes feasting on her delicious confusion. She was 
 aware that feminine eyes from the house were watch- 
 ing her. Presently she had kissed Mrs. Dimmick 
 good-bye. Warren had put his man in the tonneau; 
 he would take the wheel himself for the three hours' 
 run into town. 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear!" said the old lady, adding 
 with an innocent vacuity of manner quite character-, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 165 
 
 istic of Quaker Bridge. "Let me know when the weddin's 
 goin' to be!" 
 
 "I'll let you know right now," said Doctor Greg- 
 ory, who, gloved and coated, was bustling about the 
 car, deep in the mysterious rites incidental to starting. 
 "It's going to be to-morrow!" 
 
 "Good grief!" exclaimed Mrs. Dimmick delightedly. 
 "Well," she added, "folks down here think you've got 
 an awfully pretty bride!" 
 
 "I'm glad she's up to the standard down here," War- 
 ren Gregory observed. "Nobody seems to think much 
 of her looks up in the city!" 
 
 Rachael laughed and leaned from her place beside 
 the driver to kiss the old lady again and to wave a 
 general good-bye to Florrie and Chess and the group 
 on the porch. As smoothly as if she were launched in 
 air the great car sprang into motion; the storm-blown 
 cottages, the battered dooryards, the great shabby 
 trees over the little postoffice all swept by. They 
 passed the turning that led to Clark's Bar, and a wea* 
 ther-worn sign-post that read "Quaker Bridge, I mile." 
 It was not a dream, it was all wonderfully true: this 
 was Greg beside her, and they were going to be mar- 
 ried! 
 
 Rachael settled back against the deep, soft cushions 
 in utter content. To be flying through the soft Indian 
 summer sunshine, alone with Greg, to actually touch 
 his big shoulder with her own, to command his inter- 
 est, his laughter, his tenderness, at will after these 
 lonely months it was a memorable and an enchanting 
 experience. Their talk drifted about uncontrolled, 
 as talk after long silence must: now it was a waiter on 
 the ocean liner of whom Gregory spoke, or perhaps the 
 story of a small child's rescue from the waves, from 
 Rachael. They spoke of the roads, splendidly hard 
 and clean after the rain, and of the villages through 
 which they rushed. 
 
 But over their late luncheon, in a roadside inn, the 
 talk fell into deeper grooves, their letters, their lone- 
 
166 THE HEART OF RACHAEL , 
 
 liness, and their new plans, and when the car at last 
 reached the traffic of the big bridge, and Rachael caught 
 her first glimpse of the city under its thousand smoking 
 chimneys, there had entered into their relationship a 
 new sacred element, something infinitely tender and 
 almost sad, a dependence upon each other, a oneness 
 in which Rachael could get a foretaste of the exquisite 
 communion so soon to be. 
 
 They were spinning up the avenue, through a city 
 humming with the first reviving breath of winter. 
 They were at the great hotel, and Rachael was laugh- 
 ing in Elinor Vanderwall's embrace. The linen shop, 
 the milliner, a dinner absurdly happy, and one of the 
 new plays a sunshiny morning when she and Elinor 
 breakfasted in their rooms, and opened box after box 
 of gowns and hats the hours fled by like a dream. 
 
 "Nervous, Rachael?" asked Miss Vanderwall of the 
 vision that looked out from Rachael's mirror. 
 
 "Not a bit!" the wife-to-be answered, feeling as she 
 said it that her hands, busy with long gloves, were 
 shaking, and her knees almost unready to support her. 
 
 "It must be wonderful to marry a man like Greg," 
 said the bridesmaid thoughtfully. "He simply is 
 everything and has everything " 
 
 "Ah, Elinor, it's wonderful to marry the man you 
 love!" Rachael turned from the mirror, her blue eyes 
 misted with tears under the brim of her wedding hat. 
 
 "You /" Elinor smiled. "That I should live to see 
 it! You in love!" 
 
 "And unashamed, and proud of it!" Rachael said 
 with a tremulous laugh. "Are you all ready? Shall 
 we go down?" She turned at the door and put one 
 arm about her friend. " Kiss me, Elinor, and wish me 
 joy," said she. 
 
 "I don't have to!" asserted Miss Vanderwall, with 
 a hearty kiss nevertheless, "for it will be your own 
 fault entirely if there's ever the littlest, teeniest cloud 
 in the sky!" 
 
 END OF BOOK I 
 
BOOK II 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 YET, even then, as Rachael Gregory admitted to 
 herself months later, there had been a cloud in the sky 
 a cloud so tiny and so vague that for many days she 
 had been able to banish it in the flooding sunshine all 
 about her whenever it crossed her vision. 
 
 But it was there, and after a while other tiny clouds 
 came to bear it company, and to make a formidable 
 shadow that all her philosophy could not drive away. 
 Philosophy is not the bride's natural right; the honey- 
 moon is a time of unreason; a crumpled rose-leaf in 
 those first uncertain weeks may loom larger than all 
 the far more serious storms of the years to come. 
 
 Rachael, loving at last, was overwhelmed, intoxi- 
 cated, carried beyond all sanity by the passion that 
 possessed her. 
 
 When Warren Gregory came to find her at Quaker 
 Bridge on that unforgettable morning after the storm, 
 a chance allusion to Mrs. Valentine, the charming un- 
 known lady with the gray hair, had distracted Rachael's 
 thoughts from the point at issue. But later on, during 
 the long drive, she had remembered it again. 
 
 " But Greg, dear, did you tell me that you and Doctor 
 Valentine drove down yesterday in all that frightful 
 storm?" 
 
 "No, no, of course not, my child; we came down 
 late the night before why, yesterday we couldn't 
 get as far as the gate! Mrs. Valentine's brother was 
 there, and we played thirty-two rubbers of bridge! 
 Sweet situation, you two miles away, and me held 
 up after three months of waiting!" 
 
 She said to herself, with a little pain at her heart, 
 
 169 
 
170 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 that she didn't understand it. It was all right, of 
 course, whatever Greg did was all right, but she did not 
 understand it. To be so near, to have that hideous 
 war of wind and water raging over the world, and not 
 to come somehow to swim or row or ride to her, to 
 bring her delicious companionship and reassurance out 
 of the storm! Why, had she known that Greg was so 
 near no elements that ever raged could have held 
 her 
 
 But of course, she was reminding herself presently, 
 Greg had never been to Quaker Bridge, he had no 
 reason to suppose her in actual danger; indeed, per- 
 haps the danger had always been more imagined than 
 real. If his hosts had been merely bored by the wea- 
 ther, merely driven to cards, how should he be alarmed ? 
 
 "Did the Valentines know what a tide we were 
 having in Quaker Bridge?" she asked, after a while. 
 
 "Never dreamed it; didn't know we'd been cut off 
 until it was all over!" That was reassuring, at least. 
 "And, you see, I couldn't say much about our plans. 
 Alice Valentine's all wool, of course, but she's anything 
 but a yard wide! She wouldn't have understood not 
 that it matters, but it was easier not! She was sweet 
 to you at the wedding, and she'll ask us to dinner, and 
 you two will get along splendidly. But she's not as 
 big as George." 
 
 "You mean, she doesn't like the divorce part of 
 it?" 
 
 "Or words to that effect," the doctor answered com- 
 fortably. "Of course, she'd never have said a word. 
 But they are sort of simple and old-fashioned. George 
 understands that's all I care about. Do you see?" 
 
 "I see," she answered slowly. But when he spoke 
 again the sunshine came back to her heart; he had 
 planned this, he had planned that, he had wired Elinor, 
 the power boat was ready. She was a woman, after 
 all, and young, and the bright hours of shopping, of 
 being admired and envied, and, above all, of being so 
 newly loved and protected, were opening before her. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 171 
 
 What woman in the world had more than she, what 
 woman indeed, she asked herself, as he turned toward 
 her his keen, smiling look of solicitude and devotion, 
 had one-tenth as much? 
 
 Later on, in that same day, there was another tiny 
 shadow. Rachael, however, had foreseen this moment, 
 and met it bravely. 
 
 "How's your mother, Greg?" she asked suddenly. 
 
 "Fine," he answered, and with a swift smile for her 
 he added, "and furious!" 
 
 "No is she really furious?" Rachael asked, paling. 
 
 "Now, my dearest heart," Warren Gregory said 
 with an air of authority that she found strangely thrill- 
 ing and sweet, "from this moment on make up your 
 mind that what my good mother does and says is 
 absolutely unimportant to you and me! She has lived 
 her life, she is old, and sick, and unreasonable, and what- 
 ever we did wouldn't please her, and whatever anyone 
 does, doesn't satisfy her anyway! In forty years 
 in less than that, as far as Fm concerned you and I'll 
 be just as bad. My mother acted like a martyr on 
 the steamer; she was about as gay with her old friends 
 in London as you or I'd be at a funeral; she had an air 
 of lofty endurance and forbearance all the way, and, 
 as I said to Margaret Clay in Paris, the only time I 
 really thought she was enjoying herself was when she 
 had to be hustled into a hospital, and for a day or two 
 there we really thought she was going to have pneu- 
 monia!" 
 
 Rachael's delightful laugh rang out spontaneously 
 from utter relief of heart. 
 
 "Oh, Greg, you're delicious! Tell me about old 
 Lady Frothingham, is she difficult, too? And how's 
 pretty Magsie Clay?" 
 
 "Now, if we're married to-morrow," the doctor 
 went on, too much absorbed in his topic to be lightly 
 distracted. " But do you hear me, Ma'am ? How does 
 it sound?" 
 
 "It sounds delicious! Go on!" 
 
172 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "If we're married to-morrow, I say it could be 
 to-day just as well, but I suppose you girls have to 
 buy clothes, and have your hands manicured, and so 
 
 on- 
 ce 
 
 You know we do, to say nothing of lying awake all 
 night talking about our beaux!" 
 
 "Well" he conceded it somewhat reluctantly - 
 "then, to-morrow, some time before I go with Valentine 
 to call for you, 111 go down to see my mother. She'll 
 kiss me, and sigh, and feel martyred. In a month or 
 two she'll call on me at the office. 'Why don't you 
 and your wife come to see me, James?' 'Would you 
 like us to, Mother? We fancied you were angry at us.' 
 'I am sorry, my son, of course, but I have never been 
 angry. Will you come to-morrow night?' And when 
 we go, my dear, you'd never dream that there was 
 anything amiss, I assure you!" 
 
 "I'll make her love me!" said Rachael, smiling 
 enderly. 
 
 "Perhaps some day you'll have a very powerful 
 irgument," he said with a significant glance that 
 brought the quick blood to her face. "Mother couldn't 
 resist that!" 
 
 She did not answer. It was a part of this new fresh- 
 ness and purity of aspect that she could not answer. 
 
 "You asked about Margaret Clay," the doctor re- 
 membered presently. "She was the same old sixpence, 
 only growing up now; she owns to nineteen isn't 
 she more than that? She always did romance and 
 yarn so much about herself that you can't believe any- 
 thing." 
 
 "She's about twenty-one, perhaps no more than 
 twenty," Rachael said, after some thought. "Did 
 they say anything about Parker and Leila?" 
 
 "No, but the old lady can't do much harm there. 
 She'll not last another six months. She may leave 
 Margaret a slice, but it won't be much of a slice, for 
 Parker could fight if it was. Leila's pretty safe. We'll 
 .have to go to that wedding, by the way!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 173 
 
 "Oh, Greg, the fun of going places together!" She 
 was her happiest self again. His mother and Alice 
 Valentine and everything else but their great joy was 
 forgotten as they lingered over their luncheon and 
 planned for their wedding day. 
 
 If they could only have been alone together, always, 
 thought the new-made wife, when two perfect weeks 
 on the powerful motor boat were over, and all the 
 society editors were busily announcing that Doctor and 
 Mrs. James Warren Gregory were furnishing their 
 luxurious apartment in the Rotterdam, where they 
 would spend the winter. They were so happy together; 
 there was never enough time to talk and to be silent, 
 never enough of their little luncheons all by themselves, 
 their theatre trips, their afternoon drives through the 
 sweet, clear early winter sunshine on the Park. 
 
 Always in the later years Rachael could feel the joy 
 of these days again when she caught the scent of 
 fresh violets. Never a day passed that Warren did 
 not send her or bring her a fragrant boxful. They 
 quivered on the breast of her gown, and on her dressing- 
 table they made her bedroom sweet. Now and then 
 when she and Warren were to be alone she braided her 
 dark hair and wound it about her head, tucking a few 
 violets against the rich plaits, conscious that the classic 
 simplicity of the arrangement enhanced her beauty, 
 and was pleased in his pleasure. 
 
 It suited her whim to carry out the little affectation 
 in her soaps and toilet waters; he could not pick up her 
 handkerchief or hold her wrap for her without freeing 
 the delicate faint odor of her favorite flower. When 
 they met downtown for dinner there was always the 
 little ceremony of finding the florist, and all the operas 
 this winter were mingled for Rachael with the most 
 exquisite fragrance in the world. 
 
 These days were perfect. It was only when the out- 
 side world entered their paradise that anything less 
 than perfect happiness entered, too. Rachael's old 
 
174 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 friends Judy Moran, Elinor, and the Villalongas 
 said, and said with truth, that she had changed. She 
 had not tried to change, but it was hard for her to get 
 the old point of view now, to laugh at the old jokes, 
 to listen to the old gossip. She had been cold and 
 wretched only a year before, but she had had the 
 confident self-sufficiency of a gypsy who walks bare- 
 headed and irresponsible through a world whose treas- 
 ure will never come her way. Now Rachael, tremulous 
 and afraid, was the guardian of the great treasure, 
 she knew now what love meant, and she could no longer 
 face even the thought of a life without love. 
 
 Tirelessly, and with increasing satisfaction, she 
 studied her husband's character, finding, like all new 
 wives, that almost all her preconceived ideas of him 
 had been wrong. Like all the world, she had always 
 fancied Greg something of an autocrat, positive almost 
 to stubbornness in his views. 
 
 Now it was amusing to discover that he was really 
 a rather mild person, except where his work was con- 
 cerned, rarely taking the initiative in either praising or 
 blaming anybody or anything, deeply influenced by 
 the views of other persons, and content to be rather 
 a listener and onlooker than an active participant in 
 what did not immediately concern him. Rachael 
 found this, for some subtle reasons of her own, highly 
 pleasing. It made her less afraid of her husband's 
 criticism, and spared her many of those tremors com- 
 mon to the first months of married life. Also, it gave 
 her an occasional chance to influence him, even to pro- 
 tect him from his own indifference to this issue or that. 
 
 She laughed at him, accusing him of being an im- 
 postor. Why, everyone thought Dr. Warren Gregory, 
 with his big scowl and his firm-set jaw, was an 
 absolute Tartar, she exulted, when as a matter of 
 fact he was only a little boy afraid of his wife! He 
 hated, she learned, to be uncertain as to just the degree 
 of dressing expected of him on different occasions, he 
 hated to enter hotels by the wrong doors, to hear her 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 175 
 
 dispraise an opera generally approved, or find good in a 
 book branded by the critics as worthless. With all his 
 pride in her beauty, he could not bear to have her 
 conspicuous; if her laughter or her unusual voice at- 
 tracted any attention in a public place, she could see 
 that it made him uncomfortable. These things Rachael 
 might have considered flaws in another man. In 
 Warren they were only deliciously amusing, and his 
 reliance upon her, where she had expected only absolute 
 self-possession from him, seemed to make him more her 
 own. 
 
 Rachael, daughter of wandering adventurers, had a 
 thousand times more assurance than he. In her secret 
 heart she had no regard for any social law; society was a 
 tool to be used, not a weight under which one struggled 
 helplessly. She dictated where he followed prece- 
 dent; she laughed where he was filled with apprehen- 
 sion. Seriously, she set her wits and her love to the 
 task of accustoming him to joy, and day by day he 
 flung off the old, half-defined reluctances that still 
 bound him, and entered more fully into the delights 
 of the care-free, radiant hours that lay before them. 
 
 His wife saw the change in him, and rejoiced. But 
 what she did not see, as the months went on, was the 
 no less marked change in herself. As Warren's nature 
 expanded, and as he began to reach quite naturally 
 for the various pleasures all about him, Rachael's soul 
 experienced an alteration almost directly opposed. 
 
 She became thoughtful, almost reserved, she began 
 to show a certain respect for convention not for the 
 social conventions at which she had always laughed, 
 and still laughed, but for the fundamental laws of 
 truth, simplicity, and cleanness, upon which the ideal 
 of civilization, at least, is based. She noticed that she 
 was beginning to like "good" persons, even homely, 
 dowdy, good persons, like Alice and George Valentine. 
 She lost her old appetite for scandal, for ugly stories, 
 for reckless speech. 
 
 Warren, freed once and for all from his old prejudice, 
 
176 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 found nothing troublesome now in the thought that 
 she had been another man's wife; it was a common 
 situation, it was generally approved. As in other 
 things, he, had had stupidly conventional ideas about 
 it once that was all. But Rachael winced at the 
 sound of the word "divorce," not because of her 
 own divorce, but at the thought that some other man 
 and woman had promised in their first love what later 
 they could not fulfil, and hated each other now where 
 they had loved each other once, at the thought that 
 perhaps perhaps one of them loved the other still! 
 
 "Divorce is monstrous," she said soberly to her 
 husband in one of their hours of perfect confidence. 
 
 "How can we say it, of all persons, my darling? 
 Don't be hidebound!" 
 
 "No," she smiled reluctantly, "I suppose we can't. 
 But but I never feel like a divorced woman, Warren, 
 I feel like a different woman, but not as if that term 
 fitted me. It sounds so coarse. Don't you think it 
 does?" 
 
 "No, I never thought of it quite that way. Every- 
 one makes mistakes," he answered cheerfully. 
 
 "Don't you care that it's true of me?" she asked. 
 
 "Are you trying to make me jealous, you gypsy!" 
 he laughed. But there was no answering laughter in 
 her face. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps I am," she admitted, as if she were 
 a little surprised that it was so. And in her next slowly 
 worded sentence she discovered for herself another 
 truth. "I mind it, Warren!" she said. "I wish, with 
 all my heart, that it wasn't so!" 
 
 "That isn't very consistent, sweet. Your life made 
 you what you were, the one woman in the world I could 
 ever have loved. Why quarrel with the process?" 
 
 "I wish you cared!" she said wistfully. 
 
 "Cared?" 
 
 "Yes suffered over it objected. Then I could 
 keep proving to you that I never in my life loved any- 
 one, man, woman, or child, until now!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 177 
 
 "But I believe that, my darling!" 
 
 She smiled at his wide, innocent look, a mother's 
 amused yet hopeless smile, and as they rose from their 
 late luncheon he put his arm about her and tipped her 
 beautiful face up toward his own. 
 
 "Don't you realize, my darling, that just as you are, 
 you are perfect to me not nearly perfect, or ninety- 
 nine per cent, perfect, but pressed down and running 
 over, a thousand per cent., a million per cent.?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Her dark beauty glowed; she was more lovely than 
 ever in her exquisite content. 
 
 "Oh, Warren, if you'd only say that to me over and 
 over!" she begged. 
 
 "Dear Heaven, hear the woman! What else do I 
 do?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean now. I mean always, all through 
 our lives. It's all I. want to hear!" 
 
 "Do you realize that you are an absolute little 
 tyrant?" he asked, laughing. Radiantly she laughed 
 back. 
 
 "I only realize one thing in these days," she an- 
 swered; "I only live for one thing!" 
 
 It was true. The world for her now was all in her 
 husband, his smile was her light, and she lived almost 
 perpetually in the sunshine. When they were parted 
 and they were never long parted the memory of 
 this glance or that tone, this eager phrase or that 
 sudden laugh, was enough to keep her happy. When 
 they met again, whether she came to meet him in his 
 own hallway, or rose, lovely in her furs, and walked 
 toward him in some restaurant or hotel, joy lent her r 
 new and almost fearful beauty. To dress for him, to 
 make him laugh, to hold his interest, this was all that 
 interested her, and for the world outside of their own 
 house she cared not at all. They had their own vo- 
 cabulary, their own phrases for moments of mirth or 
 tenderness; among her gowns he had his favorites*, 
 
178 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 among the many expressions of his sensitive face there 
 were some that it was her whimsical pleasure always 
 to commend. Their conversation, as is the way with 
 lovers, was all of themselves, and all of praise. 
 
 Long before they were ready for the world it began 
 to make its demands. Rachaei loved her own home 
 they had chosen a large duplex apartment on River- 
 side Drive loved the memorable little meals they had 
 before the fire, the lazy, enchanting hours of reading or of 
 music in the big studio that united the two large floors, 
 the scent of her husband's cigar, the rustle of her own 
 gown, the snow slipping and lisping against the win- 
 dow, and it was with great reluctance that she surren- 
 dered even one evening. But there was hospitable 
 Vera Villalonga and her dreadful New Year's dance, 
 and there were the Bowditch dinner and the Hoyt 
 dinner and the Parmalee's dance for Katrina. Un- 
 willingly the beautiful Mrs. Gregory yielded to the 
 swift current, and presently they were caught in the 
 rush of the season, and could not have withdrawn then> 
 selves except for serious cause. 
 
 Rachaei smiled a little wryly one morning over 
 Mrs. George Valentine's cordially worded invitation 
 to an informal dinner, but she accepted it as a matter 
 of course, and wore her most beautiful gown. She de- 
 liberately set out to capture her hostess' friendship, 
 and simple, sweet Mrs. Valentine could not long resist 
 her guest's beauty and charm such a young, fresh 
 creature as she was, not a bit one's idea of an adven- 
 turess, so genuinely interested in the children, so ob- 
 viously devoted to Warren. 
 
 Rachaei, on her side, contemplated the Valentines 
 with deep interest. She found them a rather puzzling 
 study, unlike any married couple that she had ever 
 chanced to know. Alice was one of those good, homely, 
 unfashionable women who seem utterly devoid of the 
 instinct for dressing properly. Her masses of dull 
 brown hair she wore strained from her high forehead 
 and wound round her head in a fashion hopelessly 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 179 
 
 obsolete. Her evening gown, of handsome gray silk, 
 was ruined by those little fussy touches of lace and 
 ruffling that brand a garment instantly as "home- 
 made." 
 
 George was one of the plainest of men, shy, awkward, 
 insignificant looking, with a long-featured, pleasant 
 face, and red hair. Warren had told his wife at various 
 times that George was "a prince," and physically, at 
 least, Rachael found him disappointing, especially 
 beside her own handsome husband. She knew he 
 Was clever, with a large practice besides his work 
 as head surgeon at one of the big hospitals, but Warren 
 had added to this the information that George was a 
 poor business man, and ill qualified to protect his own 
 interests. 
 
 Yet, in his own home a handsome and yet shabby 
 brownstone house in the West Fifties he appeared 
 to better advantage. There was a brightness in his 
 plain face when he looked at his wife, and an adoring 
 response in her glance that after twelve years of 
 married life seemed admirable to Rachaei. "Alice" 
 was a word continually on his lips; what Alice said 
 and thought and did was evidently perfection. Before 
 the Gregorys had been ten minutes in the house on 
 their first visit he had gone downstairs to inspect the 
 furnace, wound and set a stopped clock, answered the 
 telephone twice, and fondly carried upstairs a refrac- 
 tory four-year-old girl, who came boldly down in her 
 nightgown, with reproaches and requests. On his re- 
 turn from this trip he brought down the one-year-old 
 baby, another girl, delicious in the placid hour between 
 supper and bed, and he and his wife and Warren Greg- 
 ory exchanged admiring glances as the beautiful Mrs. 
 Gregory took the child delightedly in her arms, con- 
 trasting her own dark and glowing loveliness with the 
 tiny Katharine's gold and roses. 
 
 It was a quiet evening, but Rachael liked it. She 
 liked their simple, affectionate talk, their reminiscences, 
 the serenity of the large, plainly furnished rooms, the 
 
180 THE HEART OF HACHAEL 
 
 glowing of coal fires in the old-fashioned steel-barred 
 grates. She liked Alice Valentine's placidity, the 
 sureness of herself that marked this woman as more 
 highly civilized than so many of the other women 
 Rachael knew. There was none of Judy's and Ger- 
 trude's and Vera's excitability and restlessness here. 
 Alice was concerned neither with her own appearance 
 nor her own wants; she was free to comment with 
 amusement or wonder or admiration upon larger af. 
 fairs. Rachael wondered, as beautiful women have 
 wondered since time began, what held this man so 
 tightly to this mild, plain woman, and by what special 
 gift of the gods Alice Valentine might know herself 
 secure beyond all question in a world of beauty and 
 charm and youth. 
 
 "Well, what d'you think of her, Alice?" Doctor 
 Gregory had asked proudly when his wife was on his 
 arm and leave-taking was in order. 
 
 "Think you're lucky, Greg," Mrs. Valentine an- 
 swered earnestly. "You've got a dear, good, lovely 
 wife!" 
 
 "And you are going to let me come and make friends 
 with the boy and the girls some afternoon?" Rachael 
 asked. 
 
 "If you will" their mother said, and she and Rachael 
 kissed each other. Gregory chuckled, in high feather, 
 all the way home. 
 
 "You're a wonder, Ladybird! I have never seen you 
 sweeter nor prettier than you were to-night!" 
 
 Rachael leaned back in the car with a long, con- 
 tented sigh. 
 
 "One can see that she was all ready to hate me, Greg; 
 a woman who had been married, and who snapped up 
 her favorite bachelor " 
 
 He laughed triumphantly. "She doesn't hate you 
 now!" 
 
 "No, and I'll see to it that she never does. She's 
 my sort of woman, and the children are absolute loves ! 
 I like that sort of old-fashioned prejudice honestly 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 181 
 
 I do that honor-thy-father-and-thy-mother-and-keep 
 holy-the-sabbath-day sort of person. Don't you, 
 Greg?" 
 
 "We 11, I don't like narrowness, sweet." 
 
 "No." Rachael pondered in the dark. "Yet if 
 you're not narrow you seem to be really the only 
 word for it is loose," she submitted. "Somehow 
 lately, a great many persons the girls I know do seem 
 to be a little bit that way." 
 
 "You don't find them judging you!" her husband 
 said. Rachael answered only by a rather faint nega- 
 tive; she would not elucidate further. This was one 
 of the things she could never tell Warren, a thing in- 
 deed that she would hardly admit to her own soul. 
 
 But she said to herself that she knew now the worst 
 evil of divorce. She knew that it coarsened whom- 
 ever it touched, that it irresistibly degraded, that it 
 lowered all the human standard of goodness and endur- 
 ance, and self-sacrifice. However justified, it was an 
 evil; however properly consummated, it soiled the 
 little group it affected. The disinclination of a good 
 woman like Alice Valentine to enter into a close friend- 
 ship with a younger and richer and more beautiful 
 woman whose history was the history of Rachael Greg- 
 ory was no mere prejudice. It was the feeling of a 
 restrained and disciplined nature for an unchecked and 
 ill-regulated one; it was the feeling of a woman who, 
 at any cost, had kept her solemn marriage vow to* 
 ward a woman who had broken her word. 
 
 Rachael was beginning to find it more comprehensible,, 
 even more acceptable, than the attitude of her own old 
 world. Fresh from the Eden that was her life with 
 Warren, she had turned back to the friends whose view- 
 point had been hers a few months ago. 
 
 Were they changed, or was she ? Both were changed, 
 she decided. She had been a cold queen among them 
 once, flattered by their praise and laughter, reckless in 
 speech, and almost as reckless in action. But now her 
 only kingdom was in Warren Gregory's heart. She 
 
182 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 had no largesse for these outsiders; she could not answer 
 them with her old quick wit now; indeed she hardly 
 heard them. And on their side, where once there had 
 been that certain deference due to the woman who, 
 however wretched and neglected, was still Clarence 
 Breckenridge's wife, now she noticed, with quick shame, 
 a familiarity, a carelessness, that indicated plainly 
 exactly the fine claim to delicacy that she had forfeited. 
 Her position in every way was better now than it had 
 been then. But in some subtle personal sense she had 
 lost caste. A story was ventured when she chanced to 
 be alone with Frank Whittaker and George Pomeroy 
 that her presence would have forbidden in the old 
 days, and Allen Parmalee gave her a sensation of ab- 
 solute sickness by merrily introducing her to his sisteF 
 from Kentucky with the words: "Don't stare at her 
 so hard, Bess! Of course you remember her: she was 
 Mrs. Breckenridge last year, but now she's making a 
 much better record as Mrs. Gregory!" 
 
 The women were even more frank; Clarence's name 
 was often mentioned in her presence; she was quite 
 simply congratulated and envied. 
 
 "My dear, 5 ' said Mrs. Cowles, at a women's luncheon, 
 "you were extraordinarily clever, of course, but don't 
 forget that you were extremely lucky, too. Clarence 
 making no fuss, taking all the trouble to provide the 
 evidence, and Greg being only too anxious to step into 
 his shoes, made it easy for you!" 
 
 "I'm no prude," Rachael smiled, over a raging heart. 
 "But I couldn't see this coming, nobody did. All I 
 could do was to break free before my self-respect was 
 absolutely gone!" 
 
 "Go tell that to the White Wings, darling," laughed 
 Mrs. Villalonga, lazily blowing smoke into rings and 
 spirals. 
 
 "Seriously, Vera, I mean it!" 
 
 "Seriously, Rachael, do you mean to tell me that 
 
 you hadn't the slightest idea " Mrs. Villalonga 
 
 roused herself, to smilingly study the other woman's 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 183 
 
 face as she asked the question. "Not a word not 
 a hint?" 
 
 "Ah, well " Rachael's face was flaming. She 
 
 would have put her hand in the fire to be able to say 
 "No." The others laughed cheerfully. 
 
 "Nobody misunderstands you, dear: you were in a 
 rotten fix and you got out of it nicely/ 5 said fat Mrs. 
 Moran, and Mrs. Villalonga added consolingly: "Why, 
 my heavens, Rachael, Fd leave Booth to-morrow for 
 anyone half as handsome as Warren Gregory!" 
 
 In March the Gregorys sent out cards for their first 
 really large entertainment, a Mardi-Gras ball. Rachael 
 and Warren spent many happy hours planning it : the 
 studio was to be cleared, two other big rooms turned 
 into one for the supper, music for dancing, musical 
 numbers for the entertainment; it would be perfect 
 in every detail, one of the notable affairs of the winter. 
 Rachael hailed it as the end of the season. They were 
 to make a flying trip to the Bermudas in April, and after 
 that Rachael happily planned a month or two in the 
 almost deserted city before Warren would be free to 
 get away to the mountains or the boat. It was with a 
 delightful sense of freedom that she realized that her 
 first winter in her new role was nearly over. Next 
 winter her divorce and remarriage would be an old 
 story, there would be other gossip more fascinating 
 and more new, she would be taken quite for granted. 
 Again, she might more easily evade the social demand 
 next winter without exposing herself to the charge of 
 being fickle or changed. This year her brave and 
 dignified facing of the world had been a part of the 
 price she paid for her new happiness. Now it was 
 paid. 
 
 And for another reason, half-defined, Rachael was 
 glad to see the months go by. She had been Warren 
 Gregory's wife for nearly six months now, and the 
 rapture of being together was still as great for them 
 both as it had been in the first radiant days of their 
 
184 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 marriage. For herself, indeed, she knew that the joy 
 was constantly deepening, and even the wild hunger 
 and passion of her heart could find no flaw in his devo- 
 tion. Her surrender to him was with a glorious and 
 unashamed completeness, the tones of her extraordinary 
 Voice deepened when she spoke to him, and in her eyes 
 all who looked might read the story of insatiable and 
 yet satisfied love. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PLANS for the big dance presently began to move, 
 briskly, and there was much talk of the affair. As 
 hostess, Rachael would not mask, nor would Warren, 
 but they were already amusing themselves with the 
 details of elaborate costumes. Warren's rather stern 
 and classic beauty was to be enhanced by the blue and 
 buff of an officer of the Revolution, fine ruffles falling 
 at wrist and throat, wide silver buckles on square-toed 
 shoes, and satin ribbon tying his white wig. Rachael, 
 separately tempted by the thought of Dutch wooden 
 shoes and of the always delightful hoop skirts, even- 
 tually abandoned both because it was not possible 
 historically to connect either costume with the one upon 
 which Warren had decided. She eventually deter- 
 mined to be the most picturesque of Indian maidens, 
 with brown silk stockings disappearing into moccasins, 
 exquisite beadwork upon her fringed and slashed skirt, 
 feathers in her loosened hair, and a small but matchless 
 tiger skin, strapped closely across her back, to lend a 
 touch of distinction to the costume. 
 
 On the Monday evening before the dance she tried 
 on her regalia and appeared before her husband and 
 three or four waiting dinner guests, so exquisite a vision 
 of glowing and radiant beauty that their admiration 
 was almost a little awed. Her cheeks were crimson 
 between her loosened rich braids of hair; her eyes shone 
 deeply blue, and the fantastic costume, with its flutter- 
 ing strips of leather and richly colored wampum, gave 
 an extraordinary quality of youth and almost of frailty 
 to her whole aspect. 
 
 "The woman just sent this home. I couldn't resist 
 showingyou!" said Rachael, in a shower of compliments. 
 
186 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 " Isn't my tiger a darling? Warren went six hundred 
 and seventy-two places to catch him. Of course there 
 never was a stripey tiger like this in North America, 
 but what care I? I'm only a poor little redskin) a 
 trifling inconsistency like that doesn't worry me /" 
 
 "Me taky you my wikiup huh !" said Frank Whit- 
 taker invitingly. " You my squaw ? " 
 
 "Come here, Hattie Fishbpy," said her husband, 
 'catching her by the arm. His face showed no more 
 than an amused indulgence to her caprice, but Rachael 
 knew he was pleased. "Well, when you first planned 
 this outfit I thought it was going to be an awful mess," 
 said he, turning her slowly about. "But it isn't so 
 bad!" 
 
 "Isn't so bad!" Mrs. Bowditch said scornfully; 
 "it's the loveliest thing I ever saw. I'll tell you what, 
 Rachael, if you come down to Easthampton this summer 
 we'll have a play, and you can be an Indian " 
 
 "I'd love it," Rachael said, and making a deep bow 
 before her husband she added: "I'll be Squaw-Afraid- 
 of-Her-Man!' 
 
 She heard them laughing as she ran upstairs to 
 change to a more conventional dress. 
 
 "Etta," said she, consigning the Indian costume to 
 her maid, "I'm too happy to live!" 
 
 Etta, one of those homely, conscientious women 
 who extract in some mysterious way an actual pride 
 and pleasure from the beauty of the women whom they 
 serve, smiled faintly and dully. 
 
 "The weather's getting real nice now," she submitted, 
 as one who will not discourage a worthy emotion. 
 
 Rachael laughed out joyously. The next instant 
 she had flung up a window and leaned out in the spring 
 darkness. Trees on the drive were rustling over pools 
 of light, a lighted steamboat went slowly up the river, 
 the brilliant eyes of motor cars curved swiftly through 
 the blackness. A hurdy-gurdy, guarded by two shad- 
 owy forms, was pouring out a wild jangle of sound 
 from the curb. When the window was shut, a moment 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 187 
 
 later, the old Italian man and woman who owned the 
 musical instrument decided that they must mark this 
 apartment house for many a future visit, and, chattering 
 hopefully, went upon their way. The belladonna in 
 the spangled gown, who had looked down upon 
 them for a brief interval, meanwhile ran down to her 
 guests. 
 
 She was in wild spirits, inspired with her most en- 
 chanting mood; for an hour or two there was no re- 
 sisting her. Mrs. Whittaker and Mrs. Bowditch fell 
 as certainly under her spell as did the three men. "She 
 really has changed since she married Greg," said Louise 
 Bowditch to Mrs. Whittaker; "but it's all nonsense 
 this talk about her being no more fun! She's more fun 
 than ever!" 
 
 "She's prettier than ever/' Gertrude Whittaker said 
 'with a sigh. 
 
 The next afternoon, a dreary, wet afternoon, at 
 about four o'clock, Warren Gregory stepped out of the 
 elevator, and quietly admitted himself to his own halk 
 way with a latchkey. It was an unusual hour for the 
 doctor to come home, and in the butler's carefully 
 commonplace tone as he answered a few questions, 
 Warren knew that he knew. 
 
 The awning had been stretched across the sidewalk, 
 caterers' men were in possession, the lovely spacious 
 rooms were full of flowers; the big studio had been 
 emptied of furniture, there were great palms massed 
 in the musicians' corner; maids were quietly busy 
 everywhere; no eye met the glance of the man of the 
 house as he went upstairs. 
 
 He found Mrs. Gregory alone in her own luxurious 
 room. No one who had seen her in the excited beauty 
 of the night before would have been likely to recognize 
 her now. She was pale, tense, and visibly nervous, 
 wrapped in a great woolly robe, as if she were cold, 
 and with her hair bound carelessly and tightly back as 
 a woman binds it for bathing. 
 
188 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "You've seen it?" she said instantly, as her husband 
 came in. 
 
 " George called my attention to it; I came straight 
 home. I knew"- he was kneeling beside her, one 
 arm about her, all his tenderness and devotion in his 
 face "I knew you'd need me." 
 
 She laid an arm about his neck, sighed deeply, but 
 continued to stare distractedly beyond him. 
 
 "Warren, what shall we do?" she said with a cer- 
 tain vagueness and brokenness in her manner that he 
 found very disquieting. 
 
 "Do, sweetheart?" he echoed at a loss. 
 
 "With all those people coming to-night," she added, 
 ! mildly impatient. 
 
 "Why, what can we do, dear?" 
 
 "You don't mean," Rachael said incredulously, 
 "that we shall have to go on with it?" 
 
 " Think a minute, dearest. Why shouldn't we?" 
 
 "But" her color, better since his entrance, was 
 waning again "with Clarence Breckenridge dying 
 while we dance!" she shuddered. 
 
 "Could anything be more preposterous than your 
 letting anything that concerns Clarence Breckenridge 
 affect what you do now?" he asked with kindly pa- 
 tience. 
 
 "No, it's not that!" she answered feverishly. "But 
 but for any old friend one would would make a 
 difference, and surely surely he was more than that ! " 
 
 "He was more than that, of course, but he has been 
 less than nothing to you for a long time!" 
 
 "Yes, legally technically, of course," Rachael 
 agreed nervously. She sat silent for a moment, 
 frowning over some sombre thought. "But, Warren, 
 they'll all know of it, they'll all be thinking of it," she 
 said presently. "I really I don't think I can go 
 through it!" 
 
 "It's too bad, of course," Warren Gregory said 
 with his arm still about her. "I'd give ten thousand 
 dollars to have had the poor fellow select some other 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 189 
 
 time. But you've had nothing to do with it, and you 
 simply must put it out of your mind!" 
 
 "It was Billy's marriage, of course!" 
 
 "Of course. She was married yesterday, you see, 
 the day she came of age. Poor kid it's rather a 
 sad start for her, especially with no one but Joe Picker- 
 ing to console her!" 
 
 "She was mad about her father," Rachael said in a 
 preoccupied whisper. "Poor Billy poor Billy! She 
 never crossed him in anything but this. What did 
 you see it in?" 
 
 " The World. How did you hear it ? " 
 
 "Etta brought up the paper." She closed her eyes 
 and leaned back in her chair. "It seemed to jump at 
 me his picture and the name. Is he living where is 
 he?" 
 
 "At St. Mark's. He won't live. Poor fellow!" 
 Warren Gregory scowled thoughtfully as he gave a 
 moment's thought to the other man's situation, and 
 then smiled sunnily at his wife with a brisk change of 
 topic. "Well," he said cheerfully, "is anyone in this 
 place glad to see me, or not, or what?" 
 
 "It just seems to me that I cannot face all those 
 people to-night!" Rachael said, giving him a quick, 
 unthinking kiss before she gently put him away from 
 her, and got to her feet. "It seems so wrong so 
 coarse to be utterly and totally indifferent to the 
 man who was my husband a year ago. I don't love 
 him, he is nothing to me, but it's all wrong, this way. 
 If it was Peter Pomeroy or Joe Butler, of course we'd 
 
 put off our dance-^ Warren," she turned to him 
 
 with sudden hope in her eyes, "do you suppose any- 
 body'Hcome?" 
 
 "My dear girl," he said, displeased, "why are you 
 working yourself into a fever over this ? It's most un- 
 fortunate, but as far as you're concerned, it's unavoid- 
 able, and you'll simply have to put a brave face on it, 
 and get through it somehow I I am absolutely confident 
 that when you've pulled yourself together you'll come 
 
190 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 through with flying colors. Of course everyone*!! 
 come; this is their chance to show you exactly how 
 little they ever think of you as Breckenridge's wife^ 
 And this is your chance, too, to act as if you'd never 
 heard of him. Dash it! it does spoil our little party, 
 but it can't be helped ! " 
 
 "Do you suppose Billy's with him?" Rachael asked, 
 her absent, glittering eyes fixed upon her own person 
 as she sat before her mirror. 
 
 "Oh, no she and Pickering sailed yesterday for 
 England that's the dreadful thing for her. Clarence 
 evidently spent the whole night at the club, sitting in 
 the library, thinking. Berry Stokes went in for his 
 mail after the theatre, and they had a little talk. He 
 promised to dine there to-night. At about ten this 
 morning Billings, the steward there, saw old Maynard 
 going out Maynard 's one of the directors and asked 
 him if he wouldn't please go and speak to Mr. Brecken- 
 ridge. Mayn went over to him, and Clarence said, 
 * Any thing you say ' ' 
 
 Rachael gave a gasp that was like a shriek, and put 
 her two elbows on the dressing-table, and her face in 
 her hands. It was Clarence's familiar phrase. 
 
 "Oh, don't don't don't Greg ! " 
 
 "Well, that was all there was to it," her husband 
 said, watching her anxiously. "He had the thing in 
 his pocket. He stood up everybody heard it. Fel- 
 lows came rushing in from everywhere. They got him 
 to a hospital." 
 
 "Florence is with him, of course?" 
 
 "Florence is at Palm Beach." 
 
 "Then who is with him, Greg?" 
 
 "My dear girl, how do I know? It's none of my 
 affair!" 
 
 Rachael sat still for perhaps two minutes, while her 
 husband, ostentatiously cheerful, moved about the room 
 selecting a change of clothes. 
 
 "To-rnorrow you can take it as hard as you like f 
 sweet/' said he. "But to-night you'll have to face the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 191 
 
 music! Now get into something warm it's a little 
 cool out and I'll take you for a spin, and we'll have 
 dinner somewhere. Then we'll get back here about 
 eight o'clock, and take our time dressing." 
 
 "Yes, I'll do that," Rachael agreed automatically. 
 A moment later she said urgently: "Warren, isn't 
 there a chance that I'm right about this? Mightn't 
 it be better simply to telephone everyone that the 
 dance is postponed ? Make it next week, or Mi-Careme 
 anything. If they talk let them! I don't care 
 what they say. They'll talk anyway. But every 
 fibre of my being, every delicate or decent instinct I 
 ever had, rebels against this. Say I'm not well, and 
 let them buzz! I know what you are going to say I 
 know that it would seem less sensitive, less fine, to 
 mourn for one man while I'm another man's wife, than 
 to absolutely ignore what happens to him, but you 
 know what's the truth! I never loved him, and I love 
 every hair of your head you know that. Only " 
 
 She stopped short, baffled by the difficulty of ex- 
 pressing herself accurately. 
 
 "If you really love me, do what I ask you to-night," 
 Warren Gregory said firmly. 
 
 His wife sat as if turned to stone for only a few 
 seconds. When she spoke it was naturally and cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 "I'll be ready in no time, dear. Where are we to 
 dine?" She glanced at her little crystal clock as she 
 spoke, as if she were computing casually the length of 
 the drive before dinner. But what she said in her heart 
 was, "At this time to-morrow it will all have been over 
 for many hours!" 
 
 A few days later the Gregorys sailed for Bermuda, 
 Rachael with a sense of whipped and smarting shame 
 that was all the more acute because she could not 
 share it with this dearest comrade and confidant. 
 Warren thought indeed that the miserable episode of 
 the past week had been dismissed from her mind, and 
 
192 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 delighting like a boy in the little holiday, and proud of 
 his beautiful wife, he found their hours at sea cloud* 
 less. With two men, whose acquaintance was made 
 on the steamer, they played bridge, and Rachael's 
 game drew other players from all sides to watch her 
 leads and grin over her bidding. They walked up 
 and down the deck for hours together, they lay side by 
 side in deck chairs lazily watching the blue water 
 creep up and down the painted white ropes of the rail; 
 but they never spoke of Clarence Breckenridge. 
 
 The Mardi-Gras dance had been like a hideous dream 
 to Rachael. She had known that it would be hard 
 from the first sick moment in which the significance of 
 Clarence's suicide had rushed upon her. She had 
 known that her arriving guests would be gay and 
 conversational, that the dance and the supper would 
 go with a dash and swing which no other circumstance 
 could more certainly have assured for them; and she 
 knew that in every heart would be the knowledge that 
 Clarence Breckenridge was dying by his own hand, 
 and his daughter on the ocean, and that this woman 
 in the Indian dress, with painted lips and a tiger 
 skin outlining her beautiful figure, had been his 
 wife. 
 
 This she had expected, and this was as she had ex- 
 pected. But there were other circumstances that 
 made her feel even more acutely the turn of the screw. 
 Joe Butler, always Clarence's closest friend, did not 
 come to the dance, and at about twelve o'clock an 
 innocent maid delivered to Warren a message that 
 several persons besides Warren heard: "Mr. Butler 
 to speak to you on the telephone, Doctor Gregory." 
 
 Everyone could surmise where Joe Butler was, but 
 no one voiced the supposition. Warren, handsome in 
 his skirted coat, knee breeches, and ruffles, disappeared 
 from the room, and the dancing went on. The scene 
 was unbelievably brilliant, the hot, bright air sweet 
 with flowers and perfume, and the more subtle odors 
 of silk and fine linen and powder on delicate skin. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 193 
 
 Warren was presently among them again, and there 
 was a supper, the hostess' lovely face showing no more 
 strain or concern than was natural to a woman eager to 
 make comfortable nearly a hundred guests. 
 
 After supper there was more dancing, and an aug- 
 mented gayety. There were no more telephone mes- 
 sages, nor was there any definite foundation for the 
 rumor that was presently stealthily circulating. Wo- 
 men, powdering their noses as they waited for their 
 wraps, murmured it in the dressing-rooms; a clown, 
 smoking in the hall, confided it to a Mephistopheles; 
 a pastry cook, after his effusive good-nights, confirmed 
 it as he climbed into the motorcar that held the Pierrette 
 who was his wife: "Dead, poor fellow!" 
 
 "Dead, poor Clarence!", said Mrs. Prince, mag* 
 nificent as Queen Elizabeth, as she and Elinor Vanderwall 
 went downstairs. She had once danced a fancy dance 
 with him more than twenty years ago. "Awful!** 
 said Elinor, shuddering. 
 
 After the last guest was gone Warren telephoned to 
 the hospital, Rachael, a little tired and pale in the 
 Indian costume, watching and listening tensely. She 
 was sick at heart. Even into the library, where they 
 stood, the Mardi-Gras disorder had penetrated: a blue 
 silk mask was lying across Warren's blotter, a spatter 
 of confetti lay on the polished floor, and on the reading 
 table was a tray on which were two glasses through 
 whose amber contents a lazy bubble still occasionally 
 rose. The logs that had snapped in the fireplace were 
 gone, only gray ashes remained, and to Rachael, at 
 least, the room's desolation and disorder seemed to 
 typify her own state of mind. 
 
 She could tell from Warren's look that he found the 
 whole matter painful and distasteful to an almost 
 unbearable degree; on his handsome serious face was 
 an expression of grim endurance, of hurt yet dignified 
 protest against events. He did not blame her, how 
 could he blame her? But he was suffering in every 
 fibre of his sensitive soul at this sordid notoriety, at 
 
194 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 this blatant voicing of a hundred ugly whispers in a 
 matter so closely touching the woman he loved. 
 
 "Dead?" Rachael said quietly, when his brief con- 
 versation was over. 
 
 Warren Gregory, setting the telephone back upon 
 the desk, nodded gravely. 
 
 Rachael made no comment. For a moment her 
 eyes widened nervously, and a little shudder rippled 
 through her. Then silently she gathered up the leather 
 belt and chains of beads that she had been loosening 
 as she listened, and slowly went toward the door. 
 
 They did not speak again of Clarence that night, 
 although they chatted easily for the next hour on other 
 topics, even laughirg a little as the various episodes of 
 the evening were passed in review. 
 
 But Rachael did not sleep, nor did she sleep during 
 the long hours of the following night. On the third 
 night she wakened her husband suddenly from his 
 sleep. 
 
 "Greg Greg! Won't you talk to me a little? I'm 
 going mad, I think!" 
 
 "Rachael! What is it?" stammered the doctor, 
 blinking in the dim light of Rachael's bedside lamp. 
 His wife, haggard, with her rich hair falling in two long 
 braids over her shoulders, was sitting on the side of his 
 bed. "What is it, darling hear something?" he 
 asked, more naturally, putting his arm about her. 
 
 "I've been lying awake and lying awake!" said 
 Rachael, panting. "I haven't shut my eyes it's nearly 
 three. Greg, I keep seeing it Clarence's face, you 
 know, with that horrible scar! What shall I do?" 
 
 Shivering, gasping, wild-eyed, she clung to him, and 
 for a long hour he soothed her as if she had been an 
 hysterical child. He put her into a comfortable chair, 
 mixed her a sedative, and knelt beside her, slowly 
 winning her back to calm and sanity again. It was 
 terrible, of course, but no one but Clarence himself 
 was to blame, unless it was poor Billy 
 
 "Yes, I must see Billy when she comes backl" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 195 
 
 Rachaei said quickly, when the tranquillizing voice 
 reached this point. If Warren Gregory's quiet mouth 
 registered any opposition, she did not see it, and he 
 did not express it. She was presently sound asleep, 
 still catching a long childish breath as she slept. But 
 she woke smiling, with all the horrid visions of the past 
 few days apparently blotted out, and she and Warren 
 went gayly downtown to get steamer tickets, and buy 
 appropriate frocks and hats for the spring heat of 
 Bermuda. 
 
 In midsummer came the inevitable invitation to 
 visit old friends at Belvedere Bay. Rachael was 
 
 ? leased to accept Mrs. Moran's hospitality for a glorious 
 uly week. Warren, to her delight, took an eight- 
 days' holiday, and while he looked to his racquet and 
 golf irons she packed her prettiest gowns. Belvedere 
 Bay welcomed them rapturously, and beautiful Mrs. 
 Gregory was the idol of the hour. Mrs. Moulton, 
 giving a tennis tea during this week, duly sent Mrs. 
 Gregory a card. But when society wondering whether 
 Rachael would really be a guest in her own old home, 
 had duly gathered at the Breckenridge house, young 
 Dicky Moran was so considerate as to be flung from 
 his riding-horse. Neither the Gregorys nor the Morans 
 consequently appeared at the tea, but Rachael, meet- 
 ing all inquirers on the Moran terrace, late in the 
 afternoon, with the news that Dicky was quite all right, 
 no harm done, asked prettily for details of the affair 
 they had missed. 
 
 She told herself that the past really made no differ* 
 ence in the radiant present, but she knew it was not so* 
 In a thousand little ways she had lost caste> and she 
 saw it, if Warren did not. A certain bloom was gone. 
 Girls were not quite as deferentially adoring, women 
 were a little less impressed. The old prestige was 
 somehow lessened. She knew that newcomers at the 
 club, struck by her beauty, were a little chilled by her 
 nistory. She felt the difference in the: very air. 
 
196 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 In her musings she went over the old arguments 
 hotly. Why was she merely the "divorced Mrs. 
 Gregory?" Why were these casual inquirers not told 
 of Clarence, of her long endurance of neglect and shame? 
 More than once the thought came to her, that if other 
 events had been as they were, and only the facts of 
 her divorce and remarriage lacking, she would have 
 been Clarence's widow now. 
 
 " What's the difference ? It all comes out the same ! " 
 commented Warren, to whom she confided this thought. 
 
 "Then you and I would have been only engaged 
 now," said Rachael, smiling. "And I would like that!" 
 
 "You mean you regret your marriage?" he laughed, 
 his arms about her. 
 
 "I'd like to live the first days over and over and 
 over again, Greg!" she answered passionately. 
 
 "You are an insatiable creature!" he said. But her 
 earnestness was beginning to puzzle him a little. She 
 was too deeply wrapped in her love for her own happi- 
 ness or his. There was something almost startling in 
 her intensity. She was jealous of every minute that 
 they were apart; she made no secret of her blind adora- 
 tion. 
 
