Magsie had awakened to a sense of pleasure impending. It was many months since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her self-esteem had received more than one blow of late. Bowman had attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little Lady" on the road; Magsie had indignantly declined. He had then offered her a poor part in a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet made up her mind.
Now, she said to herself, reading Warren's note over her late breakfast tray, perhaps she might treat Mr. Bowman to the snubbing she had long been anxious to give him. Perhaps she might spend the summer quietly, inconspicuously, somewhere, placidly awaiting the hour when she would come out gloriously before the world as Warren Gregory's wife. Not at all a bad prospect for the daughter of old Mrs. Torrence's companion and housekeeper.
A caller was announced and was admitted, a thin, restless woman who looked thirty-five despite or perhaps because of the rouge on her sunken cheeks and the smart gown she wore. The years had not treated Carol Pickering kindly: she was an embittered, dissatisfied woman now, noisily interested in the stage as a possible escape from matrimony for herself, and hence interested in Magsie, with whom she had lately formed a sort of suspicious and resentful intimacy.
Joe Pickering had entirely justified in eight years the misgivings felt toward him by everyone who had Carol Breckenridge's interests at heart. His wife had come to him rich, and a few hours after their wedding her father's death had more than doubled the fortune left her by her grandmother. But it would be a sturdy legacy indeed that might hope to resist such inroads as the aimless and ill-matched young couple made upon it from their first day together.
Idly acquiring, idly losing, being cheated and robbed on all sides, they drifted through an unhappy and exciting year or two, finally investing much of their money in bonds, and a handsome residue in that favorite dream of such young wasters: the breeding of horses for the polo market. "What if we lose it all--which we won't--we've still got the bonds!" Joe Pickering, leaden pockets under his eyes, his weak lips hanging loose, had said with his unsteady laugh. What inevitably followed, and what he had not foreseen, was that he should lose more than half the bonds, too. They were seriously crippled now, and began to quarrel, to hate each other for a greater part of the time; and their little son's handsome dark eyes fell on some sad scenes. But now, in the child's sixth year, they were still together, still appearing in public, and still, in that mysterious way known only to their type, rushing about on motor parties, buying champagne, and entertaining after a fashion in their cramped but pretentious apartment.
Of late Billy had been seriously considering the stage. She was but twenty-six, after all, and she still had a girl's thirst for admiration and for excitement. She had called on Magsie, entertained the young actress, and the two had discovered a certain affinity. Magsie was delighted to see her now. They greeted each other affectionately, and Magsie, sending out her tray, settled herself comfortably in her pillows, and took the interested Carol entirely into her confidence, with the single reservation of Warren Gregory's name.
"Handsome, and rich as Croesus, and his wife would divorce him, and belongs to one of the best families," summarized Billy. "Why, I think you would be a fool to do anything else!"
"S'pose I would," dimpled Magsie in interesting embarrassment.
"Have a heart, and tell me who it is," teased Carol, slipping her foot from her low shoe to study a hole in the heel of her silk stocking.
"Oh, I couldn't!" Magsie protested.
"Well, I shall guess, if I can," the other woman warned her. And presently she added: "I'll tell you what, if you do give it up, I'm going straight to Bowman, and ask for your place in your new show! There's nothing about it that I couldn't do, and I believe he might give me a chance! I'll tell you what: you wait until the last moment before you tell him, and then he can't be prepared in advance. And I'll risk having Jacqueline make me a couple of gowns, and be all ready to jump in. I'll learn the part, too," said Billy kindling; "you'll coach me in it, won't you?"
"Of course I will!" Magsie agreed, but she did not say it heartily. The conversation was not extremely pleasing to Magsie at the moment. She loved Warren, of course, but it was certainly a good deal to resign, even to marry a Gregory of New York! Why, here was Billy, who had been a rich man's daughter, and had married the man of her choice, and had a nice child, mad to step into her shoes!
And it was a painful reflection that probably Billy could do it. Billy was smart, she had a dash and finish about her that might well catch a manager's eye, and more than that, it was a rather poor part. It was no such part as Magsie had had in "The Bad Little Lady." There was a comedian in this cast, and a matinee idol for a leading man, and Magsie must content herself with a part and a salary much smaller than was given to either of these.
