"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.

"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 Sartoris.

"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 Englishman. "I mean

to say, she's living, isn't she, and all that?"

"Very much alive," Miss Vanderwall said. "Married 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."




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