 Warren had at first found this touching; it had 
 humbled him. Later, in the first months of their 
 marriage, he had shared it, and their mutual passion 
 had seemed to them both a source of inexhaustible 
 delight. But now, even while he smiled at her, his 
 keen sensitiveness where her dignity was concerned 
 had shown him that there was in her attitude some- 
 thing a little pitiful, something even a little absurd. 
 
 Judy and Gertrude and little Mrs. Sartoris listened 
 interestedly when Rachael talked of Greg, of his likes, 
 his dislikes, his favorite words, his old-maidish way of 
 arranging his ties, his marvellous latest operation. 
 But Warren, watching his wife's flushed, lovely face, 
 wondered if they were laughing at her. He smiled 
 uncomfortably when she interrupted her bridge game 
 to come across the club porch to him, to ask him if the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 197 
 
 tennis had been good, to warn him that he would catch 
 cold if he did not instantly get out of those wet flannels, 
 to ask Frank Whittaker what he meant by beating her 
 big boy three sets in succession ? 
 
 "Rachael, I'm dealing for you come back here!" 
 Gertrude might call. 
 
 "Deal away!" Rachael, one hand on Warren's arm, 
 would look saucily at the others over his shoulder. 
 "I like my beau," she would assert brazenly, "and if 
 you say a word more, I'll kiss him here and now!" 
 
 They all shrieked derisively when the kiss was duly 
 delivered and Gregory Warren with a self-conscious 
 laugh had escaped to his shower. But Rachael saw 
 nothing absurd; she told Warren that she loved him, 
 and let them laugh if they liked! 
 
 "Listen, dearest!" he said on the last night of their 
 stay. "Will you be a darling, and not trail round the 
 links if we play to-morrow?" 
 
 "Why not?" asked Rachael absently, fluffing his 
 hair from her point of vantage on the arm of his chair. 
 
 "Well, wouldn't you rather stay up on the porch 
 with the girls?" 
 
 "If you men want to swear at your strokes, I de- 
 cline to be a party to it ! " Rachael said maternally. 
 
 "I know. But, darling, it does rather aflFect our 
 game," Warren said uncertainly; "that is, you don't 
 play, you see! And it only gets you hot and mussy, 
 and I love my wife to be waiting when we come up. 
 It isn't that I don't think you're a darling to want to 
 do it," he added in hasty concern. 
 
 No use. She was deeply hurt. She went to her dressing- 
 table and began her preparations for the night with a 
 downcast face. Certainly she wouldn't bother War- 
 ren. She only did it because she loved him so. A 
 tear splashed down on her white hand. 
 
 Next day she triumphantly accompanied the golfers. 
 Warren had petted and coaxed her out of her sulks, 
 and she was radiant again. When they had said their 
 good-byes to Judy, and were spinning into town in the 
 
198 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 car that afternoon, she made him confess that she had 
 not spoiled the game at all; he couldn't make her be- 
 lieve that Frank and Tom and Peter had been pretend- 
 ing their pleasure at having her go along! 
 
 But later in the summer she realized that Belvedere 
 Bay was smiling quietly at her bridelike infatuation, 
 and she resented it deeply. The discovery came about 
 on a lazy summer afternoon when several women, 
 Rachael among them, were enjoying gossip and iced 
 drinks on the Parmalees' porch. Rachael had been 
 talking of the emeralds that Warren was having reset 
 for her, and chanced to observe that Tiffany's man had 
 said that Warren's taste in jewelry was astonishing. 
 
 "Rachael," yawned little Vivian Sartoris, "foi 
 heaven's sake talk about something else than Warren?'* 
 
 "I talk about him because I like him!" Rachael 
 said. " Better than anybody else in the world." 
 
 "And he likes you better than anybody else in the 
 world, I suppose?" Vivian said idly. 
 
 "He says so," Rachael answered with a demure 
 smile. 
 
 "Then that settles it!" Vivian laughed. But she 
 and several of her intimates fell into low conversation, 
 and the older women were presently interrupted by 
 Vivian's voice again. "Rachael!" she challenged, 
 "Katrina says that she knows somebody Warren likes 
 as well as he does you!" 
 
 "I did not!" protested Katrina, scarlet-cheeked and 
 giggling, giving Vivian, who sat next her on the wide 
 tiled steps, a violent push. 
 
 "Oh, you did, too!" one of the group exclaimed. 
 
 Katrina murmured something unintelligible. 
 
 "Well, that's the same thing!" Vivian assured her 
 promptly. "She says now that Warren did like her 
 as well, Rachael!" 
 
 "Well, don't tell me who it is, and break my heart!" 
 Rachael warned them. But her old sense of humor so 
 far failed her that she could not help adding curiously, 
 "If Warren ever cared for anybody else, he'll tell me!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 199 
 
 There was a general burst of laughter, and Rachael 
 colored. 
 
 "No, it's nobody," Katrina said hastily. "It's only 
 idiocy!" She and the other girls laughed in a sup- 
 pressed fashion for some time. Finally, to Rachael's 
 secret relief, Gertrude Whittaker energetically de- 
 manded the secret. More giggling ensued. Then 
 Katrina agreed that she would whisper it in Mrs. 
 Whittaker's ear, which she did. Rachael saw Gertrude 
 color and look puzzled for a second, then she laughed 
 scornfully. 
 
 "What geese girls are! I never heard anything so 
 silly!" Gertrude said. Several hours later she told 
 Rachael. 
 
 She did not tell her without some hesitation. It was 
 so silly it was just like that scatter-brained Katrina, 
 she said. Rachael, proudly asserting that nothing 
 Katrina said would make any difference to her, never- 
 theless urged the confidence. 
 
 "Well, it's nothing," Gertrude said at last. "This 
 is what Katrina said: she said that Warren Gregory 
 had liked Rachael Breckenridge as well as he liked 
 Rachael Gregory! That was all." 
 
 Rachael looked puzzled in turn for a minute. 
 Then she smiled proudly, and colored. 
 
 "But that's not true/' she said presently. "For 
 I have never seen a man change as much since marriage 
 as Warren! It's still a perfect miracle to him. He 
 says himself that he gets happier and happier 
 
 "Oh, Rachael, you're hopeless!" Gertrude laughed, 
 and Rachael colored again. She flushed whenever she 
 thought of this particular visit. 
 
 Far happier were the days they spent with the 
 Valentines at Clark's Bar. Rachael loved them all 
 dearly, from little Katharine to the big quiet doctor; 
 she was not misunderstood nor laughed at here. 
 
 They swam, tramped, played cards, and talked tire- 
 lessly. Rachael slept like a child on the wide, wind- 
 
200 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 bathed porch. To the great satisfaction of both doctors 
 she and Alice grew to be devoted friends, and when War- 
 ren's holiday was over, Rachael stayed on, for a longer 
 visit, and the men came down in the car on Fridays. 
 
 On her birthday this year her husband gave Rachael 
 Gregory, and her heirs and assigns forever, a roomy, 
 plain old colonial farmhouse that stood near Alice's 
 house, in a ring of great elms, looking down on the 
 green level surface of the sea. Rachael accepted it 
 with wild delight. She loved the big, homelike halls, 
 the simple fireplaces, the green blinds that shut a sweet 
 twilight into the empty rooms. Her own barns, her 
 own strip of beach, her own side yard where she and 
 Alice could sit and talk, she took eager possession of 
 them all. 
 
 She went into town for chintzes, papers, wicker 
 tables and chairs. She brought old Mrs. Gregory 
 down for the housewarming, and had all the Valentines 
 to dinner on the August evening when the Gregorys 
 moved in. And late that same evening, when War- 
 ren's arms were about her, she told him her great news. 
 There were to be little feet running about Home Dunes, 
 and a little voice echoing through the new home. 
 "Shall you be glad, Greg?" she asked, with tears in her 
 eyes; "shall you be just a little jealous?" 
 
 "Rachael!" he said in a quick, tense whisper, afraid 
 to believe her. And Rachael, caught in his dear arms, 
 and with his cheek against her wet lashes, felt a triumph 
 and a confidence rise within her, and a glorious con- 
 tent that it was so. 
 
 When the happy suspicion was a happy certainty 
 she told his mother, and entered at once into the world 
 of advice and reassurance, planning and speculation 
 that belongs to women alone. Mrs. Valentine was 
 also full of eager interest and counsel, and Rachael 
 enjoyed their solicitude and affection as she had en- 
 joyed few things in life. This was a perfectly natural 
 symptom, that was a perfectly natural phase, she must 
 do this thing, get that, and avoid a third. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 201 
 
 The fact that she was not quite herself in soul or 
 body, that she must be careful, must be guarded and 
 saved, was a source of strange and mysterious satis- 
 faction to her as the quick months slipped by. Her 
 increasing helplessness shut her quite naturally away 
 into a world that contained only her husband and her- 
 self and a few intimate friends, and Rachael found this 
 absolutely satisfying, and did not miss the social world 
 that hummed on as busily and gayly as ever without 
 her. 
 
 Her baby was born in March, a beautiful boy, like 
 his father even in the first few moments of his life. 
 Rachael, whose experience had been, to her astonish- 
 ment, described complacently by physician and nurses 
 as "perfectly normal," was slow to recover from the 
 experience in body; perhaps never quite recovered in 
 soul. It changed all her values of life this knowledge 
 of what the coming of a child costs; she told Alice that 
 she was glad of the change. 
 
 "What a fool I've been about the shadows," she 
 said. "This is the reality! This counts, as it seems 
 to me that nothing else I ever did in my life counts/' 
 
 She felt nearer than ever to Warren now, and more 
 dependent upon him. But a new dignity came into 
 her relationship with him: husband and wife, father 
 and mother, they wore the great titles of the world, 
 now! 
 
 He found her more beautiful than ever, and as the 
 baby was the centre of her universe, and all her hopes 
 and fears and thoughts for the child, the old bridal 
 attitude toward him vanished forever, and she was the 
 more fascinating for that. His love for her rose like a 
 great flame, and the passionate devotion for which 
 she had been wistfully waiting for months enveloped 
 her now, when, shaken in body and soul, she wished 
 only to devote herself to the miracle that was her child. 
 
 When he was but six weeks old James Warren 
 Gregory Third terrified the little circle of his family 
 and friends with a severe touch of summer sickness. 
 
202 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 The weather, in late April, was untimely hot and 
 humid and the baby seemed to suffer from it, even 
 an Ms airy nursery. There were two hideous days in 
 which he would take no food, and when Rachael heard 
 /nothing but the little wailing voice through the long 
 iiours. All night she sat beside him, hearing Warren's 
 affectionate protests as little as she heard the dignified 
 remonstrance of the nurse. When day came she was 
 haggard and exhausted, but still she would not leave 
 her baby. She knelt at the crib, impressing the tiny 
 countenance upon mind and heart her first-born baby, 
 upon whose little features the wisdom of another world 
 still lingered like a light! 
 
 Only a few weeks old, and thousands of them older 
 than he died every year! Fear in another form had 
 come to Rachael now life seemed all fear. 
 
 "Oh, Warren, is he very ill?" 
 
 "Pretty sick, dear little chap!" 
 
 "But, Warren, you don't think " 
 
 "My darling, I don't know!" 
 
 She turned desperately to George Valentine when 
 that good friend came in his professional capacity at 
 five o'clock. 
 
 "George, there's been a change Fna sure of it. 
 Look at him!" 
 
 " You ought to take better care of your wife, Greg," 
 was Doctor Valentine's quiet almost smiling answer 
 to this. "You'll have her sick next!" 
 
 "How is he?" Rachael whispered, as the newcomer 
 bent over the baby. There was a silence. 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Doctor Valentine, as he 
 straightened himself, "I believe this little chap has 
 decided to remain with us a little while. Very much 
 better!" 
 
 Rachael tried to smile, but burst out crying instead, 
 and clung to her husband's shoulder. 
 
 "Let him have his sleep out, Miss Snow," said the 
 doctor, "and then sponge him off and trv him with 
 food!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 203 
 
 "Oh yes yes yes!" the baby's mother said 
 eagerly, drying her eyes. "And you'll be back later, 
 George?" 
 
 "Not unless you telephone me, and I don't think 
 you'll have to," George Valentine said. Rachael's 
 face grew radiant with joy. 
 
 "Oh, George, then he is better!" She was breath- 
 ing like a runner. 
 
 "Better! I think he'll be himself to-morrow. Con- 
 sole yourself, my dear Rachael, with the thought that 
 you'll go through this a hundred times with every one 
 of your children!" 
 
 "Oh, what a world!" Rachael said, half laughing 
 and half sighing. But later she said to Warren, "Yet 
 *sn't it deliciously worth while ! " 
 
 He had persuaded her to have some supper, and 
 then \hey had come back to the nursery, to see if the 
 Laby really would eat. He had awakened, and had 
 had his bath, and was crying again, but, as Rachael 
 eagerly said, it was a healthy cry. Trembling and 
 smiling, she took the little creature in her arms, and 
 when the busy little lips found her breast, Rachael 
 felt as if she could hardly bear the exquisite incoming 
 rush of joy again. 
 
 Warren, watching her, smiled in deep satisfaction, 
 and Miss Snow smiled, too. But before she gave her- 
 self up to the luxury of possession the mother's tears 
 fell hot on the baby's delicate gown and tiny face, 
 and from that hour Rachael loved her son with the 
 passionate and intense devotion she felt for his father. 
 
 Years later, looking at the pictures they took of him 
 that summer, or perhaps stopped by the sight of some 
 white-coated baby in the street, she would say to her- 
 self, with that little heartache all mothers know, "Ah, 
 but Jim was the darling baby!" After the first scare 
 he bloomed like a rose, a splendid, square, royal boy 
 who laughed joyously when admitted to the company 
 of his family and friends, and lay contentedly dozing 
 and smiling when it seemed good to them to ignore 
 
204 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 him. Rachael found him the most delightfully amus* 
 ing and absorbing element her life had ever known; 
 she would break into ecstatic laughter at his simplest 
 feat when he yawned, or pressed his little downy head 
 against the bars of his crib and stared unsmilingly at 
 her. She would run to the nursery the instant she 
 arrived home, her eager, "How's my boy?" making 
 the baby crow, and struggle to reach her, and it was 
 an event to her to meet his coach in the park, and give 
 him her purse or parasol handle with which to play. 
 Often old Mary, the nurse, would see Mrs. Gregory 
 pick up a pair of tiny white shoes that still bore the 
 imprint of the fat little feet, and touch them to her 
 lips, or catch a crumpled little linen coat from the drawer, 
 and bury her face in it for a moment. 
 
 Even in his tiny babyhood he was companionable to 
 his mother, Rachael even consenting to the plan of 
 taking him to Home Dunes in June, although by this 
 arrangement she saw Warren only at week-end intervals 
 until the doctor's vacation came in August. When 
 he came down, and the big car honked at the gate, she 
 invariably had the baby in her arms when she came to 
 meet him. 
 
 "Hello, Daddy. Here we are! How are you, dear- 
 est?" Rachael would say, adding, before he could 
 answer her: "We want you to notice our chic Italian 
 socks, Doctor Gregory; how's that for five months? 
 Take him, Greg! Go to Daddy, Little Mister!" 
 
 '"All very well, but how's my wife ?" Warren Gregory 
 might ask, kissing her over the baby's bobbing head. 
 
 "Lovely! Do you know that your son weighs fifteen 
 
 Epunds isn't that amazing?" Rachael would hang on 
 is free arm, in happy wifely fashion, as they went back 
 to the house. 
 
 "Want to go with me to London?" he asked her 
 one day in the late fall when they were back in town. 
 
 "Why not Mars?" she asked placidly, putting a 
 fresh, stiff dress over Jimmy's head. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 20$ 
 
 "No, but I'm serious, my dear girl," Warren Greg- 
 ory said surprised. 
 
 "But I don't understand you. What about Jim?" 
 
 "Why, leave him here with Mary. We won't be 
 gone four weeks." 
 
 Rachael smiled, but it was an uneasy, almost an 
 affronted, smile. 
 
 "Oh, Warren, we couldn't! I couldn't! I would 
 simply worry myself sick!" 
 
 "I don't see why. The child would be perfectly 
 safe. George is right here if anything happened ! " 
 
 "George but George isn't his mother!" Rachael 
 fell silent, biting her lip, a little shadow between her 
 brows. "What is it the convention?" she presently 
 asked. "Do you have to go?" 
 
 "It isn't absolutely necessary," Warren said dryly. 
 But this was enough for Rachael, who opened the subject 
 that evening when George and Alice Valentine were there. 
 
 "George, does Warren have to go to this London con- 
 vention, or whatever it is?" 
 
 "Not necessarily," smiled Doctor Valentine. "Why, 
 doesn't he want to go?" 
 
 "7 don't want him to go!" Rachael asserted. 
 
 "It would be a senseless risk to take that baby across 
 the ocean," Alice contributed, and no more was said of 
 the possibility then or at any other time, to Rachael's 
 great content. 
 
 But when the winter season was well begun, and 
 Jimmy delicious in his diminutive furs, Doctor Gregory 
 and his wife had a serious talk, late on a snowy after- 
 noon, and Rachael realized then that her husband had 
 been carrying a slight sense of grievance over this 
 matter for many weeks. 
 
 He had come in at six o'clock, and was changing his 
 clothes for dinner, half an hour later, when Rachael 
 came into his dressing-room. Her hair had been 
 dressed, and under her white silk wrapper her gold 
 slippers and stockings were visible, but she seemed dis- 
 inclined to finish her toilette. 
 
206 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Awful bore!" she said, smiling, as she sat down to 
 watch him. 
 
 "What the Hoyts? Oh, I don't think so!" he 
 answered in surprise. 
 
 "They all bore me to death," Rachael said idly. " I'd 
 rather have a chop here with you, and then trot off some- 
 where all by ourselves ! Why don't they leave us alone ? " 
 
 "My dear girl, that isn't life," Warren Gregory said 
 firmly. His tone chilled her a little, and she looked 
 up in quick penitence. But before she could speak he 
 antagonized her by adding disapprovingly: "I must 
 say I don't like your attitude of criticism and ungra- 
 ciousness, my dear girl! These people are all our good 
 friends; I personally can find no fault with them. 
 You may feel that you would rather spend all of your 
 time hanging over Jim's crib I suppose all young 
 mothers do, and to a certain extent all mothers ought 
 to but don't, for heaven's sake, let everything else 
 slip out of your life!" 
 
 "I know, I know!" Rachael said breathlessly and 
 quickly, finding his disapproval almost unendurable. 
 Warren did not often complain; he had never spoken 
 to her in this way before. Her face was scarlet, and 
 she knew that she wanted to cry. "I know, dear," 
 she added more composedly; "I am afraid I do think 
 too much about Jim; I am afraid" and Rachael 
 smiled a little pitifully "that I would never want 
 anyone but you and the boy if I had my own way! 
 Sometimes I wish that we could just slip away from 
 everybody and everything, and never see these people 
 again!" 
 
 If she had expected him to endorse this radical hope 
 she was disappointed, for Warren responded briskly: 
 "Yes, and we would bore each other to death in two 
 months ! " 
 
 Rachael was silent, but over the sinking discourage- 
 ment of her heart she was gallantly forming new res- 
 olutions. She would think more of her clothes, she 
 make a special study of dinners and theatre 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 207 
 
 parties, she would be seen at the opera at least every 
 other week. 
 
 "I gave up the London trip just because you weren't 
 enthusiastic," Warren was saying, with the unmistak- 
 able readiness of one whose grievances have long been 
 classified in his mind. "It's baby baby baby! I 
 don't say much 
 
 "Indeed you don't!" Rachael conceded gratefully. 
 
 "But I think you overdo it, my dear!" finished her 
 husband ?> kindly. Clarence Breckenridge's wife would 
 have assumed a different attitude during this little 
 talk, but Rachael Gregory felt every word like a blow 
 upon her quivering heart. She could not protest, she 
 could not ignore. Her love for him made this moment 
 one of absolute agony, and it was with the humility of 
 great love that she met him more than halfway. 
 
 "You're right, of course, Greg, and it must have been 
 stupid for you!" Stupid! It seemed even in this 
 moment treason, it seemed desecration, to use this 
 Word of their quiet, wonderful summer together! 
 
 "Well," he said, mollified, "don't take what I say 
 too much to heart. It's only that I love my wife, and 
 am proud of her, and I don't want to cut out every- 
 thing else but Jim's shoes and Mary's day off!" He 
 came over and kissed her, and Rachael clung to him. 
 
 "Greg, as if I could be angry with you for being 
 jealous of your son!" 
 
 "Trust a woman to put that construction on it," 
 he said, laughing. "You like to think I'm jealous, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "I like anything that makes you seem my devoted 
 adorer," Rachael answered wistfully, and smiling whim- 
 sically she added, "and I am going to get some new 
 frocks, and give a series of dinners, and win you all 
 over again!" 
 
 "Bully!" approved Doctor Gregory, cheerfully going 
 on with his dressing. Rachael watched him thought- 
 fully for a moment before she went on to her own 
 dressing-room. 
 
208 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Long afterward she remembered that this conversa- 
 tion marked a certain change in her life; it was never 
 quite glad, confident morning again, although for 
 many months no definite element seemed altered. 
 Alice and old Mrs. Gregory had told her, and all the 
 world agreed, that the coming of her child would draw 
 her husband and herself more closely together, but, as 
 Rachael expressed it to herself, it was if she alone 
 moved moved infinitely nearer to her husband truly, 
 came to depend upon him, to need him as she had 
 never needed him in her life before. But there was 
 always the feeling that Warren had not moved. He 
 stood where he had always been, an eager sympathizer 
 in these new and intense experiences, but untouched 
 and unaltered himself. For her pain, for her respon- 
 sibility, for her physical limitations, he had the most 
 intense tenderness and pity, but the fact remained 
 that he might sleep through the nights, enjoy his meals, 
 and play with his baby, when the mood decreed, mv 
 troubled by personal handicap. 
 
 Rachael, like all women, thought of these things 
 seriously during the first year of her child's life, and in 
 February, when Jimmy was beginning to utter his 
 first delicious, stammering monosyllables, it was with 
 great gravity that she realized that motherhood was 
 approaching her again, that at Thanksgiving she would 
 have a second child. She was wretchedly languid and 
 ill during the entire spring, and found her mother-in- 
 law's and Alice Valentine's calm acceptance of the 
 situation bewildering and discouraging. 
 
 "My dear, I don't eat a meal in comfort, the entire 
 time!" Alice said cheerfully. "I mind that more than 
 any other phase!" 
 
 "But I am such a broken reed!" Rachael smiled 
 ruefully. "I have no energy!" 
 
 The older woman laughed. 
 
 "I know, my dear haven't I been through it all? 
 i Just don't worry, and spare Greg what you can " 
 
 Rachael could do neither. She wanted Warren 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 209 
 
 every minute, and she wanted nobody else. Her fa- 
 vorite hours were when she lay on the couch, near the 
 fire, playing with his free hand, while he read to her 
 or talked to her. She wanted to hear, over and over 
 again, that he loved no one else; and sometimes she 
 declined invitations without even consulting him, 
 "because we're happier by our own fire than anywhere 
 else, aren't we, dearest?" "Don't tell me about your 
 stupid operations!" she would smile at him, "talk 
 . about us I" 
 
 She went over and over the details of her old life 
 with a certain morbid satisfaction in his constant re- 
 assurance. Her marriage had not been the cause of 
 Clarence's suicide, nor of Billy's elopement; she had 
 done her share for them both, more than her share! 
 
 Summer came, and she and the baby were comfort- 
 ably established at Home Dunes. Warren came when 
 he could, perhaps twice a month, and usually without 
 warning. If he promised her the week-ends, she felt 
 aggrieved to have him miss one, so he wired her every 
 day, and sent her books and fruit, letters and magazines 
 every week, and came at irregular intervals. Alice 
 and George Valentine and their children, her garden, 
 her baby, and the ocean she loved so well must fill this 
 summer for Rachael. 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 THE beautiful Mrs. Gregory made her first appear- 
 ance in society, after the birth of her second son, oil the 
 occasion of Miss Leila Buckney's marriage to Mr. 
 Parker Hoyt. The continual postponement of this 
 event had been a standing joke among their friends 
 for two or three years; it took place in early December, 
 at the most fashionable of all the churches, with a 
 reception and supper to follow at the most fashionable 
 of all the hotels. Leila naturally looked tired and 
 excited; she had made a gallant fight for her lover, for 
 long years, and she had won, but as yet the returning 
 tide of comfort and satisfaction had not begun in her 
 life. Parker had been a trying fiance; he was a cool- 
 blooded, fishlike little man; there had been other com- 
 plications: her father's heavy financial losses, her 
 mother's discontent in the lingering engagement, her 
 sister's persisting state of unmarriedness. 
 
 However, the old aunt was at last dead. Parker had 
 dutifully gone to her side toward the end, and had re- 
 turned again, duly, bringing the casket, and escorting 
 Miss Clay. And now Mamma was dressed, and Edith 
 was in a hideously unbecoming green and silver gown, 
 and the five bridesmaids were duly hatted and frocked 
 in green and silver, and she was dressed, too, realizing 
 that her new corsets were a trifle small, and her lace 
 veil too heavy. 
 
 And the disgusting caterer had come to some last- 
 moment agreement with Papa whereby they were to 
 have the supper without protest, and the florist's in- 
 solent man had consented to send the bouquets at last. 
 The fifteen hundred dreadful envelopes were all ad- 
 dressed, the back-breaking trying-on of gowns was 
 
 210 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 over, the three hundred and seventy-one gifts were 
 arranged in two big rooms at the hotel, duly ticketed, 
 and the three hundred and seventy-one dreadful per- 
 sonal notes of thanks had been somehow scribbled off 
 and dispatched. Leila was absolutely exhausted, 
 and felt as pale and pasty as she looked. People were 
 all so stupid and tiresome and inconsiderate, she said 
 wearily to herself, and the awful breakfast would be 
 so long and dull, with everybody saying the same thing 
 to her, and Parker trying to be funny and simply mak- 
 ing himself ridiculous! The barbarity of the modern 
 wedding impressed itself vaguely upon the bride as 
 she laughed and talked in a strained and mechanical 
 manner, and whatever they said to her and to her 
 parents, the guests were afterward unanimous in de- 
 ciding that poor Leila had been an absolute fright. 
 
 But Mrs. Gregory, in her dark blue suit and her new 
 sables, won everybody's eyes as she came down the 
 church aisle with her husband beside her. Her son 
 was not quite a month old, and if she had not recovered 
 her usual wholesome bloom, there was a refmed > almost 
 a spiritual, element in her beauty now that more than 
 made up for the loss. She wore a fragrant great bunch 
 of violets at her breast, and under the sweeping brim 
 of her hat her beautiful eyes were as deeply blue as the 
 flowers. She seemed full of a new wifely and matronly 
 charm to-day, and it was quite in key with the pose 
 that old Mrs. Gregory and young Charles should be 
 constantly in her neighborhood. Her relatives with 
 her, her babies safe at home, young Mrs. Gregory was 
 the personification of domestic dignity and decorum. 
 
 At the hotel, after the wedding, she was the centre 
 of an admiring group, and conscious of her husband's 
 approving eyes, full of her old brilliant charm. All 
 the. old friends rallied about her they had not seen 
 much of her since her marriage and found her more 
 magnetic than ever. The circumstances of her mar- 
 riage were blotted out by more recent events now: 
 there was the Chase divorce to discuss; the Villalonga 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 motor-car accident; Elinor Vanderwall had astonished 
 everybody a few weeks before by her sudden marriage 
 to millions in the person of old Peter Pomeroy; now 
 people were beginning to say that Jeanette Vanderwall 
 might soon be expected to follow suit with Peter's 
 nephew George. The big, beautifully decorated re- 
 ception-room hummed with gay gossip, with the tinkling 
 laughter of women and the deeper tones of men. 
 
 Caterers' men began to work their way through the 
 crush, bearing indiscriminately trays of bouillon, sand- 
 wiches, salads, and ices. The bride, with her surround- 
 ing bridesmaids, was still standing at the far end of 
 the room mechanically shaking hands, and smilingly 
 saying something dazed and inappropriate to her friends 
 as they filed by; but now various groups, scattered 
 about the room, began to interest themselves in the 
 food. Elderly persons, after looking vaguely about 
 for seats, disposed of their coffee and salad while stand- 
 ing, and soon there was a general breaking-up; the 
 Buckney-Hoyt wedding was almost a thing of the past. 
 
 Rachael, thinking of the impending dinner-hour of 
 little Gerald Fairfax Gregory, began to watch the swirl- 
 ing groups for Warren. They could slip away now, 
 surely; several persons had already gone. Her heart 
 was in her nursery, where Jim was toddling back and 
 forth tirelessly in the firelight, and where, between the 
 white bars of the new crib, was the tiny roll of snowy 
 blankets that enclosed the new baby. 
 
 "That's a pretty girl," she found herself saying in- 
 voluntarily as her absent eyes were suddenly arrested 
 by the face and figure of one of the guests. "I wonder 
 who that is?" 
 
 The brown eyes she was watching met hers at the 
 same second, and smiling a little question, their owner 
 came toward her. 
 
 "Hello, Rachael," the girl said. "How are you 
 after all these years ? " 
 
 "Magsie Clay!" Rachael exclaimed, the look of un- 
 certainty on her face changing to one of pleasure and 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 213 
 
 welcome. "Well, you dear child, you! How are you? 
 I knew you were here, and yet I couldn't place you. 
 You've changed you're thinner." 
 
 "Oh, much thinner, but then I was an absolute 
 butterball!" Miss Clay saido "Tell me about yourself. 
 I hear that you're having a baby every ten minutes!" 
 
 *"Not quite!" Rachael said, laughing, but a little 
 discomposed by the girl's coolness. "But I have two 
 mighty nice boys, as I'll prove to you if you'll come see 
 me!" 
 
 "Don't expect me to rave over babies, because I 
 don't know anything about them," said Magsie Clay, 
 with a slow, drawling manner that was, Rachael de- 
 cided, effective. "Do they like toys?" 
 
 "Jimmy does, the baby is rather young for tastes 
 of any description," Rachael answered with an odd, 
 new sense of being somehow sedate and old-fashioned 
 beside this composed young woman. Miss Clay was 
 not listening. Her brown eyes were moving idly over 
 the room, and now she suddenly bowed and smiled. 
 
 "There's Greg!" she said. "What a comfort it is 
 to see a man dress as that man dresses!" 
 
 "I've been looking for you," Warren Gregory said, 
 coming up to his wife, and, noticing the other woman, 
 he added enthusiastically: "Well, Margaret! I didn't 
 know you! Bless my life and heart, how you children 
 grow up ! " 
 
 "Children! I'm twenty-two!" Miss Clay said, 
 pouting, with her round brown eyes fixed in childish 
 reproach upon his face. They had been great friends 
 when Warren was with his mother in Paris, nearly 
 four years ago, and now they fell into an animated 
 recollection of some of their experiences there with the 
 two old ladies. While they talked Rachael watched 
 Magsie Clay with admiration and surprise. 
 
 She knew all the girl's history, as indeed everybody 
 in the room knew it, but to-day it was a little hard to 
 identify the poised and beautiful young woman who 
 was looking so demurely up from under her dark lashes 
 
214 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 at Warren with the "little Clay girl" of a few years 
 ago. 
 
 Parker Hoyt's aunt, the magnificent old Lady Froth- 
 ingham, had been just enough of an invalid for the 
 twenty years preceding her death to need a nurse or 
 a companion, or a social secretary, or someone who 
 was a little of all three. The great problem was to 
 find the right person, and for a period that actually 
 extended itself over years the right person was not to 
 be found, and the old lady was consequently miserable 
 and unmanageable. 
 
 Then came the advent of Mrs. Clay, a dark, silent, 
 dignified widow, who more than met all requirements, 
 and who became a companion figure to the little, fuss- 
 ing, over-dressed old lady. From the day she first 
 arrived at the Frothingham mansion Mrs. Clay never 
 failed her old employer for so much as a single hour. 
 For fifteen years she managed the house, the maids, 
 and, if the truth were known, the old lady herself, 
 with a quiet, irresistible efficiency. But it was early 
 remarked that she did not manage her small daughter 
 with her usual success. Magsie was a fascinating baby, 
 and a beautiful child, quicker of* speech than thought, 
 with a lovely little heart-shaped face framed in flying 
 locks of tawny hair. But she was unmanageable and 
 strong-willed, and possessed of a winning and insolent 
 charm hard to refuse. 
 
 Her mother in her silent, repressed way realized that 
 Magsie was not having the proper upbringing, but her 
 own youth had been hard and dark, and it was perhaps 
 the closest approach to joy that she ever knew when 
 Magsie glowing under her wide summer hats, or radiant 
 in new furs, rushed up to demand something preposter- 
 ous and extravagant of her mother, and was not denied. 
 
 She was a stout, conceited sixteen-year-old when her 
 mother died, so spoiled and so self-centred that old 
 Lady Frothingham had been heard more than once to 
 mutter that the young lady could get down from her 
 high horse and mak^ herself useful, or she could march. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 215 
 
 But that was six years ago. And now this! Magsie 
 had evidently decided to make herself useful, but she 
 had managed to make herself beautiful and fascinating 
 as well. She was in mourning now for the good-hearted 
 old benefactress who had left her a nest-egg of some 
 fifteen thousand dollars, and Rachael noticed with 
 approval that it was correct mourning: simple, severe, 
 Parisian. Nothing could have been more becoming 
 to the exquisite bloom of the young face than the 
 soft, clear folds of filmy veiling; under the small, 
 close-set hat there showed a ripple of rich golden hair. 
 The watching woman thought that she had never 
 seen such self-possession; at twenty-two it was almost 
 uncanny. The modulated, bored young voice, the 
 lazily lifted, indifferent young eyes, the general air of 
 requesting an appreciative world to be amusing and 
 interesting, or to expect nothing of Miss Magsie Clay 
 these things caused Rachael a deep, hidden chuckle of 
 amusement. Little Magsie had turned out to be some- 
 thing of a personality! Why, she was even employing 
 a distinct and youthfully insolent air of keeping Warren 
 by her side merely on sufferance Warren, the cleverest 
 and finest man in the room, who was more than twice 
 her age! 
 
 "To think that she is younger than Charlotte!" 
 Rachael ejaculated to herself, catching a glimpse of 
 Charlotte, towed by her mother, uncomfortable, ig- 
 nored, blinking through her glasses. And when she 
 and Warren were in the car homeward bound, she 
 spoke admiringly of Magsie. "Did you ever see any 
 one so improved, Warren ? Really, she's quite extraor- 
 dinary!" 
 
 Warren smiled absently. 
 
 "She's a terribly spoiled little thing," he remarked. 
 "She's out for a rich man, and she'll get him!" 
 
 U I suppose so," Rachael agreed, casting about among 
 the men she knew for an appropriate partner for Miss 
 Clay. 
 
 "Suppose so!" he echoed in good-humored scorn. 
 
216 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Don't you fool yourself, she'll get what she's after! 
 There isn't a man alive that wouldn't fall for that 
 particular type!" 
 
 "Warren, do you suppose so?" his wife asked in 
 surprise. 
 
 "Well, watch and see!" 
 
 " Perhaps " Rachael's interest wandered. "What 
 time have you?" she asked. 
 
 He glanced at his watch. "Six-ten." 
 
 " Six-ten ! Oh, my poor abused baby and I should 
 have been here at quarter before six!" She was all 
 mother as she ran upstairs. Had he been crying? Oh, 
 he had been crying! Poor little old duck of a hungry 
 boy, did he have a bad, wicked mother that never re- 
 membered him! He was in her arms in an instant, 
 and the laughing maid carried away her hat and wrap 
 without disturbing his meal. Rachael leaned back in 
 the big chair, panting comfortably, as much relieved 
 over his relief as he was. The wedding was forgotten. 
 She was at home again; she could presently put this 
 baby down and have a little interval of hugging and 
 'tories with Jimmy. 
 
 "You'll get your lovely dress all mussed," said old 
 Mary in high approval. 
 
 " Never mind, Mary!" her mistress said in luxurious 
 ease before the fire, "there are plenty of dresses!" 
 
 A week later Warren came in, in the late afternoon, 
 to say that he had met Miss Clay downtown, and they 
 had had tea together. She suggested tea, and he 
 couldn't well get out of it. He would have telephoned 
 Rachael had he fancied she would care to come. She 
 had been put? That was what he thought. But how 
 about a little dinner for Magsie? Did she think it 
 would be awfully stupid? 
 
 "No, she's not stupid," Rachael said cordially. 
 "Let's do it!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean stupid for us," Warren hastened 
 to explain. "I mean stupid for her!" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 217 
 
 "Why should it be stupid for her?" Rachael looked 
 at him in surprise. 
 
 "Well, she's awfully young, and she's getting a lot 
 of attention, and perhaps she'd think it a bore!" 
 
 "I don't imagine Magsie Clay would find a dinner here 
 in her honor a bore," Rachael said in delicate scorn. 
 "Why, think who she is, Warren a nurse's daughter! 
 Her father was I don't know what an enlisted man, 
 who rose to be a sergeant!" 
 
 ,"I don't believe itf" he said flatly. 
 
 "It's true, Warren. I've known that for years 
 everybody knows it!" 
 
 "Well," Warren Gregory said stubbornly, "she's 
 making a great hit just the same. She's going up to 
 the Royces' next week for the Bowditch theatricals, 
 and she's asked to the Pinckard dinner dance. She 
 may not go on account of her mourning." 
 
 "Her mourning is rather absurd under the circum- 
 stances," Rachael said vaguely, antagonized against 
 anyone he chose to defend. "And if people choose to 
 treat her as if she were Mrs. Frothingham's daughter 
 instead of what she really is, it's nice for Magsie! But 
 I don't see why we should." 
 
 "We might because she is such a nice, simple girl," 
 Warren suggested, "and because we like her! I'm 
 not trying to keep in the current; I've no social axe 
 to grind; I merely suggested it, and if you don't 
 want to " 
 
 "Oh, of course, if you put it that way!" Rachael 
 said with a faint shrug. > "I'll get hold of some eligi- 
 bles we'll have Charlie, and have rather a youthful 
 dinner!" 
 
 Warren, who was shaving, was silent for a few minutes, 
 then he said thoughtfully: 
 
 "I don't imagine that Charlie is the sort of person 
 who will interest her. She may be only twenty-two, 
 but she is older than most girls in things like that. 
 She's had more offers now than you could shake a 
 stick at " 
 
218 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "She told you about them?" 
 
 "Well, in a general way, yes that is, she doesn't 
 want to marry, and she hates the usual attitude, that 
 a lot of college kids have to be trotted out for her 
 benefit!" 
 
 This having been her own exact attitude a few 
 seconds before, Rachael flushed a little resentfully, 
 
 "What does she want to do?" 
 
 Warren shaved on for a moment in silence, theft, 
 with a rather important air he said impulsively: 
 
 "Well, Pll tell you, although she told me in con- 
 fidence, and of course nothing may come of it. You 
 won't say anything about it, of course? She wants to 
 go on the stage." 
 
 "Really!" said Rachael, who, for some reason she 
 could not at this moment define, was finding the con- 
 versation extraordinarily distasteful. 
 
 "Yes, she's had it in mind for years," Warren pur- 
 sued with simplicity. "And she's had some good 
 offers, too. You can see that she's the kind of girl 
 that would make an immediate hit, that would get 
 across the footlights, as it were. Of course, it all de- 
 pends upon how hard she's willing to work, but I be- 
 lieve she's got a big future before her!" 
 
 There was a short silence while he finished the 
 operation of shaving, and Rachael, who was busy with 
 the defective clasp of a string of pearls, bent absorbedly 
 over the microscopic ring and swivel. 
 
 "Let's think about the dinner," she said presently. 
 She found that he had already planned almost all the 
 details. 
 
 When it took place, about ten days later, she res- 
 olutely steeled herself for an experience that promised 
 to hold no special enjoyment for her. Her love for her 
 husband made her find in his enthusiasm for Magsie 
 something a little pitiful and absurd. Magsie was only 
 a girl, a rather shallow and stupid girl at that, yet 
 Warren was as excited over the arrangements for the 
 dinner as if she had been the most important of person- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ages. If it had been some other dinner the affair 
 for the English ambassador, or the great London novel- 
 ist, or the fascinating Frenchman who had painted 
 Jimmy she told herself, it would have been compre- 
 hensible! But Warren, like all great men, had his 
 simple, almost childish, phases, and this was one of 
 them! 
 
 She watched her guest of honor, when the evening 
 came, with a puzzled intensity. Magsie was in her 
 glory, sparkling, chattering, almost noisy. Her ex- 
 quisite little white silk gown was so low in the waist, 
 and so short in the skirt, that it was almost no gown at 
 all, yet it was amazingly smart. She had touched her 
 lips with red, and her eyelids were cunningly given just 
 a hint of elongation with a black pencil. Her bright 
 hair was pushed severely from her face, and so trimly 
 massed and netted as not to show its beautiful quantity, 
 and yet, somehow, one knew the quantity was there in 
 all its gold glory. 
 
 Rachael, magnificent in black-and-white, was ashamed 
 of herself for the instinctive antagonism that she 
 began to feel toward this young creature. It was 
 not the fact of Magsie's undeniable youth and beauty 
 that she resented, but it was her affectations, her 
 full, pouting lips, her dimples, her reproachful up- 
 ward glances. Even these, perhaps, in themselves, 
 she did not resent, she mused; it was their instant effect 
 upon Warren and, to a greater or lesser degree, upon 
 all the other men present, that filled her with a sort 
 of patient scorn. Rachael wondered what Warren's 
 feeling would have been had his wife suddenly picked 
 out some callow youth still in college for her admiring 
 laughter and earnest consideration. 
 
 It was sacrilege to think it. It was always absurd, 
 an older man's kindly interest in, and affection for, a 
 pretty young girl, but what harm? He thought her 
 beautiful, and charming, and talented well, she was 
 those things. It was January now, in March they 
 were going to California, then would come dear Home 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Dunes, and before the summer was over Magsie would 
 be safely launched, or married, and the whole thing but 
 an episode ! Warren was her husband and the father of 
 her two splendid boys; there was tremendous reassur- 
 ance in the thought. 
 
 But that evening, and throughout the weeks that 
 followed, Rachael mused somewhat sadly upon the 
 extraordinary susceptibility of the human male. Mag- 
 sie's methods were those of a high-school belle. She 
 
 Eouted, she dimpled, she dispensed babyish slaps, she 
 ipsed into rather poorly imitated baby talk. She 
 was sometimes mysterious and tragic, according to her 
 own lights, her voice deep, her eyes sombre; at other 
 times she was all girl, wild for dancing and gossip and 
 matinees. She would widen her eyes demurely at 
 some older woman, plaintively demanding a chaperon, 
 all these bad men were worrying her to death; she had 
 nicknames for all the men, and liked to ask their wives 
 if there was any harm in that? Like Billy, and like 
 Charlotte, she never spoke of anyone but herself, but 
 Billy was a mere beginner beside Magsie, and poor 
 Charlotte like a denizen of another world. 
 
 Magsie always scored. There was an air of refine- 
 ment and propriety about the little gypsy that saved 
 her most daring venture, and in a society bored to 
 death with its own sameness she became an instant 
 favorite. Everyone said that "there was no harm in 
 Magsie," she was the eagerly heralded and loudly 
 welcomed cap-and-bells wherever she went. 
 
 Early in March there was an entertainment given 
 in one of the big hotels for some charity, and Miss 
 Clay, who appeared in a dainty little French comedy, 
 the last number on the program, captured all the 
 honors. Her companion player, Dr. Warren Gregory, 
 who in the play had taken the part of her guardian, 
 and, with his temples touched with gray, his peruke, 
 and his satin coat and breeches, had been a handsome 
 foil for her beauty, was declared excellent, but the 
 captivating, piquant, enchanting Magsie was the fa- 
 
THE HEART OF RACIJAEL 
 
 vorite of the hour. Before the hot, exciting, memo- 
 rable evening was over the rumor flew about that she 
 had signed a contract to appear with Bowman, the 
 great manager, in the fall. 
 
 The whole experience was difficult for Rachael, but 
 no one suspected it, and she would have given her life 
 cheerfully to keep her world from suspecting. Long 
 before the rehearsals for the little play were over she 
 knew the name of that new passion that was tearing 
 and gnawing at her heart. No use to tell herself that 
 if Magsie was deeply admired by Warren, if Magsie 
 was beautiful, if Magsie was constantly in his thoughts, 
 why, she, Rachael, was still his wife; his home, his 
 sons, his name were hers! She was jealous jealous - 
 jealous of Magsie Clay. 
 
 She could not bear even the smothering thought of a 
 divided kingdom. Professionally, socially, the world 
 might claim him; but no one but herself should ever 
 claim even one one-hundredth of that innermost heart 
 of his that had been all her own! The thought pierced 
 her vitally, and she felt in sick discouragement that 
 she could not fight, she could not meet his cruelty with 
 new cruelty. Her very beauty grew dimmed, and the 
 old flashing wit and radiant self-confidence were clouded 
 for a time. When she was alone with her husband she 
 felt constrained and serious, her heart a smouldering 
 furnace of resentment and pain. 
 
 "What do you think of this, dearie?" he asked 
 eagerly one afternoon. "We got talking about Cali- 
 fornia at the Princes' last night, and it seems that 
 Peter and Elinor plan to go; only not before the first 
 week in April. Now, that would suit me as well as 
 next week, if it wouldn't put you out. Could you 
 manage it? The Pomeroys take their car, and an 
 awfully nice crowd; just you and I if we'll go Peter 
 and Elinor, and perhaps the Oliphants, and a beau for 
 Magsie!" 
 
 Rachael had been waiting for Magsie's name. But 
 there seemed to be nothing to say. She rose to the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 situation gallantly. She put the boys in the care of 
 their grandmother and the faithful Mary, with Doctor 
 Valentine's telephone number pasted prominently on 
 the nursery wall. She bought herself charming gowns 
 and hats, she made herself the most delightful travel- 
 ling companion that ever seven hot and spoiled men 
 and women were fortunate enough to find. When 
 everyone, even Magsie, was bored and cross, upset 
 by close air, by late hours, by unlimited candy and 
 cocktails, Mrs. Gregory would appear from her state- 
 room, dainty, interested, ready for bridge or gossip, 
 full of enthusiasm for the scenery and for the company 
 in which she found herself. When she and Warren 
 were alone she often tried to fancy herself merely an 
 acquaintance again, with an acquaintance's anxiety to 
 meet his mood and interest him. She made no claims, 
 jhe resented nothing, and she schooled herself to praise 
 Magsie, to quote her, and to discuss her. 
 
 The result was all that she could have hoped. After 
 the five weeks' trip Warren was heard to make the 
 astonishing comment that Magsie was a shallow little 
 thing, and Rachael, hungrily kissing her boys' sweet, 
 bewildered faces, and laughing and crying together as 
 Mary gave her an account of every hour of her absence, 
 felt more than rewarded for the somewhat sordid scheme 
 and the humiliating effort. Little Gerald was in short 
 clothes now, a rose of a baby, and Jimmy at the ir- 
 resistible age when every stammered word and every 
 changing expression had new charm. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TEN days later, in the midst of her preparations to 
 leave the city for Clark's Hills, Rachael was summoned 
 to the telephone by the news of a serious change in 
 young Charlie Gregory's condition. Charlie had been 
 ill for perhaps a week; kept at home and babied by his 
 grandmother and Miss Cannon, the nurse, visited daily 
 by his adored Aunt Rachael, and nearly as often by the 
 uproarious young Gregorys, and duly spoiled by every 
 maid in the house. Warren went in to see him often 
 in the evenings, for trivial as his illness was, all the 
 members of his immediate family agreed later that 
 there had been in it, from the beginning, something 
 vaguely alarming and menacing. 
 
 He was a quiet, peculiar, rather friendless youth at 
 twenty-six; he had never had "girls," like the other 
 boys, and, while he read books incessantly, Rachael 
 knew it to be rather from loneliness than any other 
 motive, as his silence was from shyness rather than re- 
 serve. His dying was as quiet as his living, between a 
 silent luncheon in the gloomy old dining-room when 
 nobody seemed able either to eat or speak, and a 
 dreadful dinner hour when Miss Cannon sobbed un- 
 obtrusively, Warren and Rachael talked in low tones, 
 and the chairs at the head and foot of the table were 
 untenanted. 
 
 Only a day or two later his grandmother followed 
 him, and Rachael and her husband went through the 
 sombre days like two persons in an oppressive dream. 
 Great grief they did not naturally feel, for Warren's 
 curious self-absorption extended even to his relation- 
 ship with his mother, and Charlie had always been one 
 of the unnecessary, unimportant figures of which there 
 
 223 
 
THE HEAET OF RACHAEL 
 
 are a few in every family. But the events left a lasting 
 mark upon Rachaers life. She had grown really to 
 love the old woman, and had felt a certain pitying af- 
 fection for Charlie, too. He had been a good, gentle, 
 considerate boy always, and it was hard to think of 
 him as going before life had really begun for him. 
 
 On the morning of the day he died an incident had 
 occurred, or rather two had occurred, that even then 
 filled her with vague discomfort, and that she was to 
 remember for many days to come. 
 
 She had been crossing the great, dark entrance hall, 
 late in the morning, on some errand to the telephone, 
 or to the service department of the house, her heart 
 burdened by the sombre shadow of death that already 
 lay upon them all, when the muffled street-door bell 
 had rung, and the butler, red eyed, had admitted two 
 women. Rachael, caught and reluctantly glancing 
 toward them, had been surprised to recognize Charlotte 
 Haviland and old Fanny. 
 
 "Charlotte!" she said, coming toward the girl. 
 And at her low, tense tone, Charlotte had begun to cry. 
 
 "Aunt Rachael" the old name came naturally 
 after seven years "you'll think I'm quite crazy coming 
 here this way" Charlotte, as always, was justifying 
 her shy little efforts at living "but M'ma was busy, 
 and" the old, nervous gasp "and it seemed only 
 friendly to come and and inquire " 
 
 "Don't cry, dear!" said Rachael's rich, kind voice. 
 She put a hand upon Charlotte's shoulder. "Did 
 you want to ask for Charlie ? " 
 
 "I know how odd, how very odd it must look," 
 said Charlotte, managing a wet smile, "and my crying 
 j perfectly absurd I can't think why I'm so silly!" 
 
 "We've all been pretty near crying, ourselves, this 
 morning," Rachael said, not looking at her, but rather 
 seeming to explain to the sympathetic yet pleasurably 
 thrilled Fanny. "Dear boy, he is very ill. Doctor 
 Hamilton has just been here; and he tells us frankly 
 that it is only a question of a few hours now " 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 225 
 
 At this poor Charlotte tried to compose her face to 
 the merely sorrowful and shocked expression of a 
 person justified in her friendly concern, but succeeded 
 only in giving Mrs. Gregory a quivering look of mortal 
 hurt. 
 
 "I was afraid so," she stammered huskily. "Elfrida 
 Hamilton told me. I was so sorry " 
 
 Rachael began to perceive that this was a great 
 adventure, a tragic and heroic initiative for Charlotte^ 
 Poor Charlotte, red-eyed behind her strong glasses, 
 the bloom of youth gone from her face, was perhaps 
 touching this morning, the pinnacle of the few strong 
 emotions her life was to know. 
 
 "How well did you know Charlie, dear?" asked 
 Rachael when Fanny was for the moment out of 
 hearing and they were in the dark, rep-draped reception- 
 room. She had asked Charlotte to sit down, but Char- 
 lotte nervously had said that she could stay but another 
 minute. 
 
 "Oh, n-n-not very well, Aunt Rachael that is, 
 we didn't see each other often, since" Rachael knew 
 since when, and liked Charlotte for the clumsy sub- 
 stitute "since Billy was married. I know Charlie 
 called, but M'ma didn't tell me until weeks later, and 
 then we were on the ocean. We met now and then, 
 and once he telephoned, and I think he would have 
 liked to see me, but M'ma felt so strongly there was 
 no way. And then last summer we h-h-happened 
 to meet, he and I, at Jane Cook's wedding, and we had 
 quite a talk. I knew M'ma would be angry, but it 
 just seemed as if I couldn't think of it then. And we 
 talked of the things we liked, you know, the sort of 
 house we both liked not like other people's houses!" 
 Charlotte's plain young face had grown bright with 
 the recollection, but now her voice sank lifelessly again. 
 "But M'ma made me promise never to speak to him 
 again, and of course I promised," she said dully. 
 
 "I see." Rachael was silent. There seemed to be 
 nothing to say. 
 
226 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I suppose I couldn't speak to him a moment, 
 Aunt Rachael?" Charlotte was scarlet, but she got 
 the words out bravely. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, he wouldn't know you. He doesn't 
 know any of us now. He just lies there, sometimes 
 sighing a little " 
 
 Charlotte was as pale now as she had been rosy 
 before, her lip trembled, and her whole face seemed to 
 be suffused with tears. 
 
