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"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!"

"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!"

"Let him have his sleep out, Miss Snow," said the doctor, "and then sponge him off and try him with food!"

"Not unless you telephone me, and I don't think you'll have to," George Valentine said

"Better! I think he'll be himself to-morrow. Console yourself, my dear Rachael, with the thought that you'll go through this a hundred times with every one of your children!"

"Not necessarily," smiled Doctor Valentine. "Why, doesn't he want to go?"

"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 nothing 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!"

"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 -- "

"And you said?"

"H'm!" The doctor was silent for a long time. "I don't know what Greg's doing," he added after thought.

"In my opinion, Rachael's simply blown up," George submitted.

"Well, then, Magsie lied," he said firmly.

"Damn FOOL!" George presently muttered.

"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!"

"If geniuses can act that way, I'd rather have our girls marry grocers!"

"Oh, well, of course!" he conceded.

"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!"

"He'll come to me to get him out of it within the month -- you'll see!" George retorted.

"I'm sorry to hear it," George said.

"I -- well, yes, Alice went down there first, and then I went down," George said. "We only came back ten days ago."

"Hasn't, huh?" George asked thoughtfully, hopefully.

"What d'you mean by that?" George asked flatly. "What do you mean- -you've been a fool?"

"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.

"Just how far have you gone with Magsie?" George interrupted quietly.

"How often have you seen her?" George asked in a somewhat relieved tone. "Have you seen her once a week?"

"But she hasn't got any letters -- nothing like that?"

"What do you think she will do?"

"Could you -- buy her off?" George presently asked after thought.

"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!"

"Well, what did you think would happen?" George asked as Magsie had asked.

"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 attentions to an actress, it doesn't matter what private construction you happen to put upon them! Wake up, and realize what a fool you are to try to buck the conventions! 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?"

"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 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!"

"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?"

"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 -- "

"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."

"Well, you can stand that. Just set your jaw, and think of Rachael, and go through with it once and for all."

"Ah, well, she mustn't do that. Let her think that, after the year, you'll come to a fresh understanding rather than let her fight. And meanwhile, if I were you, I would write Rachael a long letter and make a clean breast. Alice and the girls go down to- morrow; they'll keep me in touch. How about coming in here for a bachelor dinner Friday? Then we can talk developments."

"Love you!" he countered with a rueful laugh, "that's the trouble."

"Lord! I don't know what to think," said George. "Do you suppose this can be true?"

"Sure, she believes it," George agreed. "At least, we can find out. But I don't understand it!"

"No, of course nobody does," George said hastily 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.

"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.

"Oh, Rachael, dear old girl, don't talk that way!" George protested. "You can't believe that Warren 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 himself to death."

"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 you know. Boys well this morning?"

"I have," answered the efficient George, "already."

"Well, eventually, he'll come back."

"Well, anyway, we'll see."

"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."

"Well, Magsie's settled, at least," said George after a silence.

"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."

"It isn't too much?" George asked affectionately.

"I can say this," said George at last: "I believe that she needs you as much as you do her. But Rachael's proud -- "

"And Warren, she has been dragged through the muck during the last few years," George resumed in a mildly expostulatory tone.

"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!"

"He is simply broken," she said to George, in something like fright. "I didn't know human beings could change that way. Warren- -who used to be so positive! Why, he's almost timid!"