Quote Distribution over Book

51

Book Section (20-page chunks)

"Well, what is it to-night?" Warren Gregory asked kindly.

"Shame!" the doctor said warmly

"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!"

"My dear girl -- " he stammered. "Why, Rachael -- !"

"I didn't for one second mean -- " he began again uncomfortably.

"Rachael, I'm sorry!" Gregory said presently, impulsively.

"End it all!" he echoed sharply.

"Divorce!" he echoed

"I never thought of it -- for you!"

"Belvedere Bay bore you?" he asked

"Well," he said

"To think," he said, with a sort of repressed violence, "that you, of all women, should be Clarence Breckenridge's wife!"

"You mean that you are really going to leave him, Rachael?"

"And where will you go?" she asked.

"Rachael," he said quickly, "will you come to my mother?"

"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!"

"If I hadn't been such a bat, Rachael, all those eleven years ago!" he said, daringly, breathlessly.

"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!"

"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

"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."

"Rachael!" he said, in a sharp whisper.

"Don't -- don't say that -- if you don't -- mean it!"

"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- -"

"I'm a little giddy, Rachael," he said

"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 -- "

"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?"

"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!"

"Well, I should say it was indeed!"

"Well, I should say it was indeed!"

"the little English girl,"

"I love her!" he said to himself

"I love her. But she doesn't love me or anyone, poor Rachael! She's forgotten me already!"

"No, my dear, you can't! I'm through the worst of it, and being bored slowly but firmly to death! Gertrude, I'm just saying that your party bores me."

"Thank you, dear," he answered

"It must be mine you feel," suggested Warren Gregory; "you haven't one -- by all accounts!"

"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 -- "

"I don't believe it!" said the doctor.

"I don't understand you," said the doctor simply.

"Not guilty of what?" the man asked, stirring his untasted cup.

"But -- " the doctor prompted.

"'Tis love -- 'tis love -- that makes -- etcetera, etcetera," supplied the doctor, his tone less flippant than his words.

"THERE'S some love for you," said Doctor Gregory

"I suppose he might convince himself that an hour or two's delay wouldn't matter!" said the doctor, laughing.

"I suppose my mother has known great love," said the man

"She spends her days in that quiet old house dreaming about my father, and my brothers, looking at their pictures, and reading their letters -- "

"Well, I think her memories DO make her happy, in a way. Although my mother is really too conscientious 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 reproachfully. Poor Mother!"

"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.

"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 -- "

"No, I don't think so. And mothers -- mothers hanging over sick children -- "

"Mother love, then, we concede," Doctor Gregory said, smiling.

"And married love."

"What a mushy little sentimentalist you are, Rachael!" Gregory said

"You're too dear and sweet to talk that way! 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?"

"I worry about you!" said Doctor Gregory

"Straight home?" said he, giving her a smiling glance.

"Thinking about what I said to you last night?" asked the doctor suddenly.

"And what do you think about it?" he asked

"Do you often have a scene like that one just now to get through?"

"Only that?" he asked.

"This is what I want you to believe," Warren Gregory told her, "that you are not his wife, you are nothing to him any more. And some day, some day, you're going to be happy again!"

"She is not his wife any more," Warren Gregory said

"From now on she belongs to me! She SHALL be mine!"

"R. from G. The way WAS Caponsacchi."

"You mustn't do that," he said

"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?"

"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 consulting and advising and planning. But before we can talk, there's Clarence. What about Clarence?"

"We are facing a miserable situation, but it's a commonplace one, after all," said Warren Gregory

"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 -- -"

"He won't fight it?"

"Then he mustn't suspect," the doctor said instantly.

"Nor anyone, of course," he repeated.

"And just how will you go about it?" he asked.

"It's done every day," Warren Gregory said.

"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 -- "

"Don't you know why?" he said

"There's only one thing more to say," Warren Gregory 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."

"Will you write me?" he asked

"On Wednesday -- a week from to-day, in fact. And that reminds me, Billy says you are coming into town early next week?"