She thought of Warren, and also fleetingly of Bryan Masters, and even of Richie Gardiner, and decided that it was a bitter and empty world, and she wished she had never been born. Bowman would be smart enough to see that he need pay Billy almost no salary, that she might be a discovery--the discovery for which all managers are always so pathetically on the alert, and that in case the play failed--Magsie was sure, this morning, that it would be the flattest failure ever seen on Broadway--he would have no irate leading lady to pacify; Billy would be only too grateful for the opportunity to try and fail.
"Farce is the most difficult thing in the world to play," she said, now clinging desperately to her little distinction.
"Oh, I know that!" Billy answered absently. She would have a smart apartment on the Drive, and dear little old Breck should drive with her in the Park, and go to the smartest boys' school in the country--
"And of course, I may not marry!" said Magsie.
Carol hardly heard her. She was looking about the comfortable hotel apartment, all in a pretty disorder now, with Magsie's various possessions scattered about. There were pictures of actors on the mantel, heavily autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly into vases. There was a great sheaf of Killarney roses; the envelope that had held a card still dangled from their stems. Carol would have given a great deal to know whose card had been torn from it, and whose name was ringing just now in Magsie's brain. She even cared enough to tentatively interrogate Anna, Magsie's faithful Swedish woman.
"Well, perhaps we shall have a change here, Anna?" Billy said brightly but cautiously, when she was in the hall. She wondered whether the woman would let her slip a bill into her hand.
"Maybe," said Anna impassively.
"How shall you like keeping house for a man and wife?" Billy pursued.
"Aye do that bayfore," remarked Anna, responsive to this kindly interest; "aye ban hahr savan yahre, now, en des country."
"And do you like Miss Clay's young man?" Billy said boldly. But at this shift of topic the light faded from Anna's infantile blue eyes, and a wary look replaced it.
"She got more as one feller," she remarked discouragingly. Billy, outfaced, departed, feeling rather contemptible as she walked down the street. Joe was at home; she had left him in bed when she left the house at ten o'clock, and little Breck had been rather listlessly chatting with the colored boy in the elevator, and had begged his mother to take him downtown. Billy was really sorry for the little boy, but she did not know what to do about it; she wondered what other women did with little lonely boys of six. If she went home, it would not materially better the situation; the cook was cross to-day anyway, and would be crosser if Joe shouted for his breakfast in his usual ungracious manner. She could not go to Jacqueline and talk dresses unless she was willing to pay something on the last bill.
Billy thought of the bank, as she always did think of the bank, when her reflections reached this point. There were the bonds, not as many as they had been, but still fine, salable bonds. She could pay the cook, pay the dressmaker, take Breck home a game, look at hats, spend the day in exactly the manner that pleased her best. She had promised Joe that they would discuss the sale of the next one together when they had sold the last bond, a month ago, and avoid it if possible. But what difference did one make?--a paltry fifty dollars a year! Perhaps it would be possible not to tell Joe--
Billy looked in her purse. She had a dollar bill and fifty cents, more than enough to take her to the bank in appropriate style. She signalled a taxicab.
Magsie did not see Warren the next day, but they had tea and a talk on the day following. She told him gayly that he needed cheering, and presently took him into Tiffany's, where Warren found himself buying her a coveted emerald. Somehow during the afternoon he found himself talking and planning as if they really loved each other, and really were to be married. But it was an unsatisfactory hour. Magsie was excited and nervous, and was rather relieved than otherwise that her interviews with her admirer were necessarily short. As a matter of fact, the undisciplined little creature was overtired and unreasonable. She would have given her whole future for a quiet week in bed, with frivolous novels to read, and Anna to spoil her, no captious manager to please, no exhausting performances to madden her with a sense of her own and other people's imperfections, and no Warren to worry her with his long face.