 "I see," she said in turn. "Thank you, Aunt 
 Rachael, thanks ever so much. I I wish you'd tell 
 his grandmother how sorry I am. I suppose Fanny 
 and I had better go now." 
 
 But before she went Rachael opened her arms, and 
 Charlotte came into them, and cried bitterly for a few 
 minutes. 
 
 "Poor little girl!" said the older woman tenderly. 
 "Poor little girl!" 
 
 "I always loved you," gulped Charlotte, "and I 
 
 would have come to see you, if M'ma And of 
 
 course it was nothing but the merest friendship b-be- 
 tween Charlie and me, only we we always seemed to 
 like each other." 
 
 And Charlotte, her romance ended, wiped her eyes 
 and blew her nose, and went away. Rachael went 
 slowly upstairs. 
 
 Late that same afternoon, as she and the trained nurse 
 were dreamily keeping one of the long sick-watches, 
 she looked at the patient, and was surprised to see his 
 rather insignificant eyes fixed earnestly upon her. In- 
 stantly she went to the bedside and knelt down. 
 
 "What is it, Charlie-boy?" she asked, in the merest 
 rich, tender essence of a tone. The sick eyes broke 
 over her distressedly. She could see the fine dew of 
 perspiration at his waxen temples, and the lean hand 
 over which she laid her own was cool after all these 
 feverish days, unwholesomely cool. 
 
 "Aunt Rachael " The customs of earth were 
 
 still strong when he could waste so much precious breath 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 227 
 
 upon the unnecessary address. The nurse hovered 
 nervously near, but did not attempt to silence him. 
 "Going fast/' he whispered. 
 
 "It will be rest, Charlie-boy," she answered, tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 He smiled, and drifted into that other world so near 
 our own for a few moments. Then she started at 
 Charlotte's name. 
 
 "Charlotte," he said in a ghostly whisper, "said she 
 would like a house all green and pink with roses 
 
 Rachael was instantly tense. Ah, to get hold of 
 poor starved little Charlotte, to give her these last 
 precious seconds, to let her know he had thought of 
 her! 
 
 "What about Charlotte, dear, dear boy?" she asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 "I thought it would be so pleasant there -" 
 
 he said, smiling. He closed his eyes. She heard the 
 little prayer that he had learned in his babyhood for 
 this hour. Then there was silence. Silence. 
 
 Silence. Rachael looked fearfully at the nurse. A 
 few minutes later she went to tell his grandmother, 
 who, with two grave sisters sitting beside her, had been 
 lying down since the religious rites of an hour or two 
 ago. Rachael and the smaller, rosy-faced nun helped 
 the stiff, stricken old lady to her feet, and it was with 
 Rachael's arm about her that she went to her grand- 
 son's side. 
 
 That night old Mrs. Gregory turned to her daughter- 
 in-law and said: "You're good, Rachael. Someone 
 prayed for you long ago; someone gave you good- 
 ness. Don't forget if you ever need to turn to 
 Srayer. I don't ask you to do any more. It was for 
 ames to make his sons Christians, and James did not 
 do so. But promise me something, Rachael: if James 
 hurts you, if he fails you promise me that you will 
 forgive him!" 
 
 "I promise," Rachael said huskily, her heart beat- 
 ing quick with vague fright. Mrs. Gregory was in 
 
228 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 her deep armchair, she looked old and broken to-night 5 
 far older than she would look a few days later when 
 she lay in her coffin. Rachael had brought her a cup 
 of hot bouillon, and had knelt, daughter fashion, to 
 see that she drank it, and now the thin old hand clutched 
 her shoulder, and the eager old eyes were close to her 
 face. 
 
 "I have made mistakes, I have had every sorrow a 
 woman can know," said old Mrs. Gregory, "but prayer 
 has never failed me, and when I go, I believe I will not 
 be afraid!" 
 
 "I have made mistakes, too," Rachael said, strangely 
 stirred, "and for the boys' sake, for Warren's sake, I 
 want to be wise ! " 
 
 The thin old hand patted hers. Old Mrs. Gregory 
 lay with closed eyes, no flicker of life in her parchment- 
 colored face. 
 
 "Pray about it!" she said in a whisper. She patted 
 Rachael's hands for another moment, but she did not 
 speak again. 
 
 At the funeral, kneeling by Warren's side in the 
 great cathedral, her pale face more lovely than ever in 
 a setting of fresh black, Rachael tried for the first time 
 in her life to pray. 
 
 They were rich beyond any dream or need now. 
 Rachael could hardly have believed that so great a 
 change in her fortune could make so little change in 
 her feeling. A sudden wave of untimely heat smote 
 the city, and it was hastily decided that the boys and 
 their mother must get to the shore, leaving all the 
 details of settling his mother's estate to Warren. In 
 the autumn Rachael would make those changes in the 
 old house of which she had dreamed so many years ago. 
 Warren was not to work too hard, and was to come to 
 them for every week-end. 
 
 He took them down himself in the car, Rachael 
 beside him on the front seat, her baby in her arms, 
 Martin and Mary, with Jim, in the tonneau. Home 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 229 
 
 Dunes had been opened and aired; luncheon was wait- 
 ing when they got there. Rachael felt triumphant, 
 powerful. Between their mourning and Warren's un- 
 expected business responsibilities she would have a 
 summer to her liking. 
 
 He went away the next day, and Rachael began a 
 series of cheerful letters. She tried not to reproach 
 him when a Saturday night came without bringing 
 him, she schooled herself to read, to take walks, to 
 fight depression and loneliness. She and Alice practised 
 piano duets, studied Italian, made sick calls in the 
 village, and sewed for the babies of Clark's Hills and 
 Quaker Bridge. About twice a month, usually to- 
 gether, the two went up to the city for a day's shopping. 
 Then George and Warren met them, and they dined 
 and perhaps went to the theatre together. It was on 
 one of these occasions that Rachael learned that Magsie 
 Clay was in town. 
 
 "Working hard too hard," said Warren in response 
 to her questions. "She's rehearsing already for Octo- 
 
 " Warren ! In all this heat ? " 
 
 "Yes, and she looks pulled down, poor kid!" 
 
 " You Ve seen her, then?" 
 
 "Oh, I see her now and then. Betty Bowditch 
 had her to dinner, and now and then she and I go to 
 tea, and she tells me about her troubles, her young men, 
 and the other women in the play!" 
 
 "I wonder if she wouldn't come down to us for a 
 week?" Rachael said pleasantly. Warren brightened 
 enthusiastically. A little ocean air would do Magsie 
 worlds of good. 
 
 Magsie, lunching with Rachael at Rachael's club the 
 following week, was prettilyjappreciative. 
 
 "I would just love to come!" she said gratefully. 
 "I'll bring my bathing suit, and live in the water! 
 But, Rachael, it can only be from Friday night until 
 Monday morning. Perhaps Greg will run me down in 
 the car, and bring me up again ? " 
 
230 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "What else would I do?" Warren said, smiling. 
 
 Rachael fixed the date. On the following Friday 
 night she met Warren and Magsie at the gate, at the 
 end of the long run. Warren was quite his old, de- 
 lightful self; the boys, perfection. Alice gave a dinner 
 party, and Alice's brother did not miss the opportunity 
 of a flirtation with Magsie. The visit, for everyone 
 but Rachael, was a great success. 
 
 The little actress and Rachael's husband were on 
 friendly, even intimate, terms; Magsie showed Warren 
 a letter, Warren murmured advice; Magsie reached a 
 confident little brown hand to him from the raft; 
 Warren said, "Be careful, dear!" when she sprang up 
 to leap from the car. Well, said Rachael bravely, no 
 harm in that! Warren was just the big, sweet, simple 
 person to be flattered by Magsie's affection. How 
 could she help liking him? 
 
 She went to the gate again, on Monday morning 
 this time, to say good-bye. Magsie was tucked in 
 trimly in Rachael's place beside Rachael's husband; 
 her gold hair glinted under a smart little hat; gloves^ 
 silk stockings, and gown were all of the becoming 
 creamy tan she wore so much. 
 
 "Saturday night?" Rachael said to Warren. 
 
 "Possibly not, dear. I can tell better later in the 
 week." 
 
 "You don't know how we slaves envy you, Rachael!" 
 Magsie said. "When Greg and I are gasping away 
 in some roof-garden, having our mild little iced teas, 
 we'll think of you down here on the glorious ocean!" 
 
 "We're a mutual consolation league!" Warren said 
 with an appreciative laugh. 
 
 "He laughs," Magsie said, "but, honestly, I don't 
 know where I'd be without Greg. You don't know 
 how kind he is to me, Rachael!" 
 
 "He's kind to everyone," Rachael smiled. 
 
 "I don't have to tell you how much I've enjoyed 
 this!" Magsie added gratefully. 
 
 "Do it any other time you can!" Rachael waved 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 231 
 
 them out of sight. She stood at the gate, in the 
 fragrant, warm summer morning, for a long time after 
 they were gone. 
 
 In the late summer, placidly wasting her days on 
 the sands with the two boys, a new experience befell 
 Rachael. She had hoped, at about the time of Jimmy's 
 third birthday, to present him and his little brother 
 with a sister. Now the hope vanished, and Rachael, 
 awed and sad, set aside a tiny chamber in her heart 
 for the dream, and went on about her life sobered and 
 made thoughtful over the great possibilities that are 
 wrapped in every human birth. Warren had warned 
 her that she must be careful now, and, charmed at 
 his concern for her grief and shock, she rested and 
 saved herself wherever she could. 
 
 But autumn came, and winter came, and she did not 
 grow strong. It became generally understood that 
 Mrs. Gregory was not going about this season, and her 
 friends, when they came to call in Washington Square, 
 were apt to find her comfortably established on the 
 wide couch in one of the great rooms that were still 
 unchanged, with a nurse hovering in the background, 
 and the boys playing before the fire. Rachael would 
 send the children away with Mary, ring for tea, and 
 chatter vivaciously with her guests, later retailing all 
 the gossip to Warren when he came to sit beside her. 
 Often she got up and took her place at the table, and 
 once or twice a month, after a quiet day, was tucked 
 into the motor car by the watchful Miss Snow, and 
 went to the theatre or opera, to be brought carefully 
 home again at eleven o'clock, and given into Miss 
 Snow's care again. 
 
 She was not at all unhappy, the lessening of social 
 responsibility was a real relief, and Warren's solicitude 
 and sympathy were a tonic of which she drank deep, 
 night and morning. His big warm hands, his smile, 
 the confidence of his voice, these thrilled and rejuve- 
 nated her continually. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 The boys were a delight to her. In their small 
 rumpled pajamas they came into her room every 
 morning, dewy from sleep, full of delicious plans for the 
 day. Jim was a masterful baby whose continually 
 jerking head was sure to bump his mother if she at- 
 tempted too much hugging, but dark-eyed, grave little 
 Derry was "cuddly"; he would rest his shining head 
 contentedly for minutes together on his mother's 
 breast, and when she lifted him from his crib late at 
 night for a last kiss, his warm baby arms would circle 
 her neck, and his rich little voice murmur luxuriously, 
 "Hug Derry/; 
 
 Muffled rosily in gaiters and furs, or running about 
 her room in their white, resetted slippers, with sturdy 
 arms and knees bare, or angelic in their blue wrappers 
 after the evening bath, they were equally enchanting 
 to their mother. 
 
 "It's a marvel to see how you can be so patient!" 
 Warren said one evening when he was dressing for an 
 especially notable dinner, and Rachael, in her big 
 Chinese coat, was watching the process contentedly 
 from the couch in his upstairs sitting-room. 
 
 "Well, that's the odd thing about ill health, Greg 
 you haven't any chance to answer back," she answered 
 thoughtfully. "If money could make me well, or if 
 effort could, I'd get well, of course! But there seem 
 to be times when you simply are sick. It's an extraor- 
 dinary experience to me; it's extraordinary to lie 
 here, and think of all the hundreds of thousands of 
 other women who are sick, just simply and quietly 
 laid low with no by-your-leave ! Of course, my being 
 ill doesn't make much trouble; the boys are cared for, 
 the house goes on, and I don't suffer! But suppose 
 we were poor, and the children needed me, and you 
 couldn't afford a nurse then what? For I'd have to 
 collapse and lie here just the same!" 
 
 "It's no snap for me," Warren grumbled after a 
 silence. "Gosh! I will be glad when you're well - 
 and when the damn nurse is out of the house*" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 238 
 
 "Warren, I thought you liked Miss Snow!" 
 
 "Well, I do, I suppose in a way. But I don't like 
 her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner so everlastingly 
 sweet and fresh ! ' I declare I believe my watch is losing 
 time this is the third time this week I've been late!" 
 
 This was said in exactly Miss Snow's tone, and 
 Rachael laughed. 
 
 But when he was gone a deep depression fell upon 
 her. Dear old boy, it was not much of a life for him, 
 going about alone, sitting down to his meals with only 
 a trained nurse for company! Shut away so deliciously 
 from the world with her husband and sons, enjoying 
 the very helplessness that forced her to lean so heavily 
 upon him, she had forgotten how hard it was for Greg! 
 
 Yet how could she get well when the stubborn 
 weakness and languor persisted, when her nights were 
 so long and sleepless, her appetite so slight, her strength 
 so quickly exhausted? 
 
 "When do you think I will get well, Miss Snow?" 
 she would ask. 
 
 "Come, now, we're not going to bother our heads 
 about that" Miss Snow would say cheerfully. "Why, 
 you're not sick! You've just got to rest and take 
 care of yourself, that's all! Dear me, if you were 
 suffering every minute of the time, you might have 
 something to grumble about!" 
 
 Doctor Valentine was equally unsatisfactory, al- 
 though Rachael loved the simple, homely man so much 
 that she could not be vexed by his kindly vagueness: 
 
 "These things are slow to fight, Rachael," said George 
 Valentine. "Alice had just such a fight years ago. 
 When the human machinery runs down, there's noth- 
 ing for it but patience! You did too much last winter, 
 nursing the baby until you left for California, and then 
 only the hot summer between that and September! 
 Just go slow!" 
 
 Perhaps once a month Magsie came in to see Rachael, 
 ready to pour tea, to flirt with any casual caller, or 
 
S34 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 to tickle the roaring baby with the little fox head on 
 her muff. She had been playing in a minor part in a 
 successful production. Among all the callers who 
 came and went perhaps Magsie was the most at home 
 in the Gregory house a harmless little affectionate 
 creature, unimportant, but always welcome. 
 
 Slowly health and strength came back, and one by 
 one Rachael took up the dropped threads of her life. 
 The early spring found her apparently herself again, 
 but there was a touch of gray here and there in her 
 dark hair, and Elinor and Judy told each other that 
 her spirits were not the same. 
 
 They did not know what Rachael knew, that there 
 Was a change in Warren, so puzzling, so disquieting, 
 that his wife's convalescence was delayed by many 
 a wakeful hour and rainy a burst of secret tears on his 
 account. She could not even analyze it, much less 
 was she fit to battle with it with her old splendid 
 strength and sanity. 
 
 His genera! attitude toward her, in these days, was 
 one of ^iternal and brisk kindliness. He liked her 
 rtw gown, he didn't care much for that hat, she didn't 
 look awfully well, better telephone old George, it 
 wouldn't do to have her sick again! Yes, he was going 
 out, unless she wanted him for something? She was 
 reminded hideously of her old days with Clarence. 
 
 Shaken and weak still, she fought gallantly against 
 the pain and bewilderment of the new problem. She 
 invited the persons he liked to the house, she effaced 
 her own claim, she tried to get him to talk of his cases. 
 Sometimes, as the spring ripened, she planned whole 
 days with him in the car. They would go up to Ossin- 
 ing and see the Perrys, or they would go to Jersey and 
 spend the day with Doctor Cheseborough. 
 
 Perhaps Warren accepted these suggestions, and 
 they had a cloudless day. Or when Sunday morning 
 came, and the boys, coated and capped, were eager to 
 start, he might evade them. 
 
 "I wonder if you'll feel badly, Petty, if I don't go?" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 235 
 
 "Oh, Warren!" 
 
 "Well, my dear, I've got some work to do. I ought 
 to look up that meningitis case the Italian child. 
 Louise'll give me a bite of lunch " 
 
 "But, dearest, tnat spoils our day!" Rachael 
 would fling her wraps down, and face him ruefully. 
 "How can I go alone! I don't want to. And it's 
 such a day, and the babies are so sweet " 
 
 "There's no reason why you and the children shouldn't 
 go." She had come to know that mild, almost re- 
 proachful, tone. 
 
 "Oh, but Warren, that spoils it all!" 
 
 "I'm sorry!" 
 
 Rachael would shut her lips firmly over protest. 
 At best she might wring from him a reluctant change 
 of mind and an annoyed offer of company which she 
 must from sheer pride decline. At worst she would 
 be treated with a dignified silence the peevish and 
 exacting woman who could not understand. 
 
 So she would go slowly down to the car, to Mary 
 beaming beside Martin in the front seat, to the de- 
 licious boys tumbling about in the back, eager for 
 Mother. With one on each side of her, a retaining 
 hand on the little gaiters, she would wave the attentive 
 husband and father an amiable farewell. The motor 
 car would wheel about in the bare May sunshine, the 
 river would be a ripple of dancing blue waves, morning 
 riders would canter on the bridle-path, and white- 
 frocked babies toddle along the paths. Such a morn- 
 ing for a ride, if only Warren were there! But Rachael 
 would try to enjoy her run, and would eat Mrs. Perry's 
 or Mrs. Cheseborough's fried chicken and home-made 
 ices with gracious enthusiasm; everyone was quite 
 ready to excuse Warren; his beautiful wife was the 
 more popular of the two. 
 
 He was always noticeably affectionate when they 
 got home. Rachael, her color bright from sun and 
 wind, would entertain him with a spirited account of 
 the day while she dressed. 
 
236 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 K 
 
 "I wish Fd gone with you; I will next time!" he 
 invariably said. 
 
 On the next Sunday she might try another experi- 
 ence. No plans to-day. The initiative should be 
 left to him. Breakfast would drag along until after 
 ten o'clock, and Mary would appear with a low ques- 
 tion. Were the boys to go out to the Park? Rachael 
 would pause, undecided. Well, yes, Mary might take 
 them, but bring them in early, in case Doctor Gregory 
 wished to take them somewhere. 
 
 And ten minutes later he might jump up briskly. 
 Well! how about a little run up to Pelham Manor, 
 wonderful morning could she go as she was? Rachael 
 would beg for ten minutes; she might come downstairs 
 in seven to find him wavering. 
 
 "Would you mind if we made it a pretty short run, 
 dear, and then if I dropped you here and went on down 
 to the hospital for a little while?" 
 
 "Why, Warren, it was your suggestion, dear! Why 
 take a drive at all if you don't feel like it!" 
 
 "Oh, it's not that I'm quite willing to. Where are 
 the kids?" 
 
 "Mary took them out. They've got to be back for 
 naps at half-past eleven, you see." 
 
 "I see." He would look at his watch. "Well, I'll 
 tell you what I think I'll do. I'll change and shave 
 
 now " A pause. His voice would drop vaguely. 
 
 "What would you like to do?" he might suggest ami- 
 ably. 
 
 Such a conversation, so lacking in his old definite 
 briskness where their holidays were concerned, would 
 daunt Rachael with a sense of utter forlornness. Some- 
 times she offered a plan, but it was invariably rejected. 
 There were friends who would have been delighted at 
 an unexpected lunch call from the Gregorys, but War- 
 ren yawned and shuddered negatives when she men- 
 tioned their names. In the end, he would go off to 
 the hospital for an hour or two, and later would tele- 
 phone to his wife to explain a longer absence: he had 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 237 
 
 met some of the boys at the club and they were rather 
 urging him to stay to lunch; he couldn't very well 
 decline. 
 
 "Would you like to have me come down and join 
 you anywhere later?" his wife might ask in the latter 
 case. 
 
 "No, thank you, no. I may come straight home 
 after lunch, and in that case I'd cross you. Boys all 
 right?" 
 
 "Lovely." Rachael would sit at the telephone desk, 
 after she had hung up the receiver, wrapped in bitter 
 thought, a bewildered pain at her heart. She never 
 doubted him; to-morrow good, old, homely, trust- 
 worthy George Valentine, whose wife and children 
 were visiting Alice's mother in Boston, would speak of 
 the bridge game at the club. But with his wife waiting 
 for him at home, his wife who lived all the six days of 
 the week waiting for this seventh day, why did he need 
 the society of his men friends ? 
 
 A commonplace retaliation might have suggested 
 itself to her, but there was no fighting instinct in Rachael 
 now. She did not want to pique him, to goad him, to 
 flirt with him. He should be hers honorably and 
 openly, without devices, without intrigue. Stirred to 
 the deeps of her being by wifehood and motherhood, 
 by her passionate love for her husband and children, 
 it was a humiliating thought that she must coquette 
 with and flatter other men. As a matter of fact, she 
 found it difficult to talk with any interest of anything 
 except Warren, his work and his plans, of Jimmy and 
 Derry, and perhaps of Home Dunes. If it were a 
 matter of necessity she might always turn to the new 
 plays and books, the opera of the season, or the bill 
 for tenement requirements or juvenile delinquents, but 
 mere personalities and intrigue she knew no more. 
 These matters were all of secondary interest to her 
 now; it seemed to Rachael that the time had come 
 when mere personalities, when bridge and cocktails 
 and dancing and half-true scandals were not satisfying. 
 
238 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Warren," she said one evening when the move ta 
 Home Dunes was near, "should you be sorry if I began 
 to go regularly to church again?" 
 
 "No," he said indifferently, giving her rather a 
 surprised glance over his book. "Churchgoing corning 
 in again?" , 
 
 "It's not that," Rachael said, smiling over a little 
 sense of pain, "but I I like it. I want the boys to 
 think that their mother goes to church and prays 
 and I really want to do it myself! " 
 
 He smiled, as always a little intolerant of what 
 sounded like sentiment. 
 
 "Oh, come, my dear! Long before the boys are old 
 enough to remember it you'll have given it up again!" 
 
 "I hope not," Rachael said, sighing. "I wish I 
 had never stopped. I wish I were one of these mild, 
 nice, village women who put out clean stockings for 
 the children every Saturday night, and clean shirts 
 and ginghams, and lead them all into a pew Sunday 
 morning, and teach them the Golden Rule, and to honor 
 their father and their mother, and all the rest of it!" 
 
 "And what do you think you would gain by that?" 
 Warren asked. 
 
 "Oh, I would gain security," Rachael said vaguely, 
 but with a suspicion of tears in her eyes. "I would 
 have something to to stand upon, to be guided by. 
 There is a purity, an austerity, about that old church- 
 going, loving-God-and-your-neighbor ideal. Truth and 
 simplicity and integrity and uprightness my old great- 
 grandmother used to use those words, but one doesn't 
 ever hear them any more! Everything's half black 
 / and half white nowadays; we're all as good or as 
 ' bad as we happen to be born. There's no more disci- 
 pline, no more self-denial, no more development of 
 character! I want to to hold on to something, now 
 that forces I can't control are coming into my life." 
 
 "What do you mean by forces you can't control?" 
 he asked with a sort of annoyed interest. 
 
 "Love, Warren," she answered quickly. "Love 
 
THE HEAET OF RACHAEL 
 
 for you and the boys, and fear for you and the boys. 
 Love always brings fear. And illness I never thought 
 of it before I was ill. And jealousy " 
 
 "What have you got to be jealous of?" he asked, 
 somewhat gruffly, as she paused. 
 
 "Your work," Rachael said simply; "everything 
 that keeps you away from me ! " 
 
 "And you think going to Saint Luke's every Sunday 
 morning at eleven o'clock, and listening to Billy Graves, 
 will fix it all up?" he smiled not unkindly. But as 
 she did not answer his smile, and as the tears he dis- 
 liked came into her eyes, his tone changed. "Now I'll 
 tell you what's the matter with you, my dear," he 
 said with a brisk kindliness that cut her far more just 
 then than severity would have done, "you're all 
 wound up in self-analysis and psychologic self-con- 
 sciousness, and you're spinning round and round in 
 your own entity like a kitten chasing her tail. It's a 
 perfectly recognizable phase of a sort of minor hysteria 
 that often gets hold of women, and curiously enough, 
 it usually comes about five or six years after marriage. 
 We doctors meet it over and over again. 'But, Doctor, 
 I'm so nervous and excited all the time, and I don't 
 sleep! I worry so and much as I love my husband, 
 I just can't help worrying!" 
 
 Looking up and toward his wife as she sat opposite 
 him in the lamp-light, Warren Gregory found no smile 
 on the beautiful face. Rachael's hurt was deeper than 
 her pride; she looked stricken. 
 
 "Don't put yourself in their class, my dear!" her 
 husband said leniently. "You need some country air. 
 You'll get down to Clark's Hills in a week or two and 
 blow some of these notions away. Meanwhile, why 
 don't you run down to the club every morning, and 
 play a good smashing game of squash, and take a 
 plunge. Put yourself through a little training!" He 
 reopened his book. 
 
 Rachael did not answer. Presently glancing at her 
 he saw that she was reading, too. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THAT his overtired nerves and her exhausted soul 
 and body would have recovered balance in time, did 
 not occur to Rachael. She suffered with all the in- 
 tensity of a strongly passionate nature. Warren had 
 changed to her; that was the terrible fact. She went 
 about stunned and sick, neglecting her meals, forgetting 
 her tonic, refusing the distractions that would have 
 been the best thing possible for her. Little things 
 troubled her; she said to herself bitterly that every- 
 thing, anything, caused irritation between herself and 
 Warren now. Sometimes the atmosphere brightened 
 for a few days, then the old hopeless tugging at cross 
 purposes began again. 
 
 "You're sick, Rachael, and you don't know it!" 
 said Magsie Clay breezily. June was coming in, and 
 Magsie was leaving town for the Villalonga camp. 
 She told Rachael that she was "crazy" about Kent 
 Parmalee, and Rachael's feeling of amazement that 
 Magsie Clay could aspire to a Parmalee was softened 
 by an odd sensation of relief at hearing Magsie's plans 
 a relief she did not analyze. 
 
 "I believe I am sick!" Rachael agreed. "I shall 
 be glad to get down to the shore next week." She 
 told Warren of Magsie's admission that night. 
 
 "Kent! She wouldn't look at him!" Warren said 
 comfortably. 
 
 "It would be a brilliant match for her," Rachael 
 countered quietly. 
 
 She saw that she had antagonized him, but he did 
 not speak again. One of their unhappy silences fell. 
 
 Home Dunesy as always, restored health and color 
 magically. Rachael felt more like herself after the 
 
 240 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 241 
 
 first night's sleep on the breezy porch, the first in- 
 vigorating dip in the ocean. She began to enjoy her 
 meals again, she began to look carefully to her appear- 
 ance. Presently she was laughing, singing, bubbling 
 with life and energy. Alice, watching her, rejoiced 
 and marvelled at her recovery. Raphael's beauty, 
 her old definite self-reliance, came back in a flood. She 
 fairly radiated charm, glowing as she held George and 
 Alice under the spell of her voice, the spell of her happy 
 planning. Her letters to Warren were in the old, 
 tender, vivacious strain. She was interested in every- 
 thing, delighted with everything in Clark's Hills. She 
 begged him for news; Vivian had a baby? And Kent 
 Parmalee was engaged to Eliza Bowditch what did 
 Magsie's say? And did he miss her? The minute she 
 got home she was going to talk to him about having a 
 big porch built on, outside the nursery, and at the 
 back of the house; what about it? Then the children 
 could sleep out all the year through. George and Alice 
 positively stated that they were going around the world 
 in two years, and if they did, why couldn't the Gregorys 
 go, too ? 
 
 "You're wonderful!" said Alice one day. "You're 
 not the same woman you were last winter!" 
 
 "I was ill last winter, woman! And never so ill as 
 when they all thought I was entirely cured! Besides 
 
 " Rachael looked down at her tanned arm and 
 
 slender brown fingers marking grooves in the sand. 
 "Besides, it's partly bluff, Alice," she confessed. 
 "I'm fighting myself these days. I don't want to 
 think that we Greg and I can't go back, can't be 
 to each other what we were!" 
 
 What an April creature she was, thought Alice, see- 
 ing that tears were close to the averted eyes, and hear- 
 ing the tremble in Rachael's voice. 
 
 "Goose!" she said tenderly. "You were a nervous 
 wreck last year, and Warren was working far too hard! 
 Make haste slowly, Rachael." 
 
 "But it's three weeks since he was here," Rachael 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 said in a low voice. "I don't understand it, that's 
 all!" 
 
 "Nor I nor he!" Alice said, smiling. 
 
 "Next week!" Rachael predicted bravely. And a 
 second later she had sprung up from the sand and was 
 swimming through the surf as if she swam from her own 
 intolerable thoughts. 
 
 The next week-end would bring him she always told 
 herself, and usually after two or three empty Sundays 
 there would come a happy one, with the new car which 
 was built like a projectile, purring in the road, George 
 and Alice shouting greetings as they came in the gate,' 
 Louise excitedly attempting to outdo herself on the 
 dinner, and the sunburned noisy babies shrieking them-, 
 selves hoarse as they romped with their father. 
 
 To be held tight in his arms, to get his first big kiss, 
 to come into the house still clinging to him, was bliss 
 to Rachael now. But as the summer wore away she 
 noticed that in a few hours the joy of homecoming 
 would fade for him, he would become fitfully talkative, 
 moodily silent, he would wonder why the Valentines 
 were always late, and ask his wife patiently if she 
 would please not hum, his head ached 
 
 "Dearest! Why didn't you say so!" 
 
 "I don't know. It's been aching all day!" 
 
 "And you let those great boys climb all over you!" 
 
 "Oh, that's all right." 
 
 "Would you like a nap, Warren, or would you like 
 to go over to the beach, just you and me, and have a 
 swim ? " 
 
 "No, thank you. I may run the car into Katchogue" 
 Katchogue, seven miles away, was the site of 
 the nearest garage "and have that fellow look at 
 my magneto. She didn't act awfully well coming 
 down!" 
 
 "Would you like me to go with you, Warren?" 
 
 "Love it, my dear, but I have to take Pierre. He's 
 got twice the sense I have about it!" 
 
 And again a sense of heaviness, of helplessness, would 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 243 
 
 fall upon Rachael, so that on Sunday afternoon it was 
 almost a relief to have him go away. 
 
 "Well," she would say in the nursery again, after 
 the good-byes, kissing the fat little shoulder of Gerald 
 Fairfax Gregory where the old baby white ran into 
 the new boyish tan, "we will not be introspective and 
 imaginative, and cry for the moon. We will take off 
 pur boys' little old, hot rumply shirts, and put them 
 into their nice cool nighties, and be glad that we have 
 everything in the world almost! Get me your Peter 
 Rabbit Book, Jimmy, and get up here on my other 
 arm. Everybody hasn't the same way of showing 
 love, and the main thing is to be grateful that the 
 love is there. Daddy loves his boys, and his home, 
 and his boys' mother, only it doesn't always occur to 
 him that " 
 
 "Are you talking for me, or for you, Mother?" 
 Jimmy would sometimes ask, after puzzled and atten- 
 tive listening. 
 
 "For me, this time, but now I'll talk for you!'* 
 Rachael satisfied her hungry heart with their kisses, 
 and was never so happy as when both fat little bodies 
 were in her arms. She grudged every month that 
 carried them away from babyhood, and one day Alice 
 Valentine found her looking at a book of old photo- 
 graphs with an expression of actual sadness on her face. 
 
 "Look at Jim, Alice, that second summer before 
 Derry was born! Wasn't he the dearest little fatty, 
 tumbling all over the place!" 
 
 "Rachael, don't speak as if the child was dead!" 
 Alice laughed. 
 
 "Well, one loses them almost as completely," Rachael 
 said, smiling. "Jim is such a great big, brown, mis- 
 chievous creature now, and to think that my Derry is 
 nearly two!" 
 
 "Think of me, with Mary fifteen!" Mrs. Valentine 
 countered, "and just as baby-hungry as ever! But I 
 shall have to do nothing but chaperon now, for a few 
 years, and wait for the grandchildren." 
 
244 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I shouldn't mind getting old, Alice," Rachael said, 
 "if I were like you; you're so temperate and unselfish 
 and sweet that no one could help loving you! Besides, 
 you don't sit around worrying about what people 
 think, you just go on cutting out cookies, and putting 
 buttons on gingham dresses, and let other people do 
 the worrying!" 
 
 And suddenly, to the other woman's concern, she 
 burst into bitter crying, and covered her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 "I'm so frightened, Alice!" sobbed Rachael. "I 
 don't know what's the matter with me, but I feel I 
 feel that something is all wrong! I don't seem to have 
 any hold on Warren any more you can't explain such 
 things but I'm 
 
 She got to her feet, a splendid figure of tragedy, and 
 walked blindly to the end of the long porch, where she 
 stood staring down at the heaving, sun-flooded expanse 
 of the blue sea, and at the roofs of little Quaker Bridge 
 beyond the bar. Lazy waves were creaming, in great 
 interlocked circles, on the white beach, the air was as 
 clear as crystal on the cloudless September morning. 
 Not a breath of wind stirred the tufted grass on the 
 dunes; down by the weather-blown bath-houses a 
 dozen children, her own among them, were shouting 
 and splashing in the spreading shallows. 
 
 Alice Valentine, her plain, sweet face a picture of 
 sympathy, sat dumb and unmoving. In her own heart 
 she felt that Rachael's was a terrible situation. What 
 was the matter with Warren Gregory, anyway, won- 
 dered Alice; he had a beautiful wife, and beautiful 
 children, and if George, with all his summer substituting 
 and hospital work, could come to his family, as he did 
 come every Friday night, it was upon no claim of hard 
 work that Warren could remain away. As a matter of 
 fact, Alice knew it was not for work that he stayed, 
 for George, the least critical of friends, had once or 
 twice told her of yachting parties in which Warren had 
 participated men's parties, of which Rachael per* 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 245 
 
 haps might not have disapproved, but of which Rachael 
 certainly did not know. George had told her vaguely 
 that Greg liked to play golf on Saturday afternoons, 
 and sleep late on Sunday, and seemed to feel it more 
 of a rest than coming down to the shore. 
 
 "I am a fool to break down this way," said Rachael, 
 interrupting her guest's musings to come back to her 
 chair, and showing a composed face despite her red 
 eyes, "but my my heart is heavy to-day!" Some- 
 thing in the simple dignity of the words brought the 
 tears to Alice's eyes. She held out her hand and 
 Rachael took it and clung to it, as she went on: "I 
 had a birthday yesterday and Warren forgot it!" 
 
 "They all do that!" Alice said cheerfully. "George 
 never remembers mine!" 
 
 "But Warren always has before," Rachael said, 
 smiling sadly, "and and it came to me last night I 
 didn't sleep very well that I am thirty-four, and 
 and I have given him all I have!" 
 
 Again tears threatened her self-control, but she 
 fought them resolutely, and in a moment was herself 
 again. 
 
 "You love too hard, my dear woman," Alice Valen- 
 tine remonstrated affectionately; "nothing is worse 
 than extremes in anything. Say to yourself, like a 
 sensible girl, that you have a good husband, and let it 
 go at that! Be as cool and cheerful with Warren as if 
 he were-^-George, for instance, and try to interest 
 yourself in something entirely outside your own home. 
 I wonder if perhaps this place isn't a little lonely for 
 you? Why don't you try Bar Harbor or one of the 
 mountain places next year, and go about among people, 
 and entertain a little more?" 
 
 "But, Alice, people bore me so I've had so much of 
 it, and it's always the same thing!" 
 
 "I know; I hate it, too. But there are funny phases 
 in marriage, Rachael, and one has to take them as they 
 come. Warren might like it." 
 
 Rachael pondered. Elinor Pomeroy and the Villa- 
 
246 THE HEART OP RACHAEL 
 
 n 
 
 longas, the Whittakers and Stokes and Parmalees 
 again! Noise and hurry, and dancing and smoking 
 and drinking again! She sighed. 
 
 "I believe I'll suggest it to Warren, Alice. Then if 
 he's keen for it, we'll do it next year." 
 
 "I would." Mrs. Valentine rose, and looked toward 
 the beach with an idea of locating Martha and Katrina 
 before sending for them. " Isn't it almost lunch time ? " 
 she asked, adding in a matter-of-fact tone: "Don't 
 worry any more, Rachael; it's largely a bad habit. 
 
 Just look the whole thing in the face, and map it out 
 ke a campaign. 'The way to begin living the ideal 
 life is to begin,' my father used to say!" 
 
 This talk, and others like it, had the effect of bracing 
 Rachael to fresh endurance and of spurring her to 
 fresh courage for the few days that its effect lasted. 
 But sooner or later her bravery would die away, and an 
 increasing discouragement possess her. Lying in her 
 bare, airy bedroom at night, with sombre eyes staring 
 at the arch of stars above the moving sea, an almost 
 unbearable loneliness would fall upon soul and body; 
 she needed Warren, she said to herself, often with bitter 
 tears. Warren, splashing in his bath, scattering wet 
 towels and discarded garments so royally about the 
 place; Warren, in a discursive mood, regarding some 
 operation as he stropped his razor; Warren's old, 
 half-unthinking "you look sweet, dear," when, fresh 
 and dainty, his wife was ready to go downstairs for 
 these and a thousand other memories of him she yearned 
 with an aching desire that racked her like a bodily 
 pain. 
 
 "Oh, it isn't right for him to torture me so!" she 
 would whisper to herself^ "It isn't right!" 
 
 October found them all back in the city, an appar- 
 ently united and devoted family again. Rachael 
 entered with great zest into the delayed matter of re-' 
 decorating and refurnishing the old home on Wash- 
 Jmgton Square, finding the dignified house Warren's 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 247 
 
 birthplace more and more to her liking as modern 
 enamel fixtures went into the bathrooms, simple mod- 
 ern hangings let sunshine and air in at the long-darkened 
 windows, and rich tapestry papers and Oriental rugs 
 subdued the effect of severe cream woodwork and 
 colonial mantels. 
 
 She found Warren singularly unenthusiastic about it, 
 almost ungracious when he answered her questions 
 or decided for her any detail. But Rachael was firmly 
 resolved to ignore his moods, and went blithely about 
 her business, displaying an indifference or an assumed 
 indifference that was evidently somewhat puzzling 
 to Warren and to all her household. She equipped 
 the boys in dark-blue coats and squirrel-skin caps for 
 the winter, marvelling a little sadly that their father 
 did not seem to see the charms so evident to all the 
 world. A rosier, gayer, more sturdy pair of devoted 
 little brothers never stamped through snowy parks, or 
 came chattering in for chops and baked potatoes. 
 Every woman in the neighborhood, every policeman, 
 knew Jim and Derry Gregory; their morning walks 
 were so many separate little adventures in popularity. 
 But Warren, beyond paternal greetings at breakfast, 
 and an occasional perfunctory query as to their health, 
 made no attempt to enter into their lives. They were 
 still too small to interest their father except as good 
 and satisfactory babies. 
 
 One bitter December day the thunderbolt fell. 
 Rachael felt that she had always known it, that she 
 had been sitting in this hideous hotel dining-room for 
 years watching Warren and Margaret Clay. 
 
 There was a bitter taste of salt water in her mouth, 
 there was a hideous drumming at her heart. She felt 
 sick and cold from her bewildered brain down to her 
 very feet. When one felt like this one fainted. 
 
 But Rachael did not faint, although it was by sheer 
 power of will that she held her reeling senses. No scene 
 no, there mustn't be a scene for Jimmy's sake, 
 
48 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 for Derry's sake, no scene. She was here, in the 
 Waldorf Grill, of course. She had been what had 
 she been doing? She had been she came downtown 
 after breakfast of course, shopping. Shopping for 
 the children's Christmas. They were to have coasters 
 they were old enough for coasters she must go on this 
 quiet way, thinking of the children five was old enough 
 for coasters and Jim always looked out for Derry. 
 
 She couldn't go out. They hadn't seen her; they 
 wouldn't see her, here in this corner. But she dared 
 not stand up and pass them again. Warren and 
 Magsie. Warren and Magsie. Oh, God God God 
 what should she do she was going to faint again. 
 
 Here was her shopping list, a little wet and crumpled 
 because she had put her glove on the snowy handle 
 of the motor-car door. Mary had said that it would 
 be a white Christmas how could Mary tell? this was 
 
 only the eighteenth, only^the eighteenth Ridiculous 
 
 to be panting this way, like a runner. Nothing was 
 going to hurt her 
 
 "Anything anything!" she said to the waiter, with 
 dry, bloodless lips, and a ghastly attempt at a smile. 
 "Yes, that will do. Thank you, yes, I suppose so. 
 Yes, if you will. Thank you. That will do nicely." 
 
 And now she must be quiet. That was the main 
 thing now. They must not see her. She had been 
 shopping, and now she was having her lunch in the 
 Grill. If she could only breathe a little less violently 
 but she seemed to have no control over her heaving 
 breast, she could not even close her mouth. Nobody 
 suspected anything, and if she could but control her- 
 self, nobody would, she told herself desperately. 
 
 She never knew that the silent, gray-haired waiter 
 recognized her, and recognized both the man and 
 woman who sat only thirty feet away. She had not 
 ordered coffee, but he brought her a smoking pot. 
 It was not the first time he had encountered the situ- 
 ation. Rachael drank the vivifying fluid, and her 
 nerves responded at once. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 249 
 
 She sat up, set her lips firmly, forced herself to dis- 
 pose of gloves and napkin in the usual way. Her 
 breath was coming more evenly so much was gained. 
 As for this deadly cold and quivering sensation of 
 nausea, that was no more than fatigue and the fright- 
 fully cold wind. 
 
 So it was Magsie. Rachael had not been seven 
 years a wife to misread Warren's eyes as he looked at 
 the girl. No woman could misread their attitude to- 
 gether, an attitude of wonderful, sweet familiarity 
 with each other's likes and dislikes under all its thrill- 
 ing newness. Rachael had seen him turn that very 
 glance, that smiling-eyed yet serious look 
 
 Oh, God! it could not be that he had come to care 
 for Magsie! Her hard-won calm was shattered in a 
 second, she was panting and quivering again. Her 
 husband, her own big, tender, clever Warren but he 
 was hers, and the boys he was hers! Her hus- 
 band and this other woman was looking at him with 
 all her soul in her eyes, this other woman cared all 
 the world might see how she cared for him and was 
 loved in return ! 
 
 What had she been hearing, lately, of Magsie? 
 Rachael began dizzily to recall what she could. Magsie 
 had been "on the road," she had had a small part in 
 an unsuccessful play early in the winter. Rachael 
 had been for some reason unable to see it, but she had 
 sent Magsie flowers, and she remembered now 
 Warren had represented himself as having looked in 
 on the play with some friends, one evening, and as 
 having found it pretty poor stuff. So little had Magsie 
 and Magsie's affairs seemed to matter, then, that 
 Rachael could not even remember the name of the 
 play, nor of hearing it discussed. The world in general 
 had not seemed inclined to make much of the pro- 
 fessional advent of Miss Margaret Clay, and presently 
 the play closed, and Warren, in answer to a careless 
 question from Rachael, had said that they would prob- 
 ably take it on the road until spring. 
 
250 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 And then, some weeks ago, she had asked about 
 Magsie again, and Warren had said: "I believe she's 
 in town. Somebody told me the other day that she 
 was to have a part in one of Bowman's things this 
 
 winter." 
 
 "It's amazing to me that Magsie doesn't get ahead 
 faster," Rachael had mused. No more was said. 
 
 And how pretty she was, how young she was, Rachael 
 thought now, with a stabbing pain at her heart. How 
 earnestly they were talking no ordinary conversation. 
 Presently tears were in the little actress's eyes; she had 
 no handkerchief, but Warren had. He gave it to her, 
 and she surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and smiled at 
 him, like a pretty child, in her furs. 
 
 Rachael felt actually sick with shock. She felt as 
 if some vital cord in her anatomy had been snapped, 
 and as if she could never control these heavy languid 
 limbs of hers again. Her head ached. A lassitude 
 seemed to possess her. She felt cold, and old, and 
 helpless in the face of so much youth and beauty. 
 
 Magsie and Warren. She must accustom herself 
 to the thought. They cared for each other. They 
 cared Rachael's heart seemed to shut with an icy 
 spasm, she felt herself choking and shut her eyes. 
 
 Well, what could they do at worst ? Could Magsie ga 
 out now, and get into the Gregory motor car, and say> 
 "Home, Martin!" to the man? Could Magsie run 
 up 'the steps of the Washington Square house, gather 
 the cream of the day's news from the butler in a breath, 
 and, flinging off furs and wraps, catch the two glorious 
 boys to her heart ? 
 
 No! However the situation developed, Rachael was 
 still the wife. Rachael held the advantage, and what- 
 ever poor Magsie's influence was, it could be but tem- 
 porary, it must be unrecognized and unapproved by the 
 world. 
 
 Slowly self-control came back, the dizziness sub- 
 sided, the room sank and settled into its usual aspect 
 It was hideous, but it was a fact, she must face it 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 251 
 
 she must face it. There was an honorable way, and a 
 dignified way, and that must be her way. No one must 
 know. 
 
 Presently the table near her was empty, and she 
 began to breathe more naturally. She pondered so 
 deeply that for a long time the room was forgotten, 
 and the moving crowd shifted about her unseen. Then 
 abstractedly she rose, and went slowly out to the wait- 
 ing car. She carried a heart of lead. 
 
 "I've kept you waiting, Martin?" 
 
 Martin merely touched his hat. It was four o'clock. 
 
 And so Rachael found herself facing an unbelievable 
 situation. To love, and to know herself unloved, was 
 a cold, dull misery that clung like a weight to her 
 heart. Her thoughts stumbled in a close, hot fog; 
 from sheer weariness she abandoned them again and 
 again. 
 
 She had never been a reasonable woman, but she 
 forced herself to be reasonable now. Logic and philos- 
 ophy had never been her natural defences, but she 
 brought logic and philosophy to bear upon this hideous 
 circumstance. She did not waste time and tears upon 
 a futile "Why?" It was too late now to question; the 
 fact spoke for itself. Warren's senses were wrapped 
 in the charms of another woman. His own devoted 
 and still young and beautiful wife was not the first 
 devoted and young and beautiful woman to have her 
 claim displaced. 
 
 For days after the episode in the Waldorf lunch-room 
 she moved like a conspirator, watching, thinking. 
 Warren had never seemed more considerate of her 
 happiness, more satisfied with life. He was full of 
 agreeable chatter at breakfast, interested in her plans, 
 amused at the boys. He did not come home for 
 luncheon, but usually ran up the steps at five o'clock, 
 and was reading or dressing when Rachael wandered 
 into his room to greet him after the day. He never 
 kissed her now, or touched her hand even by chance;, 
 
252 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 she was reminded, in his general aspect, of those oc- 
 casions when the delicious Derry wandered out from 
 the nursery, evading the nap which was his duty, but 
 full of the airy conversation and small endearments 
 that only a child on sufferance knows. 
 
 Rachael tried in vain to understand the affair; what 
 evil genius possessed Warren; what possessed Magsie? 
 She tried to think kindly of Magsie; poor child, she 
 had had no ugly intention, she was simply spoiled, 
 simply an egotist undeveloped in brain and soul! 
 
 But Warren ! Well, Warren's soft, simple heart had 
 been touched by all that endearing kittenish confidence, 
 by Magsie's belief that he was the richest and cleverest 
 and most powerful of men. 
 
 So they were meeting for lunch, for tea where else ? 
 What did they talk about, what did they plan or hope 
 or expect? Through all her hot impatience Rachael 
 believed that she could trust them both, in the graver 
 sense. Warren was as unlikely to take advantage of 
 Magsie's youthful innocence as Magsie was to definitely 
 commit herself to a reckless course. 
 
 But what then? Absurd, preposterous as it was, 
 it was not all a joke. It had already shut the sun from 
 all Rachael's sky. What was it doing to Warren - 
 to Magsie? With Rachael in a cold and dangerous 
 mood, Warren evasive, unresponsive, troubled, what 
 was Magsie feeling and thinking? 
 
 Proudly, and with a bitter pain at her heart, Rachael 
 went through her empty days. Her household affairs 
 ran as if by magic; never was there a more successful 
 conspiracy for one man's comfort than that organized 
 by Rachael and her maids. For the first time since 
 their marriage she and Warren were occupying separate 
 rooms now, but Rachael made it a special charge to go 
 in and out of his room constantly when he was there. 
 She would come in with his mail and his newspaper 
 at nine o'clock, full of cheerful solicitude, or follow 
 him in for the half-hour just before dinner, chatting 
 with apparent ease of heart while he dressed. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 253 
 
 Only apparent ease of heart, however, for Warren's 
 invariable courtesy and sweetness filled his wife with 
 sick apprehension. Ah, for the old good hours when 
 he scolded and argued, protested and laughed over 
 the developments of the day. Sometimes, nowadays, 
 he hardly heard her, despite his bright, interested 
 smile. Once he had commented upon her gown the 
 instant she came into the room; now he never seemed 
 to see her at all; as a matter of fact, their eyes never 
 met. 
 
 In February he told her suddenly that Margaret 
 Clay was to open in another fortnight at the Lyric, 
 in a new play by Gideon Barrett, called "The Bad Little 
 Lady." 
 
 "At the Lyric!" Rachael said in a rush of something 
 almost like joy that they could speak of Magsie at last, 
 "and one of Barrett's! Well, Magsie is coming on! 
 What part does she take?" 
 
 "The lead the title part Patricia Something-or- 
 other, I believe." 
 
 "The lead! At the Lyric why, isn't that an as- 
 tonishing compliment to Magsie!" 
 
 Warren looked for his paper-cutter, cut a page, and 
 shrugged his shoulders without glancing up from his 
 book. 
 
 "Well, yes, I suppose it is. But of course she's gone 
 steadily ahead." 
 
 " But I thought she wasn't so successful last winter, 
 Warren?" 
 
 "I don't know," he said politely, wearily, uninter- 
 estedly. 
 
 "How did you hear this, Warren?" his wife asked, 
 with a deceitful air of innocence. 
 
 "Met her," he answered briefly. 
 
 "Well, we must see the play," Rachael said briskly. 
 For some reason her heart was lighter than it had been 
 for weeks. This was something definite and in the 
 open at last after all these days of blundering in the 
 dark. "We could take a box, couldn't we, and ask 
 
254 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 George and Alice?" she added. Warren's expression 
 was that of a boy whose way with his first sweetheart 
 is too suddenly favored by parents and guardians, and 
 Rachael could have laughed at his face. 
 
 "Well," he said without enthusiasm. A week later 
 he told her that he had secured the box, but suggested 
 that someone else than the Valentines be asked, Elinor 
 and Peter, for instance. 
 
 "You and George aren't quite as good friends as 
 you were, are you?" Rachael said, gravely. 
 
 "Quite," Warren said with his bright, deceptive 
 smile and his usual averted glance. "Ask anyone 
 you please it was merely a suggestion!" 
 
 Rachael asked Peter and Elinor, and gave them a 
 delicious dinner before the play. She looked her love- 
 liest, a little fuller in figure than she had been seven 
 years before, and with gray here and there in her rich 
 hair, but still a beautiful and winning presence, and 
 still with something of youth in her spontaneous, quick 
 speech and ready laughter. Warren was, as always, the 
 attentive host, but Rachael noticed that he was ab- 
 stracted and nervous to-night, and wondered, with a 
 chill at her heart, if Magsie's new venture meant so 
 much to him as his manner implied. 
 
 It was an early dinner, and they reached the theatre 
 before the curtain rose. 
 
 "It looks like a good house," said Rachael, settling 
 herself comfortably. 
 
 "You can't tell anything by this," Warren said, 
 quickly; "it's a first night and papered." 
 
 "Aren't you smart with your professional terms?" 
 Elinor Pomeroy laughed, dropping the lorgnette through 
 which she had been idly studying the house. "What 
 Td like to know," she added interestedly, "what I'd 
 like to know is, who's doing this for Magsie Clay? 
 Vera Villalonga says she knows, but I don't believe it. 
 Magsie's a little nobody, she has no special talent, and 
 here she is leading in a Barrett play " 
 
 Peter Pomeroy 's foot here pressed lightly against 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 255 
 
 Rachael's; a hint, Rachael instantly suspected, that 
 was intended for his wife. 
 
 "Now I think Magsie's as straight as a string," the 
 unconscious Mrs. Pomeroy went on, "but she must 
 have a rich beau up her sleeve, and the question is, 
 who is he? I don't " 
 
 But here, it was evident, Peter's second appeal to 
 his wife's discretion was felt, and it suddenly arrested, 
 her flow of eloquence. 
 