"Then could you lunch with Mother? Little Charley'll be there: no one else. Bring Billy. Mother'd love it. You're a great favorite there, you know."

"Don't worry about Mother," Warren Gregory said

"Mother's a dear!"

"A million apologies -- all my fault!" said Doctor Gregory

"Carol?" the doctor countered.

"Quite a bit. Do you mind my smoking?"

"Great marvel she doesn't throw him over!" Warren said casually.

"Lord, Mother," her son presently observed impatiently, "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?"

"Oh, well, there's no use arguing it," the man said pleasantly after a sulphurous interval.

"Fortunately for her, most people don't feel as you do."

"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, you say! And yet if Rachael left him, and tried to find happiness somewhere else -- "

"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?"

"My dear Mother," he said sensibly and charmingly, "don't think for one instant that I do not appreciate 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 professional way I am somewhat in her confidence, that's all!"

"Clarence is rather a hopeless problem," Warren Gregory said.

"My dearest," -- had said: "Do you realize that I will see you in five weeks?"

"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!"

"I'll never hush again, my darling! Never, never in all the years we spend together! I am going to tell you a hundred times a day that you are the most beautiful, and the dearest -- Oh, Rachael, Rachael, shall I tell you something? It's October! Do you know what that means?"

"Do you know what you're going to BE in about thirty-six hours?"

"Shall you like being Mrs. Gregory?"

"Did you ever dream of happiness like this, Rachael?"

"What -- didn't trust me?"

"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?"

"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 know what my wife is going to mean to me, my dearest. I can't believe it yet!"

"Do you mean that?" he said eagerly. "Say it -- do you mean that you love me?"

"My darling," Gregory said, his arms about her "what else -- feeling as we feel -- could I have done?"

"Love you?" he asked

"Yesterday. I put up at Valentine's -- George Valentine's, you know, at Clark's Hills."

"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!"

"You see, I am looking for suitable quarters for all hands," Doctor Gregory said

"I'll let you know right now," said Doctor Gregory, who, gloved and coated, was bustling about the car, deep in the mysterious rites incidental to starting. "It's going to be to-morrow!"

"I'm glad she's up to the standard down here," Warren Gregory observed. "Nobody seems to think much of her looks up in the city!"

"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!"

"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."

"Or words to that effect," the doctor answered comfortably. "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?"

"Fine," he answered, and with a swift smile for her he added, "and furious!"

"Now, my dearest heart," Warren Gregory said with an air of authority that she found strangely thrilling 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 whatever 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 I'm 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 pneumonia!"

"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?"

"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 -- "

"Well" -- he conceded it somewhat reluctantly -- "then, to-morrow, some time before I go with Valentine to call for you, I'll 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!"

"You asked about Margaret Clay," the doctor remembered 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 anything."

"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!"

"How can we say it, of all persons, my darling? Don't be hidebound!"

"No, I never thought of it quite that way. Everyone makes mistakes," he answered

"Are you trying to make me jealous, you gypsy!" he laughed.

"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?"

"Cared?"

"But I believe that, my darling!"

"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.

"Dear Heaven, hear the woman! What else DO I do?"

"Do you realize that you are an absolute -- little -- tyrant?" he asked

"You're a wonder, Ladybird! I have NEVER seen you sweeter nor prettier than you were to-night!"

"She doesn't hate you now!"

"We -- ll, I don't like narrowness, sweet."

"You don't find THEM judging you!" her husband said.

"Come here, Hattie Fishboy," 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!"

"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."

"Do, sweetheart?" he echoed

"Why, what CAN we do, dear?"

"Think a minute, dearest. Why shouldn't we?"

"Could anything be more preposterous than your letting anything that concerns Clarence Breckenridge affect what you do now?" he asked

"He WAS more than that, of course, but he has been less than nothing to you for a long time!"

"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 time. But you've had nothing to do with it, and you simply must put it out of your mind!"

"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 Pickering to console her!"