Added to Magsie's trials, in this dreadful week, was an interview with the imposing mother of young Richie Gardiner, a handsome, florid lady, who had inherited a large fortune from the miner husband whose fortunes she had gallantly shared through some extraordinary adventures in Nome. Mrs. Gardiner idolized her son; she was not inclined to be generous to the little flippant actress who had broken his heart. Richie would not go to the healing desert, he would not go to any place out of sound of Miss Clay's voice, out of the light of Miss Clay's eyes. Mrs. Gardiner had no objection to Magsie's person, nor to her profession, the fact being that her own origin had been even more humble than that of Miss Clay, but she wanted the treasure of her boy's love to be appreciated; she had been envying, since the hour of his birth, the woman who should win Richie's love.
Stout, overdressed, deep-voiced, she came to see the actress, and they both cried; Magsie said that she was sorry--she was so bitterly sorry--but, yes, there was someone else. Mrs. Gardiner shrugged philosophically, wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath. No help for it! Presently she heavily departed; her solid weight, her tinkling spangles, and her rainbow plumes vanished into the limousine, and she was whirled away.
Magsie sighed; these complications were romantic. What could one do?
Silent, abstracted, unsmiling, Rachael got through the days. She ate what Mary put before her, slept fairly well, answered the puzzled boys the second time they addressed her. She buckled sandals, read fairy tales, brushed the unruly heads, and listened to the wavering prayers day after day. Her eyes were strained, her usually quick, definite motions curiously uncertain; otherwise there was little change.
Alice, in spite of her husband's half protest, went down to Clark's Hills, deciding in the first hour that the worst of the matter was all over and Rachael quite herself, gradually becoming doubtful, and returning home in despair. Her tearful account took George down to the country house a week later.
Rachael met them; they dined with her. She was interested about the Valentine children, interested in their summer plans. She laughed as she quoted Derry's latest ventures with words. She walked to her gate to wave them good-bye on Monday morning, and told Alice that she was counting the days until the big family came down. But George and Alice were heavy hearted as they drove away.
"What IS it?" asked Alice, anxious eyes upon her husband's kind, homely face. "She's like a person recovering from a blow. She's not sick; but, George, she isn't well!"
"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--"
"Last week," Alice said not for the first time, "she only spoke of--of the trouble, you know--once. We were just going out to dinner, and she turned to me, and said: 'I didn't like my bargain eight years ago, Alice, and I tore my contract to pieces! Now I'll pay for it.'"
"And you said?"
"I said, 'Oh, nonsense, Rachael. Don't be morbid! There's no parallel between the cases!'"
"H'm!" The doctor was silent for a long time. "I don't know what Greg's doing," he added after thought.
"The question is, what is Magsie doing?" said Alice.
"In my opinion, Rachael's simply blown up," George submitted.
"Magsie told her they had talked of marriage!" Alice countered. George gave an incredulous snort.
"Well, then, Magsie lied," he said firmly.
"She really isn't the lying type, George. And there's no question that Greg and she did see each other every day, and that he wrote her letters and gave her presents!" Alice finished rather timidly, for her husband's face was a thunder-cloud. The old car flew along at thirty-five miles an hour.
"Damn FOOL!" George presently muttered. Alice glanced at him in sympathetic concern.
"George, why don't you see him?"
George preserved a stern silence for perhaps two flying minutes, then he sighed.
"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!"
"I should hope he wasn't!" said Alice with spirit.
"We--ll!" She was sorry for her vehemence when George merely shook his head and ended the conversation on the monosyllable. After a while she attempted to reopen the subject.
"If geniuses can act that way, I'd rather have our girls marry grocers!"
The girls' father smiled absently.
"Oh, well, of course!" he conceded.
"Greg is no more a genius than you are, George," argued Alice.
"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!"
"Innocent!" sniffed Alice. "He'll break Rachael's heart with his innocence, and then he'll marry Magsie Clay--you'll see!"
"He'll come to me to get him out of it within the month--you'll see!" George retorted.
"He'll keep out of your way!" Alice predicted confidently. "I know Greg. He has to be perfect or nothing."
But it was only ten days later that Warren Gregory walked up the steps of the Valentine house at about ten o'clock on a silent, hazy morning. George had not yet left the house for the day. The drawing-room furniture was swathed in linen covers, and a collection of golf irons, fishing rods, canoe paddles, and tennis rackets crowded the hallway. The young Valentines were departing for the country to-morrow, and their excited voices echoed from above stairs.