 " I don't doubt," floundered Elinor, "that that is 
 and of course Magsie is a talented creature, so that 
 naturally naturally some girl makes a hit every 
 year, and why shouldn't it be Magsie ? Which is right, 
 reter, 'why shouldn't it be she' or 'why shouldn't it be 
 her?' I never know," she finished somewhat inco- 
 herently. 
 
 "I should think any investment in Magsie would be 
 perfectly safe," said Rachael's delightful voice. And 
 boldly she added: "Do you know who is backing this, 
 Warren?" 
 
 "To a certain extent I am," Warren said, after an 
 imperceptible pause. To Peter he added, in a lower 
 voice, the voice in which men discuss business matters: 
 "It was a question of the whole deal falling through I 
 think she'll make good this fellow Barrett " 
 
 Rachael began to chat with Elinor, but there was 
 bitterness in her soul. She had leaped into the breach, 
 she had saved the situation, at least before Elinor and 
 Peter. But it was not fair not fair for Warren to 
 have been deep in this affair with Magsie, with never a 
 word to his wife! She Rachael would have been all 
 interest, all sympathy. There was no reason between 
 civilized human beings why this eternal question of 
 sex should debar men and women from common am- 
 bitions and common interests! Let Warren admire 
 Magsie if he wanted to do so, let him buy her her 
 play, and stand between her and financial responsibility, 
 let him admire her yes, even love her, in his generous, 
 big-brotherly way! But why shut out of this new 
 
256 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 interest the kindly cooperation of his devoted wife, 
 who had never failed him, who had borne him sons, 
 who had given him the whole of her passionate heart 
 in the full glory of youth, and in health, and in sickness, 
 when it came, had turned to him for all the happiness 
 of her life! 
 
 The play began, and presently the house was ap- 
 plauding the entrance of Miss Margaret Clay. She 
 came down a wide, light-flooded stairway, and in her 
 childish white gown and flower-wreathed shepherdess 
 hat looked about sixteen. "How young she is!" 
 Rachael thought with a pang. Her voice was young, 
 too, the fact being that Magsie was frightened, and 
 that Nature was helping her play her first big ingenue 
 part. 
 
 Rachael glanced in the darkness at Warren. He 
 had not joined in the applause, nor did his handsome 
 face express any pleasure. He was leaning forward, 
 his hands locked and hanging between his knees, his 
 eyes riveted on the little white figure that was moving 
 and talking down there in the bright bath of light be- 
 yond the footlights. 
 
 Despite all reason, despite her desperate effort at 
 self-control, Rachael felt an agony of pure jealousy 
 seize her. In an absolute passion of envy she looked 
 down at Magsie Clay. The young, flower-crowned 
 head, the slender, slippered feet, the youthful and ap- 
 pealing voice what weapons had she against these? 
 And beyond these was the additional lure as old as 
 the theatre itself of the fascinating profession: the 
 work that is like play, the rouge and curls, the loves and 
 rages so openly assumed yet so strangely and stirringly 
 effective! Rachael had gowns a thousand times hand- 
 somer than these youthful muslins and embroideries; 
 Rachael's own home was a setting far more beautiful 
 than any that could be simulated within the limits of a 
 stage; if Magsie was a successful ingenue, Rachael 
 might have been called a natural queen of tragedy an<i 
 of comedy! And yet 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 257 
 
 And yet, it was because she, too, saw the charm and 
 came under the spell, that Rachael suffered to-night. 
 If she could have laughed it to scorn, could have ad- 
 mired the surface prettiness, and congratulated Magsie 
 upon the almost perfect illusion, then she would have 
 had the most effective of all medicines with which to 
 cure Warren's midsummer madness. 
 
 But it seemed to Rachael, stunned with the terrible 
 force of jealousy, that Magsie was the great star of the 
 stage, that there never had been such a play and such a 
 leading lady. It seemed to her that not only to-night's 
 triumph, but a thousand other triumphs were before 
 her, not only the admiration of these twelve or fifteen 
 hundred persons, but that of thousands more! Magsie 
 would be a rage! Magsie's young favors would be 
 sought far and wide. Magsie's summer home, Magsie's 
 winter apartments, Magsie's clothes and fads, these 
 would belong to the adoring public of the most warm- 
 hearted and impressionable city in the world ! Rachael 
 saw it all coming with perhaps more certainty than 
 did even the little actress behind the footlights. 
 
 " Cute play, but I don't think much of Magsie ! " Elinor 
 Pomeroy said frankly. Elinor Vanderwall would not 
 have been so impolitic. But Rachael felt that she would 
 have liked to kiss her guest. 
 
 "I think Magsie is rather good," she said deliber- 
 ately. 
 
 "Nothing like praising the girl with faint damns!" 
 Peter Pomeroy chuckled. 
 
 "Well, what do you think, Peter?" his hostess asked. 
 
 "I oh, Lord! I don't see a play once a year," he 
 said, with the manner, if not the actual presence, of a 
 yawn. "I think it's rather good. I'll tell you what, 
 Greg, I don't see you losing any money on it," he added, 
 with interest; "it'll run; the matinee girls will come!" 
 
 "Magsie'd kill you for that," Elinor said. 
 
 "I don't suppose we could see Magsie, Warren, after 
 this is over?" Rachael asked to make him speak. 
 
 "What did you say, dear?" He brought his gaze 
 
258 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 from a general study of the house to a point only a few 
 inches out of range of her own. "No, I hardly think 
 so," he answered when she had repeated her question. 
 "She's probably excited and tired." 
 
 "You wouldn't mind my sending a line down by the 
 boy?" Rachael persisted. 
 
 "Well, I don't think I'd do that " He hesitated. 
 
 "Oh, I'm strong for it!" Elinor said vivaciously. 
 "It'll cheer Magsie up. She's probably scared blue, 
 and even I can see that this isn't making much of a 
 hit!" 
 
 The note was accordingly scribbled and dispatched; 
 Rachael's heart was singing because Warren had not 
 denied Elinor's comment upon the success of the play. 
 The leading man, a popular and prominent actor, was 
 disturbingly good, and there was the part of an Irish 
 maid, a comedy part, so well filled by some hitherto 
 unknown young actress that it might really influence 
 the run of the play; but still, there was a consoling 
 indication already in the air that Margaret Clay's 
 talent was somewhat too slight to sustain a leading 
 Woman. 
 
 At eleven it was over, and if Rachael had had to 
 endure the comment that the second act was "the best 
 yet," there was the panacea, immediately to follow, 
 that the end of the play was "pretty flat." 
 
 Presently they all filed back to the dark, windy stage, 
 and joined Magsie in her dressing-room. She was 
 glowing, excited, eager for praise. Never was a young 
 and lovely woman more confident of her charm than 
 Magsie to-night. A flushed self-satisfaction was pres- 
 ent on her face during every second of the ten minutes 
 she gave them; her laughter was self-conscious, her 
 smile full of artless gratification; she could not speak 
 to any member of the little group unless the attention 
 of everyone present was riveted upon her. 
 
 A callow yooith, evidently her adorer, was awaiting 
 her. She spoke slightingly of Bryan Masters, the 
 leading mam 
 
I* 
 
 THE HEAET OF RACHAEL 259 
 
 "He's charming, Rachael," said Magsie, smiling her 
 bored young smile, with deliciously red lips, as she was 
 buttoned into a long fur coat, "but he wants to im- 
 pose on the fact that well, that I have arrived, if you 
 know what I mean? As everyone knows, his day is 
 pretty well over. Now you think I'm conceited, 
 don't you, Greg. Oh, I like him, and he does do it 
 rather well, don't you think? But Richie" Richie 
 was the escorting young man " Richie and I tease him 
 by breaking into French now and then, don't we?" 
 laughed Magsie. 
 
 Sauntering out from the stage entrance with her 
 friends, Miss Clay was the cynosure of all eyes, and 
 knew it ; part of the audience still waited for the tedious 
 line of limousines to disperse. She could not move 
 her bright glance to Warren's without encountering the 
 admiring looks of men and women all about her; she 
 could not but hear their whispers: "There, there 
 she is that's Miss Clay now!" Richie, introduced 
 as Mr. Gardiner, muttered that his car was somewhere; 
 it proved to be a handsome car with a chauffeur. 
 Magsie raised her bright face pleadingly to Warren's 
 as she took his hands for good-bye. 
 
 "Say you were proud of me, Warren?" 
 
 He laughed, his indulgent glance flashing to Elinor 
 and to Rachael, as one who invited their admiration of 
 an attractive child, before he looked down at her again. 
 
 "Proud of you! Why, I'm as happy as you are 
 about it!" 
 
 "You know," Magsie said to Elinor naively, still 
 holding Warren's hands, "he's helped me tremen- 
 dously. He's been just an absolute angel to me!" 
 And real and becoming tears came suddenly to her 
 eyes; she dropped Warren's hands to find a filmy little 
 handkerchief. A second later her smile flashed out 
 again. "You don't mind his being kind to me, do 
 you, Rachael?" she asked childishly. 
 
 Rachael's mouth was dry, she felt that her smile was 
 hideous. 
 
260 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Why should I, Magsie?" she asked a little huskily. 
 "He's kind to everyone!" 
 
 A moment later the Gregorys and their guests were 
 in the car whirling toward the Pomeroy home and 
 supper. It was more than an hour later that Rachael 
 and her husband were alone, and then she only said 
 mildly: 
 
 "I wish you had let me know you were helping 
 Magsie, so so conspicuously, Warren. One hates to 
 be taken unawares that way." 
 
 "She asked me to keep the thing confidential," he 
 answered with his baffling simplicity. "She had this 
 good chance, but she couldn't quite swing it. I had no 
 idea that you would care, one way or the other." 
 
 "Well, she ought to be launched now," Rachael 
 said. She hated to talk of Magsie, especially in his 
 company, where she could do nothing but praise, but 
 she could somehow find it difficult to speak of anything 
 else to-night. 
 
 "Cunning little thing, there she was, holding on to 
 my hands, as innocently as a child!" Warren said 
 with a musing smile. "She's a funny girl all fire and 
 ice, as she says herself!" 
 
 Rachael smothered a scornful interjection. Let 
 Magsie employ the arts of a schoolgirl if she would, 
 but at least let the great Doctor Gregory perceive their 
 absurdity! 
 
 "Young Mr. Richie Gardiner seemed touche" she 
 observed after a silence which Warren seemed willing 
 indefinitely to prolong. 
 
 "H'm!" Warren gave a short, contented laugh. 
 "He's crazy about her, but of course to her he's only a 
 kid," he volunteered. "She's funny about that, too. 
 She's emotional, of course, full of genius, and full of 
 temperament. She says she needs a safety-valve, 
 and Gardner is her safety-valve. She says she can 
 sputter and rage and laugh, and he just listens and 
 quiets her down. To-night she called him her * bread- 
 and-butter' did you hear her?" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 261 1 
 
 "I wonder what she considers you her champagne?" 
 Rachael asked with a poor assumption of amusement. 
 
 But Warren was too absorbed in his own thoughts to 
 notice it. 
 
 "It's curious how I do inspire and encourage her," 
 he admitted. "She needs that sort of thing. She's 
 always up in the clouds or down in the dumps." 
 
 "Do you see her often, Warren?" Rachael asked 
 with deadly calm. 
 
 "I've seen her pretty regularly since this thing 
 began," he answered absently, still too much wrapped in 
 the memories of the evening to suspect his wife's emo- 
 tion. Rachael did not speak again. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ONLY Miss Margaret Clay perused the papers on the 
 following morning with an avidity to equal that of 
 Mrs. Warren Gregory. Magsie read hungrily for praise, 
 Rachaei was as eager to discover blame. The actress, 
 lying in her soft bed, wrapped in embroidered silk, and 
 sleepily conscious that she was wakening to fame and 
 fortune, gave, it is probable, only an occasional fleet- 
 ing thought to her benefactor's wife, but Rachaei, crisp 
 and trim over her breakfast, thought of nothing but 
 Magsie while she read. 
 
 Praise and praise and praise. But there was 
 blame, too; there was even sharply contemptuous 
 criticism. On the whole, Rachaei had almost as much 
 satisfaction from her morning's reading as Magsie 
 did. The three most influential papers did not com- 
 ment upon Miss Clay's acting at all. In two more, 
 little Miss Elsie Eaton and Bryan Masters shared the 
 honors. The Sun remarked frankly that Miss Clay's 
 amateurish acting, her baby lisp, her utter unacquain- 
 tance with whatever made for dramatic art, would un- 
 doubtedly insure the play a long run. Rachaei knew 
 that Warren would see all these papers, but she cut out 
 all the pleasanter reviews and put them on his dresser. 
 
 "Did you see these?" she asked him at six o'clock. 
 
 "I glanced at some of them. You've not got The 
 Swnhere?" 
 
 "No that was a mean one," Rachaei said sweetly. 
 "I thought it might distress you, as it probably did 
 Magsie." 
 
 "I saw it," he said, evidently with no thought of 
 her feeling in the matter. "Lord, no one minds what 
 The Sun thinks!" 
 
THE HEART OF EACHAEL 263 
 
 "She's really scored a success," said Rachael re- 
 luctantly. Warren did not answer. 
 
 For the next three evenings he did not come home to 
 dinner, nor until late at night. Rachael bore it with 
 dignity, but her heart was sick within her. She must 
 simply play the waiting game, as many a better woman 
 had before her, but she would punish Warren Gregory 
 for this some day! 
 
 She dressed herself charmingly every evening, and 
 dined alone, with a book. Sometimes the old butler 
 saw her look off from the page, and saw her breast rise 
 on a quick, rebellious breath; and old Mary could have 
 told of the hours her mistress spent in the nursery, 
 sitting silent in the darkness by the sleeping boys, but 
 both these old servants were loyalty's self, and even 
 Rachael never suspected their realization of the situa- 
 tion and their resentment. To Vera, to Elinor, even 
 to Alice Valentine, she said never a word. She had 
 discussed Clarence Breckenridge easily enough seven 
 years before, but she could not criticise Warren Gregory 
 to anyone. 
 
 On the fourth evening, when they were to dine with 
 friends, Warren reached home in time to dress, and 
 duly accompanied his wife to the affair. He com- 
 plained of a headache after dinner, and they went home 
 at about half-past ten. Rachael felt his constraint in 
 the car, and for very shame could not make it hard for 
 him when he suggested that he should go downtown 
 again, to look in at the club. 
 
 "But is this right, is it fair?" she asked herself 
 sombrely while she was slowly disrobing. "Could I 
 treat him so? Of course I could not! Why, I have 
 never even looked at a man since our very wedding day 
 never wanted to. And I will be reasonable now. I 
 will be reasonable, but he tries me hard he makes it 
 hard!" 
 
 She put her face in her hands and began to cry. 
 Warren was deluded and under a temporary spell, but 
 still her dear and good and handsome husband, her 
 
264 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 dearest companion and confidant. And she missed 
 him. 
 
 Oh, to have him back again, in the old way, so in- 
 finitely dear and interested, so quick with laughter, so 
 vigorous with comment, so unsparing where he blamed! 
 To have him come and kiss the white parting of her 
 hair once more as she sat waiting for him at the break- 
 fast table, turn to her in the car with his quick " Happy ?" 
 once more, hold her tight once more against his warm 
 heart! 
 
 How unlike him it was, how contemptible it was, 
 this playing with the glorious thing that had been their 
 love! For the first time in her life Rachael could have 
 played the virago, could have raged and stamped, 
 could have made him absolutely afraid to misuse her 
 so. He did not deserve such consideration, he should 
 not be treated so gently. 
 
 While she sat alone, in the long evenings, she tried 
 to follow him in her thoughts. He was somewhere in 
 the big, warm, dark theatre, watching the little pool 
 of brightness in which Magsie moved, listening to the 
 crisp, raw freshness of Magsie's voice. Night after 
 night he must sit there, drinking in her beauty and 
 charm, torturing himself with the thought of her in- 
 accessibility. 
 
 It seemed strange to Rachael that this world-old 
 tragedy should come into her life with all the stinging 
 novelty of a calamity. People and press talked about 
 a murder, about an earthquake, about a fire. Yet what 
 was death or ruin or flames beside the horror of know- 
 ing love to be outgrown, of living beside this empty 
 mask and shell of a man whose mind and soul were in 
 bondage elsewhere? Rachael came to know love as a 
 power, and herself a victim of that power abused. 
 
 Slowly resentment began to find room in her heart. 
 It was all so childish, so futile, so unnecessary ! A prom- 
 inent surgeon, the husband of a devoted wife, the father 
 of two splendid sons, thus flinging pride and sanity to the 
 wind, thus being caught in the lightly flung net of an or- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 265 
 
 dinary, pretty little actress, the daughter of a domestic 
 servant and a soldier in the ranks! And what was to 
 be the outcome? Rachael mused sombrely. Was 
 Warren to tire simply of his folly, Magsie to carelessly 
 fill his place in the ranks of her admirers, Rachael to 
 gracefully forgive and forget? 
 
 It was an unpalatable role, yet she saw no other 
 open to her. What was to be gained by coldness, by 
 anger, by controversy? Was a man capable of War- 
 ren's curious infatuation to be merely scolded and 
 punished like a boy? She was helpless and she knew 
 it. Until he actually transgressed against their love, 
 she could make no move. Even when he did, or if he 
 did, her only recourse was the hated one of a public 
 scandal: accusations, recriminations. 
 
 She began to understand his nature as she had not 
 understood it in all these years. Bits of his mother's 
 brief comment upon him came back to her; uncom- 
 prehensible when she first heard them, they were curi- 
 ously illuminating now. He had been a naturally 
 good boy, awkward, silent, conscientious; turning 
 toward integrity as normally as many of his com- 
 panions turned toward vice. Despite his natural 
 shyness, his diffidence of manner, he had been strong 
 himself and had scorned weakness in anyone; upright, 
 he needed little guiding. The praise of servants and 
 of his mother's friends had been quite frankly his; 
 even his severe mother and father had been able to 
 find little fault in the boy. But they had early learned 
 that when a minor correction was demanded by their 
 first-born's character, it was almost impossible to effect 
 it. His standard of behavior was high, fortunately, 
 for it was also unalterable. There was no hope of 
 their grafting upon his conscience any new roots. 
 James knew right from wrong with infallible instinct; 
 he was not often wrong, but when he was, no outside 
 -criticism affected him. As a baby, he would defend 
 his rare misdeeds, as a boy, he was never thrashed, 
 because there was always some good reason for what 
 
266 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 he did. He had been misinformed, he certainly under- 
 stood the other fellows to say this; he certainly never 
 heard the teacher forbid that; handsome, reasonable, 
 self-respecting, he won approval on all sides, and be- 
 cause of this mysterious predisposition toward what 
 was right and just, came safely to the years when he 
 was his own master and could live unchallenged by 
 the high moral standard he set himself. 
 
 Some of this Rachael began to perceive. It was a 
 key to his conduct now. He respected Magsie, he 
 admired her; there was no reason why he should not 
 indulge his admiration. No unspoken criticism from 
 his wife could affect him, because he had seen the 
 whole situation clearly and had decided what was 
 seemly and safe in the matter. Criticism only brought 
 a resentful, dull red color to Warren Gregory's face, and 
 confirmed him more stubbornly in the course he was 
 pursuing. He could even enjoy a certain martyr-like 
 satisfaction under undeserved censure, all censure be- 
 ing equally incomprehensible and undeserved. Rachael 
 had once seen in this quality a certain godlike su- 
 premacy, a bigness, and splendidness of vision that rose 
 above the ordinary standards of ordinary men; now it 
 filled her with uneasiness. 
 
 "Well," she thought, with a certain desperate phi- 
 losophy, "in a certain number of months or years this 
 will all be over, and I must simply endure it until that 
 time comes. Life is full of trouble, anyway!" 
 
 Life was full of trouble; she saw it on all sides. But 
 what trivial matters they were, after all, that troubled 
 Elinor and Vera and Judy Moran ! Vera was eternally 
 rushing into fresh, furious hospitalities, welcoming 
 hordes of men and women she scarcely knew into her 
 house; chattering, laughing, drinking; flattering the 
 debutantes, screaming at the telephone, standing 
 patient hours under the dressmaker's hands; never 
 rested, never satisfied, never stopping to think. Judy 
 Moran's trouble was that she was too fat; nothing else 
 really penetrated the shell of her indolent good nature. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 267 
 
 Kenneth might be politely dropped from the family 
 firm, her husband might die and be laid away, her 
 brother-in-law commence an ugly suit for the reclama- 
 tion of certain jewels and silver tableware, but all these 
 things meant far less to Mrs. Moran than the unflat- 
 tering truths her bedroom scales told her every morning. 
 She had reached the age of fifty without ever acquiring 
 sufficient self-control to rid herself of the surplus forty 
 pounds, yet she never buttered a muffin at breakfast 
 time, or crushed a French pastry with her fork at noon, 
 without an inward protest. She spent large sums of 
 money for corsets and gowns that would disguise her 
 immense weight rather than deny herself one cup of 
 creamed-and-sugared tea or one box of chocolates. 
 And she suffered whenever a casual photograph, or 
 an unexpected glimpse of herself in a mirror, brought 
 to her notice afresh the dreadful two hundred and twenty 
 pounds. 
 
 And Elinor had her absurd and unnecessary troubles, 
 rich man's wife as she was now, and firmly established 
 in the social group upon whose outskirts she had 
 lingered so long. The single state of her four sisters 
 was a constant annoyance to her, especially as Peter 
 was not fond of the girls, and liked to allude to them as 
 "spinsters" and "old maids," and to ask more enter- 
 taining and younger women to the house. Elinor had 
 never wanted a child, but in the third or fourth year of 
 her marriage she had begun to perceive that it might 
 be wise to give her worldly old husband an heir, much 
 better that, at any cost, than to encourage his fond- 
 ness for Barbara Oliphant's boy, his namesake nephew, 
 who was an officious, self-satisfied little lad of twelve. 
 But Nature refused to cooperate in Elinor's maternal 
 plans and Peter Junior did not make his appearance at 
 the big house on the Avenue. Elinor grew yearly 
 noisier, more reckless, more shallow; she rushed about 
 excitedly from place to place, sometimes with Peter, 
 sometimes with one of her sisters; not happy in either 
 case, but much given to quarrelsome questioning of 
 
*68 THE HEART OF HACHAEL 
 
 life. It was not that she could not get what she wanted 
 so much as that she did not know her own mind and 
 heart. Whatever was momentarily tiresome or dis- 
 tasteful must be pushed out of her path, and as almost 
 every friend and every human experience came sooner 
 or later into this category, Elinor found herself stranded 
 in the very centre of life. 
 
 Alice had her troubles, too, but when her thoughts 
 came to Alice, Rachael found a certain envy in her 
 heart. Ah, those were the troubles she could have 
 welcomed; she could have cried with sheer joy at the 
 thought that her life might some day slip into the same 
 groove as Alice's life. Rachael loved the atmosphere 
 of the big, shabby house now; it was the only place to 
 which she really cared to go. There was in Alice Valen- 
 tine's character something simple, direct, and high- 
 principled that communicated itself to everybody and 
 everything in her household. A small girl in her nurs- 
 ery might show symptoms of diphtheria, a broken tile 
 on the roof might deluge the bedroom ceilings, an old 
 cook leave suddenly, or a heavy rain fall upon a Sunday 
 predestined for picknicking, but Alice Valentine, plain, 
 slow of speech, and slow of thought, went her serene 
 way, nursing, consoling, repairing, readjusting. 
 
 She had her cares about George, but they were not 
 like Rachael's cares for Warren. Alice knew him to 
 be none too strong, easily tired, often discouraged. 
 His professional successes were many, but there were 
 times when the collapse of a tiny child in a free hospital 
 could blot from George's simple, big, tender heart the 
 memory of a dozen achievements. The wife, deep in 
 the claims of her four growing children, sometimes 
 longed to put her arms about him, to run away with 
 him to some quiet land of sunshine and palms, some 
 lazy curve of white beach where he could rest and sleep, 
 and drift back to his old splendid energy and strength. 
 She longed to cook for him the old dishes he had loved 
 in the early days of their marriage, to read to him, to 
 let the world forget them while they forgot the world. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Instead, a hundred claims kept them here in the 
 current of affairs. Mary was a tall, sweet, gracious 
 girl of sixteen now, like her father, a pretty edition of 
 his red hair and long-featured clever face. Mary must 
 go on with her music, must be put through the lesson- 
 ing and grooming of a gentlewoman, and take her 
 place in the dancing class that would be the Junior 
 Cotillion in a year or two. Alice Valentine was not a 
 worldly woman, but she knew it would be sheer cruelty 
 to let her daughter grow up a stranger in her own world, 
 different in speech and dress and manner from all the 
 other girls and boys. So Mary went to little dances 
 at the Royces' and the Bowditches', and walked home 
 from her riding lesson with little Billy Parmalee or 
 Frank Whittaker, or with Florence Haviland and 
 Bobby Oliphant. And Alice watched her gowns, and 
 her hair, and her pretty young teeth only a little less 
 carefully than she listened to her confidences, ques- 
 tioned her about persons and things, and looked for 
 inaccuracies in her speech. 
 
 George Junior was a care, too, in these days at the 
 non-committal, unenthusiastic age of fourteen, when all 
 the vices in the world, finger on lip, form a bright escort 
 for waking or sleeping hours, and the tenderest and most 
 tactful of maternal questions slips from the shell of 
 boyish silence and gruffness unanswered. Full of 
 apprehension and eagerness, Alice watched her only 
 son; she could not give him every hour of her busy 
 days; she would have given him every instant if she 
 could. He was a good boy, but he was human. Dressed 
 for dinner and the theatre, his mother would look into 
 the children's sitting-room to find Mary reading, George 
 reading, Martha, very conscious of being there on suf- 
 ferance, also reading virtuously and attentively. 
 
 "Good-night, my darlings! You're going to bed 
 promptly at nine, aren't you, Mary and Gogo, too? 
 You know we were all late last night," Alice would 
 say, coming in. 
 
 "I am!" Mary would give her mother her sunny 
 
270 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 smile. "Leslie Perry is going to be here to-morrow 
 night, anyway, and we're going to Thomas Prince's 
 skating party in the afternoon, aren't we, Mother?" 
 
 "Thomas Prince, the big boob!" Gogo might com- 
 ment without bitterness. 
 
 "He's not a big boob, either, is he, Mother?" Mary 
 was swift in defence. "He's not nearly such a boob 
 as Tubby Butler or Sam Moulton!" 
 
 "Gosh, that's right knock Tubby!" Gogo would 
 mumble. 
 
 "Oh, my darling boy, and my darling girl!" Alice, 
 full of affection and distress, would look from one to 
 the other. Gogo, standing near his mother, usually 
 had a request. 
 
 "They're all over at Sam's to-night. Gosh! they're 
 going to have fun!" 
 
 "Father said 'Not again this week,'" Mary might 
 chant. 
 
 "Mary!" Alice's reproachful look would silence her 
 daughter; she would put an arm about her son. 
 
 "What is it to-night, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing much!" Gogo would fling up his dark 
 head impatiently. 
 
 "Just Tubby and Sam?" 
 
 "I guess so," gruffly. 
 
 "But Daddy feels Alice would stop short in 
 
 perplexity. Why shouldn't he go? She had known 
 Mrs. Moulton from the days when they both were 
 brides, the Moultons' house was near, and it was dull 
 for Gogo here, under the sitting-room lamp. If he 
 had only been as contented as Mary, who, with a good 
 time to remember from yesterday, and another to look 
 forward to to-morrow, was perfectly happy to-night. 
 But boys were different. Sam was a trustworthy little 
 fellow, but Alice did not so much like Tubby Butler. 
 And George did not like to have Gogo away from the 
 house at night. She would smile into the boy's gloomy 
 eyes. 
 
 "Couldn't you just read to-night, my son, or perhaps 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 271 
 
 Mary would play rum with you? Wouldn't that be 
 better, and a long night's sleep, than going over to 
 Sam's every night?" 
 
 But she would leave a disappointed and sullen boy 
 behind her; his disgusted face would haunt her through- 
 out the entire evening. 
 
 Martha was not so much a problem, and little 
 Katharine was still baby enough to be a joy to the 
 whole house. But between the children's meals, their 
 shoes and hats and lessons, Alice was a busy woman, 
 and she realized that her responsibilities must increase 
 rather than lessen in the next few years. When Mary 
 was married, and Gogo finishing college, and Martha 
 ready to be entertained and chaperoned by her big 
 sister, then she and George might take Kittiwake and 
 run away; but not now. 
 
 Rachael formed the habit of calling at the Valentine 
 house through the wet winds of March and April, 
 coming in upon Alice at all hours, sometimes with the 
 boys, sometimes alone. Alice, in her quiet way, was 
 ready to open her heart completely to her brilliant 
 friend. Rachael spoke of all topics except one to 
 Alice. They discussed houses and maids, the children, 
 books and plays and plans for the summer, birth and 
 death, the approaching responsibility of the vote, phi- 
 losophies and religions, saints and sages. And the 
 day came when Rachael spoke of Warren and of 
 Margaret Clay. 
 
 It was a quiet, wet spring afternoon, a day when the 
 coming of green leaves could be actually felt in the 
 softened air. The two women were upstairs in Alice's 
 white and blue sitting-room enjoying a wood fire. 
 Jim and Derry were in the playroom with Kittiwake; 
 the house was silent, so silent that they could hear 
 the drumming of rain on the leads, and the lazy purr 
 of the fire. 
 
 Alice was first incredulous, and then stunned at the 
 story. 
 
 Rachael told all she knew, the change in her husband, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 the opening night of "The Bad Little Lady," her lonely 
 dinners and evenings, and Magsie's complacent attitude 
 of possession. 
 
 "Well," said Alice, who had been an absorbed and 
 astounded listener, when she finished, "I confess I 
 don't understand it! If Warren Gregory is making a 
 fool of himself over Margaret Clay, no one is going to 
 be as much ashamed as he is when he is over it. I 
 think with you," Alice added, much in earnest, "that 
 as far as any actual infidelity goes, neither one would 
 be capable of it! Magsie's a selfish little featherhead, 
 but she has her own advantage too close at heart, 
 and Warren, no matter what preposterous theory he 
 has to explain his interest in Magsie, isn't going to 
 actually do anything that would put him in the wrong! " 
 She paused, but Rachael did not speak, and something 
 in her aspect, as she sat steadily watching the fire, 
 smote Alice to the heart. "I have never been so 
 shocked and so disappointed in my life!" Alice went 
 on, " I can't yet believe it ! The only thing you can do 
 is keep quiet and dignified, and wait for the whole 
 thing to wear itself out. This explains the change 
 between George and Warren. I knew George suspected 
 something from the way he tried to shut me up when 
 I saw Warren the other night at the theatre." 
 
 "Now that I've talked about it," Rachael smiled, 
 "I believe I feel better!" And presently she dried her 
 eyes, and even laughed at herself a little as she and 
 Alice fell to talking of other things. When Rachael, a 
 boy in each hand, said good-bye, and went out into the 
 pale, late afternoon sunshine that followed the rain, 
 Alice accompanied her to the door, and stood for a 
 moment with her at the top of the street steps. 
 
 "You're so lovely, Rachael," said her friend af- 
 fectionately. "It doesn't seem right to have anything 
 ever trouble anyone so pretty!" 
 
 Rachael only smiled doubtfully in answer, but Derry 
 and Jim talked all the way home, their mother listening 
 in silence. She found their conversation infinitely 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 273 
 
 more amusing when uninfluenced by her. Both were 
 naturally observant, Jim logical and reasonable, Deny 
 always misled by his fancy and his dreams. When 
 Jim was a lion, he was a lion who lived in the Gregory 
 nursery, sat in the chairs that belonged to the Gregory 
 children, and preyed upon their toys, as toys. But 
 Deny was a beast of another calibre. The polished 
 nursery floo2" was the still water of jungle pools, and 
 the cribs were trees which a hideous and ferocious 
 beast, radically differing in every way from little 
 Gerald Gregory, climbed at will. Jim was a lion who 
 liked to be interrupted by grown-ups, who was laughing 
 at his make-believe all the time, but Deny was so 
 frightfully in earnest as to often terrify himself, and 
 almost always impress his brother, with his roarings 
 and ravaging. 
 
 To-day their conversation ran along pleasantly; they 
 were companionable little brothers, and only unman- 
 ageable when separated. 
 
 "All the men walking home will get their feet horrid 
 an' wet," said Jim, "and then the ladies will scold 
 'em!" 
 
 "This would be a great, big ocean for a fairy," Derry 
 commented, flicking a wide puddle with a well-protected 
 little foot. "Jim," he added in an anxious undertone, 
 "could a fairy drown ? " 
 
 "Not if he had his swimming belt on," Jim said 
 hardily. 
 
 "All the fairies have to take little white rose leaves, 
 and make themselves swimming belts," Derry said 
 dreamily, "'r else their mothers won't let them go 
 swimming, will they, Mother?" 
 
 They did not wait for her answer, and Rachael was 
 free to return to her own thoughts. But the inter- 
 ruption roused her, and she watched the little pair 
 with pleasure as they trotted before her on the drying 
 sidewalks. Derry was blond and Jim dark, yet they 
 looked alike, both with Rachael's dark, expressive eyes, 
 and with their father's handsome mouth and sudden, 
 
274 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 appealing smile. But Rachael fancied that her oldest 
 son was most like his father in type, and found it hard 
 to be as stern with Jim as she was with the impulsive, 
 reckless, eager Derry, whose faults were more apt to 
 be her own. 
 
 To-night she went with them to the nursery, where 
 their little table was already set for supper and their 
 small white beds already neatly turned down. 
 
 "Mother's going to give us our baths!" shouted Jim. 
 Both boys looked at her eagerly; Rachael smiled doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 "Mother's afraid that she will have to dress, to 
 meet Daddy downtown," she began regretfully, when 
 old Mary interposed respectfully : 
 
 "Excuse me, Mrs. Gregory. But Dennison took a 
 message from Doctor this afternoon. I happen to 
 know it because Louise asked me if I didn't think she 
 had better order dinner for you. Doctor has been 
 called to Albany on a case, and was tp let you know 
 when to expect him." 
 
 "Goody goody good-good!" shouted Jim, and 
 Derry joined in with a triumphant shriek, and clasped 
 his arms tightly about his mother's knees. Rachael 
 had turned a little pale, but she kissed both boys, and 
 only left them long enough to change her gown to 
 something loose and comfortable. 
 
 Then she came back to the nursery, and there were 
 baths, and games, and suppers, and then stories and 
 prayers before the fire, Mary and Rachael laughing 
 over the fluffy heads, revelling in the beauty of the 
 little bodies. 
 
 When they were in bed she went down to a solitary 
 dinner, and, as she ate it, her thoughts went back to 
 other solitary dinners years ago. Utter discourage- 
 ment and something like a great, all-enveloping fear 
 possessed her. She was afraid of life. She had dented 
 her armor, broken her steel, she had been flung back 
 and worsted in the fight. 
 
 What was the secret, then, Rachael asked the fire. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 275 
 
 if youth and beauty and high hopes and great love failed 
 like so many straws? Why was Alice contented, and 
 she, Rachael, torn by a thousand conflicting hopes and 
 fears? Why was it, that with all her cleverness, and 
 all her beauty, the woman who had been Rachael Fair- 
 fax, and Rachael Breckenridge, and Rachael Gregory, 
 had never yet felt sure of joy, had never dared lay hands 
 upon it boldly, and know it to be her own, had trembled, 
 and apprehended, and distrusted where women of in- 
 finitely lesser gifts had been able to enter into the king- 
 dom with such utter certainty and serenity? 
 
 Sitting through the long evening by the fire, in the 
 drowsy silence of the big drawing-room, Rachael felt 
 her eyes grow heavy. Who was unhappy, who was 
 happy what was all life about anyway 
 
 Dennison and old Mary came in at eleven, and 
 looked at her for a long five minutes. Their eyes said 
 a great many things, although neither spoke aloud. 
 The fire had burned low, the light of a shaded lamp fell 
 softly on the sleeping woman's face. There was a 
 little frown between the beautiful brows, and once she 
 sighed lightly, like a child. 
 
 The man stepped softly back into the hall, and Mary 
 touched her mistress. 
 
 "Mrs. Gregory, you've dropped off to sleep!" 
 
 Rachael roused, looked up, smiling bewilderedly. 
 Her look seemed to search the shadows beyond the 
 old woman's form. Slowly the new look of strain and 
 sorrow came back into her eyes. 
 
 "Why, so I did!" she said, getting to her feet. "I 
 think I'll go upstairs. Any message from Doctor 
 Gregory?" 
 
 "No message, Mrs. Gregory." 
 
 "Thank you, Mary, good-night!" Rachael went 
 slowly out through the dimly lighted arch of the hall 
 doorway, and slowly upstairs. She deliberately passed 
 the nursery door. Her heart was too full to risk a visit 
 to the boys to-night. She lighted her room and sank 
 4azedly into a chair. 
 
276 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I dreamed that we were just married, and in the 
 old studio," she said, half aloud. "I dreamed I had 
 the old feeling again, of being so sure, and so beloved ! 
 I thought Warren had come home early and had brought 
 me violets!" 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A DAY later Dennison brought up the card of Miss 
 Margaret Clay. Rachael turned it slowly in her 
 hands, pondering, with a quickened heartbeat and a 
 fluctuating color. Magsie had been often a guest in 
 Rachael's house a year ago, but she had not been to see 
 Rachael for a long time now. They were to meet, they 
 were to talk alone together what about? There was 
 nothing about which Rachael Gregory cared to talk to 
 Margaret Clay. 
 
 A certain chilliness and trembling smote Rachael, 
 and she sat down. She wished she had been out. It 
 would be simple enough to send down a message to 
 that effect, of course, but that was not the same thing. 
 That would be evading the issue, whereas, had she 
 been put, she could not have held herself responsible 
 for missing Magsie. 
 
 Well, the girl was in the neighborhood, of course, 
 and had simply come in to say how do you do? But 
 it would mean evasions, and affectations, and insincer- 
 ities to talk with Magsie; it would mean lying, unless 
 there must be an open breach. Rachael found herself 
 in a state of actual dread of the encounter, and to 
 end it, impatient at anything so absurd, she asked 
 Dennison to bring the young lady at once to her own 
 sitting-room. 
 
 This was the transformed apartment that had been 
 old Mrs. Gregory's, running straight across the bedroom 
 floor, and commanding from four wide windows a 
 glimpse of the old square, now brave in new feathery 
 green. Rachael had replaced its dull red rep with mod- 
 ern tapestries, had had it papered in peacock and gray, 
 had covered the old, dark woodwork with cream-colored 
 
 277 
 
#78 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 enamel and replaced the black marble mantel with a 
 simply carved one of white stone. The chairs here 
 were all comfortable now; Rachael's book lay on a 
 magazine-littered table, a dozen tiny, leather-cased 
 animals, cows, horses, and sheep, were stabled on the 
 hearth, and the spring sunlight poured in through 
 fragile curtains of crisp net. Over the fireplace the 
 great oil portrait of Warren Gregory smiled down, a 
 younger Warren, but hardly more handsome than he 
 was to-day. A pastel of the boys' lovely heads hung 
 opposite it, between two windows, and photographs of 
 Jim and Derry and their father were everywhere: on 
 the desk, on the little grand piano, under the table 
 lamp. This was Rachael's own domain, and in ask- 
 ing Magsie to come here she consciously chose the 
 environment in which she would feel most at ease. 
 
 Upstairs came the light, tripping feet. "In here?" 
 said the fresh, confident voice. Magsie came in 
 
 Rachael met her at the door, and the two women 
 shook hands. Magsie hardly glanced at her hostess, 
 her dancing scrutiny swept the room and settled on 
 Warren's portrait. 
 
 She looked her prettiest, Rachael decided miserably. 
 She was all in white: white shoes, white stockings, 
 the smartest of little white suits, a white hat half hiding 
 her heavy masses of trimly banded golden hair. If her 
 hard winter had tired Magsie "The Bad Little Lady" 
 was approaching the end of its run she did not show 
 it. But there was some new quality in her face, some 
 quality almost wistful, almost anxious, that made its 
 appeal even to Warren Gregory's wife. 
 
 "This is nice of you, Magsie," Rachael said, watch- 
 ing her closely, and conscious still of that absurd flutter 
 at her heart. Both women had seated themselves, 
 now Rachael reached for the silk-lined basket where 
 she kept a little pretence of needlework, and began to 
 sew. There were several squares of dark rich silks 
 in the basket, and their touch seemed to give her con- 
 fidence. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 279 
 
 "What are you making?" said Magsie with a rather 
 touching pretence at interest. Rachael began to per- 
 ceive that Magsie was ill at ease, too. She knew the 
 girl well enough to know that nothing but her own 
 affairs interested her; it was not like Magsie to ask 
 seriously about another woman's sewing. 
 
 "Warren likes silk handkerchiefs," explained Rachael, 
 all the capable wife, "and those I make are much 
 prettier than those he can find in the shops. So I pick 
 up pieces of silk, from time to time, and keep him 
 supplied." 
 
 "He always has beautiful handkerchiefs," said 
 Magsie rather faintly. "I remember, years ago, when 
 I was with Mrs. Torrence, thinking that Greg always 
 looked so so carefully groomed." 
 
 "A doctor has to be," Rachael answered sensibly. 
 There were no girlish vapors or uncertainties about her 
 manner; she had been the man's wife for nearly seven 
 years; she was in his house; she need not fear Magsie 
 Clay. 
 
 "I suppose so," Magsie said vaguely. 
 
 "What are your plans, Magsie?" Rachael asked 
 kindly, as she threaded a needle. 
 
 "We close on the eighteenth," Magsie announced. 
 
 "Yes, so I noticed." Rachael had looked for th\s 
 news every week since the run of the play began. "Well, 
 that was a successful engagement, wasn't it?" she 
 asked. It began to be rather a satisfaction to Rachael 
 to find herself at such close quarters at last. What a 
 harmless little thing this dreaded opponent was, after all! 
 
 "Yes, they were delighted," Magsie responded still 
 in such a lackadaisical, toneless, and dreary manner 
 that Rachael glanced at her in surprise. Magsie's 
 eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter, my dear child?" she 
 asked, feeling more sure of herself every instant. 
 
 Her guest took a little handkerchief from her pretty 
 white leather purse, and touched her bright brown eyes 
 with it lightly. 
 
280 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I'll tell you, Rachael," said she, with an evident 
 effort at brightness and naturalness, "I came here to 
 see you about something to-day, but I I don't quite 
 know how to begin. Only, whatever you think about 
 it, I want you to remember that your opinion is what 
 counts; you're the one person who who can really 
 advise me, and and perhaps help me and other peo- 
 ple out of a difficulty." 
 
 Rachael looked at her with a twinge of inward dis- 
 taste. This rather dramatic start did not promise 
 well; she was to be treated to some youthful heroics. 
 Instantly the hope came to her that Magsie had some 
 new admirer, someone she would really consider as a 
 husband, and wanted to make of Rachael an advocate 
 with Warren, who, in his present absurd state of in- 
 fatuation, might not find such a situation to his taste. 
 
 "I want to put to you the case of a friend of mine/' 
 Magsie said presently, "a girl who, like myself, is on 
 the stage." Rachael wondered if the girl really hoped 
 to say anything convincing under so thin a disguise, 
 but said nothing herself, and Magsie went on: "She's 
 
 pretty, and young ' Her tone wavered. "We've 
 
 had a nice company all winter," she remarked lamely. 
 
 This was beginning to be rather absurd. Rachael, 
 quite at ease, raised mildly interrogatory eyes to Magsie. 
 
 "You'll go on with your work, now that you've begun 
 so well, won't you ? " she asked casually. 
 
 "W w well, I suppose so," Magsie answered 
 dubiously, flushing a sudden red. "I don't know 
 what I shall do!" 
 
 "But surely you've had an unusually encouraging 
 beginning?" pursued Rachael comfortably. 
 
 "Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that, at least!" 
 Magsie said. About what was there doubt, then? 
 Rachael wondered. 
 
 She deliberately allowed a little silence to follow 
 this remark, smiling, as if at her own thoughts, as she 
 sewed. The younger woman's gaze roved restlessly 
 about the room, she leaned from her chair to take a 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 281 
 
 framed photograph of the boys from a low bookcase, 
 and studied it with evidently forced attention. 
 
 "They're stunning!" she said in an undertone as she 
 laid it aside. 
 
 "They're good little boys," their mother said 
 contentedly. "I know that the queerest persons in 
 the world, about eating and drinking, are actresses, 
 Magsie," she added, smiling, "so I don't know whether 
 to offer you tea, or hot soup, or an egg beaten up in 
 milk, or what! We had a pianist here about a year 
 ago, and " 
 
 "Oh, nothing, nothing, thank you, Rachael!" Magsie 
 said eagerly and nervously. "I couldn't " 
 
 "The boys may be in soon," Rachael remarked, 
 choosing to ignore her guest's rather unexpected emo- 
 tion. 
 
 This seemed to spur Magsie suddenly into speech. 
 She glanced at the tall old moonfaced clock that was 
 slowly ticking near the door, as if to estimate the time 
 left her, and sat suddenly erect on the edge of her chair. 
 
 "I mustn't stay," she said breathlessly. "I I 
 have to be back at the theatre at seven, and I ought to 
 go home first for a few minutes. My girl she's just 
 a Swedish woman that I picked up by chance worries 
 about me as if she were my mother, unless I come in 
 and rest, and take an eggnog, or something." She 
 rallied her forces with a quite visible effort. "It was 
 just this, Rachael," said Magsie, looking at the fire, 
 and twisting her white gloves in desperate embarrass- 
 ment, "I know you've always liked me, you've always 
 been so kind to me, and I can only hope that you'll 
 forgive me if what I say sounds strange to you. I 
 thought I could come here and say it, but I've always 
 been a little bit afraid of you, Rachael and I " Magsie 
 laughed nervously "and I'm scared to death now!" 
 she said simply. 
 
 Something natural, unaffected, and direct in her 
 usually sftlf-conscious and artificial manner struck 
 Rachael with a vague sense of uneasiness. Magsie 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 certainly did not seem to be acting now; there were 
 real tears in her pretty eyes, and a genuine break in her 
 young voice. 
 
 "Fm going straight ahead," she said rapidly, "be- 
 cause Fve been getting up my courage this whole 
 week to come and see you, and now, while Greg is in 
 Albany, I can't put it off any longer. He doesn't know 
 it, of course, and, although I know Fm putting myself 
 entirely at your mercy, Rachael, I believe you'll never 
 tell him if I ask you not to!" 
 
 "I don't understand," Rachael said slowly. 
 
 "Fve been thinking it all out," Magsie went on, 
 "and this is the conclusion at least, this is what Fve 
 thought! You have always had everything, Rachael, 
 You've always been so beautiful, and so much admired. 
 You loved Clarence, and married him oh, don't think 
 Fm rude, Rachael," the girl pleaded eagerly, as Rachael 
 voiced an inarticulate protest, "because Fm so desper- 
 ately in earnest, and s-s-so desperately unhappy!" 
 Her voice broke on a rush of tears, but she commanded 
 it, and hurried on. "You've always been fortunate, 
 not like other women, who had to be second best, 
 but always the cleverest, and always the handsomest! 
 I remember, when I heard you were to marry Greg, I 
 was just sick with misery for two or three days! I 
 had seen him a few weeks before in Paris, but he 
 said nothing of it, didn't even mention you. Don't 
 think I was jealous, Rachael it wasn't that. But it 
 seemed to me that you had everything! First the 
 position of marrying a Breckenridge, then to step 
 straight into Greg's life. You'll never know how I 
 how I singled you out to watch 
 
 "Just as I have singled you out this horrible winter," 
 Rachael said to herself, in strange pain and bewilder- 
 ment at heart. Magsie watched her hopefully, but 
 Rachael did not speak, and the girl went on: 
 
 "When I came to America I thought of you, and I 
 listened to what everyone said of you. You had a 
 splendid boy, named for Greg, and then another boy; 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 283 
 
 you were richer and happier and more admired than 
 ever! And Rachael I know you'll forgive me 
 you were so much finer than ever when I met you I 
 saw that. I couldn't dislike you, I couldn't do any- 
 thing but admire, with all the others. I remember at 
 Leila's wedding, when you wore dark blue and furs, 
 and you looked so lovely! And then I met Greg again.' 
 And truly, truly, Rachael, I never dreamed of this then ! " 
 
 "Dreamed of what?" Rachael said with dry lips. 
 The girl's voice, the darkening room, the dull, fluttering 
 flames of the dying fire, seemed all like some oppressive 
 dream. 
 
 "Dreamed " Magsie's voice sank. Her eyes 
 
 closed, she put one hand over her heart, and pressed it 
 there. "Then came my plan to go on the stage," she 
 said, taking up her story, "and one day, when 1 was 
 especially blue, I met Greg. We had tea together. 
 I've never forgotten one instant of that day! He tried 
 to telephone you, but couldn't get you; we just talked 
 like any friends. But he promised to help me, he was 
 so interested, and I was homesick for Paris, and ready 
 to die in this awful city! After that you gave me a 
 dinner, and then we had theatricals, and then Bowman 
 placed me, and I had to go on the road. But I saw 
 Greg two or three times, and one day one day last 
 winter" again her voice faltered, as if she found the 
 memories too poignant for speech "we drove in the 
 Park," she said dreamily; "and then Greg saw how it 
 
 was." 
 
 Rachael sat silent, stunned. 
 
 "Oh, Rachael," the girl said passionately. "Don't 
 think I didn't fight it! I thought of you, I tried to 
 think for us all. I said we would never see each other 
 again, and I went away you know that! For months 
 after that day in the Park we hardly saw each other. 
 And then, last summer, we met again. And he talked 
 to me so wonderfully, Rachael, about making the best 
 of it, about being good friends anyway and I've lived 
 on that! But I can't live on that forever, Rachael." 
 
284 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "You've been seeing each other?" Rachael asked 
 stupidly. 
 
 "Oh, every day! At tea, you know, or sometimes, 
 especially before you came back, at dinner. And, 
 Rachael, nobody will ever know what it's done for me! 
 Greg's managed all my business, and whenever I was 
 utterly discouraged and tired he had the kindest way 
 of saying: 'Never mind, Magsie, I'm tired and dis- 
 couraged, too!" Magsie's face glowed happily at 
 the memory of it. "I know I'm not worthy of Greg's 
 friendship," she said eagerly. "And all the time I've 
 thought of you, Rachael, as having the first right, as 
 being far, far above me in everything! But I'm 
 telling you everything, you see " Magsie inter- 
 rupted herself to explain. 
 
 "Go on!" Rachael urged, clearing her throat. 
 
 "Well, it's not much. But a week or two ago Greg 
 was talking to me about your being eager to get the 
 boys into the country early this year. He looked 
 awfully tired that afternoon, and he said that he thought 
 he would close this house, and live at the club this 
 summer, and he said 'That means you have a dinner 
 date every night, Magsie!' And suddenly, Rachael 
 I don't know what came over me, but I burst out 
 crying" Magsie's eyes filled now as she thought of 
 it "and I said, 'Oh, Greg, we need each other! Why 
 can't we belong to each other! You love me and I 
 love you; why can't we give up our work and the city 
 and everything else, and just be happy!" 
 
 "And what did Warren say?" Rachael asked in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "Oh, Rachael! That's what I've been remembering 
 ever since!" Magsie said. "That's what made me 
 want to come to you; I knew you would understand! 
 You're so good; you want people to be happy," said 
 Magsie, fighting tears again and trying to smile. "You 
 have everything: your sons, your position, your 
 beauty everything! I'm I'm different from some 
 women, Rachael. I can't just run away with him. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 285 
 
 There is an honorable and a right way to do it, and I 
 want to ask you if you'll let us take that way!" 
 
 "An honorable way?" Rachael echoed in an un- 
 natural voice. 
 
 "Well " Magsie widened innocent eyes. "No- 
 body has ever blamed you for taking it, Rachael!" 
 she said simply. "And nobody ever blamed Clarence, 
 with Paula!" 
 
 Rachael, looking fixedly at her, sat as if turned to 
 stone. 
 
 "You are brave, Magsie, to come and tell me this," 
 she said at last quietly. 
 
 "You are kind to listen to me," Magsie answered 
 with disarming sincerity. "I know it is a strange thing 
 to do." She laughed nervously. "Of course, I know 
 that I " she added. " But it came to me that I would 
 the other day. Greg and I were talking about dreams, 
 you know things we wanted to do. And we talked 
 about going away to some beach, and swimming, and 
 moonlight, and just rest and quiet " 
 
 "I see," Rachael said. 
 
 "Greg said, 'This is only a dream, Magsie, and 
 we mustn't let ourselves dream!" Magsie went 
 on. "But but sometimes dreams come true, don't 
 they?" 
 