"The World. How did you hear it?"

"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?"

"My dear girl," he said, displeased, "why are you working yourself into a fever over this? It's most unfortunate, but as far as you're concerned, it's unavoidable, and you'll simply have to put a brave face on it, and get through it SOMEHOW! I am absolutely confident that when you've pulled yourself together you'll come through with flying colors. Of course everyone'll 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!"

"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. Breckenridge. Mayn went over to him, and Clarence said, 'Anything you say -- '"

"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. Fellows came rushing in from everywhere. They got him to a hospital."

"Florence is at Palm Beach."

"My dear girl, how do I know? It's none of my affair!"

"To-morrow you can take it as hard as you like, sweet," said he. "But to-night you'll have to face the 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."

"If you really love me, do what I ask you to-night," Warren Gregory said firmly.

"Rachael! What is it?" stammered the doctor

"What is it, darling -- hear something?" he asked

"What's the difference? It all comes out the same!" commented Warren

"You mean you regret your marriage?" he laughed

"You are an insatiable creature!" he said.

"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?"

"Well, wouldn't you rather stay up on the porch with the girls?"

"I know. But, darling, it does rather affect 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

"Rachael!" he said

"Pretty sick, dear little chap!"

"My darling, I don't know!"

"All very well, but how's my wife?" Warren Gregory might ask

"Want to go with me to London?" he asked

"No, but I'm serious, my dear girl," Warren Gregory said

"Why, leave him here with Mary. We won't be gone four weeks."

"I don't see why. The child would be perfectly safe. George is right here if anything happened!"

"It isn't absolutely necessary," Warren said

"What -- the Hoyts? Oh, I don't think so!" he answered

"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 ungraciousness, 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!"

"Yes, and we would bore each other to death in two months!"

"I gave up the London trip just because you weren't enthusiastic," Warren was saying, with the unmistakable readiness of one whose grievances have long been classified in his mind. "It's baby -- baby -- baby! I don't say much -- "

"But I think you overdo it, my dear!" finished her husband kindly.

"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 everything else but Jim's shoes and Mary's day off!"

"Trust a woman to put that construction on it," he said, laughing. "You like to think I'm jealous, don't you?"

"Bully!" approved Doctor Gregory

"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!"

"She's a terribly spoiled little thing," he remarked. "She's out for a rich man, and she'll get him!"

"Suppose so!" he echoed in good-humored scorn. "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!"

"Well, watch and see!"

"Six-ten."

"Oh, I don't mean stupid for us," Warren hastened to explain. "I mean stupid for her!"

"Well, she's awfully young, and she's getting a lot of attention, and perhaps she'd think it a bore!"

"I don't believe it!" he said flatly.

"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."

"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 -- "

"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 -- "

"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!"

"Well, I'll tell you, although she told me in confidence, and of course nothing may come of it. You won't say anything about it, of course? She wants to go on the stage."

"Yes, she's had it in mind for years," Warren pursued 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 depends upon how hard she's willing to work, but I believe she's got a big future before her!"

"What do you think of this, dearie?" he asked eagerly one afternoon. "We got talking about California 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!"

"Working hard -- too hard," said Warren in response to her questions. "She's rehearsing already for October."

"Yes, and she looks pulled down, poor kid!"

"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!"

"What else would I do?" Warren said

Warren said, "Be careful, dear!"

"Possibly not, dear. I can tell better later in the week."

"We're a mutual consolation league!" Warren said

"It's a marvel to see how you can be so patient!" Warren said

"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!"

"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!'"

"I wonder if you'll feel badly, Petty, if I don't go?"

"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 -- "

"There's no reason why you and the children shouldn't go."

"I'm sorry!"

"I wish I'd gone with you; I will next time!" he invariably said.

"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?"

"Oh, it's not that -- I'm quite willing to. Where are the kids?"

"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 amiably.

"No, thank you, no. I may come straight home after lunch, and in that case I'd cross you. Boys all right?"