Warren had supposed them already gone. Rachael was alone, then, he reflected, alone in that desolate little country village! He nodded to the maid, and asked in a guarded tone for Doctor Valentine. A moment later George Valentine came into the drawing-room, and the two men exchanged a look strange to their twenty years of affectionate intercourse. Warren attempted mere cold dignity; he was on the defensive, and he knew it. George's look verged on contempt, thinly veiled by a polite interest in his visitor's errand.
"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?"
He could hardly have made a more fortunate beginning; halting as the words were, and miserable as was the look that accompanied them, both rang true to the older man, and went straight to his heart.
"I'm sorry to hear it," George said.
Warren folded his arms, and regarded his friend steadily across them.
"You know Rachael has left me, George?" he began.
"I--well, yes, Alice went down there first, and then I went down," George said. "We only came back ten days ago." There was another brief silence.
"She--she hasn't any cause for this, you know, George," Warren said, ending it, after watching the other man hopefully for further suggestion.
"Hasn't, huh?" George asked thoughtfully, hopefully.
"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!"
"What d'you mean by that?" George asked flatly. "What do you mean--you've been a fool?"
"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!"
"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.
"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!"
"Just how far have you gone with Magsie?" George interrupted quietly.
"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."
"How often have you seen her?" George asked in a somewhat relieved tone. "Have you seen her once a week?"
"Oh, yes! I say frankly that this was a--a flirtation, George. I've seen her pretty nearly every day---"
"But she hasn't got any letters--nothing like that?"
Warren's confident expression changed.
"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, before the other man said:
"What do you think she will do?"
"I don't know, George," Warren said honestly.
"Could you--buy her off?" George presently asked after thought.
"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?"
"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!"
"Oh, my God!" Warren said, stopping by the mantel, and putting his face in his hands.
"Well, what did you think would happen?" George asked as Magsie had asked.
Then for perhaps two long minutes there was absolute silence, while Warren remained motionless, and George, in great distress, rubbed his upstanding hair.
"George, what shall I do?" Warren burst out at length.
"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?"
"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--"
"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!"
And again he frankly wiped his eyes.
"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?" A little discouraged by Warren's dubious shake of the head, he went on to the next suggestion. "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--"
Warren could see himself writing this letter, could even see himself walking into the dear old sitting-room at Home Dunes.
"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---"
"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."
"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."
"Well, you can stand that. Just set your jaw, and think of Rachael, and go through with it once and for all."
"Yes, but then if she should turn to Rachael again?"
"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."
"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.
George went upstairs to tell the interested and excited and encouraged Alice about their talk, and Alice laughed and cried with-pleasure, confident that everything would come out well now, and grateful beyond words that Greg was showing so humbled and penitent a spirit.
"Leave Rachael to me!" Alice said exultingly. "How we'll all laugh at this nonsense some day!"
Even Warren Gregory, walking down the street, was conscious of new hope and confidence. He was not thinking of Magsie to-day, but of Rachael, the most superb and splendid figure of womanhood that had ever come into his life. How she had raged at him in that last memorable talk; how vital, how vigorous she was, uncompromising, direct, courageous! And as a swimmer, who miles away from shore in the cruel shifting green water, might think with aching longing of the quiet home garden, the kitchen with its glowing fire and gleaming pottery, the pleasant homely routine of uneventful days, and wonder that he had ever found safety and comfort anything less than a miracle, Warren thought of the wife he had sacrificed, the children and home that had been his, unchallenged and undisputed, only a few months before. He knew just where he had failed his wife. He felt to-day that to comfort her again, to take her to dinner again, violets on her breast, and to see her loosen her veil, and lay aside her gloves with those little gestures so familiar and so infinitely dear would be heaven, no less! What comradeship they had had, they two, what theatre trips, what summer days in the car, what communion over the first baby's downy head, what conferences over the new papers and cretonnes for Home Dunes!
Girded by these and a hundred other sacred memories he went to Magsie, who was busy, the maid told him, with her hairdresser. But she presently came out to him, wrapped snugly in a magnificent embroidered kimono, and with her masses of bright hair, almost dry, hanging about her lovely little face. She had never in all their intercourse shown him quite this touch of intimacy before, and he felt with a little wince of his heart that it was a sign of her approaching possession.