 She stopped. There was an unearthlv silence in the 
 room. 
 
 "I've tried to fight it, and I cannot," Magsie pres- 
 ently said in a small, tired voice; "it comes between 
 me and everything I do. I'm not a great actress I 
 know that. I don't even want to be any more. I 
 want to go away where no one will ever see me or hear 
 of me again. I've heard of this feeling" she sent 
 Rachael a brave if rather uncertain smile "but I 
 never believed in it before! I never believed that 
 when when you care" Rachael was grateful to be 
 spared the great word "you can't live or breathe or 
 think anything" again there was an evasion "but 
 the one thing!" 
 
286 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 And with a long, tired sigh, again she relapsed into 
 silence. Rachael could find nothing to say. 
 
 "Honestly, honestly " the younger woman presently 
 added, "you mustn't think that either one of us saw 
 this coming! We were simply carried away. It was 
 only this year, only a few months ago, that I began to 
 think that perhaps perhaps if you understood, you 
 would set Greg free. You want to live just for the 
 boys, you love the country, and books, and a few friends. 
 Your life would go on, Rachael, just as it has, only he 
 would be happy, and I would be happy. Oh, my God," 
 said Magsie, with quivering lips and brimming eyes, 
 "how happy I would be!" 
 
 Rachael looked at her in impassive silence. 
 
 "At all events," the visitor said more composedly, 
 "I have been planning for a week to come to you, 
 Rachael, and have this talk. I may have done more 
 harm than good I don't know; but from the instant 
 I thought of it I have simply been drawn, as if I were 
 under a spell. I haven't said what I meant to, I know 
 that. I haven't said" her smile was wistful and 
 young and sweet, as, rising from her chair, she stood 
 looking down at Rachael "how badly I feel that it 
 it happens so," said Magsie. "But you know how 
 deeply I've always admired you! It must seem strange 
 to you that I would come to you about it. But Ruskin, 
 wasn't it, and Wagner didn't they do something like 
 this? I knew, even if things were changed between 
 you and Greg, that you would be big enough and good 
 enough to help us all to find the the solution, if there 
 is one!" 
 
 Rachael stood up, too, so near her guest that she 
 could put one hand on Magsie's shoulder. The girl 
 looked up at her with the faith of a distressed child. 
 
 "I'm glad you did come, Magsie," said Rachael 
 painfully, "although I never dreamed, until this after- 
 noon, that this could possibly have been in Warren's 
 thoughts. You speak of divorce, quite naturally, as 
 of course anyone may, to me. But I never had 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 287 
 
 thought of it. It's a sad tangle, whatever comes of 
 it, and perhaps you're right in feeling that we had better 
 face it, and try to find the solution, if, as you say, there 
 
 is one." 
 
 And Rachael, breathing a little hard, stood looking 
 down at Magsie with something so benign, so tragic, 
 and so heroic in her beautiful face that the younger 
 woman was a little awed, even a little puzzled, where 
 she had been so sure. She would have liked to put 
 her arms about her hostess's neck, and to seal their 
 extraordinary treaty with a kiss, but she knew better. 
 As well attempt to kiss the vision of a ministering angel. 
 Rachael, one arm on Magsie's shoulder, her whole 
 figure and her face expressing painful indecision, had 
 never seemed so remote, so goddesslike. 
 
 "And and you won't tell him of this?" faltered 
 Magsie. 
 
 "Ah you must leave that to me," Rachael said with 
 a sad smile. 
 
 For a few seconds longer they looked at each other. 
 Then Rachael dropped her arm, and Magsie moved a 
 little. The visitor knew that another sentence must 
 be in farewell, but she felt strangely awkward, curi- 
 ously young and crude. Rachael, except for the fall- 
 ing of her arm, was motionless. Her eyes were far 
 away, she seemed utterly unconscious of herself and her 
 surroundings. Magsie wanted to think of one more 
 thing to say, one clinching sentence, but everything 
 seemed to be said. Something of the other woman's 
 weariness and coldness of spirit seemed to communicate 
 itself to her; she felt tired and desolate. It seemed a 
 small and insignificant matter that she had had her 
 momentous talk with Rachael, and had succeeded in 
 her venture. Love was failing her, life was failing. 
 
 "I hope I haven't distressed you too awfully, 
 Rachael," Magsie faltered. She had not thought of 
 herself, a few hours ago, as distressing Rachael at all. 
 She had thought that Rachael might be scornful, might 
 be cold, might overwhelm her with her magnificence 
 
288 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 of manner, and shame her for her daring. She had 
 come in on a sudden impulse, and had had no time for 
 any thought but that her revelation would be exciting 
 and dramatic and astonishing. She was sincerely 
 anxious to have Warren freed, but not so swept away 
 by emotion that she could not appreciate this lovely 
 setting and her own picturesque position in the eyes 
 of her beautiful rival. 
 
 "Oh, no!" Rachael answered, perfunctorily polite, 
 and with her eyes still fixed darkly on space. And as if 
 half to herself, she added, in a breathless, level under- 
 
 tone: 
 
 "It all rests with Warren!" 
 
 Presently Magsie breathed a faint "Good-bye/* 
 following it with an almost inaudible murmur that 
 Dennison would let her out. Then the white figure 
 was gone from the gloom of the room, and Rachael 
 was alone. 
 
 For a time she was so dazed, so emotionally ex- 
 hausted by the event of the last hour, that she stood on, 
 fixed, unseeing, one hand pressed against her side as if 
 she stopped with it the mouth of a wound. Occasion- 
 ally she drew a long, sharp breath as the dying some- 
 times breathe. 
 
 "It all rests with Warren," she said presently, half- 
 aloud, and in a toneless, passive voice. And slowly 
 she turned and slowly went to the window. 
 
 The room was dark, but twilight lingered in the old 
 square, and home-going men and women were filing 
 across it. The babies and their nurses were gone now, 
 there were only lounging men on the benches. Lumber- 
 ing green omnibuses rocked their way through the 
 great stone arch, and toward the south, over the 
 crowded foreign quarter, the pink of street lamps was 
 beginning to battle with the warm purple and blue 
 that still hung in the evening sky. The season had 
 been long delayed, but now there was a rustle of green 
 against the network of boughs; a few warm days 
 would bring the tulips and the fruit blossoms- 
 
THE HEART OP RACHAEL 289 
 
 What a sweet, good, natural world it was in which 
 to be happy! With its wheeling motor cars, its lovers 
 seated in high security for the long omnibus ride, its 
 laborers pleasantly ready for the home table and the 
 day's domestic news! The chattering little Jewish 
 girls from one of the uptown department stores were 
 gay with shrilly voiced plans; the driver, riding lazily 
 home on a pile of empty bags, had no quarrel with the 
 world; the smooth-haired, unhatted Italian women 
 from the Ghetto, with shawls wrapped over their full 
 breasts, and serene black-eyed babies toddling beside 
 them, were placidly content with the run of their days. 
 It remained for the beautiful woman in the drawing- 
 room to look with melancholy eyes upon the spring- 
 time, and tear out her heart in an agony no human 
 power could cure. 
 
 "It all rests with Warren," Rachael said. Magsie 
 was nothing, she was nothing; the world, the boys, 
 were nothing. It was for Warren to hold their destinies 
 in his hands and decide for them all. No use in raging, 
 in reasoning, in arguing. No use in setting forth the 
 facts, the palpable right and wrong. No use in bitterly 
 asking the unanswering heavens if this were right and 
 just, this system that could allow any young girl to 
 feel any married man, any father, her natural prey. 
 She had come to love Warren just as in a few years 
 she might come to love someone else. That was all 
 permissible; regrettable perhaps for Warren's wife, an 
 unmistakable calamity for Warren's boys, but, from 
 Magsie's standpoint, comprehensible and acceptable. 
 If Warren were free, Magsie was well within her rights; 
 if he were not, Rachael was the last woman in the world 
 to dispute it. 
 
 After a while Rachael began to move mechanically 
 about the room. She sat down at her desk and wrote 
 a few checks; the boys little first dancing lessons 
 must be paid for, the man who mended the clock, the 
 woman who had put all her linen in order. She wrote 
 briskly, reaching quickly for envelopes and stamps, 
 
290 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 and, when she had finished, closed the desk with her 
 usual neatness. She telephoned the kitchen; had she 
 told Louise that Doctor Gregory might come home at 
 midnight? He might be at home for breakfast. Then 
 she glanced about the quiet room, and went softly 
 put, through the inner door, to her own bedroom ad- 
 joining. She walked on little usual errands between 
 bureau and wardrobe, steadily proceeding with the 
 changing of her gown. Once she stopped short, in the 
 centre of the floor, and stood musing for a few silent 
 minutes, then she said, aloud and lightly: 
 
 "Poor Magsie it's all so absurd!" 
 
 If for a few seconds her thoughts wandered, they 
 always came swiftly back. Magsie and Warren had 
 fallen in love with each other wanted to marry each 
 other. Rachael tried to marshal her whirling thoughts; 
 there must be simple reason somewhere in this chaotic 
 matter. She had the desperate sensation of a mad- 
 woman trying to prove herself sane. Were they all 
 crazy, to have got themselves into this hideous fix? 
 What was definite, what facts had they upon which to 
 build their surmises? 
 
 Warren was her husband, that was one fact; Warren 
 loved her, that was another. They had lived together 
 for nearly eight years, planned together, they knew each 
 other now, heart and soul. And there were two sons. 
 These being facts for Rachael, what facts had Magsie? 
 Rachael's heart rose on a wild rush of confidence. 
 Magsie had no basis for her pretension. Magsie was 
 young, and she had madly and blindly fallen in love. 
 There was her single claim: she loved. Rachael could 
 not doubt it after that hour in the sitting-room. But 
 what pitiable folly! To love and to admit love for 
 another woman's husband ! 
 
 Thinking, thinking, thinking, Rachael lay awake all 
 night. She composed herself a hundred times for 
 sleep, and a hundred times sleep evaded her. Magsie 
 Warren Rachael. Their names swept round and 
 round in her tired brain. She was talking to Magsie r 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 291 
 
 so eloquently and kindly; she was talking to Warren. 
 Warren was shocked at the mere thought of her sus- 
 picions, had seen nothing, had suspected nothing, 
 couldn't believe that Rachael could be so foolish! 
 Warren's arms were about her, he was going to take 
 her and the boys away. This was a bad atmosphere 
 for wives, this diseased and abnormal city, Warren 
 said. She was buying steamer coats for Deny and 
 Jim 
 
 Magsie! Again the girl's tense, excited face rose 
 before Rachael's fevered memory. "You mustn't 
 think either one of us saw this coming!" 
 
 Rachael rose on her elbow, shook her pillows, flashed 
 a night-light on her watch. Quarter to three. It was 
 a rather dismal hour, she thought, not near enough 
 either midnight or morning. Tossing so long, she would 
 be sleepless all night now. 
 
 Well, what was marriage anyway? Was there never 
 a time of serenity, of surety? Was any pretty, ir^ 
 responsible young woman free to set her heart upon 
 another woman's husband, the father of another wo- 
 man's children? Rachael suddenly thought of Clar- 
 ence. How different the whole thing had seemed then I 
 Clarence's pride, Clarence's child, had they been so 
 hurt as her pride and her children were to be hurt 
 now? 
 
 She must not allow herself to be so easily frightened. 
 She had been thinking too many months of the one 
 thing; she could not see it fairly. Why, Magsie had 
 been infinitely more dangerous in the early days of 
 her success; there was nothing to fear from the simple, 
 apprehensive Magsie of this afternoon! The only 
 sensible thing was to stop thinking of it, and to go to 
 sleep. But Rachael felt sick and frightened, experi- 
 enced sensations of faintness, sensations like hunger. 
 Her eyes seemed painfully open, she could not shut 
 them. Her breath came fitfully. She sighed, turned 
 on her side. She would count one hundred, breathing 
 deep and with closed eyes. "Sixteen, seventeen!" 
 
292 THE HEART OF RACIIAEL 
 
 Rachael sat suddenly erect, and looked at her watch 
 again. Twenty-two minutes past three. 
 
 Morning broke with wind and rain; the new leaves 
 in the square were tossing wildly; sleet struck noisily 
 against the windows. Rachael, waking exhausted, 
 after not more than an hour's sleep, went through the 
 process of dressing in a weary daze. The boys, as 
 was usual, came in during the hour, full of fresh con- 
 versation and eager to discuss plans for the day. Jim 
 tied strings from knob to knob of her bureau drawers, 
 Derry amused himself by dashing a chain of glass 
 beads against the foot of the bed until the links gave and 
 the tiny balls rolled in every direction over the floor. 
 
 "Never mind," Rachael consoled the discomfited 
 junior, "Pauline will come in and pick them all up. 
 Mother doesn't care!" 
 
 Derry, however, howled on unconsoled, and Rachael, 
 stopping, half-dressed, to take him in her arms, mused 
 while she kissed him over the tiny sorrow that could 
 so convulse him. Was she no more than a howling 
 baby robbed of a toy? Nothing could be more real 
 than Derry's sense of loss, no human being could weep 
 more desolately or more unreasonably. Were her 
 love and her life no more than a string of baubles, 
 scattered and flung about by some irresponsible hand? 
 Was nothing real except the great moving sea and the 
 arch of stars above the spring nights ? Life and death, 
 and laughter and tears, how unimportant they were! 
 Eight years ago she had felt herself to be unhappy; 
 now she knew that in those days she had known neither 
 sorrow nor joy. Since then, what an ecstasy of ful- 
 filled desire had been hers! She had lived upon the 
 heights, she had tasted the fullest and the sweetest 
 of human emotions. What other woman Cleopatra, 
 Helen, all the great queens of countries and of art 
 had known more exquisite delight than hers had been 
 in those first days when she had waited for Warren to 
 come to her with violets ? 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 293 
 
 The morning went on like an ugly dream. At nine 
 o'clock Rachael sent down an untouched breakfast tray. 
 Mary took the boys out into the struggling sunshine. 
 The house was still. 
 
 Rachael lay on her wide couch, staring wretchedly 
 into space. Her head ached. The moonfaced clock 
 struck a slow ten, the hall clock downstairs following 
 it with a brisk silver chime. Vendors in the square 
 called their wares; the first carts of potted spring 
 flowers were going their rounds. 
 
 Shortly after ten o'clock she heard Warren run up- 
 stairs and into his room. She could hear his voice at 
 the telephone; he wanted the hospital Doctor Gregory 
 wished to speak to Miss Moore. 
 
 Miss Moore? Doctor Gregory would be there at 
 eleven . . . please have everything ready. Miss Moore, 
 who was a veteran nurse and a privileged character, 
 asked some question as to the Albany case; Warren 
 wearily answered that the patient had not rallied; 
 it was too bad too bad. 
 
 Once it would have been Rachael's delight to soothe 
 him, to give him the strong coffee he needed before 
 eleven o'clock, to ask about the poor Albany man. 
 Now she hardly heard him. Beginning to tremble, 
 she sat up, her heart beating fast. 
 
 "Warren!" she called in a shaken voice. 
 
 He came to her door immediately, and they faced 
 each other, his perfunctory greeting arrested by her look. 
 
 "Warren/ 5 said Rachael with a desperate effort at 
 control, "I want you to tell me about about you and 
 Magsie Clay/; 
 
 Instantly his face darkened. He gazed back at her 
 steadily, narrowing his eyes. 
 
 "What about it?" he asked sharply. 
 
 Rachael knew that she was growing angry against 
 her passionate resolution to keep the conversation in 
 her own hands. 
 
 "Magsie came to see me yesterday/' she said, pant- 
 ing. 
 
294 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Had she touched him? She could not tell. There 
 was no wavering in his impassive face. 
 
 "What about it?" he asked again after a silence. 
 
 His wife pushed the rich, tumbled hair from her face 
 with a wild gesture, as if she fought for air. 
 
 "What about it?" she echoed, in a constrained tone, 
 still with that quickened shallow breath. "Do you 
 think it is customary for a girl to come to a man's wi%> 
 and tell her that she cares for him ? Do you think it is 
 customary for a man to have tea every day with a young 
 actress who admits she is in love with him 
 
 "I don't know what you're talking about!" Warren 
 said, his face a dull red. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that you don't know that 
 Margaret Clay cares for you," Rachael asked in rising 
 anger, "and that you have never told her you care for 
 her that you and she have never talked about it, 
 have never wished that you were free to belong to each 
 other!" 
 
 "You will make yourself ill!" Warren said quietly, 
 watching her. 
 
 His tone brought Rachael abruptly to her senses. 
 Fury and accusation were not her best defence. With 
 Warren calm and dignified she would only hurt her 
 claim by this course. In a second she was herself 
 again, her breath grew normal, she straightened her 
 hair, and with a brief shrug walked slowly from the 
 room into her own sitting-room adjoining. Following 
 her, Warren found her looking down at the square 
 from the window. 
 
 "If you are implying anything against Magsie, you 
 are merely making yourself ridiculous, Rachael," he 
 said nervously. "Neither Magsie nor I have for- 
 gotten your claim for a single instant. If she came 
 here and talked to you, she did so absolutely without 
 my knowledge." 
 
 "She said so," Rachael admitted, heart and mind in 
 a whirl. 
 
 "From a sense of protection for her," Warren 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 295 
 
 went on, "I did not tell you how much we have come to 
 mean to each other. I am extremely unwilling to 
 discuss it now. There is nothing to be said, as far as 
 I am concerned. It is better not to discuss it; we shall 
 not agree. That Magsie could come here and talk to 
 you surprises me. I naturally don't know what she 
 said, or what impression she gave you. I would only 
 remind you that she is young and unhappy." He 
 glanced at the morning paper he carried in his hand 
 with an air of casual interest, and added in a moderate 
 undertone, "It's an unhappy business!" 
 
 Rachael stood as if she had been shot through the 
 heart motionless, dumb. She felt the inward physical 
 convulsion that might have followed an actual shot. 
 Her heart seemed to be struggling under a choking 
 flood, and black circles moved before her eyes. 
 
 Watching her, Warren presently began to enlarge 
 upon the subject. His tone was that of frank and un- 
 ashamed, if regretful, narrative. Rachael perceived, 
 with utter stupefaction, that although he was sorry, 
 and even angry at being drawn into this talk, he was 
 far from being confused or ashamed. 
 
 "I am sorry for this, Rachael," he began in the 
 logical tone she knew so well. "I think, frankly, that 
 Magsie made a mistake in coming to you. The situ- 
 ation isn't of my making. Magsie, being a woman, 
 being impulsive and impatient, has taken the law into 
 her own hands." He shrugged. "She may have been 
 wise, or unwise, I can't tell!" 
 
 He paused, but Rachael did not speak or stir. 
 
 Warren had rolled up the paper, and now, in his 
 pacing, reaching the end of the room, he turned, and, 
 thrusting it into his armpit, came back with folded 
 arms. 
 
 "Now that this thing has come up," he said in a 
 practical tone, "it is a great satisfaction to me to realize 
 now reasonable a woman you are. I want you to know 
 just how this whole thing happened. Magsie has 
 always been a most attractive girl to me. I remember 
 
296 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 her in Paris, years ago, young, and with a pretty little 
 way of turning her head, and effective eyes." 
 
 "I know all this, Warren!" Rachael said wearily. 
 
 "I know you do. But let me recapitulate it," he 
 said, resuming in a businesslike voice: "When I 
 met her at Hoyt's wedding I knew right away that we 
 had a personality to deal with something rare! I 
 remember thinking then that it would be interesting 
 to see whom she cared for, what that volcanic little 
 
 heart would be in love Time went on; we saw 
 
 more of her. I met her, now and then, we had the 
 theatricals, and the California trip. One day, that 
 fall, in the Park, I took her for a drive, innocently 
 enough, nothing prearranged. And I remember ask- 
 ing if any lucky man had made an impression upon 
 her." 
 
 Warren smiled, his eyes absent. Rachael's look of 
 superb scorn was wasted. 
 
 "It came to me in a flash," he went on, "that Magsie 
 had come to care for me. Poor little Magsie, she 
 hadn't meant to, she hadn't seen it coming. I re- 
 member her looking up at me she didn't have to say 
 a word. 'I'm sorry, Magsie/ I said. That was all. 
 The touching thing was that even in that trouble she 
 turned to me. We talked it over,, I took her back to 
 her hotel, and very simply she said, 'Kiss me, once, 
 Greg, and I'll be good!' After that I didn't see her for 
 a long, long time. 
 
 "It seemed to me a sacred charge you can see that. 
 I couldn't doubt it, the evidence was right there before 
 my eyes, and thinking it over, I couldn't be much 
 surprised. We were in the fix, and of course there was 
 nothing to be done. She went away and that was the 
 end of it, then. But when I saw her again last winter 
 the whole miserable business came up. The rest, of 
 course, she told you. She is unhappy and rebellious, 
 or she would never have dared to come to you! I can't 
 understand her doing so, now, for Magsie is a good little 
 sport, Rachael; she knows you have the right of way. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 297 
 
 The affair has always been with that understanding. 
 However much I feel for Magsie, and regret the whole 
 thing why, I am not a cad!" He struck her to her 
 heart with his friendly smile. "You brought the sub- 
 ject up; I don't care to discuss it," he said. "I don't 
 question your actions, and all I ask is that you will not 
 question mine!" 
 
 "Perhaps the world may some day question them, 
 Warren!" Rachael tried to speak quietly, but she was 
 beginning to be frightened at her own violence. She 
 shook with actual chill, her mouth was dry and her 
 cheeks blazing. 
 
 "The world?" He shrugged. "I can hardly see 
 that it is the world's business that you go your way and 
 I go mine!" he said reasonably. He glanced at his 
 watch. "Perhaps you will be so good as to say no 
 more about it?" he suggested. "I have no time, now, 
 anyway. Marriage 
 
 "Warren!" Rachael interrupted hoarsely. She 
 stopped. 
 
 "Marriage," he went on, "never stands still! A 
 man and woman are growing nearer together hourly, 
 or they are growing apart. There is no need, between 
 reasonable beings, for recriminations and bitterness. 
 A man is only a man, after all, and if I have been carried 
 off my feet by Magsie as I admit I have been why, 
 such things have happened before! When she and 
 my wife who might have protected my dignity 
 meet to discuss the question of their feelings, and their 
 rights, then I confess that I am beyond my depth." 
 
 He took a deep chair and sat back, his knees crossed, 
 his elbow on the chair arm, his chin resting on his hand, 
 as one conscious of scoring a point. 
 
 "And what about the boys' feelings and rights?" 
 Rachael said in a low, tense tone. 
 
 "There you are!'; Warren exclaimed. "It's all 
 absurd on the face of it the whole tangle!" 
 
 His wife looked at him in grave, dispassionate 
 scrutiny. Of what was he made, this handsome, well- 
 
298 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 groomed man of forty-eight? What fatal infection 
 had poisoned heart and brain? She saw him this 
 morning as a stranger, and as a most repellent 
 stranger. 
 
 "But it is a tangle in which one still sees right and 
 wrong, Warren," she said, desperately struggling for 
 calm. "Human relationships can't be discussed as 
 if they were the moves on a chess-board. I make no 
 claim for myself the time has gone by when I could 
 do so but there is honor and decency in the world, 
 there is simple uprightness! Your attentions, as a 
 married man, can only do Magsie harm, and your 
 daring" suddenly she began restlessly to pace the 
 floor as he had done "your daring in coming here to 
 me, to tell me that any other woman has a claim on 
 you," she said, beginning to breathe violently, "only 
 shows me how blind, how drugged you are with I 
 don't know what to call it with your own utter law- 
 lessness! What right has Margaret Clay compared to 
 my right? Are my claims, and my sons' claims, to be 
 swept aside because a little idle girl of Magsie's age 
 chooses to flirt with my husband? What is marriage, 
 anyway what is parenthood? Are you mad, Warren, 
 that you can come here to our home and talk of * tan- 
 gles' and rights? Do you think I am going to argue 
 it with you, going to belittle my own position by ad- 
 mitting, for one second, that it is open to question ? " 
 
 She flashed him one blazing look, then resumed her 
 walking and her angry rush of words. 
 
 "Why, if some four-year-old child came in here and 
 began to contend for Derry's place," Rachael asked 
 passionately, "how long would we seriously consider 
 his right? If I must dispute the title of Magsie Clay 
 this year, why not of Jennie Jones next year, of Polly 
 Smith the year after that? If " 
 
 "Now you are talking recklessly," Warren Gregory 
 said quietly, "and you have entirely lost sight of the 
 point at issue. Nobody is attempting a controversy 
 with you." 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 299 
 
 The cool, analytical voice robbed Rachael of all her 
 fire. She sat down, and was silent. 
 
 "What you say is quite true," pursued Warren, "and 
 of course, if a woman chooses to stand on her rights 
 if it becomes a question of legal obligation 
 
 "Warren! When was our marriage that?" 
 
 "I don't say it was that! I am protesting because 
 you talk of rights and titles. I only say that if the 
 problem has come down to a mere question of what is 
 legal, why, that in itself is a confession of failure!" 
 
 "Failure!" she echoed with white lips. 
 
 "I am not speaking of ourselves, I tell you!" he said, 
 annoyed. "But can any sane person in these days 
 deny that when a man and woman no longer pull to- 
 gether in double harness, our world accepts an honor- 
 able change?" 
 
 Rachael was silent. These had been her words 
 eight years ago. 
 
 "They may have reasons for not making that change," 
 Warren went on logically; "they may prefer to go on, 
 as thousands of people do, to present a perfectly smooth 
 exterior to the world. But don't be so unfair as to 
 assume that what hundreds of good and reputable 
 men and women are doing every day is essentially 
 wrong!" 
 
 "You know that you may say this to me, Warren," 
 she said with a leaden heart. 
 
 "Anybody may say it to anybody!" he answered 
 irritably. "Tying a man and a woman together doesn't 
 necessarily make them " 
 
 She interrupted with a quick, breathless, "Warren !" 
 
 "Well!" Again he shrugged his shoulders and again 
 glanced at his watch. "It seems to me that you 
 shouldn't have spoken of the matter if you were not 
 prepared to discuss it!" he said. 
 
 Rachael felt the room whirling. She could neither 
 see nor feel anything now but the fury that possessed 
 her. Perhaps twice in her life before, never with him, 
 had she so given way to anger. 
 
300 THE HEART OF &ACHAEL 
 
 "/ shouldn't have spoken of it, Warren!" she echoed. 
 "I should have borne it, and smiled, and said nothing! 
 Perhaps I should! Perhaps some women would have 
 done that 
 
 "Rachael!" he interrupted quickly. But she swept 
 down his words in the wild tide of her own. 
 
 "Warren!" she said with deadly decision, "I'm not 
 that sort of woman. You've had your fun now 
 it's my turn! Now it's my turn!" Rachael repeated 
 in a voiceless undertone as she rapidly paced the room. 
 "Now you can turn to the world, and see what the world 
 thinks! Let them know how often you and Magsie 
 have been together, let them know that she came 
 here to ask me to set you free, and then see what the 
 general verdict is! I'm not going to hush this up, to 
 refrain from discussing it because you don't care to, 
 because it hurts your feelings ! It shall be discussed, and 
 you shall be free! You shall be free, and if you choose 
 to put Magsie Clay here in my place, you may do so!' 
 
 "Rachael!" he said angrily. And he caught her 
 thin wrists in his hands. 
 
 "Don't touch me!" she said, wrenching herself free. 
 "Don't touch me, you cruel and wicked and heart- 
 less ! Go to Magsie! Tell her that I sent you to 
 
 her! Take your hands off me, Warren " 
 
 Standing back, discomfited, he attempted reason. 
 
 "Rachael! Don't talk so! I don't know what to 
 make of you! Why, I never saw you like this. I never 
 heard you " 
 
 The door of her room closed behind her. She was 
 gone. A long silence fell in the troubled room where 
 their voices had warred so lately. 
 
 Warren looked at his watch, looked at her door. 
 Then he went out the other door, and downstairs, and 
 out of the house. Rachael heard him go. She was 
 still breathing fast, still blind to everything but her 
 own fury. She would punish him, she would punish 
 him. He should have his verdict from the world he 
 trusted so serenely; he should have his Magsie. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 301 
 
 The clocks struck eleven: first the slow clock in her 
 sitting-room, then the quick silvery echo from down- 
 stairs. Rachael glanced about nervously. The Bank 
 the boys' lunches the trunks 
 
 She went downstairs. In the little breakfast-room 
 off the big dining-room the array of Warren's breakfast 
 waited. Old Mary, with the boys, had just come in 
 the side door. 
 
 "Mary," Rachael said quickly, "I want you to help 
 me. Pack some clothes for the boys and me, and give 
 them some luncheon. We are going down to Clark's 
 Hills on the two o'clock train " 
 
 "My God! Mrs. Gregory, you look very bad, my 
 dear!" said Mary. 
 
 The unconscious endearment, the shock and con- 
 cern visible on Mary's homely, honest face were too 
 much for Rachael. Her face changed to ivory, she 
 put one hand to her throat, and her lips quivered. 
 
 "Help me some coffee Mary!" she whispered. 
 " I think I'm dying! '" 
 
BOOK* III 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 WARREN went to the hospital and performed his 
 operation. It was a long, hard strain for all concerned, 
 and the nurses told each other afterward that you could 
 see Doctor Gregory's heart was in it, he looked as bad 
 as the child's father and mother did. It was after 
 one o'clock when the surgeons got out of their white 
 gowns, and Warren was in the cold, watery sunlight 
 of the street before he realized that he had had nothing 
 to eat since his dinner in Albany last night. 
 
 He looked about vaguely; there were plenty of 
 places all about where he could get a meal. He saw 
 Magsie 
 
 Magsie often drove about in hansom-cabs they 
 were one of her delights; and more than once of late 
 she had come to meet Warren at some hospital, or 
 even to pick him up at the club. But this was the first 
 time that she had done so without prearrangement. 
 
 She leaned out of the cab, a picture of youth and 
 beauty, and waved a white glove. How did she know 
 he was in here ? she echoed his question. He had written 
 her from Albany that he would operate at Doctor 
 Berry's hospital this morning she reminded him. And 
 where was he going now ? 
 
 "I'm awfully worried this morning, honey-girl," 
 said Warren, "and I can't stop to play with nice little 
 Magsies in new blue dresses! My head is blazing, and 
 I believe I'll go home " 
 
 "When did you get in, and where did you have break- 
 fast?" she asked with pretty concern. "Greg, you've 
 not had any? Oh, I believe he hasn't had any! And 
 it's after one, and you've been operating! Get straight 
 in " 
 
 305 
 
306 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "No, dear!" he smiled as she moved to one side of 
 the seat, and packed her thin skirts neatly under her, 
 "not to-day! Fll- 
 
 " Warren Gregory!" said Magsie sternly, "you get 
 right straight in here, and come and have your break-* 
 fast! Now, what's nearest? The Biltmore!" She 
 poked the upper door with her slim umbrella. "To 
 the Biltmore!" commanded Magsie. 
 
 At a quiet table Warren had coffee and eggs and 
 toast, and more coffee, and finally his cigar. The 
 color came back into his face, and he looked less tired. 
 
 Magsie was a rather simple little soul under her 
 casing of Parisian veneer, and was often innocently 
 surprised at the potency of her own charm. That men, 
 big men and wise men, were inclined to take her artful 
 artlessness at its surface value was a continual revela- 
 tion to her. Like Rachael, she had gone to bed the 
 night before in a profoundly thoughtful frame of mind, 
 a little apprehensive as to Warren's view of her call, 
 and uneasy as to the state in which she had left his 
 wife. But, unlike Rachael, Magsie had not been 
 wakeful long. The consideration of other people's 
 attitudes never troubled her for more than a few con- 
 secutive minutes. She had been genuinely stirred by 
 her talk that afternoon, and was honestly determined 
 to become Mrs. Warren Gregory; but these feelings 
 did not prevent her from looking back, with thrilled 
 complacence, to the scene in Rachael's sitting-room, 
 and from remembering that it was a dramatic and 
 heroic thing for a slender, pretty girl in white to go to 
 a man's wife and plead for her love. "No harm done, 
 anyway!" Magsie had reflected drowsily, drifting off 
 to sleep; and she had awakened conscious of no emo- 
 tion stronger than a mild trepidation at the possibility 
 of Warren's wrath. 
 
 Dainty and sweet, she came to meet him halfway, 
 and now sat congratulating herself that he was soothed, 
 fed, and placidly smoking before their conversation 
 reached deep channels. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 307 
 
 "Greg, dear, I've got a horrible confession to make!' 5 
 began Magsie when this propitious moment arrived. 
 
 "You mean your call on Rachael?" he asked quickly, 
 the shadow coming back to his eyes. "Why did you 
 do it?" 
 
 Magsie was conscious of being frightened. 
 
 "Was she surprised, Greg?" 
 
 "I don't know that she was surprised. Of course 
 she was angry." 
 
 "Well," Magsie said, widening her childish eyes, 
 "didn't you expect her to be angry?" 
 
 "I didn't expect her to take any attitude what- 
 ever," Warren said with a look half puzzled and half 
 reproving. 
 
 "Greg!" Magsie was quite honestly astonished. 
 "What did you expect her to do? Give you a divorce 
 without any feeling whatever?" 
 
 There was no misunderstanding her. For a full 
 minute Warren stared at her in silence. In that minute 
 he remembered some of his recent talks with Magsie, 
 some of his notes and presents, he remembered the 
 plan that involved a desert island, sea-bathing, moon- 
 light, and solitude. 
 
 "I think, if you had been listening to us," Magsie 
 went on, as he did not answer, "you could not 
 have objected to one word I said! And Rachael 
 was lovely, Greg. She told me she would not contest 
 it " 
 
 ||Shetold-youlfatf?" 
 
 "Well, she said several times that it must be as you 
 decide." Magsie dimpled demurely. "And I was 
 nice, too!" she asserted youthfully. "I didn't tell 
 her about this and this!" and with one movement of 
 her pretty hand Magsie indicated the big emerald on 
 her ring finger and the heavy bracelet of mesh gold 
 about her wrist. Suddenly her face brightened, and 
 with an eager movement she leaned across the narrow 
 table, and caught his hand in both her own. "Ah, 
 Greg," she said tenderly, "does it seem true, that after 
 
308 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 all these months of talking, and hoping, you and T 
 are going to belong to each other?" 
 
 "But I have no idea that Rachael is seriously con- 
 sidering a divorce," Warren said slowly. "Why 
 should she? She has no cause!" 
 
 "She thinks she has!" Magsie said triumphantly. 
 
 "She isn't the sort of woman to think things without 
 reason," W T arren said. 
 
 "She doesn't have to think," Magsie assured him 
 with the same air of satisfaction; "she knows! Every- 
 one knows how much you and I have been together; 
 everyone knows that you backed 'The Bad Little 
 Lady' " 
 
 "Everyone has no right to draw conclusions from 
 that!" Warren said. 
 
 Magsie shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "And what do we care, Greg? I don't care what 
 the world thinks as long as I have you! Let them 
 have the letters, let them buzz we'll be miles away, 
 and we won't care! And in a year or two, Greg, we'll 
 come back, and they'll all flock about us you'll see! 
 That's the advantage of a name like the Gregory name! 
 Why, who among them all dropped Clarence on Paula's 
 account, or Rachael on Clarence's?" 
 
 "Your going to see her has certainly complicated 
 things," Warren said reflectively. 
 
 "On the contrary," Magsie said confidently, "it has 
 cleared things up. It had to come, Greg; every time 
 you and I talked about it we brought the inevitable 
 nearer! Why, you weren't ever at home. Could that 
 have gone on forever? You had no home, no wife, no 
 freedom. I was simply getting sick of the whole thing! 
 Now at least we're all open and aboveboard; all we've 
 got to do is quietly set the wheels in motion!" 
 
 "Well, I'll tell you what must be the first step, 
 Magsie," Warren said after thought; "I'm going home 
 now to see Rachael. I'll talk the whole thing over 
 with her. Then I'll come to see you." 
 
 "Positively?" asked Magsie. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 309 
 
 "Positively." 
 
 "You won't just telephone that you're delayed, 
 Greg, and leave me to wonder and worry?" the girl 
 asked wistfully. "I'll wait until any hour!" He 
 looked at her kindly, with a gentleness of aspect new 
 in their relationship. 
 
 "No, dear. It's nearly three now. I'll come take 
 you to tea at, say, half-past four. I am operating 
 again to-night, at nine, and some time I've got to get 
 in a bath and some sleep. But there'll be time for 
 
 tea." 
 
 Magsie chattered gayly, but Warren was almost 
 silent as they gathered together their belongings, and 
 went out to the street. He called her another cab and 
 beckoned to the man who was waiting with his own car. 
 
 "In a few months, perhaps," said Magsie at part- 
 ing, "when he's all tired and cross, I'll make him coffee 
 at home, and see that he gets his rest and quiet whenever 
 he needs it!" 
 
 She did not like his answer. 
 
 " Rachael's a wonder at that sort of thing," he said. 
 Magsie had not heard him speak so of his wife for 
 months. "In fact, she spoils me," he added. 
 
 "Spoils you by leaving you alone in this hot town 
 for six months out of every year?" Magsie laughed 
 lightly. "Good-bye, dear! At half-past four?" 
 
 But even while he nodded Warren Gregory was re- 
 solving, in his soul, that he must never see Magsie 
 Clay again. His world was strange and alarming; 
 was falling to pieces about him. He was thirsting for 
 Rachael: her voice, her reproaches, her forgiveness. 
 In seven minutes he would be at home talking to his 
 wife 
 
 Dennison reported, with an impassive face, that Mrs. 
 Gregory had left two hours ago with the children. He 
 believed that they were gone to the Long Island house, 
 sir. Warren, stupefied, went slowly upstairs to have 
 the news confirmed by Pauline. Mrs. Gregory had 
 taken Mary and Millie, sir. And there was a note. 
 
310 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Of course there was a note. To emotion like Rachael's 
 emotion silence was the only unthinkable thing. She 
 had planned a dozen notes, written perhaps five. The 
 one she left was brief: 
 
 MY DEAR WARREN: I am leaving with the children 
 for Clark's Hills. You will know best what steps to take in 
 the matter of the freedom you desire. I will cooperate in 
 any way. I have written Magsie that I will not contest 
 your divorce. If for any reason you come to Clark's Hills, 
 I will of course be obliged to see you. I ask you not to come. 
 Please spare me another such talk as ours this morning. I 
 have plenty of money. 
 
 Always faithfully, R. G. 
 
 Warren read it, and stood in the middle of her bed- 
 room with the sheet crushed in his hand. Pauline 
 had put the empty room in order in terrible and des- 
 olate order. Usually there were flowers in the jars 
 and glass bowls, a doll's chair by the bed, and a woolly 
 animal seated in the chair; a dainty litter of lace 
 scattered on Rachael's sewing-table. Usually she was 
 there when he came in tired, to look up beautiful and 
 concerned: "Something to eat, dear, or are you going 
 to lie down?" 
 
 Standing here with the note that ended it all in his 
 hand, he wondered if he was the same man who had 
 so often met that inquiry with an impatient: "Just 
 please don't bother me, dear!" Who had met the suc- 
 ceeding question with, "I don't know whether I shall 
 dine here or not!" 
 
 It was half-past three. In an hour he would see 
 Magsie. 
 
 In that hour Magsie had received Rachael's note, 
 and her heart sang. For the first time, in what she 
 Would have described as this "funny, mixed-up busi- 
 ness," she began seriously to contemplate her elevation 
 to the dignity of Warren Gregory's wife. Rachael's 
 note was capable of only one interpretation: she would 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 311 
 
 no longer stand in their way. She was taking the boys 
 to the country, and had given Warren the definite 
 assurance of her agreement to his divorce. If necessary, 
 on condition that her claim to the children was granted, 
 she would establish her residence in some Western city, 
 and proceed with the legal steps from there. 
 
 Magsie was frightened, excited, and thrilled all at 
 once. She felt as if she had set some enormous ma- 
 chinery in motion, and was not quite sure of how it 
 might be controlled. But on the whole, complacency 
 underlay all other emotions. She was going to be 
 married to the richest and nicest and most important 
 man of her acquaintance! 
 
 At heart, however, her manner belied her; Magsie 
 had little self-confidence. She lived in a French girl's 
 terror that youth would leave her before she had time 
 to make a good match. If nobody knew better than 
 Magsie that she was pretty, also nobody knew better 
 that she was not clever. Men tired of her dimples 
 and giggles and round eyes. Bryan Masters admired 
 her, to be sure, but then Bryan Masters was also a 
 divorced man, and an actor whose popularity was al- 
 ready on the wane. Richie Gardiner admired her in 
 his pathetic, hopeless way, and Richie was young and 
 rich. But Magsie shuddered away from Richie's 
 coughing and fainting; his tonics and his diet had no 
 place in her robust and joyous scheme of life. Besides, 
 all Magsie's world would envy her capture of Greg; 
 he belonged to New York. And Richie's father had 
 been a miner, and his mother was "impossible!" 
 
 Magsie dressed exquisitely for the tea; it seemed to 
 her that she had never been so pleasantly excited in 
 her life. She felt a part of the humming, crowded city, 
 the spring wind and the uncertain sky. Life was 
 thrilling and surprising. 
 
 Half-past four o'clock came, and Warren came. 
 They were in Magsie's little apartment now, and she 
 could go into his arms. Warren was rather quiet as 
 they went out to tea, but Magsie did not notice it. 
 
312 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 As a matter of fact, the man was bewildered; he 
 was tired and worried about his work; but that was 
 the least of it. He could not believe that the day's 
 dazing and flying memories were real the Albany 
 train, Rachael's room, the hospital, Magsie and the 
 Biltmore breakfast-room, Rachael's room again, and 
 now again Magsie. 
 
 Were the lawsuits about which one read in the papers 
 based on no more than this ? Apparently not. Magsie 
 seemed perfectly confident of the outcome; Rachael 
 had not shown any doubt. One woman had practically 
 presented him to the other; the law was to be con- 
 sulted. 
 
 The law? How would those letters of Magsie's 
 read if the law got hold of them? His memory flew 
 from note to note. These hastily scratched words 
 would be flung to the wind of gossip, that wind that 
 blew so merrily among the houses where he was known. 
 He had called Magsie his "wonder-child " and his "good 
 little bad girl!" He had given her rings and sashes 
 and a gold purse and a hat and white fox furs any one 
 gift he had made her was innocent enough in itself! 
 But taken with all the others 
 
 Magsie was in high feather; some tiresome pre- 
 liminaries, and the day was won! She had not planned 
 so definite a campaign, but it was all coming about 
 in a fashion that more than fulfilled her plans. So, 
 said Magsie to herself, stirring her tea, that was to be 
 her fate: Paris, America, the stage, and then a rich 
 marriage? Well, so be it. She could not complain, 
 
 "Greg," she said a dozen times, "isn't it all like a 
 aream?" 
 
 To Warren Gregory, as he walked down the street 
 after leaving her at the theatre, it was indeed like a 
 dream, a frightful dream. He could hardly credit his 
 senses, hardly believe that all these horrible things 
 were true, that Rachael knew all about Magsie, and 
 that Magsie was quietly thinking of divorce and mar- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 313 
 
 riage! Rachael, in such a rage, rushing away with the 
 boys why, he had made no secret of his admiration 
 for Magsie from Rachael, he had often talked to her 
 enthusiastically of Magsie! And here she was furi- 
 ously offering him his freedom. 
 
 Well, what had he done after all? What a prepos-. 
 terous fuss about nothing. His thoughts were checked 
 and chilled by the memory of letters that Magsie had. 
 Magsie could prove nothing by those letters 
 
 But what a fool they would make him! Warren 
 Gregory remembered the case of a dignified college 
 professor whose private correspondence had recently 
 been given to the press, and he felt a cool shudder run 
 down his spine. Rachael, reading those letters! It 
 was unthinkable! She and the world would think him 
 a fool! It came to him suddenly that she and the 
 world would be right. He was a fool, and it was a 
 fool's paradise in which he had been wandering: to 
 take his wife and home and sons for granted, and to 
 spend all his leisure at the feet of a calculating little 
 gill like Magsie! 
 
 "What did you expect her to do?" Magsie had 
 asked. What would any sane man expect her to do? 
 Smile with him at the new favorite's charms, and take 
 up her life in loneliness and neglect? 
 
 And now, Rachael was gone, and he stood promised 
 to Magsie. So much was clear. Rachael would fight 
 for her divorce. Magsie would fight for her husband. 
 
 "Oh, my God, how did we ever get into this sicken- 
 ing, sickening mess ? " Warren said out loud in his misery. 
 
 He had not dined, he did not think of dinner as he 
 paced the windy, cool city streets hour after hour. 
 Nine struck, and he hailed a cab, and went to the 
 hospital, moving through his work like a man in a 
 dream. The woman whose life he chanced to save 
 throughout all her days would say she had had a lovely 
 doctor. Warren hardly saw her. He thought only 
 of Magsie, Magsie who had in her possession a number 
 of compromising letters, every one sillier than the 
 
314 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 last Magsie, who expected him to divorce his wife 
 and marry her. He was in such a state of terror 
 that he could not think. Every instant brought 
 more disquiet to his thoughts; he felt as if, when he 
 stepped out into the street again, the newsboys might 
 be calling his divorce, as if honor and safety and happi- 
 ness were gone forever. 
 
 He did not see Magsie again that night, but walked 
 and walked, entering his house sick and haggard, and 
 sleeping the hours restlessly away. 
 
 At nine o'clock the next morning he went to the 
 telephone, and called the Valentine house. Doctor 
 Valentine was not at home, he was informed. Was Mrs. 
 Valentine there? Would she speak to Doctor Gregory? 
 
 A long pause. Then the maid's pleasant impersonal 
 voice again. Mrs. Valentine begged Doctor Gregory 
 to excuse her. 
 
 Warren felt as if he had been struck in the face. 
 Under the eyes of irreproachable and voiceless servants 
 he moved about his silent house. The hush of death 
 seemed to him to lie heavy in the lovely rooms that 
 had been Rachael's delight, and over the city that was 
 just breaking into the green of spring. He dressed s 
 and left directions with unusual sternness; he would bt 
 at the hospital, or the club, if he was wanted. He> 
 would come home to dinner at seven. 
 
 "Mrs. Gregory may be back in a day or so, Pauline/ 
 he said. "I wish you'd keep her rooms in order-- 
 flowers, and all that." 
 
 "Yes, sir," Pauline said respectfully. "Excuse me, 
 Doctor " she added. 
 
 "Well?" said Warren as she paused. 
 
 "Excuse me, Doctor, but I telephoned Mrs. Prince 
 yesterday, as Mrs. Gregory suggested," Pauline went 
 on timidly, "and she would be glad to have me come 
 at any time, sir." 
 
 Warren's expression did not change. 
 
 "You mean that Mrs. Gregory dismissed you?" he 
 suggested. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 315 
 
 "Yes, sir!" said Pauline with a sniff. "She paid 
 me for- 
 
 "Then I should make an arrangement with Mrs. 
 Prince, by all means!". Warren said evenly. But a 
 deathlike terror convulsed his heart. Rachael had 
 burned her bridges! 
 
 He sent Magsie a note and flowers. He was "trou- 
 bled by unexpected developments," he said, and too 
 busy to see her to-day, but he would see her to-rnorrow. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MAGSIE had awakened to a sense of pleasure im- 
 pending. It was many months since she had felt so 
 important and so sure of herself. Her self-esteem 
 had received more than one blow of late. Bowman 
 had attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little 
 Lady" on the road; Magsie had indignantly declined. 
 He had then offered her a poor part in a summer farce; 
 about this Magsie had not yet made up her mind. 
 
 Now, she said to herself, reading Warren's note over 
 her late breakfast tray, perhaps she might treat Mr. 
 Bowman to the snubbing she had long been anxious 
 to give him. Perhaps she might spend the summer 
 quietly, inconspicuously, somewhere, placidly await- 
 ing the hour when she would come out gloriously before 
 the world as Warren Gregory's wife. Not at all a bad 
 prospect for the daughter of old Mrs. Torrence's com- 
 panion and housekeeper. 
 
 A caller was announced and was admitted, a thin, 
 restless woman who looked thirty-five despite or per- 
 haps because of the rouge on her sunken cheeks and 
 the smart gown she wore. The years had not treated 
 Carol Pickering kindly: she was an embittered, dis- 
 satisfied woman now, noisily interested in the stage as a 
 possible escape from matrimony for herself, and hence 
 interested in Magsie, with whom she had lately formed 
 a sort of suspicious and resentful intimacy. 
 
 Joe Pickering had entirely justified in eight years 
 the misgivings felt toward him by everyone who had 
 Carol Breckenridge's interests at heart. His wife had 
 come to him rich, and a few hours after their wed- 
 ding her father's death had more than doubled the 
 fortune left her by her grandmother. But it would be 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 317 
 
 a sturdy legacy indeed that might hope to resist such 
 inroads as the aimless and ill-matched young couple 
 made upon it from their first day together. 
 
 Idly acquiring, idly losing, being cheated and robbed 
 on all sides, they drifted through an unhappy and ex- 
 citing year or two, finally investing much of their 
 money in bonds, and a handsome residue in that fa- 
 vorite dream of such young wasters: the breeding of 
 horses for the polo market. "What if we lose it all 
 which we won't we've still got the bonds!" Joe Pick- 
 ering, leaden pockets under his eyes, his weak lips 
 hanging loose, had said with his unsteady laugh. 
 What inevitably followed, and what he had not fore- 
 seen, was that he should lose more than half the bonds, 
 too. They were seriously crippled now, and began to 
 quarrel, to hate each other for a greater part of the 
 time; and their little son's handsome dark eyes fell 
 on some sad scenes. But now, in the child's sixth 
 year, they were still together, still appearing in public, 
 and still, in that mysterious way known only to their 
 type, rushing about on motor parties, buying cham- 
 pagne, and entertaining after a fashion in their cramped 
 but pretentious apartment. 
 
 Of late Billy had been seriously considering the 
 stage. She was but twenty-six, after all, and she still 
 had a girl's thirst for admiration and for excitement. 
 She had called on Magsie, entertained the young 
 actress, and the two had discovered a certain affinity. 
 Magsie was delighted to see her now. They greeted 
 each other affectionately, and Magsie, sending out 
 her tray, settled herself comfortably in her pillows, and 
 took the interested Carol entirely into her confidence, 
 with the single reservation of Warren Gregory's name. 
 
 "Handsome, and rich as Croesus, and his wife 
 would divorce him, and belongs to one of the best 
 families," summarized Billy. "Why, I think you 
 would be a fool to do anything else!" 
 
 "S'pose I would," dimpled Magsie in interesting 
 embarrassment. 
 
318 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Have a heart, and tell me who it is," teased Carol, 
 slipping her foot from her low shoe to study a hole in 
 the heel of her silk stocking. 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't!" Magsie protested. 
 
 "Well, I shall guess, if I can," the other woman 
 warned her. And presently she added: "I'll tell you 
 what, if you do give it up, I'm going straight to Bow- 
 man, and ask for your place in your new show! There's 
 nothing about it that I couldn't do, and I believe he 
 might give me a chance! I'll tell you what: you wait 
 until the last moment before you tell him, and then he 
 can't be prepared in advance. And I'll risk having 
 Jacqueline make me a couple of gowns, and be all ready 
 to jump in. I'll learn the part, too," said Billy kin- 
 dling; "you'll coach me in it, won't you ? " 
 
 "Of course I will!" Magsie agreed, but she did not 
 say it heartily. The conversation was not extremely 
 pleasing to Magsie at the moment. She loved Warren, 
 of course, but it was certainly a good deal to resign, 
 even to marry a Gregory of New York! Why, here 
 was Billy, who had been a rich man's daughter, and 
 had married the man of her choice, and had a nice child, 
 mad to step into her shoes! 
 
 And it was a painful reflection that probably Billy 
 could do it. Billy was smart, she had a dash and 
 finish about her that might well catch a manager's eye, 
 and more than that, it was a rather poor part. It was 
 no such part as Magsie had had in "The Bad Little 
 Lady." There was a comedian in this cast, and . a 
 matinee idol for a leading man, and Magsie must con- 
 tent herself with a part and a salary much smaller than 
 was given to either of these. 
 
 She thought of Warren, and also fleetingly of Bryan 
 Masters, and even of Richie Gardiner, and decided 
 that it was a bitter and empty world, and she wished 
 she had never been born. Bowman would be smart 
 enough to see that he need pay Billy almost no salary, 
 that she might be a discovery the discovery for which 
 all managers are always so pathetically on the alert* 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 319 
 
 and that in case the play failed Magsie was sure, this 
 morning, that it would be the flattest failure ever seen 
 on Broadway he would have no irate leading lady to 
 pacify; Billy would be only too grateful for the op- 
 portunity to try and fail. 
 
