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 out, 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 now do you do? But it would mean evasions, and affectations,
and insincerities 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 modern tapestries,
had had it papered in peacock and gray, had covered the old, dark
woodwork with cream-colored 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
asking 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, watching 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 confidence.
"What are you making?" said Magsie with a rather touching pretence at
interest. Rachael began to perceive 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 this 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.
"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 people out of a difficulty."
Rachael looked at her with a twinge of inward distaste. 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 infatuation, 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 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 emotion.
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 embarrassment, "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 self-conscious
and artificial manner struck Rachael with a vague sense of uneasiness.
Magsie certainly did not seem to be acting now; there were real tears
in her pretty eyes, and a genuine break in her young voice.
"I'm going straight ahead," she said rapidly, "because I've 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 I'm 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.
"I've been thinking it all out," Magsie went on, "and this is the
conclusion--at least, this is what I've 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 I'm rude,
Rachael," the girl pleaded eagerly, as Rachael voiced an inarticulate
protest, "because I'm so desperately 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 bewilderment 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; 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
anything 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 I 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."
"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 discouraged, 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 interrupted 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. 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 unnatural voice.
"Well--" Magsie widened innocent eyes. "Nobody 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!" 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 unearthly silence in the room.
"I've tried to fight it, and I cannot," Magsie presently 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!"
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 afternoon, 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 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,
curiously young and crude. Rachael, except for the falling 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 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 undertone:
"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 exhausted 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.
Occasionally she drew a long, sharp breath as the dying sometimes
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.
Lumbering 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.
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 springtime, 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, 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 out, through the inner door, to her own bedroom adjoining.
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, so eloquently and kindly; she
was talking to Warren. Warren was shocked at the mere thought of her
suspicions, 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 Derry 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, irresponsible young woman free to set her heart
upon another woman's husband, the father of another woman's children?
Rachael suddenly thought of Clarence. How different the whole thing had
seemed then! 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, experienced
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!" 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 conversation 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 fulfilled 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 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 upstairs 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," 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, panting.
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 wife, 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 forgotten 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 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 unashamed, 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 situation 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 how 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 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 asking 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 remember 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 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 subject 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-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 lawlessness! 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
'tangles'--and rights? Do you think I am going to argue it with you,
going to belittle my own position by admitting, 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 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 together in double harness, our world accepts an honorable
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.
"_I_ 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 heartless--! 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 clocks struck eleven: first the slow clock in her sitting-room,
then the quick silvery echo from downstairs. 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 concern 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!"