"Greg, dear," said Magsie seating herself on the arm of his chair, and resting her soft little person against him, "I've been thinking about you, and about the wonderful, WONDERFUL way that all our troubles have come out! If anyone had told us, two months ago, that Rachael would set you free, and that all this would have happened, we wouldn't have believed it, would we? I watched you walking down the street yesterday afternoon, and, oh, Greg, I hope I'm going to be a good wife to you; I hope I'm going to make up to you for all the misery you've had to bear!"
This was not the opening sentence Warren was expecting. Magsie had been petulant the day before, and had pettishly declared that she would not wait a year for any man in the world. Warren had at once seized the opening to say that he would not hold her to anything against her will, to be answered by a burst of tears, and an entreaty not to be "so mean." Then Magsie had to be soothed, and they had gone to tea as a part of that familiar process. But to-day her mood was different; she was full of youthful enthusiasm for the future.
"You know I love Rachael, Greg, and of course she is a most exceptional woman," bubbled Magsie happily, "but she doesn't appreciate the fact that you're a genius--you're not a little everyday husband, to be held to her ideas of what's done and what isn't done! Big men are a law unto themselves. If Rachael wants to hang over babies' cribs, and scare you to death every time Jim sneezes--"
Warren listened no further. His mind went astray on a memory of the night Jim was feverish, a memory of Rachael in her trailing dull-blue robe, with her thick braids hanging over her shoulders. He remembered that Jim was promised the circus if he would take his medicine; and how Rachael, with smiling lips and anxious eyes, had described the big lions and the elephants for the little restless potentate----
"--because I've had enough of Bowman, and enough of this city, and all I ask is to run away with you, and never think of rehearsals and routes and all the rest of it in my life again!" Magsie was saying. Presently she seemed to notice his silence, for she asked abruptly: "Where's Rachael?"
Warren roused himself from deep thought.
"At the Long Island house; at Clark's Hills."
"Oh!" Magsie, who was now seated opposite him, clasped her hands girlishly about her knees. "What is the plan, Greg?" she asked vivaciously.
"Her plan?" Warren said clearing his throat.
"Our plan!" Magsie amended contentedly. And she summarized the case briskly: "Rachael consents to a divorce, we know that. I am not going on with Bowman, I've decided that. Now what?" She eyed his brooding face curiously. "What shall I do, Greg? I suppose we oughtn't to see each other as we did last summer? If Rachael goes West--and I suppose she will--shall I go up to the Villalongas'? They're terribly nice to me; and I think Vera suspects---"
"What makes you think she does?" Warren asked, feeling as if a hot, dry wind suddenly smote his skin.
"Because she's so nice to me!" Magsie answered triumphantly. "Rachael's been just a little snippy to Vera," she confided further, "or Vera thinks she has. She's not been up there for ages! I could tell Vera---"
Warren's power of reasoning was dissipated in an absolute panic. But George had primed him for this talk. He assumed an air of business.
"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--"
He handed her a small yellow bank-book. Magsie glanced at it; glanced at him.
"Oh, Greg, dear, you're too generous!"
"I'm not generous at all," he answered with an honest flush. "I know what I am now, Magsie, I'm a cad."
"Who says you're a cad?" Magsie demanded indignantly.
"I say so!" he answered. "Any man is a cad who gets two women into a mess like this!"
"Greg, dear, you shan't say so!" Her slender arms were about his neck.
"Well--" He disengaged the arms, and went on with his planning. "George Valentine is going to see Rachael," he proceeded.
"About the divorce?" said Magsie with a nod.
"About the whole thing. And George thinks I had better go away."
"Where?" demanded Magsie.
"Oh, travelling somewhere."
"Rio?" dimpled Magsie. "You know you have always had a sneaking desire to see Rio."
Warren smiled mechanically. It had been Rachael's favorite dream "when the boys are big enough!" His sons--were they bathing this minute, or eagerly emptying their blue porridge bowls?
"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---"
Magsie had been watching him steadily during this speech, a long speech for him. At first she had been obviously puzzled, then astonished, now she was angry. She had grown pale, her pretty childish mouth was a little open, her breath coming fast. For a full minute, as his voice halted, there was silence.