 "Farce is the most difficult thing in the world to 
 play," she said, now clinging desperately to her little 
 distinction. 
 
 "Oh, I know that!" Billy answered absently. She 
 would have a smart apartment on the Drive, and dear 
 little old Breck should drive with her in the Park, and 
 go to the smartest boys' school in the country 
 
 "And of course, I may not marry!" said Magsie. 
 
 Carol hardly heard her. She was looking about the 
 comfortable hotel apartment, all in a pretty disorder 
 now, with Magsie's various possessions scattered about. 
 There were pictures of actors on the mantel, heavily 
 autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly into vases. 
 There was a great sheaf of Killarney roses ; the envelope 
 that had held a card still dangled from their stems. 
 Carol would have given a great deal to know whose 
 card had been torn from it, and whose name was ring- 
 ing just now in Magsie's brain. She even cared enough 
 to tentatively interrogate Anna, Magsie's faithful 
 Swedish woman. 
 
 "Well, perhaps we shall have a change here, Anna?' 
 Billy said brightly but cautiously, when she was in the 
 hall. She wondered whether the woman would let 
 her slip a bill into her hand. 
 
 "Maybe," said Anna impassively. 
 
 "How shall you like keeping house for a man and 
 wife?" Billy pursued. 
 
 "Aye do that bayfore," remarked Anna, responsive 
 to this kindly interest; "aye ban hahr savan yahre, 
 now, en des country." 
 
 "And do you like Miss Clay's young man?" Billy 
 said boldly. But at this shift of topic the light faded 
 from Anna's infantile blue eyes, and a wary look re- 
 placed it. 
 
820 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "She got more as one feller," she remarked discour- 
 agingly. Billy, outfaced, departed, feeling rather con- 
 temptible as she walked down the street. Joe was at 
 home; she had left him in bed when she left the house 
 at ten o'clock, and little Breck had been rather list- 
 lessly chatting with the colored boy in the elevator, 
 and had begged his mother to take him downtown. 
 Billy was really sorry for the little boy, but she did 
 not know what to do about it; she wondered what 
 Dther women did with little lonely boys of six. If she 
 went home, it would not materially better the situation; 
 the cook was cross to-day anyway, and would be crosser 
 if Joe shouted for his breakfast in his usual ungracious 
 manner. She could not go to Jacqueline and talk 
 dresses unless she was willing to pay something on 
 the last bill. 
 
 Billy thought of the bank, as she always did think of 
 the bank, when her reflections reached this point. 
 There were the bonds, not as many as they had been, 
 but still fine, salable bonds. She could pay the cook, 
 pay the dressmaker, take Breck home a game, look 
 at hats, spend the day in exactly the manner that 
 pleased her best. She had promised Joe that they 
 would discuss the sale of the next one together when 
 they had sold the last bond, a month ago, and avoid it 
 if possible. But what difference did one make? a 
 paltry fifty dollars a year! Perhaps it would be pos- 
 sible not to tell Joe 
 
 Billy looked in her purse. She had a dollar bill 
 and fifty cents, more than enough to take her to the 
 bank in appropriate style. She signalled a taxicab. 
 
 Magsie did not see Warren the next day, but they 
 had tea and a talk on the day following. She told 
 him gayly that he needed cheering, and presently took 
 him into Tiffany's, where Warren found himself buying 
 her a coveted emerald. Somehow during the after- 
 noon he found himself talking and planning as if they 
 really loved each other, and really were to be married. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 321 
 
 But it was an unsatisfactory hour. Magsie was ex- 
 cited and nervous, and was rather relieved than other- 
 wise that her interviews with her admirer were nec- 
 essarily short. As a matter of fact, the undisciplined 
 little creature was overtired and unreasonable. She 
 would have given her whole future for a quiet week in 
 bed, with frivolous novels to read, and Anna to spoil 
 her, no captious manager to please, no exhausting 
 performances to madden her with a sense of her own 
 and other people's imperfections, and no Warren to 
 worry her with his long face. 
 
 Added to Magsie's trials, in this dreadful week, was 
 an interview with the imposing mother of young Richie 
 Gardiner, a handsome, florid lady, who had inherited 
 a large fortune from the miner husband whose fortunes 
 she had gallantly shared through some extraordinary 
 adventures in Nome. Mrs. Gardiner idolized her son; 
 she was not inclined to be generous to the little flippant 
 actress who had broken his heart. Richie would not 
 go to the healing desert, he would not go to any place 
 out of sound of Miss Clay's voice, out of the light of 
 Miss Clay's eyes. Mrs. Gardiner had no objection 
 to Magsie's person, nor to her profession, the fact being 
 that her own origin had been even more humble than 
 that of Miss Clay, but she wanted the treasure of her 
 boy's love to be appreciated; she had been envying, 
 since the hour of his birth, the woman who should win 
 Richie's love. 
 
 Stout, overdressed, deep-voiced, she came to see the 
 actress, and they both cried; Magsie said that she 
 was sorry she was so bitterly sorry but, yes, there 
 was someone else. Mrs. Gardiner shrugged philo- 
 sophically, wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath. No 
 help for it! Presently she heavily departed; her solid 
 weight, her tinkling spangles, and her rainbow plumes 
 vanished into the limousine, and she was whirled away. 
 
 Magsie sighed; these complications were romantic. 
 What could one do? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SILENT, abstracted, unsmiling, Rachael got through 
 the days. She ate what Mary put before her, slept 
 fairly well, answered the puzzled boys the second time 
 they addressed her. She buckled sandals, read fairy 
 tales, brushed the unruly heads, and listened to the 
 wavering prayers day after day. Her eyes were 
 strained, her usually quick, definite motions curiously 
 uncertain; otherwise there was little change. 
 
 Alice, in spite of her husband's half protest, went 
 down to Clark's Hills, deciding in the first hour that the 
 worst of the matter was all over and Rachael quite 
 herself, gradually becoming doubtful, and returning 
 home in despair. Her tearful account took George 
 down to the country house a week later. 
 
 Rachael met them; they dined with her. She was 
 interested about the Valentine children, interested in 
 their summer plans. She laughed as she quoted Derry's 
 latest ventures with words. She walked to her gate 
 to wave them good-bye on Monday morning, and told 
 Alice that she was counting the days until the big 
 family came down. But George and Alice were heavy 
 hearted as they drove away. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Alice, anxious eyes upon her 
 husband's kind, homely face. "She's like a person 
 recovering from a blow. She's not sick; but, George, 
 she isn't well!" 
 
 "No, she's not well," George agreed soberly. "Bad 
 glitter in her eyes, and I don't like that calm for fiery 
 Rachael! Well, you'll be down here in a week or 
 two- 
 
 "Last week," Alice said not for the first time, "she 
 only spoke of of the trouble, you know once. We 
 
 822 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 323 
 
 were just going out to dinner, and she turned to me, 
 and said: *I didn't like my bargain eight years ago, 
 Alice, and I tore my contract to pieces! Now I'll pay 
 for it.'" 
 
 "And you said?" 
 
 "I said, 'Oh, nonsense, Rachael. Don't be mor- 
 bid! There's no parallel between the cases!" 
 
 "H'm!" The doctor was silent for a long time. 
 "I don't know what Greg's doing," he added after 
 thought. 
 
 "The question is, what is Magsie doing?" said Alice. 
 
 "In my opinion, Rachael's simply blown up," George 
 submitted. 
 
 "Magsie told her they had talked of marriage!'* 
 Alice countered. George gave an incredulous snort. 
 
 "Well, then, Magsie lied," he said firmly. 
 
 "She really isn't the lying type, George. And there's 
 no question that Greg and she did see each other every 
 day, and that he wrote her letters and gave her pres- 
 ents!" Alice finished rather timidly, for her husband's 
 face was a thunder-cloud. The old car flew along at 
 thirty-five miles an hour. 
 
 "Damn fool I" George presently muttered. Alice 
 glanced at him in sympathetic concern. 
 
 "George, why don't you see him?" 
 
 George preserved a stern silence for perhaps two 
 flying minutes, then he sighed. 
 
 "Oh, he'll come to me fast enough when he needs 
 me! Lord, I've pulled old Greg out of trouble before." 
 His whole face grew tender as he added: "You know 
 Greg is a genius, Alice; he's not like other men!" 
 
 "I should hope he wasn't!" said Alice with spirit. 
 
 "We 11!" She was sorry for her vehemence when 
 George merely shook his head and ended the conver- 
 sation on the monosyllable. After a while she at- 
 tempted to reopen the subject. 
 
 "If geniuses can act that way, I'd rather have our 
 girls marry grocers!" 
 
 The girls' father smiled absently. 
 
324 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Oh, well, of course!" he conceded. 
 
 "Greg is no more a genius than you are, George," 
 argued Alice. 
 
 "Oh, Alice, Alice!" he protested, really distressed, 
 "don't ever let anyone hear you say that! Why, that 
 only shows that you don't know what Greg is. Lord, 
 the man seems to have an absolute instinct for bones; 
 he'll take a chance when not one of the rest will! No, 
 you mark my words, Alice, Greg has let Magsie Clay 
 make a fool of him; he's been overtired and nervous 
 we've all seen that but he's as innocent of any 
 actual harm in this thing as our Gogo!" 
 
 "Innocent!" sniffed Alice. "He'll break Rachael's 
 heart with his innocence, and then he'll marry Magsie 
 Clay you'll see!" 
 
 "He'll come to me to get him out of it within the 
 month you'll see!" George retorted. 
 
 "He'll keep out of your way!" Alice predicted con- 
 fidently. "I know Greg. He has to be perfect or 
 nothing." 
 
 But it was only ten days later that Warren Gregory 
 walked up the steps of the Valentine house at about 
 ten o'clock on a silent, hazy morning. George had not 
 yet left the house for the day. The drawing-room 
 furniture was swathed in linen covers, and a collection 
 of golf irons, fishing rods, canoe paddles, and tennis 
 rackets crowded the hallway. The young Valentines 
 were departing for the country to-morrow, and their 
 excited voices echoed from above stairs. 
 
 Warren had supposed them already gone. Rachael 
 was alone, then, he reflected, alone in that desolate 
 little country village! He nodded to the maid, and 
 asked in a guarded tone for Doctor Valentine. A 
 moment later George Valentine came into the drawing- 
 room, and the two men exchanged a look strange to 
 their twenty years of affectionate intercourse. Warren 
 attempted mere cold dignity; he was on the defen- 
 sive, and he knew it. George's look verged on con- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 325 
 
 tempt, thinly veiled by a polite interest in his visitor's 
 errand. 
 
 "George," said Warren suddenly, when he had asked 
 for Alice and the children, and an awkward silence had 
 made itself felt; "George, I'm in trouble. I I won- 
 der if you can help me out?" 
 
 He could hardly have made a more fortunate begin- 
 ning; halting as the words were, and miserable as 
 was the look that accompanied them, both rang true 
 to the older man, and went straight to his heart. 
 
 "Fin sorry to hear it," George said. 
 
 Warren folded his arms, and regarded his friend 
 steadily across them. 
 
 "You know Rachael has left me, George?" he began. 
 
 "I well, yes, Alice went down there first, and then 
 I went down," George said. "We only came back 
 ten days ago." There was another brief silence. 
 
 "She she hasn't any cause for this, you know, 
 George," Warren said, ending it, after watching the 
 other man hopefully for further suggestion. 
 
 "Hasn't, huh?" George asked thoughtfully, hope- 
 fully. 
 
 "No, she hasn't!" Warren reiterated, gaining con- 
 fidence. "I've been a fool, I admit that, but Rachael 
 has no cause to go off at half-cock, this way!" 
 
 "What d'you mean by that?" George asked flatly. 
 "What do you mean you've been a fool?" 
 
 "I've been a fool about Magsie Clay," Warren ad- 
 mitted, "and Rachael learned about it, that's all. My 
 Lord! there never was an instant in my life when I 
 took it seriously, I give you my word, George!" 
 
 "Well, if Rachael takes it seriously, and Magsie 
 takes it seriously, you may find yourself beginning to 
 take it seriously, too," George said with a dull man's 
 simple evasion of confusing elements. 
 
 "Rachael may get her divorce," Warren said des- 
 perately. "I can't help that, I suppose. I've got a 
 letter from her here she left it. I don't know what she 
 thinks! But I'll never marry Margaret Clay that 
 
326 THE HEART OF BACHAEL 
 
 much is settled. I'll leave town my work's ended> 
 I might as well be dead. God knows I wish I were!" 
 
 "Just how far have you gone with Magsie?" George 
 interrupted quietly. 
 
 "Why, nothing at all!" Warren said. "Flowers, 
 handbags, things like that! I've kissed her, but I 
 swear Rachael never gave me any reason to think 
 she'd mind that." 
 
 "How often have you seen her?" George asked in 
 a somewhat relieved tone. "Have you seen her once 
 a week?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ! I say frankly that this was a a flirtation, 
 George. I've seen her pretty nearly every day " 
 
 "But she hasn't got any letters nothing like that?" 
 
 Warren's confident expression changed. 
 
 "Well, yes, she has some letters. I damn it! I 
 am a fool, George! I swear I wrote them just as I 
 might to anybody. I I knew it mattered to her, 
 you know, and that she looked for them. I don't know 
 how they'd read!" 
 
 George was silent, scowling, and Warren said, 
 "Damn it!" again nervously, before the other man 
 said: 
 
 "What do you think she will do?" 
 
 "I don't know, George," Warren said honestly. 
 
 "Could you buy her off?" George presently asked 
 after thought. 
 
 "Magsie? Never! She's not that type. She's one 
 of ourselves as to that, George. It was that that 
 made me like Magsie she's a lady, you know. She 
 thinks she's in love; she wants to be married. And if 
 Rachael divorces me, what else can I do?" 
 
 "Rachael wants the divorce for the boys," George 
 said. "She told Alice so. She said that except for 
 that, nothing on earth would have made her consider 
 it. But she doesn't want you and Magsie Clay to 
 have any hold over her sons and can you blame her? 
 She's been dragged through all this once. You might 
 have thought of that!" 
 
THE HEART OF BACHAEL 327 
 
 "Oh, my God!" Warren said, stopping by the 
 mantel, and putting his face in his hands. 
 
 "Well, what did you think would happen?" George 
 asked as Magsie had asked. 
 
 Then for perhaps two long minutes there was ab- 
 solute silence, while Warren remained motionless, and 
 George, in great distress, rubbed his upstanding hair. 
 
 "George, what shall I do?" Warren burst out at 
 length. 
 
 "Why, now I'll tell you," the older man said in a 
 tone that carried exquisite balm to his listener. "Alice 
 and I have talked this over, of course, and this seems 
 to me to be the only way out: we know you, old man 
 that's what hurts. Alice and I know exactly what 
 has got you into this thing. You're too easy, Warren. 
 You think because you mean honorably by Magsie 
 Clay, and amuse yourself by being generous to her, 
 that Magsie means honorably by you. You've got 
 a high standard of morals, Greg, but where they differ 
 from the common standards you fail. If the world is 
 going to put a certain construction upon your atten- 
 tions to an actress, it doesn't matter what private con- 
 struction you happen to put upon them! Wake up, 
 and realize what a fool you are to try to buck the con- 
 ventions! What you need is to study other people's 
 morals, not to be eternally justifying and analyzing 
 your own. I don't know how you'll come out of this 
 thing. Upon my word, it's the worst mess we ever 
 got into since you misquoted Professor Diggs and he 
 sued you. Remember that?" 
 
 "Oh, George my God how you stood by me then," 
 Warren said. "Get me out of this, and I'll believe 
 that there never was a friend like you in the world! I 
 don't know what I ever did to have you and Alice 
 stand by me 
 
 "Alice isn't standing by you to any conspicuous 
 extent," George Valentine said smilingly, "although, 
 last night, when she was putting the girls to bed, she 
 put her arms about Martha, and said, 'George, she 
 
328 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 wouldn't be here to-day if Greg hadn't taken the chance 
 and cut that thing out of her throat!' At which, of 
 course," Doctor Valentine added with his boyish smile, 
 "Martha's dad had to wipe his eyes, and Martha's 
 mother began to cry!" 
 
 And again he frankly wiped his eyes. 
 
 "However, the thing is this," he presently resumed, 
 "if you could buy off Magsie simply tell her frankly 
 that you've been a fool, that you don't want to go on 
 with it no, eh?" A little discouraged by Warren's 
 dubious shake of the head, he went on to the next 
 suggestion. "Well, then, if you can't tell her that 
 there cannot be any talk at present of a legal separation, 
 and that you are going away. Would you have the 
 nerve to do that? Tell her that you'll be back in 
 eight months or a year. But of course the best thing 
 would be to buy her off, or call it off in some way, and 
 then write Rachael fully, frankly tell her the whole 
 thing, ask her to wait at least one year, and then let 
 you see her 
 
 Warren could see himself writing this letter, could 
 even see himself walking into the dear old sitting-room 
 at Home Dunes. 
 
 "I might see Magsie," he said after thought, "and 
 ask her what she would take in place of what she wants. 
 It's just possible, but I don't believe she would 
 
 "Well, what could she do if you simply called the 
 whole thing off?" George asked. "Hang it! it's a 
 beastly thing to do, but if she wants money, you've 
 got it, and you've done her no harm, though nobody'll 
 believe that." 
 
 "She'll take the heartbroken attitude," Warren said 
 slowly. "She'll say that she trusted me, that she 
 can't believe me, and so on." 
 
 "Well, you can stand that. Just set your jaw, and 
 think of Rachael, and go through with it once and for 
 all." 
 
 "Yes, but then if she should turn to Rachael again?" 
 
 "Ah, well, she mustn't do that. Let her think that, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 327 
 
 "Oh, my God!" Warren said, stopping by the 
 mantel, and putting his face in his hands. 
 
 "Well, what did you think would happen?" George 
 asked as Magsie had asked. 
 
 Then for perhaps two long minutes there was ab- 
 solute silence, while Warren remained motionless, and 
 George, in great distress, rubbed his upstanding hair. 
 
 "George, what shall I do?" Warren burst out at 
 length. 
 
 "Why, now I'll tell you," the older man said in a 
 tone that carried exquisite balm to his listener. "Alice 
 and I have talked this over, of course, and this seems 
 to me to be the only way out: we know you, old man 
 that's what hurts. Alice and I know exactly what 
 has got you into this thing. You're too easy, Warren. 
 You think because you mean honorably by Magsie 
 Clay, and amuse yourself by being generous to her, 
 that Magsie means honorably by you. You've got 
 a high standard of morals, Greg, but where they differ 
 from the common standards you fail. If the world is 
 going to put a certain construction upon your atten- 
 tions to an actress, it doesn't matter what private con- 
 struction you happen to put upon them! Wake up, 
 and realize what a fool you are to try to buck the con- 
 ventions! What you need is to study other people's 
 morals, not to be eternally justifying and analyzing 
 your own. I don't know how you'll come out of this 
 thing. Upon my word, it's the worst mess we ever 
 got into since you misquoted Professor Diggs and he 
 sued you. Remember that?" 
 
 "Oh, George my God how you stood by me then," 
 Warren said. "Get me out of this, and I'll believe 
 that there never was a friend like you in the world! I 
 don't know what I ever did to have you and Alice 
 stand by me 
 
 "Alice isn't standing by you to any conspicuous 
 extent," George Valentine said smilingly, "although, 
 last night, when she was putting the girls to bed, she 
 put her arms about Martha, and said, 'George, she 
 
330 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 would be heaven, no less! What comradeship they had 
 had, they two, what theatre trips, what summer days in 
 the car, what communion over the first baby's downy 
 head, what conferences over the new papers and cre- 
 tonnes for Home Dunes ! 
 
 Girded by these and a hundred other sacred memories 
 he went to Magsie, who was busy, the maid told him, 
 with her hairdresser. But she presently came out to 
 him, wrapped snugly in a magnificent embroidered 
 kimono, and with her masses of bright hair, almost 
 dry, hanging about her lovely little face. She had 
 never in all their intercourse shown him quke this touch 
 of intimacy before, and he felt with a little wince of 
 his heart that it was a sign of her approaching pos- 
 session. 
 
 "Greg, dear," said Magsie seating herself on the 
 arm of his chair, and resting her soft little person against 
 him, "I've been thinking about you, and about the 
 wonderful, wonderful way that all our troubles have 
 come out! If anyone had told us, two months ago, 
 that Rachael would set you free, and that all this 
 would have happened, we wouldn't have believed 
 it, would we? I watched you walking down the 
 street yesterday afternoon, and, oh, Greg, I hope I'm 
 going to be a good wife to you; I hope I'm going 
 to make up to you for all the misery you've had to 
 bear!" 
 
 This was not the opening sentence Warren was ex- 
 pecting. Magsie had been petulant the day before, 
 and had pettishly declared that she would not wait a 
 year for any man in the world. Warren had at once 
 seized the opening to say that he would not hold her to 
 anything against her will, to be answered by a burst of 
 tears, and an entreaty not to be "so mean." Then 
 Magsie had to be soothed, and they had gone to tea 
 as a part of that familiar process. But to-day her mood 
 was different; she was full of youthful enthusiasm for 
 the future. 
 
 "You know I love Rachael, Greg, and of course she 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 331 
 
 is a most exceptional woman," bubbled Magsie happily, 
 "but she doesn't appreciate the fact that you're a 
 genius you're not a little everyday husband, to be 
 held to her ideas of what's done and what isn't done! 
 Big men are a law unto themselves. If Rachael wants 
 to hang over babies' cribs, and scare you to death every 
 time Jim sneezes- 
 Warren listened no further. His mind went astray 
 on a memory of the night Jim was feverish, a memory 
 of Rachael in her trailing dull-blue robe, with her thick 
 braids hanging over her shoulders. He remembered 
 that Jim was promised the circus if he would take his 
 medicine; and how Rachael, with smiling lips and 
 anxious eyes, had described the big lions and the 
 elephants for the little restless potentate 
 
 " because I've had enough of Bowman, and enough 
 of this city, and all I ask is to run away with you, and 
 never think of rehearsals and routes and all the rest 
 of it in my life again ! " Magsie was saying. Presently 
 she seemed to notice his silence, for she asked abruptly: 
 "Where's Rachael?" 
 
 W T arren roused himself from deep thought. 
 "At the Long Island house; at Clark's Hills." 
 "Oh!" Magsie, no was now seated opposite him, 
 clasped her hands ^rashly about her knees. "What is 
 the plan, Greg?" she asked vivaciously. 
 
 "Her plan?" Warren said clearing his throat. 
 "Our plan!" Magsie amended contentedly. And 
 she summarized the case briskly: "Rachael consents 
 to a divorce, we know that. I am not going on with 
 Bowman, I've decided that. Now what?" She eyed 
 his brooding face curiously. "\Vhat shall I do, Greg? 
 I suppose we oughtn't to see each other as we did last 
 summer? If Rachael goes West and I suppose she 
 will shall I go up to the Villalongas' ? They're terribly 
 nice to me; and I think Vera suspects 
 
 "What makes you think she does?" Warren asked, 
 feeling as if a hot, dry wind suddenly smote his skin. 
 "Because she's so nice to me!" Magsie answered 
 
332 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 triumphantly. "Rachael's been just a little snippy to 
 Vera," she confided further, "or Vera thinks she has. 
 She's not been up there for ages ! I could tell Vera " 
 
 Warren's power of reasoning was dissipated in an 
 absolute panic. But George had primed him for this 
 talk. He assumed an air of business. 
 
 "There are several things to think of, Magsie," he 
 said briskly, "before we can go farther. In the first 
 place, you must spend the summer comfortably. I've 
 arranged for that " 
 
 He handed her a small yellow bank-book. Magsie 
 glanced at it; glanced at him. 
 
 "Oh, Greg, dear, you're too generous!" 
 
 "I'm not generous at all," he answered with an hon- 
 est flush. "I know what I am now, Magsie. I'm a 
 cad." 
 
 "Who says you're a cad?" Magsie demanded in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 "I say so!" he answered. "Any man is a cad who 
 gets two women into a mess like this ! " 
 
 "Greg, dear, you shan't say so!" Her slender 
 arms were about his neck. 
 
 "Well " He disengaged the arms, and went on 
 
 with his planning. "George VaL ~tine is going to see 
 Rachael," he proceeded. 
 
 "About the divorce?" said Magsie with a nod. 
 
 "About the whole thing. And George thinks I had 
 better go away." 
 
 "Where?" demanded Magsie. 
 
 "Oh, travelling somewhere." 
 
 "Rio?" dimpled Magsie. "You know you have 
 always had a sneaking desire to see Rio." 
 
 Warren smiled mechanically. It had been Rachael's 
 favorite dream "when the boys are big enough!" His 
 sons were they bathing this minute, or eagerly empty- 
 ing their blue porridge bowls ? 
 
 "Magsie, dear," he said slowly, "it's a miserable 
 business this. I'm as sorry as I can be about it. 
 But the truth is that George wants me to get away only 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 333 
 
 until he and Alice can get Rachael into a mood where 
 she'll forgive me. They see this whole crazy thing as 
 it really is, dear. I'm not a young man, Magsie, I'm 
 nearly fifty. I have no business to think of anything 
 
 but my own wife and my work and my children 
 
 Don't look so, Magsie," he broke off to say; "I only 
 blame myself! I have loved you I do love you but 
 it's only a man's love for a sweet little amusing friend. 
 Can't we can't we stop it right here? You do what 
 you please; draw on me for twice that, for ten times 
 that; have a long, restful summer, and then come back 
 in the fall as if this was all a dream " 
 
 Magsie had been watching him steadily during this 
 speech, a long speech for him. At first she had been 
 obviously puzzled, then astonished, now she was angry. 
 She had grown pale, her pretty childish mouth was a 
 little open, her breath coming fast. For a full minute, 
 as his voice halted, there was silence. 
 
 "Then then you didn't mean all you said?" Magsie 
 demanded stormily, after the pause. "You didn't 
 mean that you cared ? You didn't mean the letters, 
 and the presents, and the talks we've had ? You knew 
 / was in earnest, but you were just fooling!" Sheer 
 excitement and fury kept her panting for a moment, 
 then she went on: "But I think I know who's done 
 this, Greg!" she said viciously; "it's Mrs. Valentine. 
 She and her husband have been talking to you; they've 
 done it. She's persuaded you that you never were 
 in earnest with me!" Magsie ran across the room, 
 flung open the little desk that stood there, and tore the 
 rubber band from a package of letters. "You take 
 her one of these!" she said, half sobbing. "Ask her if 
 that means anything! Greg, dear!" she interrupted 
 herself to say in a child's reproachful tone, "didn't 
 you mean it?" And with her soft hair floating, and 
 her figure youthful under the simple lines of her Ori- 
 ental robe, she came to stand close beside him, her mood 
 suddenly changed. "Don't you love me any more, 
 Greg?" said she. 
 
334 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Love you!" he countered with a rueful laugh, 
 "that's the trouble." 
 
 She linked her soft little hands in his, raised reproach- 
 ful eyes. 
 
 " But you don't love me enough to stand by me, now 
 that Rachael is so cross?" she asked artlessly. "Oh, 
 Greg, I will wait years and years for you ! " 
 
 Warren's expression was of wretchedness; he man- 
 aged a smile. 
 
 "It's only that I hate to let you in for it all, dear. 
 And let her in for it. I feel as if we hadn't thought it 
 out quite enough," he said. 
 
 "What does it let Rachael in for?" she asked quickly. 
 "Here's her letter, Greg I'll read it to you! Rachael 
 doesn't mind." 
 
 "Well it will be horrible for you," he submitted in a 
 troubled tone. "Horrible for us both." 
 
 "You mean your work can't spare you?" she asked 
 with a shrewd look. 
 
 "No!" He shrugged wearily. "No. The truth 
 is, I want to get away," he said in an undertone. 
 
 "Ah, well!" Magsie understood that. "Of course 
 you want to get away from the fuss and the talk, Greg," 
 she said eagerly. "I think we all ought to get away: 
 Rachael to Long Island, I to Vera, you anywhere! We 
 can't possibly be married for months Suddenly 
 
 her voice sank, she dropped his hands, and locked her 
 smooth little arms about his neck. "But I'll be waiting 
 for you, and you for me, Greg," she whispered. "Isn't 
 it all settled now, isn't it only a question of all the 
 bother, lawyers and arrangements, before you and I 
 belong to each other as we've always dreamed we 
 might?" 
 
 He looked down gravely, almost sadly, and yet with 
 tenderness, upon the eager face. He had always found 
 her lovable, endearing, and sweet; even out of this 
 hideous smoke and flame she emerged all charming and 
 all desirable. He tightened his arms about the thinly 
 wrapped little figure. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 335 
 
 "Yes. I think it's all settled now, Magsie!" he said. 
 
 "Well, then!" She sealed it with one of her quick 
 little kisses. "Now sit down and read a magazine, 
 Greg," she said happily, "and in ten minutes you'll see 
 me in my new hat, all ready to go to lunch!" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE blue tides rose and fell at Clark's Hills, the 
 summer sun shone healingly down upon Rachael's sick 
 heart and soul. Day after day she took her bare- 
 headed, sandalled boys to the white beach, and lay in 
 the warm sands, with the tonic Atlantic breezes blow- 
 ing over her. Space and warmth and silence were all 
 about; the incoming breakers moved steadily in, and 
 shrank back in a tumble of foam and blue water; gulls 
 dipped and wheeled in the spray. As far as her dream- 
 ing eyes could reach, up the beach and down, there 
 was the same bath of warm color, blue sea melting into 
 blue sky, white sand mingling with yellow dunes, until 
 all colors, in the distance, swam in a haze of dull gold. 
 
 Now and then, when even the shore was hot, the 
 boys elected to spend their afternoon by the bay on 
 the other side of the village. Here there was much 
 small traffic in dingies and dories and lobster-pots; 
 the slower tides rocked the little craft at the moorings, 
 and sent bright swinging light against the weather-worn 
 planks under the pier. Rachael smiled when she saw 
 Derry's little dark head confidently resting against the 
 flowing, milky beard of old Cap'n Jessup, or heard the 
 bronzed lean younger men shout to her older son, as 
 to an equal, "Pitch us that painter, will ye, Jim!" 
 
 She spoke infrequently but quietly of Warren to 
 Alice. The older woman discovered, with a pang of 
 dismay, that Rachael's attitude was fixed beyond ap- 
 peal. There was such a thing as divorce, established 
 and approved; she, Rachael, had availed herself of its 
 advantages; now it was Warren's turn. 
 
 Rachael would live for her sons. They must of 
 course be her own. She would take them away to 
 
 336 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 337 
 
 some other atmosphere: "England, I think," she told 
 Alice. "That's my mother country, you know, and 
 children lead a sane, balanced life there." 
 
 "I will be everything to them until they are say, 
 ten and twelve," she added on another day, "and then 
 they will begin to turn toward their father. Of course 
 I can't blame him to them, Alice. And some day they 
 will come to believe that it is all their mother's fault 
 that's the way with children! And so I'll pay again." 
 
 "Dearest girl, you're morbid!" Alice said, not 
 knowing whether to laugh or cry. 
 
 "No, I mean it, I truly mean that! It is disillusion- 
 ing for young boys to learn that their father and mother 
 were not self-controlled, normal persons, able to bear 
 the little pricks of life, but that our history has been 
 public gossip for years, that two separate divorces are 
 in their immediate history!" 
 
 "Rachael, don't talk so recklessly!" 
 
 Rachael smiled sadly. 
 
 "Well, perhaps I can be a good mother to them, 
 even if they don't idealize me!" she mused. 
 
 "I have come to this conclusion," she told 
 Alice one day, about a fortnight later, "while civili- 
 zation is as it is, divorce is wrong. No matter what 
 the circumstances are, no matter where the right and 
 wrong lie, divorce is wrong" 
 
 "I suppose there are cases of drink or infidelity " 
 
 Alice submitted mildly. 
 
 "Then it's the drink, or the infidelity that should be 
 changed!" Rachael answered inflexibly. "It's the one 
 vow we take with God as witness; and no blessing 
 ever follows a broken vow!" 
 
 "I think myself that there are not many marriages 
 that couldn't be successes!" Alice said thoughtfully. 
 
 "Separation, if you like!" Rachael conceded with 
 something of her old bright energy. "Change and 
 absence, for weeks and months, but not divorce. Paula 
 Verlaine should never have divorced Clarence; she 
 
338 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 made a worse match, if that was possible, and involved 
 three other small lives in the general discomfort. And 
 I never should have married Clarence, because I didn't 
 love him. I didn't want children then; I never 
 felt that the arrangement was permanent; but hav- 
 ing married him, I should have stayed by him. I 
 know the mood in which Clarence took his own life; 
 he never loved me as he did Bill, but he wouldn't have 
 done it if I had been there!" 
 
 "I cannot consider Clarence Breckenridge a loss to 
 society," Alice said. 
 
 "I might have made Clarence a man who would 
 have been a loss to society," Rachael mused. "He 
 was proud; loved to be praised. And he loved chil- 
 dren; one or two babies in the nursery would have put 
 Billy in second place. But he bored me, and I simply 
 wouldn't go on being bored. So that if I had had a 
 little more courage, or a little more prudence in the 
 first place, Billy, Clarence, perhaps Charlotte and 
 Charlie, Greg, Derry, Jim, Joe Pickering, and Billy 
 might all have been happier, to say nothing of the 
 general example to society." 
 
 "I hear that Billy is unhappy enough now," Alice 
 said, pleased at Rachael's unusual vivacity. "Isabelle 
 Haviland told my Mary that Cousin Billy was talking 
 about divorce." 
 
 "From Joe? is that so?" Rachael looked up inter- 
 estedly. "I hadn't heard it, and somehow I don't be- 
 lieve it! They have a curious affinity through all their 
 adventures. Poor little Bill, it hasn't been much of a 
 
 "They say she is going on the stage," Alice pursued, 
 "which seems a pity, especially for the child's sake. 
 He's an attractive boy; we saw him with her at 
 Atlantic City last winter one of those wonderfully 
 dressed, patient, pathetic children, always with the 
 grown-ups! The little chap must have a rather queer 
 life of it drifting about from hotel to hotel. They're 
 hard up, and I believe most of the shops and hotels 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 339 
 
 have actually black-listed them. He would seem to 
 be the sort of man who cannot hold on to anything, 
 and, of course, there's the drinking! She's not the 
 girl to save him. She drinks rather recklessly herself; 
 it's a part of her pose." 
 
 "I wonder if she would let the youngster come down 
 here and scramble about with my boys ? " Rachael said 
 unexpectedly. She had not seriously thought of it; 
 the suggestion came idly. But instantly it took defi- 
 nite hold. "I wonder if she would?" she added with 
 more animation than she had shown for some time. 
 "I would love to have him, and of course the boys would 
 go wild with joy! I would be so glad to do poor old 
 Billy a good turn. She and I were always friends, and 
 had some queer times together. And more than that" 
 Rachael's eyes darkened "I believe that if I had 
 had the right influence over her she never would have 
 married Joe. I regarded the whole thing too lightly; 
 I could have tried, in a different way, to prevent it, at 
 least. I am certainly going to write her, and ask for 
 little Breckenridge. It would be something to do for 
 Clarence, too," Rachael added in a low tone, and as if 
 half to herself, "and for many long years I have felt 
 that I would be glad to do something for him! To 
 have his grandson here doesn't it seem odd? and 
 perhaps to lend Billy a hand; it seems almost like an 
 answer to prayer! He can sleep on the porch, between 
 the boys, and if he has some old clothes, and a bathing 
 suit 
 
 " MY DEAR BILLY," she wrote that night, "I have heard 
 one or two hints of late that you have a good many things 
 in your life just now that make for worry, and am writing to 
 know if my boys and I may borrow your small son for a few 
 weeks or a month, so that one small complication of a summer 
 in the city will be spared you. We are down here on Long 
 Island on a strip of high land that runs between the beautiful 
 bay and the very ocean, and when Jim and Derry are not in 
 the one they are apt to be in the other. It will be a great 
 joy to them to have a guest, and a delight to me to take good 
 
340 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 care of your boy. I think he will enjoy it, and it will cer- 
 tainly do him good. 
 
 " I often think of you with great affection, and hope that 
 life is treating you kindly. Sometimes I fancy that my old 
 influence might have been better for you than it was, but 
 life is mistakes, after all, and paying for them, and doing 
 better next time. 
 
 "Always affectionately yours, RACHAEL." 
 
 Three days elapsed after this letter was dispatched, 
 and Rachael had time to wonder with a little chill 
 if she had been too cordial to Billy, and if Billy were 
 laughing her cool little laugh at her one-time step- 
 mother's hospitality and moralizing. 
 
 But as a matter of fact, the invitation could not have 
 been more happily timed for young Mrs. Pickering. 
 Billy, without any further notice to Magsie, had 
 been to see Magsie's manager, coolly betraying her 
 friend's marriage plans, pledging the angry and 
 bewildered Bowman to secrecy, and applying for 
 the position on her own account in the course of one 
 brief visit. 
 
 Bowman would not commit himself to engaging 
 Billy, but he was infinitely obliged to her for the news of 
 Magsie, and told her so frankly. 
 
 It was when she returned home from this call, and 
 hot and weary, was trying to break an absolute promise 
 to the boy, involving the Zoo and ice-cream, that 
 Rachael's letter arrived. 
 
 Billy read it through, sat thinking hard, and pres- 
 ently read it again. The softest expression her rather 
 hard young face ever knew came over it as she sat 
 there. This was terribly decent of Rachael, thought 
 Billy. She must be the busiest and happiest woman 
 in the world, and yet her heart had gone out to little 
 Breck. The last line, however, meant more than all 
 the rest, just now, to Billy Pickering. She was im- 
 pressionable, and not given to finding out the truths of 
 life for herself. Rachael's opinions she had always 
 respected. And now Rachael admitted that life was 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 341 
 
 all mistakes, and added that heartening line about pay- 
 ing for them, and doing better. 
 
 " 'Cause I am so hot and I never had any lunch 
 and you said you would!" fretted the little boy, flinging 
 himself against her, and sending a wave of heat through 
 her clothing as he did so. 
 
 "Listen, Breck," she said suddenly, catching him 
 lightly in her arm, and smiling down at him, "would 
 you like to go down and stay with the Gregory boys ? " 
 
 "I don't know 'em," said Breck doubtfully. 
 
 "Down on the ocean shore," Billy went on, "where 
 you could go in bathing every day, and roll in the surf, 
 and picnic, and sleep out of doors!" 
 
 "Did they ask me?" he demanded excitedly. 
 
 "Their mother did, and she says that you can stay as 
 long as you're a good boy, down there where it's nice and 
 cool, digging in the sand, and going bare foot- 
 
 "I'll be the best boy you ever saw!" Breck sputtered 
 eagerly. "I'll work for her, and I'll make the other 
 kids work for her she'll tell you she never saw such a 
 good boy! And I'll write you letters 
 
 "You won't have to work, old man!" Billy felt 
 strangely stirred as she kissed him. She watched him 
 as he rushed away to break the news of his departure 
 to the stolid Swedish girl in the kitchen and the colored 
 boy at the elevator. He jerked his little bureau open, 
 and began to scramble among his clothes; he selected a 
 toy for Jim and a toy for Deny, and his mother noticed 
 that they were his dearest toys. She took him down- 
 town and bought him a bathing suit, and sandals, and 
 new pajamas, and his breathless delight, as he assured 
 sympathetic clerks that he was going down to the shore, 
 made her realize what a lonely, uncomfortable little 
 fellow he had been all these months. He could hardly 
 eat his supper that night, and had to be punished before 
 he would even attempt to go to sleep, and the next 
 morning he waked his mother at six, and fairly danced 
 with impatience and anxiety as the last preparations 
 were made. 
 
342 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Billy took him down to Clark's Hills herself. She 
 had not notified Rachael, or answered her in any way, 
 never questioning that Rachael would know her in- 
 vitation to be accepted. But from the big terminal 
 station she did send a wire, and Rachael and the boys 
 met her after the hot trip. 
 
 "Billy, it was good of you to come," Rachael said, 
 kissing her quite naturally as they met. 
 
 "I never thought of doing anything else/' Billy said, 
 breathing the fresh salt air with obvious pleasure. "I 
 had no idea that it was such a trip. But he was an 
 angel look at them now, aren't they cute together?" 
 
 Rachael's boys had taken eager possession of their 
 guest; the three were fast making friends as they 
 trotted along together toward the old motor car that 
 Rachael ran herself. 
 
 "It's a joy to them," their mother said. "Get in 
 here next to me, Bill; I'm not going even to look at 
 you until I get you home. Did you ever see the water 
 look so delicious? We'll all go down for a dip pretty 
 soon. I live so simply here that I'm entirely out of 
 the way of entertaining a guest, but now that you're 
 here, you must stay and have a little rest yourself!" 
 
 "Oh, thank you, but ' Billy began in perfunc- 
 tory regret. Her tone changed: "I should love to!" 
 she said honestly. 
 
 Rachael laughed. "So funny to hear your old voice, 
 Bill, and your old expressions." 
 
 "I was just thinking that you've not changed much, 
 Rachael."" 
 
 "I? Oh, but I've gray hair! Getting old fast, 
 Billum." 
 
 "And how's Greg?" Billy did not understand the 
 sudden shadow that fell across Rachael's face, but she 
 saw it, and wondered. 
 
 "Very well, my dear." 
 
 "Does he get down here often? It's a hard trip." 
 
 "He always comes in his car. They make it in I 
 don't know something like two hours and ten minutes, 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 343 
 
 I think. This is my house, with all its hydrangeas in 
 full bloom. Yes, isn't it nice? And here's Mary for 
 Breckenridge's bag." 
 
 Rachael had got out of the car, and now she gave 
 Billy's boy her hand, and stood ready to help him down. 
 
 "Well, Breck," said she, "do you think you are going 
 to like my house, and my little boys? Will you give 
 Aunt Rachael a kiss?" 
 
 Billy said nothing as the child embraced his new- 
 found relative heartily, nor when Rachael took her up- 
 stairs to show her the third hammock between the 
 other two, and herself invested the visitor in blue over- 
 alls and a wide hat. But late that evening, after a 
 silence, she said suddenly: 
 
 "You're more charming than ever, Rachael; you're 
 one of the sweetest women I ever saw!" 
 
 "Thank you!" Rachael said with a little note of 
 real pleasure under her laugh. 
 
 "You've grown so gentle, and good," said Billy a 
 little awkwardly. "Perhaps it's just because you're 
 so sweet to Breck, and because you have such a nice 
 way with children, but I I am ever and ever so grateful 
 to you! I've often thought of you, all this time, and 
 of the old days, and been glad that so much happiness 
 of every sort has come to you. At first I felt dreadfully 
 at that time, you know- 
 She stopped and faltered, but Rachael looked at 
 her kindly. They were sitting on the wide porch, 
 under the velvet-black arch of the starry sky, and 
 watching the occasional twinkle of lights on the dark 
 surface of the bay. 
 
 "You may say anything you like to me, Billy," 
 Rachael said. 
 
 "Well, it was only you know how I loved him 
 Billy said quickly. "I've so often thought that per- 
 haps you were the only person who knew what it all 
 meant to me. I only thought he would be angry for 
 a while. I thought then that Joe would surely win 
 him. And afterward, I thought I would go crazy^ 
 
344 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 thinking of him sitting there in the club. I had failed 
 him, you know! I've never talked about it. I guess 
 Fm all tired out from the trip down." 
 
 It was clumsily expressed; the words came as if 
 every one were wrung from the jealous silence of the 
 long years, but presently Billy was beside Rachael's 
 chair, kneeling on the floor, and their arms were about 
 each other. 
 
 "I killed him!" sobbed Billy. "He spoke of me the 
 last of all. He said to Berry Stokes that he he loved 
 me. And he had a little old picture of me you re- 
 member the one in the daisy frame? over his heart. 
 Oh, Daddy, Daddy! always so good to me!" 
 
 "No, Bill, you mustn't say that you killed him," 
 Rachael said, turning pale. "If you were to blame, 
 I was, too, and your grandmother, and all of us who 
 made him what he was. I didn't love him when I 
 married him, and he was the sort of man who has to 
 be loved; he knew he wasn't big, and admirable, and 
 strong, but many a man like Clancy has been made so, 
 been made worth while, by having a woman believe 
 in him. I never believed in him for one second, and 
 he knew it. I despised him, and where he sputtered 
 and stammered and raged, I was cool and quiet, and 
 smiling at him. It isn't right for human beings to 
 feel that way. I see it now. I see now that love love 
 is the lubricant everywhere in the world, Bill. One 
 needn't be a fool and be stepped upon; one has rights; 
 but if loving enough goes into everything, why, it's 
 bound to come out right." 
 
 "Oh, I do believe it!" said Billy fervently, kneeling 
 on the floor at Rachael's feet, her wet, earnest eyes on 
 Rachael's face, her arms crossed on the older woman's 
 knees. 
 
 "I believe," Rachael said, "that in those seven years 
 I might have won your father to something better if 
 I had cared. He wasn't a hard man, just desperately 
 weak. I've thought of it so often, of late, Bill. There 
 might have been children. Clancy had a funny little 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 345 
 
 pathetic fondness for babies. And he was a loving 
 sort of person 
 
 "Ah, wasn't he?" Billy's eyes brimmed again. 
 "Always that to me. But not to you, Rachael, and 
 little cat that I was I knew it. But you see I had no 
 particular reverence for marriage, either. How should 
 I ? Why, my own mother and my half-sisters hideous 
 girls, they are, too were pointed out to me in Rome 
 a year ago. I didn't know them! I could have made 
 your life much easier, Rachael. I wish I had. I was 
 thinking that this afternoon when Breck was letting 
 you carry him out into deep water, clinging to you so 
 cunningly. He is a cute little kid, isn't he ? And he'll 
 love you to death ! He's a great kisser." 
 
 "He's a great darling," smiled Rachael, "and all 
 small boys I adore. He'll begin to put on weight in 
 no time. And I was thinking, Bill he would have 
 reconciled Clancy to you and Joe, perhaps; one can't 
 tell! If I had not left him, Clarence might have been 
 living to-day, that I know. He only did what he 
 did in one of those desperate lonely times he used to 
 dread so." 
 
 "Ah, but he was terrible to you, Rachael!" Billy said 
 generously. "You deserved happiness if anyone ever 
 did!" Again she did not understand Rachael's sharp 
 sigh, nor the little silence that followed it. Their talk 
 ran on quite naturally to other topics: they discussed 
 all the men and women of that old world they both had 
 known, the changes, the newcomers, and the empty 
 
 E laces. Mrs. Barker Emory had been much taken up 
 y Mary Moulton, and was a recognized leader at 
 Belvedere Bay now; Straker Thomas was in a sani- 
 tarium; old Lady Torrence was dead; Marian Cowles 
 had snatched George Pomeroy away from one of the 
 Vanderwall girls at the last second; Thomas Prince 
 was paralyzed; Agnes Chase had married a Denver man 
 whom nobody knew; the Parker Hoyts had a delicate 
 little baby at last; Vivian Sartoris had left her hus- 
 band, nobody knew why. Billy was quite her old self 
 
346 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 as she retailed these items and many more for Rachael's 
 benefit. 
 
 But Rachael saw that the years had made a sad 
 change in her before the three days' visit was over. 
 Poor little, impudent, audacious Billy was gone forever 
 Billy, who had always been so exquisite in dress, so 
 prettily conspicuous on the floor of the ballroom, so 
 superbly self-conscious in her yachting gear, her riding- 
 clothes, her smart little tennis costumes! She was 
 but a shadow of her old self now. The smart hats, the 
 silk stockings, the severely trim frocks were still hers, 
 but the old delicious youth, her roses, her limpid gaze, 
 the velvety curve of throat and cheek, these were gone. 
 Billy had been spirited, now she was noisy. She had 
 been amusingly precocious, now she was assuming an 
 innocence, a naivete, that were no longer hers, had 
 never been natural to her at any time. She had al- 
 ways been coolly indifferent to the lives of other men 
 and women. Now she was embittered as to her own 
 destiny, and full of ugly and eager gossip concerning 
 everyone she knew. She chanced upon the name of 
 Magsie Clay, little dreaming how straight the blow went 
 to Rachael's heart, but had excellent reasons of her 
 own for not expressing the belief that Magsie would 
 soon leave the stage, and so gave no hint of Magsie's 
 rich and mysterious lover. She did tell Rachael that 
 she herself meant to go on the stage, but imparted 
 no details as to her hopes for doing so. 
 
 "Just how much motiey is left, Billy?" Rachael 
 presently felt herself justified in asking. 
 
 "Oh, well"- Billy had always hated statistics 
 "we sold the Belvedere Bay place last year, you know, 
 but it was a perfect wreck, and the Moultons said they 
 had to put seventeen thousand dollars into repairs, 
 but I don't believe it, and that money, and some other 
 things, were put into the bank. Joe was just making 
 a scene about it we have to draw now and then we 
 sank I don't know what into those awful ponies, and 
 we still have that place it's a lovely house, but it 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 347 
 
 doesn't rent. It's too far away. The kid adores it of 
 course, but it's too far away, it gives me the creeps. 
 It's just going to wreck, too. Joe says sometimes that 
 he's going to raise chickens there. I see him!" Billy 
 scowled, but as Rachael did not speak, she presently 
 came back to the topic. "But just how much of my 
 money is left, I don't know. There are two houses in 
 East One Hundredth way over by the river. Daddy 
 took them for some sort of debt." 
 
 Rachael remembered them perfectly. But she could 
 not revert to the days when she was Clarence's wife 
 without a pang, and so let the allusion go. 
 
 "Why he took them I don't know," Billy resumed, 
 "ten flats, and all empty. They say it would cost us 
 ten thousand dollars to get them into shape. They're 
 mortgaged, anyway." 
 
 "But Billy, wouldn't that bring you in a fair income, 
 in itself, if it was once filled ? " 
 
 "My dear, perhaps it would. But do you think 
 you could get Joe Pickering to do it? As long as the 
 money in the bank lasts I forget what it is, several 
 thousand, more than twenty, I think we'll go along 
 as we are. Joe has a half-interest in a patent, anyway, 
 some sort of curtain-pole; it's always going to make us 
 a fortune!" 
 
 "But, Billy, if you and the boy took a little place 
 somewhere, and you had one good maid up there on 
 the pony farm, for instance surely it would be saner, 
 surely it would be wiser, than trying to think of the 
 stage now with him on your hands!" 
 
 "Except that I would simply die!" Billy said. "I 
 love the city, and the excitement of not knowing what 
 will turn up. And if Joe would behave himself, and 
 if I should make a hit, why, we'll be all right." 
 
 A queer, hectic, unsatisfying life it must be, Rachael 
 thought, saying good-bye to her guest a day or two 
 later. Dressing, rouging, lacing, pinning on her out- 
 rageously expensive hats, jerking on her extravagant 
 white gloves, drinking, rushing, screaming with laughter, 
 
348 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 screaming with anger, Billy was one of that large class 
 of women that the big city breeds, and that cannot 
 live elsewhere than in the big city. She would ride in 
 a thousand taxicabs, worrying as she watched the metre; 
 she would drink a thousand glasses of champagne, 
 wondering anxiously if Joe were to pay for it; she 
 would gossip of a dozen successful actresses without the 
 self-control to work for one-tenth of their success, and 
 she would move through all the life of the theatres and 
 hotels without ever having her place among them, and 
 her share of their little glory. And almost as reckless 
 in action as she was in speech, she would cling to the 
 brink of the conventions, never quite a good woman, 
 never quite anything else, a fond and loyal if a foolish 
 and selfish mother, some day noisily informing her 
 admirers that she actually had a boy in college, and 
 enjoying their flattering disbelief. And so would dis- 
 appear the last of the handsome fortune that poor 
 Clarence's father had bequeathed to him, and Clar- 
 ence's grandson must fight his way with no better start 
 than his grandfather had had financially, and with an 
 infinitely less useful brain and less reliable pair of 
 hands. Billy might be widowed or freed in some less 
 unexceptionable way, and then Billy would marry 
 again, and it would be a queer marriage; Rachael could 
 read her fate in her character. 
 
 She wondered, walking slowly the short mile that lay 
 between her house and the station, when Billy was 
 gone, just how a discerning eye might read her own 
 fate in her own character. Just what did the confused 
 mixture of good motives and bad motives, erratic 
 unselfishnesses and even more ejrratic weaknesses 
 that was Rachael, deserve of Fate? She had bought 
 some knowledge, but it had been dearly bought; she 
 had bought some goodness, but at what a cost of 
 pain! 
 
 "I don't believe that Warren ever did one-tenth the 
 silly things we suspected him of!" Alice exclaimed one 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 349 
 
 day. "I believe he was just an utter fool, and Magsie 
 took advantage of it!" 
 
