Rachael, in turn, was puzzled. Carol was undeniably a pretty
child, with all a spoiled child's confident charm, but in all
good-natured generosity Rachael could not see in her the subtle
and irresistible fascinations 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 awakened nervously at night. Rachael had
been accustomed 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 resolutely
exchanged what she had to give for what she had determined to get;
Clarence had made no blind protestations, had expected no golden
romance. He admired her; she knew he thought it was splendid of
her to manage the engagement and marriage with so little fuss;
perhaps his jaded pulses fluttered a little when 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.