"Then--then you didn't mean all you said?" Magsie demanded stormily, after the pause. "You didn't mean that you--cared? You didn't mean the letters, and the presents, and the talks we've had? You knew I was in earnest, but you were just fooling!" Sheer excitement and fury kept her panting for a moment, then she went on: "But I think I know who's done this, Greg!" she said viciously; "it's Mrs. Valentine. She and her husband have been talking to you; they've done it. She's persuaded you that you never were in earnest with me!" Magsie ran across the room, flung open the little desk that stood there, and tore the rubber band from a package of letters. "You take her one of these!" she said, half sobbing. "Ask her if that means anything! Greg, dear!" she interrupted herself to say in a child's reproachful tone, "didn't you mean it?" And with her soft hair floating, and her figure youthful under the simple lines of her Oriental robe, she came to stand close beside him, her mood suddenly changed. "Don't you love me any more, Greg?" said she.
"Love you!" he countered with a rueful laugh, "that's the trouble."
She linked her soft little hands in his, raised reproachful eyes.
"But you don't love me enough to stand by me, now that Rachael is so cross?" she asked artlessly. "Oh, Greg, I will wait years and years for you!"
Warren's expression was of wretchedness; he managed a smile.
"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.
"What does it let Rachael in for?" she asked quickly. "Here's her letter, Greg--I'll read it to you! Rachael doesn't mind."
"Well--it will be horrible for you," he submitted in a troubled tone. "Horrible for us both."
"You mean your work can't spare you?" she asked with a shrewd look.
"No!" He shrugged wearily. "No. The truth is, I want to get away," he said in an undertone.
"Ah, well!" Magsie understood that. "Of course you want to get away from the fuss and the talk, Greg," she said eagerly. "I think we all ought to get away: Rachael to Long Island, I to Vera, you anywhere! We can't possibly be married for months---" Suddenly her voice sank, she dropped his hands, and locked her smooth little arms about his neck. "But I'll be waiting for you, and you for me, Greg," she whispered. "Isn't it all settled now, isn't it only a question of all the bother, lawyers and arrangements, before you and I belong to each other as we've always dreamed we might?"
He looked down gravely, almost sadly, and yet with tenderness, upon the eager face. He had always found her lovable, endearing, and sweet; even out of this hideous smoke and flame she emerged all charming and all desirable. He tightened his arms about the thinly wrapped little figure.
"Yes. I think it's all settled now, Magsie!" he said.
"Well, then!" She sealed it with one of her quick little kisses. "Now sit down and read a magazine, Greg," she said happily, "and in ten minutes you'll see me in my new hat, all ready to go to lunch!"
The blue tides rose and fell at Clark's Hills, the summer sun shone healingly down upon Rachael's sick heart and soul. Day after day she took her bare-headed, sandalled boys to the white beach, and lay in the warm sands, with the tonic Atlantic breezes blowing over her. Space and warmth and silence were all about; the incoming breakers moved steadily in, and shrank back in a tumble of foam and blue water; gulls dipped and wheeled in the spray. As far as her dreaming eyes could reach, up the beach and down, there was the same bath of warm color, blue sea melting into blue sky, white sand mingling with yellow dunes, until all colors, in the distance, swam in a haze of dull gold.
Now and then, when even the shore was hot, the boys elected to spend their afternoon by the bay on the other side of the village. Here there was much small traffic in dingies and dories and lobster-pots; the slower tides rocked the little craft at the moorings, and sent bright swinging light against the weather-worn planks under the pier. Rachael smiled when she saw Derry's little dark head confidently resting against the flowing, milky beard of old Cap'n Jessup, or heard the bronzed lean younger men shout to her older son, as to an equal, "Pitch us that painter, will ye, Jim!"
She spoke infrequently but quietly of Warren to Alice. The older woman discovered, with a pang of dismay, that Rachael's attitude was fixed beyond appeal. There was such a thing as divorce, established and approved; she, Rachael, had availed herself of its advantages; now it was Warren's turn.