 Rachael did not answer, but there was no brighten- 
 ing of her sombre look. Her eyes, grave and sad, held 
 for Alice no hope that she had come, as George and 
 Alice had come, to a softer view of Warren's offence. 
 
 "I see him always as he was that last horrible morn- 
 ing," she said to Alice. "And I pray that I will never 
 look upon his face again!" And when presently Alice 
 hinted that George was receiving an occasional letter 
 from Warren, Rachael turned pale. 
 
 "Don't quote it to me, Alice," she said gently; 
 "don't ask me to hear it. It's all over. I haven't a 
 heart any more, just a void and a pain. You only 
 hurt me I can't ever be different. You and George 
 love me, I know that. Don't drive me away. Don't 
 ever feel that it will be different from what it is now. 
 I I wish him no ill, God knows, but I can't. It 
 wouldn't be happiness for me or for him. Please, 
 please -'" 
 
 Alice, in tears, could only give her her way. 
 
352 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 The man did not answer. Presently Magsie began to 
 speak in a sad, low tone. 
 
 "You can go now if you want to, Greg. I'm not 
 going to try to hold you. But I know you'll come back 
 to me to-morrow, and tell me it was all just the trouble 
 other people tried to make between us it wasn't really 
 you, the man I love!" 
 
 "I'll write you," he said after a silence. And from 
 the doorway he added, "Good-bye." Magsie did not 
 turn or speak; she could not believe her ears when she 
 heard the door softly close. 
 
 Next day brought her only a letter from the steamer, 
 a letter reiterating his good-byes, and asking her again 
 to forgive him. Magsie read it in stupefaction. He 
 was gone, and she had lost him! 
 
 The first panic of surprise gave way to more reason- 
 able thinking. There were ways of bringing him back; 
 there were arguments that might persuade Rachael to 
 adhere to her original resolution. It could not be 
 dropped so easily. Magsie began to wonder what a 
 lawyer might advise. Billy came in upon her irresolute 
 musing. 
 
 "Hello, dearie! But I'm interrupting " said 
 
 Billy. 
 
 "Oh, hello, darling! No, indeed you're not," Magsie 
 said, tearing up an envelope lazily. "I was trying to 
 write a letter, but I have to think it over before it goes." 
 
 "I should think you could write a letter to your beau 
 vvith your eyes shut," Billy said. "You've had prac- 
 tice enough ! I know you're busy, but I won't interrupt 
 you long. Upon my word, I had a hard enough time 
 getting to you. There was no boy at the lift, and only 
 a dear old Irish girl mopping up the floors. We had a 
 long heart-to-heart talk, and I gave her a dollar." 
 
 "A dollar! I'll have to move you're raising the 
 price of living!" said Magsie. "She's the janitor's 
 wife, and they're rich already. What possessed you?" 
 
 "Well, she unpinned her skirts and went after the 
 boy," Billy said idly, "and it was the only thing I had." 
 
THE HEART OF R4CHAEL 353 
 
 She was trying quietly to see the name on the envelope 
 Magsie had destroyed, but being unsuccessful, she 
 went on more briskly, "How is the beau, by the 
 way?" 
 
 "I wish I had never seen the man!" Magsie said, 
 glad to talk of him. "His wife is raising the roof 
 now " 
 
 "I thought she would!" Billy said wisely. "I didn't 
 see any woman, especially if she's not young, giving 
 all that up without a fight! You know I said so." 
 
 "I know you did," said Magsie ruefully. "But I 
 don't see what she can do!" 
 
 "Well, she can refuse to give him his divorce, can't 
 she?" Billy said sensibly. 
 
 " But can she ? " Magsie was obviously not sure. 
 
 "Of course she can!" 
 
 " But she doesn't want him. I went to see her ' 
 
 "Went to see her? For heaven's sake, what did you 
 do that for?" 
 
 " Because I cared for him," Magsie said, coloring. 
 
 "For heaven's sake! You had your nerve! And 
 what sort of a person is she?" 
 
 "Oh, beautiful! I knew her before. And she said 
 that she would not interfere. She was as willing as he 
 was; then " 
 
 "But now she's changed her mind?" 
 
 "Apparently." Magsie scowled into space. 
 
 "Well, what does he say?" Billy asked after a pause- 
 
 "Why, he can't or he seems to think he can't 
 force her." 
 
 "Well, I don't know that he can here. There are 
 states 
 
 "Yes, I know, but we're here in New York," Magsie 
 said briefly. A second later she sat up, suddenly 
 energetic and definite in voice and manner. "But 
 there are ways of forcing her, as she will soon see," 
 said Magsie in a venomous voice. "I have his letters. 
 I could put the whole thing into a lawyer's hands. 
 There's such a thing as as a breach of promise suit " 
 
354 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Not with a married man," Billy interrupted, 
 Magsie halted, a little dashed. 
 
 "How do you know?" she demanded. 
 
 "You'd have to show you had been injured and 
 you've known all along he was married," Billy said. 
 
 "Well" Magsie was scarlet with anger "I could 
 make him sorry, don't worry about that!" she said 
 childishly. 
 
 "Of course, if his wife did consent, and then changed 
 her mind, and you sent his letters to her," Billy said 
 after cogitation. "It might he may have glossed it 
 all over, to her, you know." 
 
 "Exactly!" Magsie said triumphantly. "I knew 
 there was a way! She's a sensitive woman, too. You 
 know you can't go as far as you like with a girl, Billy," 
 she went on argumentatively, "without paying for it 
 somehow!" 
 
 "Make him pay!" said the practical Billy. 
 
 "I don't want just money," Magsie said discon- 
 tentedly. "I want I don't want to be interfered 
 with. I believe I shall do just that," she went on with 
 a brightening eye. "I'll write him " 
 
 "Tell him. Ever so much more effective than wrh> 
 ing!" Billy suggested. 
 
 "Tell him then," Magsie did not mean to betray his 
 identity if she could help it, "that I really will send 
 these things on to his wife that's just what I'll do!" 
 
 "Are there children?" asked Billy. 
 
 "Two girls," Magsie said with barely perceptible 
 hesitation. 
 
 "Grown?" pursued the visitor. 
 
 "Ye-es, I believe so." Magsie was too clever to 
 multiply unnecessary untruths. She began to dress. 
 
 "What are you doing this afternoon?" asked Billy. 
 "I have the Butlers' car for the day. Joe brought it 
 into town to be fixed, and can't drive it out until to- 
 morrow. We might do something. It's a gorgeous car." 
 
 "I'm not doing one thing in the world. Where's 
 Joe?" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 355 
 
 "Joe Pickering?" asked Billy. "Oh, he's gone off 
 with some men for some golf and poker. We might 
 find someone, and go on a party. Where could we 
 go Long Beach ? It's going to be stifling hot/' 
 
 "Stay and have lunch with me," said Magsie. 
 
 "I can't to-day. I'm lunching with a theatrical 
 man at Sherry's. I tell you I'm in deadly earnest. I'm 
 going to break in! Suppose I come here for you at just 
 three. Meanwhile, you think up someone. How about 
 Bryan Masters?" 
 
 Magsie made a face. 
 
 "Well," said Billy, departing, "you think of some- 
 one, and I will. Perhaps the Royces would go a nice 
 little early party. The worst of it is, no one's in town ! " 
 
 She ran downstairs and jumped into the beautiful 
 car. 
 
 "Sherry's, please, Hungerford," said Billy easily. 
 "And then you might get your lunch, and come for me 
 sharp at half-past two." 
 
 The man touched his hat. Billy leaned back against 
 the rich leather upholstery luxuriously; she was ab- 
 solutely content. Joe was quiet and away, dear little 
 old Breck was in seventh heaven down on the cool 
 seashore, and there was a prospect of a party to-night. 
 As they rolled smoothly downtown the passing throng 
 might well have envied the complacent little figure in 
 coffee-colored madras with the big heron feather in 
 her hat. 
 
 When Billy was gone, Magsie, with a thoughtful 
 face and compressed lips, took two packages of letters 
 from her desk and wrapped them for posting. She 
 fell into deep musing for a few minutes before she 
 wrote Rachael's name on the wrapper, but after that 
 she dressed with her usual care, and carried the pack- 
 age to the elevator boy for mailing. As she came back 
 to her rooms a caller was announced and followed her 
 name into Magsie's apartment almost immediately. 
 Magsie, with a pang of consternation, found herself 
 facing Richie Gardiner's mother. 
 
856 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Anna would never have permitted this, was Magsie's 
 first resentful thought, but Anna was on a vacation, 
 and the elevator boy could not be expected to dis- 
 criminate. 
 
 "Good morning, Mrs. Gardiner," said Magsie; 
 "you'll excuse my dressing all over the place, but I 
 have no maid this week. How's Richie?" 
 
 Mrs. Gardiner was oblivious of anything amiss. 
 She sat down, first removing a filmy scarf of Magsie's 
 from a chair, and smiled, the little muscle-twitching 
 smile of a person in pain, as if she hardly heard Magsie's 
 easy talk. 
 
 "He doesn't seem to get better, Miss Clay," said she, 
 almost snorting in her violent effort to breathe quietly. 
 "Doctor doesn't say he gets worse, but of course he 
 don't fool me I know my boy's pretty sick." 
 
 The agony of helpless motherhood was not all lost 
 upon Magsie, even though it was displayed by a large, 
 plain woman in preposterous clothes, strangely intro- 
 duced into her pretty rooms, and a most incongruous 
 figure there. 
 
 "What a shame !" she said warmly. 
 
 "It's a shame to anyone that knew Rich as I did a 
 few years ago," his mother said. "There wasn't a 
 brighter nor a hardier child. It wasn't until we came 
 to this city that he begun to give way and what won- 
 der? It'a kill a horse to live in this place. I wish to 
 God that I had got him out of it when he had that first 
 spell. I may be I don't know, but I may be too late 
 now." Tears came to her eyes, the hard tears of a 
 proud and suffering woman. She took out a folded 
 handkerchief and pressed it unashamedly to her eyes. 
 "But he wouldn't go," she resumed, clearing her 
 throat. "He was going to stay here, live or die. And 
 Miss Clay, you know why!" She stopped short, a 
 terrible look upon Magsie. 
 
 "I?" faltered Magsie, coloring, and feeling as if she 
 would cry herself. 
 
 "You kept him," said his mother. "He hung round 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 357 
 
 you like a bee round a rose poor, sick boy that he was! 
 He's losing sleep now because he can't get you out of 
 his thoughts." 
 
 She stopped again, and Magsie hung her head. 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said slowly. And with the childish 
 words came childish tears. "I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. 
 Gardiner," stammered Magsie. "I know I've known 
 all along how Richie feels to me. I suppose I could 
 have stopped him, got him to go away, perhaps, in 
 time. But but I've been unhappy myself, Mrs. 
 Gardiner. A person I love has been cruel to me. 
 I don't know what I'm going to do. I worry and 
 worry!" Magsie was frankly crying now. "I wish 
 there was something I could do for Richie, but I can't 
 tell him I care!" she sobbed. 
 
 Both women sat in miserable silence for a moment, 
 then Richard Gardiner's mother said: 
 
 " It wouldn't do you any harm to just if you would 
 to just see him, would it? Don't say anything about 
 this other man. Could you do that? Couldn't you let 
 him think that maybe if he went away and came back 
 all well you'd you might there might be some chance 
 for him ? Doctor says he's got to go away at once if he's 
 going to get well." 
 
 The anguish in her voice and manner reached Magsie 
 at last. There was nothing cruel about the little 
 actress, however sordid her ambitions and however 
 selfish her plans. 
 
 "Could you get him away, now?" she said almost 
 timidly. " Is he strong enough to go ? " 
 
 "That's what Doctor says; he ought to go away 
 to-day, but but he won't lissen to me," his mother 
 answered with trembling lips. "He's all I have. I 
 just live for Rich. I loved his father, and when Dick 
 was killed I had only him." 
 
 "I'll go see him," said Magsie in sudden generous 
 impulse. "I'll tell him to take care of himself. It's 
 simply wicked of him to throw his life away like this." 
 
 "Miss Clay," said Mrs. Gardiner with a break in her 
 
358 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 strong, deep voice, "if you do that may the Lord send 
 you the happiness you give my boy!" She began to 
 cry again. 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Gardiner/' said Magsie in a hurt, child- 
 ish voice, "I like Richie !" 
 
 "Well, he likes you all right," said his mother on a 
 long, quivering breath. With big, coarse, tender 
 fingers she helped Magsie with the last hooks and bands 
 of her toilette. "If you ain't as pretty and dainty as a 
 little wax doll!" she observed admiringly. Magsie 
 merely sighed in answer. Wax dolls had their troubles! 
 
 But she liked the doglike devotion of Richie's big 
 mother, and the beautiful car Richie's car. Perhaps 
 the hurt to her heart and her pride had altered Magsie's 
 sense of values. At all events, she did not even shrink 
 from Richie to-day. 
 
 She sat down beside the white bed, beside the bony 
 form that the counterpane revealed in outline, and 
 smiled at Richie's dark, thin eager face and sunken, 
 adoring eyes. She laid her warm, plump little hand 
 between his long, thin fingers. After a while the nurse 
 timidly suggested the detested milk; Richie drank it 
 dutifully for Magsie. 
 
 They were left together in the cool r airy, orderly 
 room, and in low, confidential tones they talked. 
 Magsie was well aware that the big doctors themselves 
 would not interrupt this talk, that the nurses and the 
 mother were keeping guard outside the door. Richie 
 was conscious of nothing but Magsie. 
 
 In this hour the girl thought of the stormy years 
 that were past and the stormy future. She had played 
 her last card in the game for Warren Gregory's love. 
 The letters, without an additional word, were gone to 
 Rachael. If Rachael chose to use them against War- 
 ren, then the road for Magsie, if long, was unobstructed. 
 But suppose Rachael, with that baffling superiority of 
 hers, decided not to use them? 
 
 Magsie had seriously considered and seriously aban- 
 doned the idea of holding out several letters from the 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 359 
 
 packages, but the letters, as legal documents, had no 
 value to anyone but Rachael. If Rachael chose to 
 forgive and ignore the writing of them, they were so 
 much waste paper, and Magsie had no more hold over 
 Warren than any other young woman of his acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 But Magsie was more or less committed to a complete 
 change. The break with Bowman could not be 
 avoided without great awkwardness now. She despised 
 herself for having so simply accepted a bank account 
 from Warren, yet what else could she do? Magsie 
 had wanted money all her life, and when that money 
 
 was gone Richie was falling into a doze, his hand 
 
 still tightly clasping hers. She slipped to her knees be- 
 side the bed, and as he lazily opened his eyes she gave 
 him a smile that turned the room to Heaven for him. 
 When a nurse peeped cautiously in, a warning nod from 
 Magsie sent the surprised and delighted woman away 
 again with the great news. Mr. Gardiner was asleep ! 
 
 The clock struck twelve, struck one, still Magsie 
 knelt by the bedside, watching the sleeping face. Out- 
 side the city was silent under the summer sun. In the 
 great hospital feet cheeped along wide corridors, now 
 and then a door was opened or closed. There was no 
 other sound. 
 
 Magsie eyed her charge affectionately. When he 
 had come to her dressing-room in former days trying 
 to ignore his cough, trying to take her about and to 
 order her suppers as the other men did, he had been 
 vaguely irritating; but here in this plain little bed, so 
 boyish, so dependent, so appreciative, he seemed more 
 attractive than he ever had before. Whatever there 
 was maternal in Magsie rose to meet his need. She 
 could not but be impressed by the royal solicitude that 
 surrounded the heir to the "Little Dick Mine." Mrs. 
 Richard Gardiner would be something of a personage, 
 thought Magsie dreamily. He might not live long! 
 
 Of course, that was calculating and despicable; 
 $he was not the woman to marry where she did not love! 
 
360 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 But then she really did love Richie in a way. And 
 Richie loved her no question of that! Loved her 
 more than Warren did for all his letters and gifts, 
 she decided resentfully. 
 
 When Richie wakened, bewildered, at one o'clock, 
 Magsie was still there. She insisted that he drink more 
 milk before a word was said. Then they talked again, 
 Magsie in a new mood of reluctance and gentleness, 
 Richie half wild with rising hope and joy. 
 
 "And you would want me to marry you, feeling this 
 way?" Magsie faltered. 
 
 "Oh, Magsie!" he whispered. 
 
 A tear fell on the thin hand that Magsie was patting. 
 Through dazzled eyes she saw the future: reckless 
 buying of gowns brief and few farewells the private 
 car, the adoring invalid, the great sunny West with its 
 forests and beaches, the plain gold ring on her little 
 hand. In the whole concerned group doctor, nurse, 
 valet, mother, maid young Mrs. Gardiner would be 
 supreme! She saw herself flitting about a California 
 bungalow, lending her young strength to Richie's in- 
 creasing strength in the sunwashed, health-giving air. 
 
 She put her arms about him, laid her rosy cheek 
 against his pale one. 
 
 "And you really want me to go out," Magsie began, 
 smiling through tears, "and get a nice special license 
 and a nice little plain gold ring and come back here with 
 a nice kind clergyman, and say 'I will' " 
 
 But at this her tears again interrupted her, and Rich- 
 ard, clinging desperately to her hand, could not speak 
 either for tears. His mother who had silently entered 
 the room on Magsie's last words suddenly put her fat 
 arms about her and gave her the great motherly em- 
 brace for which, without knowing it, she had hungered 
 for years, and they all fell to planning. 
 
 Richard could help only with an occasional assent. 
 There was nothing to which he would not consent now. 
 They would be married as soon as Magsie and his 
 mother could get back with the necessities. And then 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 361 
 
 would he drink his milk, good boy and go straight 
 to sleep, good boy. Then to-morrow he should be 
 helped into the softest motor car procurable for money, 
 and into the private car that his mother and Magsie 
 meant to engage, by hook or crook, to-night. In six 
 days they would be watching the blue Pacific, and in 
 three weeks Richie should be sleeping out of doors and 
 coming downstairs to meals. He had only to obey 
 his mother; he had only to obey his wife. Magsie 
 kissed him good-bye tenderly before leaving him for 
 the hour's absence. Her heart was twisting little 
 tendrils about him already. He was a sweet, patient 
 dear, she told his mother, and he would simply have to 
 get well ! 
 
 "God above bless and reward you, Margaret!" was 
 all Mrs. Gardiner could say, but Magsie never tired of 
 hearing it. 
 
 When the two women went down the hospital steps 
 they found Billy Pickering, in her large red car, eying 
 them reproachfully from the curb. 
 
 "This is a nice way to act!" Billy began. "Your 
 janitor's wife said you had come here. I've got two 
 men " Magsie's expression stopped her. 
 
 "This is Mr. Gardiner's mother, Billy," Magsie said 
 solemnly. "The doctors agree that he must not stand 
 this climate another day. He had another sinking 
 spell yesterday, and he he mustn't have another! I 
 am going with them to California " 
 
 "You are ? " Billy ejaculated in amazement. Magsie 
 bridled in becoming importance. 
 
 "It is all very sudden," she said with the weary, pa- 
 tient smile of the invalid's wife, "but he won't go with- 
 out me." And then, as Mrs. Gardiner began to give 
 directions to the driver of her own car, which was wait- 
 ing, she went on inconsequentially, and in a low and 
 troubled undertone, "I didn't know what to do. Do 
 do you think I'm a fool, Billy?" 
 
 " But what'll the other man say?" demanded Billy. 
 
362 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 Magsie, leaning against the door of the car, rubbed 
 the polished wood with a filmy handkerchief. 
 
 "He won't know," she said. 
 
 "Won't know ? But what will you tell him ? " 
 
 "Oh, he's not here. He won't be back for ever so 
 long. And and Richie can't live they all say that. 
 So if I come back before he does, what earthly difference 
 can it make to him that I was married to Richie? " 
 
 " Married!" For once in her life Billy was com- 
 pletely at a loss. "But are you going to marry 
 him ? " 
 
 Magsie gave her a solemn look, and nodded gravely. 
 "He loves me," she said in a soft injured tone, "and 
 I mean to take as good care of him as the best wife in 
 the world could ! I'm sick of the stage, and if anything 
 happens with the other, I shan't have to worry- 
 about money, I mean. I'm not a fool, Billy. I can't 
 let a chance like this slip. Of course I wouldn't do it 
 if I didn't like him and like his mother, too. And Fll 
 bet he will get well, and I'll never come back to New 
 York! Of course this is all a secret. We're going 
 right down to the City Hall for the license now, and 
 the ring There are a lot of clothes I've got to buy 
 immediately " 
 
 "Why don't you let me run you about?" suggested 
 Billy. "I don't have to meet the men until six Fll 
 have to round up another girl, too; but I'd love to. 
 Let Mama go back to Mr. Gardiner!" 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't," Magsie said, quite the dutiful 
 daughter. "She's a wonderful person; she's arranging 
 for our own private car, and a cook, and I may take 
 Anna if I can get her!" 
 
 "All righto! "agreed Billy. 
 
 A rather speculative look came into her face as the 
 other car whirled away. She suddenly gave directions 
 to the driver. 
 
 "Drive to Miss Clay's apartment, where you picked 
 me up this morning, Hungerford!" she said quickly. 
 "I I think I left something there gloves " 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 363 
 
 "I wonder if you would let me into Miss Clay's 
 apartment?" she said to the beaming janitor's wife 
 fifteen minutes later. "Miss Clay isn't here, and I left 
 my gloves in her rooms." 
 
 Something in Magsie's manner had made her feel 
 that Magsie had good reason for keeping the name of 
 her admirer hid. Billy had felt for weeks that she 
 would know the name if Magsie ever divulged it. 
 And this morning she had noticed the admission that 
 the wronged wife was a beautiful woman and the 
 hesitation with which Magsie had answered "Two 
 girls." Then Magsie had said that she would "write 
 him," not at all the natural thing to do to a man one 
 was sure to see, and Rachael had said that Warren was 
 away! But most significant of all was her answer to 
 Billy's question as to whether the children were grown. 
 Magsie had admitted that she knew the wife, had 
 " known her before," and yet she pretended not to know 
 whether or not the children were grown. Billy had 
 had just a fleeting idea of Warren Gregory before that, but 
 this particular term confirmed the suspicion suddenly. 
 
 So while Magsie was getting her marriage license, 
 Billy was in Magsie's apartment turning over the 
 contents of her wastepaper basket in feverish haste. 
 The envelope was ruined, it had been crushed while 
 wet; a name had been barely started anyway. But 
 here was the precious scrap of commencement, "My 
 dearest Greg " 
 
 Billy was almost terrified by the discovery. There 
 it was, in irrefutable black and white. She stuffed it 
 back into the basket, and left the house like a thief, 
 panting for the open air. A suspicion only ten minutes 
 before, now she felt as if no other fact on earth had ever 
 so fully possessed her. For an hour she drove about in 
 a daze. Then she went home, and sat down at her 
 desk, and wrote the following letter: 
 
 "Mv DEAR RACHAEL: The letter with the darling little 
 *B* came yesterday. I think he is cute to learn to write his 
 
364 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 own letter so quickly. Tell him that mother is proud of 
 him for picking so many blackberries, and will love the jam. 
 It is as hot as fire here, and the park has that steamy smell 
 that a hothouse has. I have been driving about in Joe 
 Butler's car all afternoon. We are going to Long Beach 
 to-night. 
 
 "Rachael Magsie Clay and a man named Richard 
 Gardiner were married this afternoon. He is an invalid or 
 something; he is at St. Luke's Hospital, and she and his 
 mother are going to take him to California at once. What 
 do you know about that ? Of course this is a secret, and for 
 Heaven's sake, if you tell anybody this, don't say I gave it 
 away. 
 
 "If Magsie Clay should send you a bunch of letters, she 
 will just do it to be a devil, and I want to ask you to burn 
 them up before you read them. You know how you talked 
 to me about divorce, Rachael! What you don't know can't 
 hurt you. Don't please Magsie Clay to the extent of doing 
 exactly what she wants you to do. If anyone you love has 
 been a fool, why, it is certainly hard to understand how they 
 could, but you stand by what you said to me the other day, 
 and forget it. 
 
 " I feel as if I was breaking into your own affairs. I hope 
 you won't care, and that I'm not all in the dark about this. 
 "Affectionately, BILLY." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THIS letter, creased from constant reading, Rachael 
 showed to George Valentine a week later. The doctor, 
 who had spent the week-end with his family at Clark's 
 Hills, was in his car and running past the gate of Home 
 Dunes on his way back to town when Rachael stopped 
 him. She looked her composed and dignified self in 
 her striped blue linen and deep-brimmed hat, but the 
 man's trained look found the circles about her won- 
 derful eyes, and he detected signs of utter weariness 
 in her voice. 
 
 "Read this, George," said she, resting against the 
 door of his car, and opening the letter before him. 
 "This came from Billy Mrs. Pickering, you know 
 several days ago." 
 
 George read the document through twice, then 
 raised questioning eyes to hers, and made the mouth of 
 a whistler. 
 
 "What do you think?" Rachael questioned in her 
 turn. 
 
 "Lord! I don't know what to think," said George. 
 "Do you suppose this can be true?" 
 
 Rachael sighed wearily, staring down the road under 
 the warming leaves of the maples into a far vista of 
 bare dunes in thinning September sunshine. 
 
 "It might be, I suppose. You can see that Billy 
 believes it," she said. 
 
 "Sure, she believes it," George agreed. "At least, 
 we can find out. But I don't understand it!" 
 
 "Understand it?" she echoed in rich scorn. "Who 
 understands anything of the whole miserable business ? 
 Do I ? Does Warren, do you suppose ? " 
 
 "No, of course nobody does," George said hastily 
 
 365 
 
366 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 in distress. He regarded the paper almost balefully. 
 "This is the deuce of a thing!" he said. "If she didn't 
 care for him any more than that, what's all the fuss 
 about? I don't believe the threat about sending his 
 letters, anyway!" he added hardily. 
 
 "Oh, that was true enough," Rachael said lifelessly. 
 "They came." 
 
 George gave her an alarmed glance, but did not speak. 
 
 "A great package of them came," Rachael added 
 dully. "I didn't open it. I had a fire that morning, 
 and I simply set it on the fire." Her voice sank, her 
 eyes, brooding and sombre, were far away. "But I 
 watched it burning, George," she said in a low, absent 
 tone, "and I saw his handwriting how well I know it 
 Warren's writing, on dozens and dozens of letters 
 there must have been a hundred! To think of it to 
 think of it!" 
 
 Her voice was like some living thing writhing in 
 anguish. George could think of nothing to say. He 
 looked about helplessly, buttoned a glove button 
 briskly, folded the letter, and made some work of putting 
 it away in an inside pocket. 
 
 "Well," Rachael said, straightening up suddenly, 
 and with resolute courage returning to her manner and 
 voice, "you'll have somebody look it up, will you, 
 George?" 
 
 "You may depend upon it immediately," George 
 said huskily. "It of course it will make an immense 
 difference," he added, in his anxiety to be reassuring 
 saying exactly the wrong thing. 
 
 Rachael was pale. 
 
 "I don't know how anything can make a great dif- 
 ference now, George," she answered slowly. "The 
 thing remains a fact. Of course this ends, in one 
 way, the sordid side, the fear of publicity, of notoriety. 
 But that wasn't the phase of it that ever counted with 
 me. This will probably hurt Warren " 
 
 "Oh, Rachael, dear old girl, don't talk that way!" 
 George protested. "You can't believe that Warren 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 367 
 
 will feel anything but a a most unbelievable relief! 
 We all know that. He's not the first man who let a 
 pretty face drive him crazy when he was working him- 
 self to death." George was studying her as he spoke, 
 with all his honest heart in his look, but Rachael merely 
 shook her head forlornly. 
 
 "Perhaps I don't understand men," she said with 
 a mildness that George found infinitely more disturb- 
 ing than any fury would have been. 
 
 "Well, I'll look up records at the City Hall," he said 
 after a pause. "That's the first thing to do. And 
 then I'll let ypu know. Boys well this morning?" 
 
 "Lovely," Rachael smiled. "My trio goes fishing 
 to-day, packing its lunch itself, and asking no feminine 
 assistance. The lunch will be eaten by ten o'clock, 
 and the boys home at half-past ten, thinking it is 
 almost sundown. They only go as far as the cove, 
 where the men are working, and we can see the tops of 
 their h^ads from the upstairs' porch, so Mary and I 
 won't feel entirely unprotected. I'm to lunch with 
 Alice, so my day is nicely planned!" 
 
 The bright look did not deceive him, nor the reassur- 
 ing tone. But George Valentine's friendship was more 
 easily displayed by deeds than words, and now, with 
 an affectionate pat for her hand, he touched his starter, 
 and the car leaped upon its way. Just four hours 
 later he telephoned Alice that the wedding license of 
 Margaret Rose Clay and Richard Gardiner had in- 
 deed been issued a week before, and that Magsie was 
 not to be found at her apartment, which was to be 
 sublet at the janitor's discretion; that Bowman's secre- 
 tary reported the absence of Miss Clay from the city, 
 and the uncertainty of her appearing in any of Mr. 
 Bowman's productions that winter, and that at the 
 hospital a confident inquiry for "Mr. and Mrs. Gardi- 
 ner" had resulted in the discreet reply that "the par- 
 ties" had left for California. George, with what was 
 for him a rare flash of imagination, had casually in- 
 quired as to the name of the clergyman who had per- 
 
368 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 formed the ceremony, being answered dispassionately 
 that the person at the other end of the telephone 
 "didn't know." 
 
 "George, you are an absolute wonder !" said Alice's 
 proud voice, faintly echoed from Clark's Hills. "Now, 
 shall you cable anybody you know who I mean ? " 
 
 "I have," answered the efficient George, "already." 
 
 "Oh, George! And what will he do?" 
 
 "Well, eventually, he'll come back." 
 
 " Do you think so ? I don't ! " 
 
 "Well, anyway, we'll see." 
 
 "And you're an angel," said Mrs. Valentine, finishing 
 the conversation. 
 
 Ten days later Warren Gregory walked into George 
 Valentine's office, and the two men gripped hands with- 
 out speaking. That Warren had left for America the 
 day George's cable reached him there was no need to 
 say. That he was a man almost sick with empty 
 days and brooding nights there was no need to say. 
 George was shocked in the first instant of meeting, 
 and found himself, as they talked together, increasingly 
 shocked at the other's aspect. 
 
 Warren was thin, his hair actually showed more 
 gray, there were deep lines about his mouth. But it 
 was not only that; his eyes had a tired and haunted 
 look that George found sad to see, his voice had lost 
 its old confident ring, and he seemed weary and shaken. 
 He asked for Alice and the children, and for Rachael 
 and the boys. 
 
 "Rachael's well," George said. "She looks well, 
 she shows what she's been through; but she's very 
 handsome. And the boys are fine. We had the whole 
 crowd down as far as Shark Light for a picnic last 
 Sunday. Rachael has little Breck Pickering down 
 there now; he's a nice little chap, younger than our 
 Katrina Jim's age. The youngster is in paradise, 
 sure enough, and putting on weight at a great rate." 
 
 "I didn't know he was there," Warren said slowly. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 369 
 
 "Like her to take him in. I wish I had been there 
 Sunday. I wish to the Lord that it was all a horrible 
 dream !" 
 
 He stopped and sat silent, looking gloomily at the 
 floor, his whole figure, George thought, indicating a 
 broken and shamed spirit. 
 
 "Well, Magsie's settled, at least," said George after 
 a silence. 
 
 "Yes. That wasn't what counted, though," Warren 
 said, as Rachael had said. "She is settled without 
 my moving; there's no way in which I can ever make 
 Rachael feel that I would have moved." Again his 
 voice sank into silence, but presently he roused him- 
 self. "I've come back to work, George," he said 
 with a quiet decision of manner that George found 
 new and admirable. "That's all I can do now. If she 
 ever forgives me but she's not the kind that forgives. 
 She's not weak Rachael. But anyway, I can work. 
 I'll go to the old house, for the present, and get things in 
 order. And you drop a hint to Alice, when she talks 
 to Rachael, that I've not got anything to say. I'll 
 not annoy her." 
 
 George's heart ached for him as Warren suddenly 
 covered his face with his hands. Warren had always 
 been the adored younger brother to him, Warren's 
 wonderful fingers over the surgical table, a miracle 
 that gave their owner the right to claim whatever 
 human weaknesses and failings he might, as a balance. 
 George had never thought him perfect, as so much of 
 the world thought him; to George, Warren had always 
 been a little more than perfect, a machine of inspired 
 surgery, underbalanced in many ways that in this one 
 supreme way he might be more than human. George 
 had to struggle for what he achieved; Warren achieved 
 by divine right. The women were in the right of it 
 now, George conceded, they had the argument. But 
 of course they didn't understand a thing like that had 
 nothing to do with Warren's wife; Rachael wasn't 
 brought into the question at all. And Lord! when all 
 
370 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 was said and done Warren was Warren, and profession- 
 ally the biggest figure in George's world. 
 
 "I don't suppose you feel like taking Hudson's 
 work?" said George now. "He's crazy to get away, 
 and he was telling me yesterday that he didn't see 
 himself breaking out of it. Mrs. Hudson wants to 
 go to her own people, in Montreal, and I suppose Jack 
 would be glad to go, too." 
 
 "Take it in a minute!" Warren said, his whole ex- 
 pression changing. "Of course I'll take it. I'm going 
 to spend this afternoon getting things into shape at 
 the house, and I think I'll drop round at the hospital 
 about five. But I can start right in to-morrow." 
 
 "It isn't too much?" George asked affectionately. 
 
 "Too much? It's the only thing that will save my 
 reason, I think," Warren answered, and after that 
 George said no more. 
 
 The two men lunched together, and dined together, 
 five times a week, with a curious change from old 
 times : it was Warren who listened, and George who did 
 the talking now. They talked of cases chiefly, for 
 Warren was working day and night, and thought of 
 little else than his work; but once or twice, as September 
 waned, and October moved toward its close, there 
 burst from him an occasional inquiry as to his wife. 
 
 "Will she ever forgive me, George?" Warren asked 
 one cool autumn dawning when the two men were 
 walking away from the hospital under the fading stars. 
 Warren had commenced an operation just before mid- 
 night, it was only concluded now, and George, who had 
 remained beside him for sheer admiration of his daring 
 and his skill, had suggested that they walk for a while, 
 and shake off the atmosphere of ether and of pain. 
 "It's a time like this I miss her," Warren said. "I 
 took it all for granted, then. But after such a night 
 as this, when I would go home in those first years, and 
 creep into bed, she was never too sleepy to rouse and 
 ask me how the case went, she never failed to see that 
 the house was quiet the next morning, and she'd bring 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 371 
 
 in my tray herself Lord, a woman like that, waiting 
 on me!" 
 
 George shook his head but did not speak. They 
 walked an echoing block or two in silence. 
 
 "George, I need my wife," Warren said then. "There 
 isn't an hour of my life that some phase of our life to- 
 gether doesn't come back to me and wring my heart. 
 I don't want anything else our sons, our fireside, our 
 interests together. I've heard her voice ever since. 
 And I'm changed, George, not in what I always be- 
 lieved, because I know right from wrong, and always 
 have, but I don't believe in myself any more. I want 
 my kids to be taught laws not their own laws. I 
 want to go on my knees to my girl " 
 
 His voice thickened suddenly, and they walked on 
 with no attempt on either side to end the silence for a 
 long time. The city streets were wet from a rain, but 
 day was breaking in hopeful pearl and rose. 
 
 "I can say this," said George at last: "I believe that 
 she needs you as much as you do her. But Rachael's 
 proud " 
 
 "Ah, yes, she's that!" Warren said eagerly as he 
 paused. 
 
 "And Warren, she has been dragged through the 
 muck during the last few years," George resumed in a 
 mildly expostulatory tone. 
 
 "Oh, I know it!" Warren answered, stricken. 
 
 "She hates coarseness," pursued George, "she hates 
 weakness. I believe that if ever a divorce was justified 
 in this world, hers was. But to have you come back 
 at her, to have Magsie Clay break in on her, and begin 
 to yap breezily about divorce, and how prevalent it is, 
 and what a solution it is, why, of course it was enough 
 to break her heart!" 
 
 "Don't!" Warren said thickly, quickening his pace, 
 as if to walk away from his own insufferable thoughts. 
 
 For many days they did not speak of Rachael again; 
 indeed George felt that there was nothing further to 
 say. He feared in his own heart that nothing would 
 
372 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 ever bring about a change in her feeling, or rather, that 
 the change that had been taking place in her for so 
 many weeks was one that would be lasting, that Rachael 
 was an altered woman. 
 
 Alice believed this, too, and Rachael believed it most 
 of all. Indeed, over Rachael's torn and shaken spirit 
 there had fallen of late a peace and a sense of security 
 that she had never before known in her life. She tried 
 not to think of Warren any more, or at least to think 
 of him as he had been in the happy days when they 
 had been all in all to each other. If other thoughts 
 would creep in, and her heart grow hot and bitter within 
 her at the memory of her wrongs, she resolutely fought 
 for composure; no matter now what he had been or done, 
 that life was dead. She had her boys, the sunsets and 
 sunrises, the mellowing beauty of the year. She had 
 her books, and above all her memories. And in these 
 memories she found much to blame in herself, but much 
 to pity, too. A rudderless little bark, she had been set 
 adrift in so inviting, so welcoming a sea twenty years 
 ago! She had known that she was beautiful, and 
 that she must marry what else? What more serious 
 thought ever flitted through the brain of little Rachael 
 Fairfax than that it was a delicious adventure to face 
 life in a rough blue coat and feathered hat, and steer 
 her wild little sails straight into the heart of the great 
 waters ? 
 
 She would have broken Stephen's heart; but Stephen 
 was dead. She had seized upon Clarence with never a 
 thought of what she was to give him, with never a 
 prayer as to her fitness to be his wife, nor his fitness to 
 be the father of her children. She had laughed at self- 
 sacrifice, laughed at endurance, laughed at married 
 love these things were only words to her. And when 
 she had tugged with all her might at the problem before 
 her, and tried, with her pitiable, untrained strength to 
 force what she wished from Fate, then she had flung the 
 whole thing aside, and rushed on to new experiments 
 and to new failures. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 373 
 
 Always on the surface, always thinking of the impres- 
 sion she made on the watching men and women about 
 her, what a life it had been ! She had never known who 
 made Clarence's money, what his own father had been 
 like, what the forces were that had formed him, and 
 had made him what he was. He did not please her, 
 that began and ended the story. He had presently 
 flung himself into eternity with as little heed as she had 
 cast herself into her new life. 
 
 Ah, but there had been a difference there! She had 
 loved there, and been awakened by great love. Her 
 child's crumpled, rosy foot had come to mean more to 
 her than all the world had meant before. The smile, 
 or the frown, in her husband's eyes had been her sun- 
 shine or her storm. Through love she had come to 
 know the brimming life of the world, the pathos, the 
 comedy that is ready to spill itself over every humble 
 window-sill, the joy that some woman's heart feels 
 whenever the piping cry of the new-born sounds in a 
 darkened room, the sorrow held by every shabby white 
 hearse that winds its way through a hot and unnoticing 
 street. She had clung to husband and sons with the 
 tigerish tenacity that is the rightful dower of wife and 
 mother; she had thought the world well lost in holding 
 them. 
 
 And then the sordid, selfish past rose like an ugly 
 mist before her, and she found at her lips the bitter cup 
 she had filled herself. She was not so safe now, behind 
 her barrier of love, but that the terrible machinery 
 she had set in motion might bring its grinding wheels 
 to bear upon the lives she guarded. She had flung 
 her solemn promise aside, once; what defence could she 
 make for a second solemn promise now? The world, 
 divorce mad, spun blindly on, and the echo of her own 
 complacent "one in twelve" came faintly, sickly back 
 to her after the happy years. 
 
 "Divorce has actually no place in our laws, it isn't 
 either wrong or right," Rachael said one autumn day 
 when they were walking slowly to the beach. Over 
 
374 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 their heads the trees were turning scarlet; the days were 
 still soft and warm, but twilight fell earlier now, and 
 in the air at morning and evening was the intoxicating 
 sharpness, the thin blue and clear steel color that mark 
 the dying summer. Alice's three younger children 
 were in school, and the family came to Clark's Hills 
 only for the week-ends, but Rachael and her boys stayed 
 on and on, enjoying the rare warmth and beauty of the 
 Indian Summer, and comfortable in the old house that 
 had weathered fifty autumns and would weather fifty 
 more. 
 
 "In some states it is absolutely illegal," Rachael con- 
 tinued, "in others, it's permissible. In some it is a 
 real source of revenue. Now fancy treating any other 
 offence that way! Imagine states in which stealing 
 was only a regrettable incident, or where murder was 
 tolerated ! In South Carolina you cannot get a divorce 
 on any grounds ! In Washington the courts can give it 
 to you for any cause they consider sufficient. There was 
 a case: a man and his wife obtained a divorce and both 
 remarried. Now they find they are both bigamists, 
 because it was shown that the wife went West, with her 
 husband's knowledge and consent, to establish her 
 residence there for the explicit purpose of getting a di- 
 vorce. It was well-established law that if a husband 
 or wife seek the jurisdiction of another state for the 
 sole object of obtaining a divorce, without any real 
 intent of living there, making their home there, goes, 
 in other words, just for divorce purposes, then the decree 
 having been fraudulently obtained will not be recog- 
 nized anywhere ! " 
 
 " But thousands do it, Rachael." 
 
 "But thousands don't seem to realize I never did 
 before that that is illegal. You can't deliberately 
 move to Reno or Seattle or San Francisco for such a 
 purpose. All marriages following a divorce procured 
 under these conditions are illegal. Besides this, the 
 divorce laws as they exist in Washington, California, 
 or Nevada are not recognized by other states, and so 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 375 
 
 because a couple are separated upon the grounds of 
 cruelty or incompatibility in some Western state, they 
 are still legally man and wife in New York or Massa- 
 chusetts. All sorts of hideous complications are going 
 on: blackmail and perjury! 
 
 " I wonder why divorce laws are so little understood ?" 
 Alice mused. 
 
 "Because divorce is an abnormal thing. You can't 
 make it right, and of course we are a long way from 
 making it wrong. But that is what it is coming to, I 
 believe. Divorce will be against the law some day! 
 No divorce on any grounds ! It cannot be reconciled 
 to law; it defies law. Right on the face of it, it is 
 breaking a contract. Are any other contracts to be 
 broken with public approval ? We will see the return of 
 the old, simple law, then we will wonder at ourselves ! I 
 am not a woman who takes naturally to public work 
 I wish I were. But perhaps some day I can strike the 
 system a blow. It is women like me who understand, 
 and who will help to end it." 
 
 "It is only the worth-while women who do under- 
 stand," said Alice. "You are the marble worth cutting. 
 Life is a series of phases; we are none of us the same 
 from year to year. You are not the same girl that you 
 were when you married Clarence Breckenridge " 
 
 "What a different woman!" Rachael said under her 
 breath. 
 
 "Well," said Alice then a little frightened, "why 
 won't you think that perhaps Warren might have 
 changed, too; that whatever Warren has done, it was 
 done more like like the little boy who has never had 
 his fling, who gets dizzy with his own freedom, and does 
 something foolish without analyzing just what he is 
 doing?" 
 
 "But Warren, after all, isn't a child!" Rachael said 
 sadly. 
 
 "But Warren is in some ways; that's just it," Alice 
 said eagerly. "He has always been singularly well, 
 unbalanced, in some ways. Don't you know there was 
 
376 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 always a sort of simplicity, a sort of bright innocence 
 about Warren? He believed whatever anybody said 
 until you laughed at him; he took every one of his 
 friends on his own valuation. It's only where his work 
 is concerned that you ever see Warren positive, and 
 dictatorial, and keen " 
 
 Rachael's eyes had rilled with tears. 
 
 "But he isn't the man I loved, and married," she 
 said slowly. "I thought he was a sort of god he 
 could do no wrong for me!" 
 
 "Yes, but that isn't the way to feel toward anybody," 
 persisted Alice. "No man is a god, no man is perfect. 
 You're not perfect yourelf; I'm not. Can't you just 
 say to yourself that human beings are faulty it may 
 be your form of it to get dignified and sulk, and War- 
 ren's to wander off dreamily into curious paths but 
 that's life, Rachael, that's 'better or worse,' isn't it?" 
 
 "It isn't a question of my holding out for a mere 
 theory, Alice," Rachael said after a while; "I'm not 
 saying that I'm all in the right, and that I will never see 
 Warren again until he admits it, and everyone admits 
 it that isn't what I want. But it's just that I'm dead, 
 so far as that old feeling is concerned. It is as if a child 
 saw his mother suddenly turn into a fiend, and do some 
 hideously cruel act; no amount of cool reason could ever 
 convince that child again that his mother was sweet 
 and good." 
 
 "But as you get older," Alice smiled, "you differen- 
 tiate between good and good, and you see grades in 
 evil, too. Everything isn't all good or all bad, like the 
 heroes and the villains of the old plays. If Warren 
 had done a 'hideously cruel' thing deliberately, that 
 would be one thing; what he has done is quite another. 
 The God who made us put sex into the world, Warren 
 didn't; and Warren only committed, in his what is it? 
 forty-eighth year one of the follies that most boys 
 dispose of in their teens. Be generous, Rachael, and 
 forgive him. Give him another trial ! " 
 
 "How can I forgive him?" Rachael said, badly 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 377 
 
 shaken, and through tears. "No, no, no, I couldn't! 
 I never can." 
 
 They had reached the beach now, and could see the 
 children, in their blue field coats, following the curving 
 reaches of the incoming waves. The fresh roar of the 
 breakers filled a silence, gulls piped their wistful little 
 cry as they circled high in the blue air. Old Captain 
 Semple, in his rickety one-seated buggy, drove up the 
 beach, the water rising in the wheel-tracks. The chil- 
 dren gathered about him; it was one of their excite- 
 ments to see the Captain wash his carriage, and the 
 old mare splash in the shallow water. Alice seated 
 herself on a great log, worn silver from the sea, and half 
 buried in the white sand, but Rachael remained stand- 
 ing, the sweet October wind whipping against her 
 strong and splendid figure, her beautiful eyes looking 
 far out to sea. 
 
 "You two have no quarrel," the older woman 
 added mildly. "You and Warren were rarely com- 
 panionable. I used to say to George that you were 
 almost too congenial, too sensitive to each other's moods. 
 Warren knew that you idolized him, Rachael, and 
 consequently, when criticism came, when he felt that 
 you of all persons were misjudging him, why, he simply 
 flung up his head like a horse, and bolted!" 
 
 "Misjudging?" Rachael said quickly, half turning 
 her head, and bringing her eyes from the far horizon 
 to rest upon Alice's face. The children had seen them 
 now, and were running toward them, and Alice did not 
 attempt to answer. She sighed, and shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
 A dead horseshoe crab on the sands deflected the 
 course of the racing children, except Derry, who pursued 
 his panting way, and as Rachael sat down on the log, 
 cast himself, radiant and breathless, into her arms. 
 She caught the child to her heart passionately. He 
 had always been closer to her than even the splendid 
 first-born because of the giddy little head that was 
 always getting him into troubles, and the reckless 
 
378 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 little feet that never chose a sensible course. Derry 
 was always being rescued from deep water, always 
 leaping blindly from high places and saved by the nar- 
 rowest possible chance, always getting his soft mop of 
 hair inextricably tangled in the steering-gear of Rachael's 
 car, or his foot hopelessly twisted in the innocent- 
 looking bars of his own bed, always eating mysterious 
 berries, or tasting dangerous medicines, always ready 
 to laugh deeply and deliciously at his own crimes. 
 Jim assumed a protective attitude toward him, chuck- 
 ling at his predicaments, advising him, and even gal- 
 lantly assuming the blame for his worst misdeeds. 
 Rachael imagined them in boarding-school some day; 
 in college; Jim the student, dragged from his books 
 and window-seat to go to the rescue of the unfortunate 
 but fascinating junior. Jim said he was going to write 
 books; Derry was going her heart contracted when- 
 ever he said it was going to be a doctor, and Dad 
 would show him what to do! 
 
 Ah, how proud Warren might have been of them, 
 she thought, walking home to-day, a sandy hand in 
 each of hers, Derry hopping on one foot, twisting, 
 and leaping; Jim leaning affectionately against her, 
 and holding forth as to the proper method of washing 
 wagons! What man would not have been proud of 
 this pair, enchanting in faded galatea now, soon to 
 be introduced to linen knickerbockers, busy with their 
 first toiling capitals now, some day to be growling Latin 
 verbs. They would be interested in the Zoo this 
 winter, and then in skating, and then in football 
 Warren loved football. He had thrown it all away! 
 
 Widowed in spirit, still Rachael was continually 
 reminded that she was not actually widowed, and in the 
 hurt that came to her, even in these first months, she 
 found a chilling premonition of the years to come. 
 Warm-hearted Vera Villalonga wrote impulsively from 
 the large establishment at Lakewood that she had 
 acquired for the early winter. She had heard that 
 Rachael and Greg weren't exactly hitting it off 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 879 
 
 hoped to the Lord it wasn't true-^-anyway, Rachael 
 had been perfectly horrible about seeing her old friends; 
 couldn't she come at once to Vera, lots of the old crowd 
 were there, and spend a month? Mrs. Barker Emery, 
 meeting Rachael on one of the rare occasions when 
 Rachael went into the city, asked pleasantly for the 
 boys, and pleasantly did not ask for Warren. Belvedere 
 Bay was gayer than ever this year, Mrs. Emory said; 
 did Rachael know that the Duchess of Exton was visit- 
 ing Mary Moulton such a dear! Georgiana Vander- 
 wall, visiting the Thomases at Easthampton, motored 
 over one day to spend a sympathetic half morning with 
 Rachael, pressing that lady's unresponsive hand with 
 her own large, capable one, and murmuring that of 
 course one heard that the Bishop of course felt 
 dreadfully they only hoped both such dear sweet 
 people 
 
 Rachael felt as if she would like to take a bath after 
 this well-meant visitation. A day or two later she 
 had a letter from Florence, who said that "someone" 
 had told her that the Gregorys might not be planning 
 to keep their wonderful cook this winter. If that was 
 true, would Rachael be so awfully good as to ask her to 
 go see Mrs. Haviland ? 
 
 "The pack," Rachael said to Alice, "is ready to run 
 again!" 
 
378 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 little feet that never chose a sensible course. Derry 
 was always being rescued from deep water, always 
 leaping blindly from high places and saved by the nar- 
 rowest possible chance, always getting his soft mop of 
 hair inextricably tangled in the steering-gear of Rachael's 
 car, or his foot hopelessly twisted in the innocent- 
 looking bars of his own bed, always eating mysterious 
 berries, or tasting dangerous medicines, always ready 
 to laugh deeply and deliciously at his own crimes. 
 
 Jim assumed a protective attitude toward him, chuck- 
 ng at his predicaments, advising him, and even gal- 
 lantly assuming the blame for his worst misdeeds. 
 Rachael imagined them in boarding-school some day; 
 in college; Jim the student, dragged from his books 
 and window-seat to go to the rescue of the unfortunate 
 but fascinating junior. Jim said he was going to write 
 books; Derry was going her heart contracted when- 
 ever he said it was going to be a doctor, and Dad 
 would show him what to do! 
 
 Ah, how proud Warren might have been of them, 
 she thought, walking home to-day, a sandy hand in 
 each of hers, Derry hopping on one foot, twisting, 
 and leaping; Jim leaning affectionately against her, 
 and holding forth as to the proper method of washing 
 wagons! What man would not have been proud of 
 this pair, enchanting in faded galatea now, soon to 
 be introduced to linen knickerbockers, busy with their 
 first toiling capitals now, some day to be growling Latin 
 verbs. They would be interested in the Zoo this 
 winter, and then in skating, and then in football 
 Warren loved football. He had thrown it all away! 
 
 Widowed in spirit, still Rachael was continually 
 reminded that she was not actually widowed, and in the 
 hurt that came to her, even in these first months, she 
 found a chilling premonition of the years to come. 
 Warm-hearted Vera Villalonga wrote impulsively from 
 the large establishment at Lakewood that she had 
 acquired for the early winter. She had heard that 
 Rachael and Greg weren't exactly hitting it off 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 879 
 
 hoped to the Lord it wasn't true -anyway, Rachael 
 had been perfectly horrible about seeing her old friends; 
 couldn't she come at once to Vera, lots of the old crowd 
 were there, and spend a month? Mrs. Barker Emory, 
 meeting Rachael on one of the rare occasions when 
 Rachael went into the city, asked pleasantly for the 
 boys, and pleasantly did not ask for Warren. Belvedere 
 Bay was gayer than ever this year, Mrs. Emory said; 
 did Rachael know that the Duchess of Exton was visit- 
 ing Mary Moulton such a dear! Georgiana Vander- 
 wall, visiting the Thomases at Easthampton, motored 
 over one day to spend a sympathetic half morning with 
 Rachael, pressing that lady's unresponsive hand with 
 her own large, capable one, and murmuring that of 
 course one heard that the Bishop of course felt 
 dreadfully they only hoped both such dear sweet 
 people 
 
 Rachael felt as if she would like to take a bath after 
 this well-meant visitation. A day or two later she 
 had a letter from Florence, who said that "someone" 
 had told her that the Gregorys might not be planning 
 to keep their wonderful cook this winter. If that was 
 true, would Rachael be so awfully good as to ask her to 
 go see Mrs. Haviland? 
 