"No," he said indifferently, giving her rather a surprised glance over his book. "Churchgoing coming in again?"

"Oh, come, my dear! Long before the boys are old enough to remember it you'll have given it up again!"

"And what do you think you would gain by that?" Warren asked.

"What do you mean by forces you can't control?" he asked

"What have you got to be jealous of?" he asked

"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

"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-consciousness, 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!'"

"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!"

"Kent! She wouldn't look at him!" Warren said

"I don't know. It's been aching all day!"

"Oh, that's all right."

"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!"

"Love it, my dear, but I have to take Pierre. He's got twice the sense I have about it!"

"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 our 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 -- "

"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."

"The lead -- the title part -- Patricia Something-or-other, I believe."

"Well, yes, I suppose it is. But of course she's gone steadily ahead."

"I don't know," he said

"Met her," he answered

"Well," he said

"Quite," Warren said with his bright, deceptive smile and his usual averted glance. "Ask anyone you please -- it was merely a suggestion!"

"You can't tell anything by this," Warren said, quickly; "it's a first night and papered."

"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 -- "

"What did you say, dear?"

"No, I hardly think so," he answered when she had repeated her question. "She's probably excited and tired."

"Well, I don't think I'd do that -- " He hesitated.

"Proud of you! Why, I'm as happy as you are about it!"

"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."

"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!"

"H'm!"

"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?"

"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."

"I've seen her pretty regularly since this thing began," he answered

"I glanced at some of them. You've not got The Sun here?"

"I saw it," he said, evidently with no thought of her feeling in the matter. "Lord, no one minds what The Sun thinks!"

"What about it?" he asked sharply.

"What about it?" he asked again after a silence.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Warren said, his face a dull red.

"You will make yourself ill!" Warren said quietly, watching her.

"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."

"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!"

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!"

"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 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."

"It came to me in a flash," he went on, "that Magsie had come to care for me.

"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!"

"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!"

"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 -- "

"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."

"There you are!" Warren exclaimed. "It's all absurd on the face of it -- the whole tangle!"

"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."

"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 -- "

"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!"

"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?"

"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!"

"Anybody may say it to anybody!" he answered irritably. "Tying a man and a woman together doesn't necessarily make them -- "

"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!" he interrupted quickly.

"Rachael!" he said angrily.

"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 -- "

"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 -- "

"No, dear!" he smiled as she moved to one side of the seat, and packed her thin skirts neatly under her, "not to-day! I'll -- "

"You mean your call on Rachael?" he asked quickly, the shadow coming back to his eyes. "Why did you do it?"

"I don't know that she was surprised. Of course she was angry."

"I didn't expect her to take any attitude whatever," Warren said with a look half puzzled and half reproving.

"She told you THAT?"

"But I have no idea that Rachael is seriously considering a divorce," Warren said slowly. "Why should she? She has no cause!"

"She isn't the sort of woman to think things without reason," Warren said.

"Everyone has no right to draw conclusions from that!" Warren said.

"Your going to see her has certainly -- complicated things," Warren said reflectively.

"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."

"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."

"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.

.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 succeeding question with, "I don't know whether I shall dine here or not!"

"Oh, my God, how did we ever get into this sickening, sickening mess?" Warren said out loud in his misery.

"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."

"Well?" said Warren as she paused.

"You mean that Mrs. Gregory dismissed you?" he suggested.

"Then I should make an arrangement with Mrs. Prince, by all means!" Warren said evenly.

He was "troubled by unexpected developments," he said, and too busy to see her to-day, but he would see her to-morrow.

"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 wonder if you can help me out?"

"You know Rachael has left me, George?" he began.

"She -- she hasn't any cause for this, you know, George," Warren said, ending it, after watching the other man hopefully for further suggestion.

"No, she hasn't!" Warren reiterated, gaining confidence. "I've been a fool, I admit that, but Rachael has no cause to go off at half-cock, this way!"

"I've been a fool about Magsie Clay," Warren admitted, "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!"