Rachael would live for her sons. They must of course be her own. She would take them away to some other atmosphere: "England, I think," she told Alice. "That's my mother country, you know, and children lead a sane, balanced life there."
"I will be everything to them until they are--say, ten and twelve," she added on another day, "and then they will begin to turn toward their father. Of course I can't blame him to them, Alice. And some day they will come to believe that it is all their mother's fault--that's the way with children! And so I'll pay again."
"Dearest girl, you're morbid!" Alice said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"No, I mean it, I truly mean that! It is disillusioning for young boys to learn that their father and mother were not self-controlled, normal persons, able to bear the little pricks of life, but that our history has been public gossip for years, that two separate divorces are in their immediate history!"
"Rachael, don't talk so recklessly!"
Rachael smiled sadly.
"Well, perhaps I can be a good mother to them, even if they don't idealize me!" she mused.
"I have come to this conclusion," she told
Alice one day, about a fortnight later, "while civilization is as it is, divorce is wrong. No matter what the circumstances are, no matter where the right and wrong lie, divorce is wrong."
"I suppose there are cases of drink or infidelity--" Alice submitted mildly.
"Then it's the drink, or the infidelity that should be changed!" Rachael answered inflexibly. "It's the one vow we take with God as witness; and no blessing ever follows a broken vow!"
"I think myself that there are not many marriages that couldn't be successes!" Alice said thoughtfully.
"Separation, if you like!" Rachael conceded with something of her old bright energy. "Change and absence, for weeks and months, but not divorce. Paula Verlaine should never have divorced Clarence; she made a worse match, if that was possible, and involved three other small lives in the general discomfort. And I never should have married Clarence, because I didn't love him. I didn't want children then; I never felt that the arrangement was permanent; but having married him, I should have stayed by him. I know the mood in which Clarence took his own life; he never loved me as he did Bill, but he wouldn't have done it if I had been there!"
"I cannot consider Clarence Breckenridge a loss to society," Alice said.
"I might have made Clarence a man who would have been a loss to society," Rachael mused. "He was proud; loved to be praised. And he loved children; one or two babies in the nursery would have put Billy in second place. But he bored me, and I simply wouldn't go on being bored. So that if I had had a little more courage, or a little more prudence in the first place, Billy, Clarence, perhaps Charlotte and Charlie, Greg, Deny, Jim, Joe Pickering, and Billy might all have been happier, to say nothing of the general example to society."
"I hear that Billy is unhappy enough now," Alice said, pleased at Rachael's unusual vivacity. "Isabella Haviland told my Mary that Cousin Billy was talking about divorce."
"From Joe?--is that so?" Rachael looked up interestedly. "I hadn't heard it, and somehow I don't believe it! They have a curious affinity through all their adventures. Poor little Bill, it hasn't been much of a life!"
"They say she is going on the stage," Alice pursued, "which seems a pity, especially for the child's sake. He's an attractive boy; we saw him with her at Atlantic City last winter--one of those wonderfully dressed, patient, pathetic children, always with the grown-ups! The little chap must have a rather queer life of it drifting about from hotel to hotel. They're hard up, and I believe most of the shops and hotels have actually black-listed them. He would seem to be the sort of man who cannot hold on to anything, and, of course, there's the drinking! She's not the girl to save him. She drinks rather recklessly herself; it's a part of her pose."
"I wonder if she would let the youngster come down here and scramble about with my boys?" Rachael said unexpectedly. She had not seriously thought of it; the suggestion came idly. But instantly it took definite hold. "I wonder if she would?" she added with more animation than she had shown for some time. "I would love to have him, and of course the boys would go wild with joy! I would be so glad to do poor old Billy a good turn. She and I were always friends, and had some queer times together. And more than that"--Rachael's eyes darkened--"I believe that if I had had the right influence over her she never would have married Joe. I regarded the whole thing too lightly; I could have tried, in a different way, to prevent it, at least. I am certainly going to write her, and ask for little Breckenridge. It would be something to do for Clarence, too," Rachael added in a low tone, and as if half to herself, "and for many long years I have felt that I would be glad to do something for him! To have his grandson here--doesn't it seem odd?-and perhaps to lend Billy a hand; it seems almost like an answer to prayer! He can sleep on the porch, between the boys, and if he has some old clothes, and a bathing suit--"
"MY DEAR BILLY," she wrote that night, "I have heard one or two hints of late that you have a good many things in your life just now that make for worry, and am writing to know if my boys and I may borrow your small son for a few weeks or a month, so that one small complication of a summer in the city will be spared you. We are down here on Long Island on a strip of high land that runs between the beautiful bay and the very ocean, and when Jim and Derry are not in the one they are apt to be in the other. It will be a great joy to them to have a guest, and a delight to me to take good care of your boy. I think he will enjoy it, and it will certainly do him good.