 "The pack/* Rachael said to Alice, "is ready to run 
 again!" 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NOVEMBER turned chilly, and in its second week 
 there was even a flutter of snow at Clark's Hills. 
 Rachael did not dislike it, and it was a huge adventure 
 to the boys. Nevertheless, she began to feel that a 
 longer stay down on the bleak coast might be unwise. 
 The old house, for all its purring furnace and double 
 windows, was draughty enough to admit icy little 
 fingers of the outside air, here and there, and the vil- 
 lage, getting under storm shutters and closing up this 
 wing or that room for the winter, was so businesslike 
 in its preparations as to fill Rachael's heart with mild 
 misgivings. 
 
 Alice still brought her brood down for the week-ends, 
 and it \* on one of these that Rachael suddenly de- 
 cided to move. The two women discussed it, Rachael 
 finally agreeing to go to the Valentines' for a week before 
 
 f^ing on to Boston or it might be Washington or 
 hiladelphia any other city than the one in which 
 she might encounter the boys' father. Alice had never 
 won her to promise a visit before, and although Rachael's 
 confidence in her for Rachael neither extracted a 
 promise from Alice as to any possible encounter with 
 Warren, nor reminded her friend that she placed her- 
 self entirely at Alice's mercy rather disconcerted 
 Alice, she had a simple woman's strong faith in coin- 
 cidence, and she felt, she told George, that the Lord 
 would not let this opportunity for a reconciliation go 
 by. Mrs. Valentine had seen Warren Gregory now, 
 more than once, and far more potent than any argu- 
 ment that he might have made was his silence, his most 
 unexpected and unnatural silence. There was no 
 explanation; indeed Warren had little to say on any 
 
 380 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 381 
 
 subject in these days. He liked to come now and 
 then, in the evening, to the Valentine house, but he 
 would not dine there, and confined his remarks almost 
 entirely to answers to George. Physically, Alice 
 thought him shockingly changed. 
 
 "He is simply broken," she said to George, in some- 
 thing like fright. "I didn't know human beings could 
 change that way. Warren who used to be so posi- 
 tive! Why, he's almost timid!" 
 
 She did not tell Rachael this, and George insisted 
 that, while Rachael and the boys were at the house, 
 Warren must be warned to keep away; so that Alice 
 had frail enough material with which to build her 
 dreams. Nevertheless, she dreamed. 
 
 It was finally arranged that Rachael and little Jim 
 should go up to town on a certain Monday with Alice; 
 tLat Rachael should make various engagements then, 
 as to storage, packing, and such matters as the care of 
 the piano and the car, for the winter. Then Jim, for 
 the first time in his life, would stay away from his 
 mother overnight with Aunt Alice, Rachael returning 
 to Clark's Hills to bring Mary and Derry up the next 
 day in the car. Jim was to go to the dentist, and to 
 get shoes; there were several excellent reasons why it 
 seemed wise to have him await his mother and brother 
 in town rather than make the long trip twice in one 
 day. Mary smuggled Derry out of sight when th v , 
 Monday morning came, and Rachael and her oldest 
 son went away with the Valentines in the car. 
 
 It was a fresh, sweet morning in the early winter, 
 and both women, furred to the eyes, enjoyed the trip. 
 The children, snuggled in between them, chattered of 
 their own affairs, and Rachael interrupted her inex^ 
 haustible talk with Alice only to ask a question of the 
 driver now and then. 
 
 "I shall have to bring my own car over this road 
 to-morrow, Kane," she explained. "I have never 
 been at the wheel myself before in all the times I have 
 done itu" 
 
382 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "Mar-r-tin does be knowin' every step of the way," 
 suggested Kane. 
 
 "But Martin hasn't been with me this summer," 
 the lady smiled. 
 
 "I thought I saw him runnin' the docther's car yes- 
 terda' week," mused Kane who was a privileged char- 
 acter. "Well, 'tis not hard, Mrs. Gregory. The 
 whole place is plasthered wid posts. But the thing 
 of it is, ma'am," he added, after a moment, turning 
 back toward her without taking his eyes from the 
 road, "there does be a big storm blowin' up. Look 
 there, far over there, how black it is." 
 
 "But that won't break to-day?" Rachael said un- 
 easily, thinking of Derry. 
 
 "Well, it may not that's thrue. But these roads 
 will be in a grand mess if we have anny more rain 
 that's a fact for ye," Kane persisted. 
 
 "Then don't come until Wednesday," suggested 
 Alice. 
 
 "Oh, Alice, but I'll be so frantic to see my boy!" 
 
 "Twenty-four hours more, you goose! " Alice laughed. 
 Rachael laughed, too, and took several surreptitious 
 kisses from the back of Jimmy's neck as a fortifica- 
 tion against the coming separation. 
 
 Indeed, she found it unbelievably hard to leave him, 
 trotting happily upstairs with his beloved Katharine, 
 and to go about her day's business anticipating the 
 long trip back to Home Dunes without him. However, 
 there were not many hours to spare, and Rachael had 
 much to do. She set herself systematically to work. 
 
 By one o'clock everything was done, with an hour to 
 spare for train time. But she had foolishly omitted 
 luncheon, and felt tired and dizzy. She turned toward 
 a downtown lunchroom, and was held at the crossing of 
 Fifth Avenue and one of the thirties idly watching 
 the crowd of cars that delayed her when she saw War- 
 ren in his car. 
 
 He was on the cross street, and so also stopped, but 
 he did not see her. Martin was at the wheel, Warren 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL K 388 
 
 buttoned to the neck in a gray coat, his hat well down 
 over his eyes, alone in the back seat. He was staring 
 steadily, yet with unseeing eyes, before him, and Rachael 
 felt a sense of almost sickening shock at the sight of his 
 altered face. Warren, looking tired and depressed, 
 looking discouraged, and with some new look of diffi- 
 dence and hurt, besides all these, in his face! Warren 
 old! Warren old I ^ 
 
 Rachael felt as if she should faint. She was rooted 
 "where she stood. Fifth Avenue pushed gayly and 
 busily by her under the leaden sky. Furred old 
 Sadies, furred little girls, messenger boys and club men, 
 jostling, gossiping, planning. Only she stood still. 
 And after a while she looked again where Warren had 
 been. He was gone. But had he seen her? her 
 heart asked itself with wild clamor. Had he seen her? 
 
 She began to walk rapidly and blindly, conscious 
 of taking a general direction toward the Terminal 
 .Station, but so vague as to her course that she pres- 
 ently looked bewilderedly about to find that she was 
 In Eighth Avenue and that, standing absolutely still 
 again, and held by thought, she was being curiously 
 regarded by a policeman. She gave the man a dazed 
 and sickly smile. 
 
 "I am afraid I am a little out of my way," she stanv 1 
 mered. "I am going to the station." 
 
 He pointed out the direction, and she thanked him, 
 and blindly went on her way. But her heart was 
 tearing like a living thing in her breast, and she walked 
 like a wounded creature that leaves a trail of life 
 blood. 
 
 ; Oh, she was his wife his wife his wife! She be- 
 i longed there, in that empty seat beside him, with her 
 shoulder against that gray overcoat! What was she 
 doing in this desolate street of little shops, faint and 
 heartsick and alone! Oh, for the security of that 
 familiar car again! How often she had sat beside him, 
 arrested by the traffic, content to placidly watch the 
 shifting crowd, to wait for the shrill little whistle that 
 
384 THE HEAHT OF RACHAEL 
 
 gave them the right of way! If she were there now, 
 where might they be going? Perhaps to a concert, 
 perhaps to look at a picture in some gallery, but first of all 
 certainly to lunch. His first question would be: "Had 
 your lunch?" and his answer only a satisfied nod. But 
 he would direct Martin to the first place that suggested 
 itself to him as being suitable for Rachael's meal. And 
 he would order it, no trouble was too much for her; 
 nothing too good for his wife. 
 
 She was not beside him. She was still drifting along 
 this hideous street, battling with faintness and head- 
 ache, and never, perhaps, to see her husband again. 
 One of her sons was in the city, another miles away. 
 To her horror she felt herself beginning to cry. She 
 quickened her pace, and reckless of the waiter's concern, 
 entered the station restaurant and ordered herself a 
 lunch. But when it came she could not eat it, and she 
 was presently in the train, without a book or magazine, 
 still fasting except for a hurried half cup of tea, and 
 every instant less and less able to resist the coming 
 flood of her tears. 
 
 All the long trip home she wept, quietly and steadily, 
 one arm on the window sill, a hand pressed against her 
 face. There were few other passengers in the train, 
 which was too hot. The winter twilight shut down 
 early, and at last the storm broke; not violently, but 
 with a stern and steady persistence. The windows 
 ran rain, and were blurred with steam, the darkening 
 landscape swept by under a deluge. When the train 
 stopped at a station, a rush of wet air, mingled with the 
 odors of mackintoshes and the wet leather of motor 
 cars, came in. Rachael would look out to see meetings, 
 lanterns and raincoats, umbrellas dripping over eager, 
 rosy faces. 
 
 She would be glad to get home, she said to herself, to 
 her snuggly little comforting Derry. They would not 
 attempt to make the move to-morrow that was ab- 
 surd. It had been far too much of a trip to-day, and 
 Alice had advised her against it. But it had not 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 385 
 
 sounded so formidable. To start at seven, be in town 
 at ten, after the brisk run, and take the afternoon train 
 home this was no such strain, as they had planned it. 
 But it had proved to be a frightful strain. Leaving 
 Jim, and then catching that heart-rending glimpse of 
 the changed Warren Warren looking like a hurt 
 child who must bear a punishment without under- 
 standing it. 
 
 "Oh, what are we thinking about, to act in this crazy 
 manner!" Rachael asked herself desperately. "He 
 loves me, and I I've always loved him. Other people 
 may misjudge him, but I know! He's horrified and 
 shamed and sorry. He's suffering as much as I am. 
 What fools what utter fools we are!" 
 
 And suddenly it was nearly six o'clock now, and 
 they were within a few minutes of Clark's Hills she 
 stopped crying, and began to plan a letter that should 
 end the whole terrible episode. 
 
 "Your stop Quaker Bridge?" asked the conductor, 
 coming in, and beginning to shift the seats briskly on 
 their iron pivots, as one who expected a large crowd to 
 accompany him on the run back. 
 
 "Clark's Hills," Rachael said, noticing that she was 
 alone in the train. 
 
 "Don't know as we can get over the Bar," the man 
 said cheerily. 
 
 "Looks as if we were going to try it!" Rachael an- 
 swered with equal aplomb as the train ran through 
 Quaker Bridge without stopping, and went on with only 
 slightly decreased speed. And a moment later she 
 began to gather her possessions together, and the con- 
 ductor remarked amiably: "Here we are! But she 
 surely is raining," he added. "Well, we've only got 
 to run back as far as the car barn that's Seawall 
 to-night. My folks live there." 
 
 Rachael did not mind the rain. She would be at 
 home in five minutes. She climbed into a closed surrey, 
 smelling strongly of leather and horses, and asked the 
 driver pleasantly how early the rain had commenced. 
 
S86 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 He evidently did not hear her, at all events made no 
 answer, and she did not speak again. 
 
 "Where's my Derry?" Rachael's voice rang strong 
 and happy through the house. "Mary Mary!" she 
 added, stopping, rather puzzled, in the hall. "Where is 
 he?" 
 
 How did it come to her, by what degrees? How does 
 such news tell itself, from the first little chill, that is not 
 quite fear, to the full thundering avalanche of utter 
 horror? Rachael never remembered afterward, never 
 tried to remember. The moment remained the black- 
 est of all her life. It was not the subtly changed at- 
 mosphere of the house, not Mary's tear-swollen face, 
 as she appeared, silent, at the top of the stairs; not 
 Millie, who came ashen-faced and panting from the 
 kitchen; not the sudden, weary little moan that floated 
 softly through the hallway no one of all these things. 
 
 Yet Rachael knew Derry was dying. She needed 
 not to know how or why. Her furs fell where she stood, 
 her hat was gone, she had flown upstairs as swiftly as 
 light. She knew the door, she knew what she would see. 
 She went down on her knees beside him. 
 
 Her little gallant, reckless, shouting Derry! Her 
 warm, beautiful boy, changed in these few hours to this 
 crushed and moaning little being, this cruelly crumpled 
 and tortured little wreck of all that had been gay and 
 sound and confident babyhood! 
 
 In that first moment at his side it had seemed to 
 Rachael that she must die, too, of sheer agony of spirit.; 
 She put her beautiful head down against the brown 
 little limp hand upon which a rusty stain was drying, 
 and she could have wailed aloud in the bitter rebellion 
 of her soul. Not Derry, not Derry, so small and inno- 
 cent and confiding her own child, her own flesh and 
 blood, the fibre of her being! Trusting them, obeying 
 them, and betrayed brought to this! 
 
 At her first look she had thought the child dead; now, 
 as she drew back from him, and caught her self-control 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 38T 
 
 with a quivering breath, and wrung her hands together 
 in desperate effort to hold back a scream, she found 
 it in her heart to wish he were. His little face was black 
 from a great bruise that spread from temple to chin, 
 his mouth cut and swollen, his eyes half shut. His 
 body was doubled where it lay, a great bubble of blood 
 moved with his breath. He breathed lightly and 
 faintly, with an occasional deep gasp that invariably 
 brought the long, heart-sickening moan. They had 
 taken off part of his clothes, his shoes and stockings, 
 but he still wore his Holland suit, and the dark-blue 
 woolen coat had only been partly removed. 
 
 Rachael, ashen-faced, rose from her knees, and faced 
 Mary and Millie. With bitter tears the story was told. 
 He had been playing, as usual, in the barn, and Mary 
 had been swinging him. Not high, nothing like as high 
 as Jimmie went. And Millie came out to say that 
 their dinner was ready, and all of a sudden he called out 
 that he could swing without holding on, and put both 
 his hands up in the air. And then Mary saw him fall> 
 the board of the swing falling, too, and striking him as 
 he fell, and his face dashing against the old mill-whee! 
 that stood by the door. And he had not spoken 
 since. 
 
 His arm had hung down loose-like, as Mary carried him 
 in, and Millie had run for the doctor. But Doctor Peet 
 wouldn't be back until seven, and the girls had dared do> 
 no more than wash off his face a little and try to make 
 him comfortable. "I wish the Lord had called me be- 
 fore the day came," said Mary, "me, that would have 
 died for him for any of you ! " 
 
 " I know that, Mary," Rachael said. " It would have 
 happened as easily with me. We all know what you 
 have been to the boys, Mary. But you mustn't cry so 
 hard. I need you. I am going to drive him into 
 
 town.' 3 
 
 "Oh, my God, in this storm?" exclaimed Millie. 
 "There's nothing else to do," Rachael said. "He 
 may die on the way, but his mother will do what she 
 
388 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 can. I couldn't have Doctor Peet, kind as he is. 
 Doctor Gregory his father will know. It's nearly 
 seven now. We must start as fast as we can. You'll 
 have to pin something all about the back seat, Mary, 
 and line it with comforters. We'll put his mattress on 
 the seat you'll make it snug, won't you? and you'll 
 sit 'on the floor there, and steady him all you can, for 
 I'll have to drive. We ought to be there by midnight, 
 even in the storm." 
 
 "I'll fix it," Mary said, with one great sob, and im- 
 mediately, to Rachael's great relief, she was her prac- 
 tical self. 
 
 "And I want some coffee, Millie," she said, "strong; 
 I'm not hungry, but if you have something ready, I'll 
 eat what I can. Did Ruddy come up and get the car 
 to-day, for oil and gas, and so on ? " 
 
 "He did," said Millie, eager to be helpful. 
 
 "That's a blessing." Rachael turned to look at the 
 little figure on the bed. Her heart contracted with a 
 freezing spasm of terror whenever her eyes even moved 
 in that direction. 
 
 But there was plenty to do. She got herself into 
 dry, warm clothes. She leaned over her little charge, 
 straightening and adjusting as best she could, shifting 
 the little body as gently as was possible to the smaller 
 mattress, covering it warmly but lightly. As she did 
 so she wondered which one of those long, moaning 
 breaths would be the last; when would little Derry 
 straighten himself and lie still ? 
 
 No time to think of that. She tied on her hat and 
 veil, and went out to look at the car. The rear seat 
 was lined with pillows, the curtain drawn. She had 
 matches, her electric flashlight, her road maps, a flask 
 of brandy what else? 
 
 Millie had run for neighbors, and the chains were 
 finally adjusted. The car had been made ready for 
 the run, and was in good shape. 
 
 The big shadowy barn that was the garage was full of 
 dancing shapes in the lantern-light. The rain splashed 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 389 
 
 and spattered incessantly outside; a black sky seemed to 
 have closed down just over their heads. She was in a 
 fever to get away. 
 
 Slowly the dazzling headlights moved in the pitchy 
 blackness, the wheels grated but held their own. The 
 car came to the side door, and the little mattress came 
 out, and the muffled shape that was Mary got in beside 
 it. Then there was buttoning of storm curtains by 
 willing hands, and many a whispered good wish to 
 Rachael as she slipped in under the wheel. Millie 
 was beside her, at the last moment, begging to be of 
 some use if she might. 
 
 "There's just this, Mrs. Gregory," said Ruddy 
 Simms nervously, when the engine was humming, and , 
 Rachael's gloved hand racing the accelerator, "they^ 
 say the tide's making fast in all this rain! I don't 
 know how you'll do at the Bar. She's ugly a night 
 like this; what with the bay eating one side, and the 
 sea breaking over the other ! " i 
 
 "Thank you," Rachael said, not hearing him. "God ' 
 bless you ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 She released the clutch. The big car leaped forward 
 into the darkness. The clock before her eyes said 
 thirty-five minutes past seven. Rain beat against the 
 heavy cloth of the curtains, water swished and splashed ' 
 under the wheels, and above the purring of the engine, 
 they could hear the clinking fall of the chains. There 
 was no other sound except when Deny caught a moan- 
 ing breath. i 
 
 Clark's Hills passecl in blackness, the road dropped 
 down toward the Bar. Rachael could feel that Mary, 
 in the back seat, was praying, and that Millie was pray- 
 ing beside her. Her own heart rose on a wild and des- 
 perate prayer. If they could cross this narrow strip 
 between the bay and the ocean, then whatever the 
 fortune of the road, she could meet it. Telephones, at 
 least, were on the other side, resources of all sorts. 
 But to be stopped here! 
 
 The look of the Bar, when they reached it, struck chill 
 
390 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 even to Rachael's heart. In the clear tunnels of light 
 flung from the car lamps it seemed all a moving level 
 of restless water smitten under sheets of rain. Any- 
 thing more desperate than an effort to find the little 
 belt of safety in this trackless spread of merciless seas it 
 would be hard to imagine. At an ordinary high tide the 
 Bar was but a few inches above the sea; now, with a 
 wind blowing, a heavy rain falling, and the tide almost 
 at the full, no road whatever was visible. It was there, 
 the friendly road that Rachael and the hot and sandy 
 boys had tramped a hundred times, but even she could 
 not believe it, now, so utterly impassable did the shift- 
 ing surface appear. 
 
 But she gallantly put the car straight into the heart 
 of it, moving as slowly as the engine permitted, and 
 sending quick, apprehensive glances into the darkness as 
 she went. 
 
 "At the worst, we can back out of this, Millie," said 
 she. 
 
 "Of course we can," Millie said, suppressing fright- 
 ened tears with some courage. 
 
 The water was washing roughly against the running 
 boards; to an onlooker the car would have had the ap- 
 pearance of being afloat, hub-deep, at sea. 
 
 Slowly, slowly, slowly they were still moving. 
 The car stopped short. The engine was dead. Rachael 
 touched her starter, touched it again and again. No 
 | use. The car had stopped. The rain struck in noisy 
 sheets against the curtains. The sea gurgled and rushed 
 i about them. Derry moaned softly. 
 
 And now the full madness of the attempted expedi- 
 tion struck her for the first time. She had never 
 i thought that, at worst, she could not go back. What 
 now? Should they stand here on the shifting sand of 
 the Bar until the tide fell it was not yet full. Rachael 
 felt her heart beating quick with terror. It began to 
 seem like a feverish dream. 
 
 Neither maid spoke, perhaps neither one realized the 
 full extent of the calamity. With the confidence of 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 391 
 
 those who do not understand the workings of a car, they 
 waited to have it start again. 
 
 But both girls screamed when suddenly a new voice 
 was heard. Rachael, starting nervously as a man's 
 figure came about the car out of the black night, in 
 the next second saw, with a great rush of relief, that it 
 was Ruddy Simms. He was a mighty fellow, devoted 
 to the Gregorys. He proceeded rather awkwardly to 
 explain that he hadn't liked to think of their trying to 
 cross the Bar, and so had come with them on the 
 running board. 
 
 "Oh, Ruddy, how grateful I am to you!" Rachael 
 said. "Perhaps you can go back and get us a tow? 
 What can we do?" 
 
 "Stuck?" asked Ruddy, wading as unconcernedly 
 about the car as if the sun were shining on the scene. 
 
 "No, I don't think so, not yet. But I can feel the 
 road under us giving already. And I've killed my 
 engine!" 
 
 Ruddy deliberated. 
 
 "Won't start, eh?" 
 
 "She simply won't!" 
 
 "Ain't got a crank, have ye?" 
 
 Rachael stared. 
 
 "Why, yes, we have, under my seat here. But is 
 there a chance that she might start on cranking?" she 
 said eagerly. 
 
 " Dun't know," Ruddy said non-committally. 
 
 Rachael was instantly on her feet, and after some 
 
 f roping and adjusting, the cranking was attempted, 
 ailure. Ruddy went bravely at it again. Failure. 
 Again Rachael touched the starter. 
 
 "No use!" she said with a sinking heart. 
 But Ruddy was bred of sea-folk who do not expect 
 quick results. He tugged away again vigorously, and 
 again after that. And suddenly the most delicious 
 sound that Rachael's ears had ever heard there was 
 the sucking and plunging that meant success. The 
 car panted like a giant revived, and Ruddy stood back 
 
392 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 in the merciless green light and sent Rachael a smile. 
 His homely face, running rain, looked at her as bright 
 as an angel's. 
 
 "Dun't know as I'd stand there, s'deep in my tracks!' 5 
 shouted Ruddy. 
 
 Gingerly, timidly, she pushed the car on some ten 
 feet. "What Fs thinking," suggested Ruddy then, 
 coming to put his face in close to hers, and shouting 
 over the noise of wind and water, "is this: if I was to 
 walk ahead of ye, kinder feeling for the road with my 
 feet, then you could come after, d'ye see?" 
 
 "Oh, Ruddy, do you think we can make it, then?'* 
 Rachael's face was wet with tears. 
 
 "Dun't know," he said. He took off his immense 
 boots and gray socks, and rolled up his wet trousers, 
 the better to feel every inch of rise or fall in the ground 
 beneath his feet, and Millie held these for him as if it 
 were a sacred charge. 
 
 And then, with the full light of the lamps illumining 
 his big figure, and with the water rushing and gurgling 
 about them, and the rain pouring down as if it were an 
 actual deluge, they made the crossing at Clark's Bar. 
 The shifting water almost blinded Rachael sometimes, 
 and sometimes it seemed as if any way but the way 
 that Ruddy's waving arms indicated was the right 
 one; as if to follow him were utter madness. The 
 water spouted up through the clutch, and once again 
 the engine stopped, and long moments went by before 
 it would respond to the crank again. But Rachael 
 pushed slowly on. She was not thinking now, she was 
 conscious of no feeling but that there was an opposite 
 shore, and she must reach it. 
 
 And presently it rose before them. The road ran 
 gradually upward, a shallow sheet of running water 
 covering it, but firm, hard roadway discernible never- 
 theless. Rachael stopped the car, and Ruddy came 
 again and put his face close to hers, through the cur- 
 tains. 
 
 "Now ye've got straight road, Mrs. Gregory, and I 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 393 
 
 hope to the good Lord you'll have a good run. Thank 
 ye, Millie much obliged!" 
 
 "Ruddy!" said Rachael passionately, her wet gloves 
 holding his big, hairy hands tight. "I'll never forget 
 this ! If he has a chance to live at all, this is his chance, 
 and you've given it to him! God bless you, a thousand 
 times!" 
 
 "That's all right," said Ruddy, terribly embarrassed, 
 "You've always been awful good to my folks. I'm 
 glad we done it! Good-night!" Then Ruddy had 
 turned back for the walk home in the streaming black- 
 ness, and Rachael, drawing a deep breath, was on her way 
 again. She stopped only for a quick question to Mary. 
 
 "No change?" 
 
 "Just the same." 
 
 The wet miles flew by; rain beat untiringly against 
 the curtains, slished in two great feathers of water 
 from under the rushing wheels. Rachael watched her 
 speedometer ; twenty-five twenty-eight thirty they 
 could not do better than that in this weather. And 
 they had a hundred miles to go. 
 
 But that hundred was only eighty-six now, only 
 eighty. Villages flew by, and men came out and stood 
 on the dripping porches of crossroad stores to marvel 
 as the long scream of Rachael's horn cut through the 
 night air. Twenty minutes past eight o'clock eight 
 minutes of nine o'clock. The little villages began to 
 grow dark. 
 
 There was nothing to pass on the road; so much was 
 gain. Except in the villages, and once or twice where 
 a slow, rattling wagon was plodding along on the wet 
 mirror-like asphalt, Rachael might make her own 
 speed. The road lay straight, and was an exception- 
 ally good road, even in this weather. She need hardly 
 pause for signboards. The rain still fell in sheets. 
 Seventy-two miles to go. 
 
 "How is he, Mary?" 
 
 "The same, Mrs. Gregory. Except that he gives 
 a little groan now and then when it shakes him!" 
 
394 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "My boy! But not sleeping?" 
 
 "Oh, no, Mrs. Gregory. He just lies quiet like." 
 
 "God bless him!" Rachael said under her breath. 
 Aloud she said: "Millie, couldn't you lean over, and 
 watch him a few minutes, and see what you think?" 
 
 Then they were flying on again. Rachael began to 
 wonder just how long the run was. They always care- 
 lessly called it "a hundred miles." But was it really 
 a hundred and two, or ninety-eight ? What a difference 
 two or three miles would make to-night ! She fell into 
 a nervous shiver; suppose they reached the bridge, 
 and then Mary should touch her arm. "He doesn't 
 look right, Mrs. Gregory!" Suppose that for the little 
 boy that they finally carried into New York there was 
 no longer any hope. Her little Derry 
 
 The child that might have been the joy of a happy 
 home, that might have grown to a dignified inheritance 
 of the love and tenderness that had been between his 
 father and mother. Robbed in his babyhood, taken 
 away from the father he adored, and now this ! Sixty- 
 one miles to go. 
 
 "Detour to New York." The sign, with all its 
 hideous import, rose before her suddenly. No help 
 for it; she must lose one or two, perhaps a dozen miles, 
 she must give up the good road for a bad one. She 
 must lose her way, too, perhaps. Had Kane gone over 
 this road yesterday? It was much farther on that 
 she had spoken to Kane. Perhaps he had, but she 
 could not remember, doubt made every foot of the way 
 terrible to Rachael. She could only plunge on, over 
 rocks, over bumps, into mud-holes. She could only 
 blindly take what seemed of two turnings the one most 
 probably right. 
 
 "Oh Mother!" The little wail came from Derry. 
 Rachael, her heart turned to ice, slowed down stopped 
 and leaned into the half darkness in the back of the 
 car. The child's lovely eyes were opened. Rachael 
 could barely see his white face. 
 
 ."My darling!" she said. 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 395 
 
 "Will you not bump me so, Mother?" the little boy 
 whispered. 
 
 "I will try not to, my heart!" Rachael, wild with 
 terror, looked to Mary's face. Was he dying, now and 
 here ? 
 
 "Oh Moth it hurts so!" 
 
 "Does it, my darling?" 
 
 He drowsed again. Rachael turned back to her 
 wheel. They must go more slowly now, at any cost. 
 
 The road was terrible, in parts, after the hours of 
 heavy rain, it seemed almost impassable. Rachael 
 pushed on. Presently they were back in the main 
 road again, and could make better time. Of the hun- 
 dred miles only fifty remained. But that meant noth- 
 ing now. How much time had she lost in that frightful 
 bypath? Rachael's face was dripping with rain, rain 
 had trickled under her clothing at neck and wrists. 
 Through her raincoat the breast of her gown was soak- 
 ing, and her feet ached with the strain of controlling 
 the heavy car. Water came in long runnels through 
 the wind-shield, and struck her knees; she had turned 
 her dress back, her thin silk petticoat was soaked, and 
 the muscles of knees and ankles were cold and sore. 
 But she felt these things not at all. Her eyes burned 
 ahead, into the darkness, she heard nothing but the 
 occasional fluttering moan from Deny ; she thought noth- 
 ing but that she might be too late too late too late! 
 
 At the first town of any size she stopped, a telegram 
 to George taking shape in her mind. But the wires 
 here were down, as they had been farther down the 
 Island. The rain was thinning, but the wind was 
 rising every secondhand as she rushed on she saw that 
 in many places the lights on the road were out; all the 
 Island lay battered and bruised under the storm. 
 
 Slowly as they seemed to creep, yet the miles were go- 
 ing by. Freeport Lynbrook Jamaica like a woman 
 in a dream she reached the bridge and a moment 
 later looked down upon the long belt of lights winking 
 in the rain that was New York. 
 
396 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 And here, on the very apex of the bridge, came the 
 most heart-rending moment of the run, for the little 
 boy began to cough, and for two or three frightful 
 minutes the women hung over him, speechless with 
 terror, and knowing that at any second the exhausted 
 little body might succumb to the strain. Blindly, as 
 with a long, choked cry he sank back again, Rachael 
 went back to her wheel. Third Avenue Fifth Avenue 
 Forty-second Street tore by; they were running 
 straight down toward Washington Arch as the clocks 
 everywhere struck midnight. The wide street was 
 deserted in the rain, it shone like a mirror, reflecting 
 long pendants of light. 
 
 They were turning the corner; she was out of the car, 
 and had glanced at the familiar old house. Wet, ex- 
 hausted, fired by a passion that made her feel curiously 
 light and sure, Rachael put her arms about her child, 
 and carried him up the steps. Mary had preceded her, 
 the door was opened; a dazed and frightened maid was 
 looking at her. 
 
 Then she was crossing the familiar hall; lights were 
 in the library, and Warren in the library, somebody 
 with him, but Rachael only caught a glimpse of the old 
 familiar attitude: he was sitting in a straight-backed 
 chair, his legs crossed, and one firm hand grasping a 
 silk-clad ankle as he intently listened to whatever was 
 being said. 
 
 "Warren!" she said in a voice that those who heard 
 it remembered all their lives. "It's Derry! He's 
 hurt he's dying, I think! Can you can you save 
 him?" And with a great burst of tears she gave up 
 the child. 
 
 "My God what is it!" said Warren Gregory on his 
 feet, and with Derry in his arms, even as he spoke. 
 For a second the tableau held: Rachael, agonized, her 
 beautiful face colorless, and dripping with rain, her 
 husband staring at her as if he could not credit his 
 senses, the child's limp body in his arms, yet not quite 
 freed from hers. In the background were the white- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 397 
 
 faced servants and the gray-headed doctor upon whose 
 conversation the newcomers had so abruptly broken. 
 
 "We've just brought him up from Clark's Hills!" 
 Rachael said. 
 
 "From Clark's Hills You !" 
 
 His look, the dear familiar look of solicitude and 
 concern, tore her to the soul. 
 
 "There was nothing else to do!" she faltered. 
 
 "But you drove up to-night?" 
 
 "Since seven." 
 
 He looked at her, and Rachael felt the look sink into 
 her soul like rain into parched land. 
 
 "And you came straight to me!" His voice sank. 
 " Rachael," he said, "I will save him for you if I can!" 
 
 And instantly there began such activities in the old 
 house as perhaps even its dignified century of living 
 had never known. Rachael, hungry through these 
 terrible hours of suspense for just the wild rush and 
 hurry, watched her husband as if she had never seen 
 him before. Presently lights blazed from cellar to 
 attic, maids flew in every direction, fires were lighted, 
 the moving of heavy furniture shook the floors. Derry, 
 the little unconscious cause of it all, lay quiet, with 
 Mary watching him. 
 
 New York had been asleep; it was awakened now. 
 Motor cars wheeled into the Gregorys' street; Mrs. 
 Gregory herself answered the door. Here was the 
 nurse, efficient, yst sympathetic, too, with her para- 
 phernalia and her assistants. Yes, she had been able 
 to get it, Doctor Gregory. Yes, Doctor, she had that. 
 Here was the man from the drug store that was all 
 right, Doctor, that was what he expected, being waked 
 up in the night; thank you, Doctor. And here was 
 George Valentine, too much absorbed in the business 
 in hand to say more than an affectionate "Hello" to 
 Rachael. But with George was Alice, white-faced but 
 smiling, and little sleepy Jimmy, who was to be smug- 
 gled immediately into bed. 
 
398 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 "I thought you'd rather have him here," said Alice. 
 
 Rachael knew why. Rachael knew what doctors 
 said to each other, when they gathered, and used those 
 quick, low monosyllables. She knew why Miss Red- 
 ding was speeding the arrangements for the improvised 
 operating-room with such desperate hurry. She knew 
 why one of these assisting doctors was delegated to do 
 nothing but sit beside Derry, watching the little hurt 
 breast rise and fall, watching the bubble of blood form 
 and break on the swollen mouth. 
 
 Warren had told her to get into dry clothing, and then 
 to take a stimulant, and have something to eat. And 
 eager to save him what she could, she was warm and 
 dry now. She sat in Derry's room, and presently, 
 when they came to stand beside him, Warren and 
 George, they found her agonized eyes, bright with 
 questions, facing them. But she knew better than to 
 speak. 
 
 Neither man spoke for a few dreadful moments* 
 Warren looked at the child without a flicker of change 
 in his impassive look; George bit his lip, and almost 
 imperceptibly shook his head. And in their faces 
 Rachael read the death of her last faint hope. 
 
 "We don't dare anesthetize him until we know just 
 the lie of those broken ribs," said Warren gravely to 
 his wife, "and yet the little chap is so exhausted that 
 the strain of trying to touch it may may be too much 
 for him. There's no time for an X-ray. Some of 
 these fellows think it is too great a risk. I believe it 
 may be done. If there are internal injuries, we can't 
 hope to " He paused. "But otherwise, I be- 
 lieve" 
 
 Again his voice dropped. He stood looking at the 
 little boy with eyes that were not a surgeon's now; all a 
 father's. 
 
 "Good little chap," he said softly. "Do you remem- 
 ber how he used to watch Jim, through the bars of his 
 crib, when he was about eight months old, and laugh 
 as if Jim was the funniest thing in the world?" 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 399 
 
 Rachael looked up and nodded with brimming eyes. 
 She could not speak. 
 
 They carried Derry away, and Rachael followed 
 them up to the head of the stairway outside of the 
 operating-room, and sat there, her hands locked in her 
 lap, her head resting against the wall. Alice dared not 
 join her, she kept her seat by the library fire, and with 
 one hand pressed tight against her eyes, tried to pray. 
 
 Rachael did not pray. She was unable even to think 
 clearly. Visions drifted through her tired brain, the 
 panorama of the long day and night swept by unceas- 
 ingly. She was in Eighth Avenue again, she was in the 
 hot train, with the rain beating against the windows, 
 and tears running down her hot cheeks. She was en- 
 tering the house "Where's my boy?" And then she 
 was driving the car through that cruel world of water 
 and wind. She would have saved him if she could! 
 She had done her share. Instantly, unflinchingly, 
 she had torn through blackness and storm; a battered 
 ship beating somehow toward the familiar harbor. 
 Now he must be saved. Rachael knew that madness 
 would come upon her if these hideous hours were only 
 working toward the moment when she would know 
 that she had been too late. For the rest of her life she 
 would only review them: the Bar, the wet roads, the de- 
 tour, and the frightful seconds on the bridge. There 
 had been something expiatory, something symbolic 
 in this mad adventure, this flight through the night. 
 The fires that had been burning in her heart for the 
 past terrible hours were purged, she must be changed 
 forevermore after to-night. But for the new birth, 
 Derry must not be the price! The strain had been too 
 great, the delicate machinery of her brain would give, 
 she could not take up life again, having lost him and 
 lost him in this way 
 
 They were torturing him; the child's cry of utter 
 agony reached her where she sat. It came to her, in a 
 flash, that Warren had said there might be no merciful 
 
400 THE HEART OF RACHAEL ^ 
 
 chloroform. Cold water broke out on her forehead, 
 she covered her ears with her hands, her breath coming 
 wild and deep. Derry! 
 
 "Oh, no Daddy! Oh, no, Daddy! Oh, Mother- 
 Mother !" 
 
 "Oh, my God! this is not right," Rachael said half 
 aloud. "Oh, take him, take him, but don't let him 
 suffer so!" 
 
 She was writhing as if the suffering were her own. 
 For perhaps five horrible moments the house rang, 
 then there was sudden silence. 
 
 "Now he is dead," Rachael said in the same quiet, 
 half-audible tone. "I am glad. He will never know 
 what pain is again. Five perfect little years, with 
 never one instant that was not sweet and good. Ger- 
 ald Fairfax Gregory five years old. One sees it in 
 the papers almost every day. But who thinks what it 
 means? Just the mother, who remembers the first cry, 
 and the little crumpled flannel wrappers, and the little 
 hand crawling up her breast. He walked so much 
 sooner than Jim did, but of course he was lighter. And 
 how he would throw things out of windows the cam- 
 era that hit the postman! Oh, my God!" 
 
 For the anguished screaming had recommenced, and 
 the child wanted his mother. 
 
 Rachael bore it for endless, agonizing minutes. 
 Presently Alice, white-faced, was kneeling on the step 
 below her, and their wet hands were clasped. 
 
 "Dearest, why do you sit here!" 
 
 "Oh, Alice, could I get Warren, do you think? They 
 mustn't it's too cruel! He's only a baby, he doesn't 
 understand! Better a thousand times to let him go 
 tell them so! Get George tell him I say so!" 
 
 "Rachael, it's terrible," said Alice, who was crying 
 hard, "b-b-but they must think there is a chance, dear. 
 We couldn't interrupt them now. He would see you 
 there, he's quiet again. That may be all!" 
 
 But it was not the end for many hours. The wo- 
 men on the stairs, and the sobbing maids in the dining- 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 401 
 
 room, hoped and despaired, and grew faint and sick 
 themselves as the merciless work went on. Once 
 George came out of the room for a few minutes, with a 
 face flaked with white, and his surgeon's gown crumpled, 
 wet with water and stained here and there a terrible 
 red. He did not speak to either woman, and in answer 
 to Alice's breath of interrogation merely shook his head. 
 
 At four o'clock Warren himself came to the door. 
 Rachael sprang to her feet, was close to him in a second. 
 The sight of him, his gown, his hands, his dreadful face, 
 turned Alice faint, but Rachael's voice was steady. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "We are nearly done. Nearly done," Warren said. 
 "I can't tell yet nobody can. But I must finish it. 
 Do you think you could he keeps asking for you. I 
 am sorry to ask you " 
 
 "Hold him?" Rachael's voice of agony said. "Yes, 
 I could do that. I I have been wanting to ! " 
 
 "No there is no necessity for that. He is on the 
 table. But if he could see you. It is the very end of 
 our work," he answered. "It may be that he can't 
 you must be ready for that." 
 
 "I am ready," she said. 
 
 A second later she was in the room with the child. 
 She saw nothing but Derry, his little body beneath the 
 sheet rigidly strapped to the table. The group gave 
 place, and Rachael stood beside him. His beautiful 
 baby eyes, wild with terror and agony, found her; she 
 bent over him, and laid her fingers on his wet little fore- 
 head. He wanted his mother to take him away, he had 
 been calling her hadn't she heard him ? Please, please, 
 not to let anyone touch him again ! 
 
 Rachael summoned a desperate courage. She spoke 
 to him, she could even smile. Did he remember the 
 swing yes, but he didn't remember Mother bringing 
 him all the'way up, so that Daddy and Uncle George 
 
 His brave eyes were fixed on hers. He was trying 
 to remember, trying to answer her smile, trying to 
 think of other things than the recommencing pain. 
 
402 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 No use. The hoarse, terrible little screams began 
 again. His little hand writhed in hers. 
 
 "Mother please will you make them stop?" 
 
 Rachael was breathing deep, her own forehead was 
 wet. She knew the child's strength was gone. 
 
 "Just a little more, dearest/' she said, white lipped; 
 eyes full of agonized appeal turned to George. 
 
 "Doctor " One of the nurses, her hand on his 
 
 pulse, said softly. George Valentine looked up. 
 
 Rachael's apprehensive glance questioned them both. 
 But Warren Gregory did not falter, did not even glance 
 away from his own hands. 
 
 Then it was over. The tension in the room broke 
 suddenly, the atmosphere changed, although there was 
 not an audible breath. The nurses moved swiftly and 
 surely, needing no instructions. George lifted Derry's 
 little hand from Rachael's, and put one arm about her. 
 Warren put down his instrument, and bent, his face a 
 mask of anxiety, over the child. Deny was breathing 
 no more. But on the bloodless face that Warren 
 raised there was the light of hope. 
 
 "I believe he will make it, George," he said. "I 
 think we have saved him for you, Rachael! No no 
 leave him where he is, Miss Moore. Get a flat pillow 
 under his head if you can. Cover him up. I'm go- 
 ing to stay here." 
 
 "Wouldn't he be more comfortable in his bed?" 
 Rachael's shaken voice asked in a low tone. She was 
 conscious only that she must not faint now. 
 
 "He would be, of course. But it may be just by that 
 fraction of energy that he is hanging on. Brave little 
 chap, he has been helping us just as if he knew " 
 
 But this Rachael could not endure. Her whole 
 body shook, the room rocked before her eyes. She 
 had strength to reach the hall, saw Alice standing white 
 and tense, at the top of the stairs then it was all 
 darkness. 
 
 It seemed hours later, though it was only minutes, 
 that Rachael came dreamily to consciousness in her 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 403 
 
 own old room, on her own bed. Her idly moving eyes 
 found the shaded lamp, found Alice sitting beside her. 
 Alice's hand lay over her own. For a long time they 
 did not speak. 
 
 A perfect circle of shadow was flung on the high ceiling 
 from the lamp. Outside of the shadow were the famil- 
 iar window draperies, the white mantel with its old 
 candlesticks, the exquisite crayon portrait of Jim at 
 three, and Derry a delicious eighteen-months-old. 
 There was the white bowl that had always been rilled 
 with violets, empty now. And there were the low 
 bookcases where a few special favorites were kept, and 
 the quaint old mahogany sewing-table that had been 
 old Mrs. Gregory's as a bride. 
 
 Rachael was exhausted in every fibre of body and 
 soul, consecutive thought was impossible now; her 
 aching head defied the effort, but lying here, in this dim 
 light, there came to her a vision of the years that 
 might be. If she were ever rested again, if little Derry 
 were again his sunny, resolute self, if Warren and she 
 were reunited, then what an ideal of fine and simple and 
 unselfish living would be hers! How she would cling 
 to honor and truth and goodness, how she would fortify 
 herself against the pitfalls dug by her own impulsive- 
 ness. She and Warren had everything in life worth 
 while, it was not for them to throw their gifts away. 
 Their home should be the source of help to other homes, 
 their sons should some day go out into the world 
 equipped with wisdom, disciplined and self-controlled, 
 ready to meet life far more bravely than ever their 
 mother had. 
 
 There was a low voice at her door. Alice was gone, 
 and Warren was kneeling beside her. And as she laid 
 one tired arm about his neck, in the dear familiar 
 fashion of the past, and as their eyes met, Rachael 
 felt that all her life had been a preparation for this 
 exquisite minute. 
 
 "I thought you would like to know that he is sleeping: 
 
404 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 and we have moved him," Warren said. "In three 
 days you will have him roaring to get up." 
 
 Tears brimmed Rachael's eyes. 
 
 "You saved him," she whispered. 
 
 " You saved him; George says so, too. If that fellow 
 down there had given him chloroform, there would have 
 been no chance. Our only hope was to relieve that 
 pressure on his heart, and take the risk of it being too 
 much for him. He's as strong as a bull. But it was a 
 fight! And no one but a woman would have rushed 
 him up here in the rain." 
 
 Rachael's eyes were streaming. She could not 
 speak. She clung to her husband's hand for a moment 
 or two of silence. 
 
 "And now, I want to speak to you," Warren said, 
 ending it. " I have nothing to say in excuse. I know 
 I shall know all my life, what I have done. It is like a 
 bad dream." 
 
 His uncertain voice stopped. Husband and wife 
 looked full at each other, both breathing quickly, both 
 faces drawn and tense. 
 
 " But, Rachael," Warren went on, " I think, if you 
 knew how I have suffered, that you would that some 
 day, you would forgive me. I was never happy. 
 Never anything but troubled and excited and confused. 
 But for the last few months, in this empty house, seeing 
 other men with their wives, and thinking what a wife 
 
 you were It ha^ been like finding my sight like 
 
 coming out of a fever " He paused. Rachael did 
 
 not speak. 
 
 "I know what I deserve at your hands," Warren said. 
 "Nobody nobody not old George, not anyone can 
 think of me with the contempt and the detestation with 
 which I think of myself! It has changed me. I will 
 never I can never, hold up my head again. But, 
 Rachael, you loved me once, and I made you happy 
 you've not forgotten that! Give me another chance. 
 Let me show you how I love you, how bitterly sorry 
 I am that I ever caused you one moment of pain ! Don't 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 405 
 
 leave me alone. Don't let me feel that between you 
 and me, as the years go by, there is going to be a widen- 
 ing gulf. You don't know what the loneliness means 
 to me! You don't know how I miss my wife every 
 time I sit down to dinner, every time I climb into the 
 car. I think of the years to come of what they might 
 have been, of what they will be without you! And 
 I can't bear it. Why, to go down with you and the 
 boys to Clark's Hills, to tell you about my work, to ; 
 take you to dinner again my God ! it seems to me like 
 Heaven now, and I look back a few years, when it was 
 all mine, and wonder if I have been sane, wonder if too 
 much work, and all the other responsibilities, of the 
 boys, and Mother's death, and the estate, and poor 
 little Charlie, whether I really wasn't a little twisted 
 mentally!" 
 
 Rachael tightened her arms about his neck, pressed 
 her wet face to his. 
 
 "Sweetheart," said her wonderful voice, a mere tired 
 essence of a voice now, "if there is anything to forgive, 
 I am so glad to forgive it! You are mine, and I am 
 yours. Please God we will never be parted again!" 
 
 And then for a long time there was silence in the room, 
 while husband and wife clung together, and the hurt 
 of the long months was cured, and dissolved, and gone 
 forever. What Warren felt, Rachael could only know 
 from his tears, and his passionate kisses, and the grip 
 of his arms. For herself, she felt that she might gladly, 
 die, being so held against his heart, feeling through 
 her entire being the rising flood of satisfied love that 
 is life and breath to such a nature as hers. f 
 
 "I am changed," said Warren after long moments; 1 
 "you will see it, for I see it myself. I can see now what| 
 my mother meant, years ago, when she talked to mej 
 about myself. And I am older, Rachael." 
 
 "I am not younger," Rachael said, smiling. "And; 
 I think I am changed, too. AlFthe pressure, all the 
 nervous worry of the last few years, seem to be gone. 
 Washed away, perhaps, by tears there have been 
 
406 THE HEART OF RACHAEL 
 
 tears enough! But somehow somehow I am confi- 
 dent, Warren, as I never was before, that happiness is 
 ahead. Somehow I feel sure that you and I have won 
 to happiness, now, won to sureness. With each other, 
 and the boys, and books and music, and Home Dunes, 
 the years to come seem all bright. After all, we are 
 young to have learned how to live!" 
 
 And again she drew his face down to hers. 
 
 Alice did not come back again, but Mary came in 
 with a cup of smoking soup. Mrs. Valentine had 
 taken the doctor home, but they would be back later 
 on. It was after six, and Doctor Gregory said Mrs. 
 Gregory was to drink this, and try to get some sleep. 
 But first Mary and Rachael must talk over the terrible 
 and wonderful night, and Rachael must creep down the 
 hall, to smile at the nurse, who sat by the heavily 
 sleeping Derry. 
 
 Then she slept, for hours and hours, while the winter 
 sun smiled down on the bare trees in the square and 
 women in furs and babies in woolens walked and chat- 
 tered on the leaf-strewn paths. 
 
 Such a sleep and such a waking are memorable in a 
 lifetime. Rachael woke, smiling and refreshed, in a 
 radiant world. Afternoon sunshine was streaming in 
 at her windows, she felt rested, deliciously ready for 
 life again. 
 
 To bathe, to dress with the chatting Jimmy tying 
 strings to her dressing-table, to have the maids quietly 
 and cheerfully coming and going in the old way; this 
 in itself was delight. But when she tiptoed into Derry 's 
 room, and found hope and confidence there, found the 
 blue eyes wide open, under the bandage, and heard the 
 enchanting little voice announce, "I had hot milk, 
 Mother," Rachael felt that her cup of joy was brim- 
 ming. 
 
 He had fallen out of the swing, Derry told her, and 
 Dad had hurted him, and Jimmy added sensationally 
 that Derry had broken his leg! 
 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL 407 
 
 "But just the same, we wanted our Daddy the mo- 
 ment we woke up this morning," Miss Moore smiled, 
 "and we managed to hold up one arm to welcome him, 
 and it was Daddy that held the glass of milk, wasn't it, 
 Gerald?" 
 
 "She calls me Gerald because she doesn't know me 
 very well/' said Derry in a tactful aside, and Rachael, 
 not daring to laugh for fear of beginning to cry, could 
 only kiss the brown hand, and devour, with tear- 
 dazzled eyes, the eager face. 
 
 Then she and Jimmy went down to have a meal that 
 was like breakfast and luncheon and tea in one, with 
 Warren. And to Rachael, thinking of all their happy 
 meals together, since honeymoon days, this seemed the 
 best of all. The afternoon light in the breakfast-room, 
 the maids so poorly concealing their delight in this 
 turn of events, little Jim so pleased at rinding a meal 
 served at this unusual hour, and his parents seemingly 
 disposed to let him eat anything and everything, and 
 Warren, tired so strangely gray and yet utterly 
 content and at peace; these made the hour memorably 
 happy; a forerunner of other happy hours to come. 
 
 "It seems to me that there never was such a bright 
 sunshine, and never such a nice little third person, and 
 never such coffee, and such happiness!" said Rachael, 
 her eyes reflecting something of the placid winter day; 
 soul and body wrapped in peace. "Yesterday only 
 yesterday, I was wretched beyond all believing! To- 
 day I think I have had the best hours of my life!" 
 
 "It is always going to be this way for you, Rachael," 
 her husband said, "my life is going to be one long effort 
 to keep you absolutely happy. You will never grieve 
 on my account again!" 
 
 "Say rather," she said seriously, "that we know each 
 other, and ourselves, now. Say that I will never de- 
 mand utter perfection of you, or you of me. But, 
 Warren Warren as long as we love each other " 
 
 He had come around the table to her side, and was 
 kneeling with his arms about her. and Rachael locked 
 
408 THE HEART OF RACHAEL , 
 
 her hands about his neck. He was tired, he had had 
 no sleep after the difficult night, and he seemed to her 
 strangely broken, strangely her own. Rachael felt 
 that he had never been so infinitely dear, so much hers 
 to protect and save. The wonder of marriage came to 
 her, the miracle of love rooted too deep for disturb- 
 ance, of love fed on faults as well as virtues; so light a 
 tie in the beginning, so powerful a bond as the years 
 go by. 
 
 "As long as we love each other!" she said, smiling 
 through tears, her eyes piercing him to the very soul. 
 
 He did not speak, and so for a moment they re- 
 mained motionless, looking at each other. But when 
 she released him, with one of her quick, shy kisses, he 
 knew that the heart of Rachael was satisfied. 
 
 THE END 
 
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 sheer determination to the better things for which her soul 
 hungered ? 
 
 MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background 
 of every girl' s life, and some dreams which came true. 
 
 Ask for Complete free list of G. 6- D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 
 
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