"Rachael may get her divorce," Warren said desperately. "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 much is settled. I'll leave town -- my work's ended, I might as well be dead. God knows I wish I were!"

"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."

"Oh, yes! I say frankly that this was a -- a flirtation, George. I've seen her pretty nearly every day -- -"

"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,

"I don't know, George," Warren said honestly.

"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?"

"Oh, my God!" Warren said, stopping by the mantel, and putting his face in his hands.

"George, what shall I do?" Warren burst out at length.

"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 -- "

"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 -- -"

"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."

"Yes, but then if she should turn to Rachael again?"

"George, you certainly are a generous loyal friend!" Warren Gregory said, a dry huskiness in his voice as he wrung the other's hand in good-bye.

"At the Long Island house; at Clark's Hills."

"Her plan?" Warren said clearing his throat.

"What makes you think she does?" Warren asked, feeling as if a hot, dry wind suddenly smote his skin.

"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 -- "

."I'm not generous at all," he answered with an honest flush. "I know what I am now, Magsie, I'm a cad."

"I say so!" he answered. "Any man is a cad who gets two women into a mess like this!"

"Well -- " He disengaged the arms, and went on with his planning. "George Valentine is going to see Rachael," he proceeded.

"About the whole thing. And George thinks I had better go away."

"Oh, travelling somewhere."

"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 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 -- -"

"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.

"Well -- it will be horrible for you," he submitted in a troubled tone. "Horrible for us both."

"No!" He shrugged wearily. "No. The truth is, I want to get away," he said in an undertone.

"Yes. I think it's all settled now, Magsie!" he said.

"She's acting for the boys, Magsie. And she's right."

To this Warren had only answered with an exquisitely uncomfortable look and the simple phrase, "Magsie, I'm sorry."

"Magsie, I'm sorry. You can't despise me as I despise myself, dear. I'm ashamed. Some day, perhaps, there'll be something I can do for you, and then you'll see by the way I do it that I want with all my heart to make it up to you. But I'm going away now, Magsie, and we mustn't see each other any more."

"I'm sorry, Magsie!"

"No, I'm not denying anything, Magsie. Except -- that I never meant to hurt you. And I hope there was some happiness in it for you as there was for me."

"Don't take that tone," he said.

"Magsie," he said almost pleadingly, interrupting the hard little voice, "can't you see what a mistake it's all been?"

"I'll write you," he said after a silence. And from the doorway he added, "Good-bye."

"I didn't know he was there," Warren said slowly. "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!"

"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 himself. "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."

"Take it in a minute!" Warren said, his whole expression 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."

"Too much? It's the only thing that will save my reason, I think," Warren answered, and after that George said no more.

"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.

"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 in my tray herself -- Lord, a woman like that, waiting on me!"

"George, I need my wife," Warren said then. "There isn't an hour of my life that some phase of our life together 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 believed, 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 -- -"

"Ah, yes, she's that!" Warren said eagerly as he paused.

"Oh, I know it!" Warren answered, stricken.

"Don't!" Warren said thickly, quickening his pace, as if to walk away from his own insufferable thoughts.

"My God -- what is it!" said Warren Gregory on his feet, and with Derry in his arms, even as he spoke.

"From Clark's Hills -- YOU!"

."But -- you drove up to-night?"

"And you came straight to me!" His voice sank. "Rachael," he said, "I will save him for you if I can!"

"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 believe -- "

"Good little chap," he said softly. "Do you remember 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?"

"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 -- "

"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 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 going to stay here."

"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 -- "

"I thought you would like to know that he is sleeping, and we have moved him," Warren said. "In three days you will have him roaring to get up."

"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."

"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 has been like finding my sight -- like coming out of a fever -- "

"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 leave me alone. Don't let me feel that between you and me, as the years go by, there is going to be a widening 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!"

"I am changed," said Warren after long moments; "you will see it, for I see it myself. I can see now what my mother meant, years ago, when she talked to me about myself. And I am older, Rachael."

"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!"