"I often think of you with great affection, and hope that life is treating you kindly. Sometimes I fancy that my old influence might have been better for you than it was, but life is mistakes, after all, and paying for them, and doing better next time.
"Always affectionately yours, RACHAEL."
Three days elapsed after this letter was dispatched, and Rachael had time to wonder with a little chill if she had been too cordial to Billy, and if Billy were laughing her cool little laugh at her one-time step-mother's hospitality and moralizing.
But as a matter of fact, the invitation could not have been more happily timed for young Mrs. Pickering. Billy, without any further notice to Magsie, had been to see Magsie's manager, coolly betraying her friend's marriage plans, pledging the angry and bewildered Bowman to secrecy, and applying for the position on her own account in the course of one brief visit.
Bowman would not commit himself to engaging Billy, but he was infinitely obliged to her for the news of Magsie, and told her so frankly.
It was when she returned home from this call, and hot and weary, was trying to break an absolute promise to the boy, involving the Zoo and ice-cream, that Rachael's letter arrived.
Billy read it through, sat thinking hard, and presently read it again. The softest expression her rather hard young face ever knew came over it as she sat there. This was terribly decent of Rachael, thought Billy. She must be the busiest and happiest woman in the world, and yet her heart had gone out to little Breck. The last line, however, meant more than all the rest, just now, to Billy Pickering. She was impressionable, and not given to finding out the truths of life for herself. Rachael's opinions she had always respected. And now Rachael admitted that life was all mistakes, and added that heartening line about paying for them, and doing better.
"'Cause I am so hot--and I never had any lunch--and you said you would!" fretted the little boy, flinging himself against her, and sending a wave of heat through her clothing as he did so.
"Listen, Breck," she said suddenly, catching him lightly in her arm, and smiling down at him, "would you like to go down and stay with the Gregory boys?"
"I don't know 'em," said Breck doubtfully.
"Down on the ocean shore," Billy went on, "where you could go in bathing every day, and roll in the surf, and picnic, and sleep out of doors!"
"Did they ask me?" he demanded excitedly.
"Their mother did, and she says that you can stay as long as you're a good boy, down there where it's nice and cool, digging in the sand, and going bare foot--"
"I'll be the best boy you ever saw!" Breck sputtered eagerly. "I'll work for her, and I'll make the other kids work for her--she'll tell you she never saw such a good boy! And I'll write you letters--"
"You won't have to work, old man!" Billy felt strangely stirred as she kissed him. She watched him as he rushed away to break the news of his departure to the stolid Swedish girl in the kitchen and the colored boy at the elevator. He jerked his little bureau open, and began to scramble among his clothes; he selected a toy for Jim and a toy for Derry, and his mother noticed that they were his dearest toys. She took him downtown and bought him a bathing suit, and sandals, and new pajamas, and his breathless delight, as he assured sympathetic clerks that he was going down to the shore, made her realize what a lonely, uncomfortable little fellow he had been all these months. He could hardly eat his supper that night, and had to be punished before he would even attempt to go to sleep, and the next morning he waked his mother at six, and fairly danced with impatience and anxiety as the last preparations were made.
Billy took him down to Clark's Hills herself. She had not notified Rachael, or answered her in any way, never questioning that Rachael would know her invitation to be accepted. But from the big terminal station she did send a wire, and Rachael and the boys met her after the hot trip.
"Billy, it was good of you to come," Rachael said, kissing her quite naturally as they met.
"I never thought of doing anything else," Billy said, breathing the fresh salt air with obvious pleasure. "I had no idea that it was such a trip. But he was an angel--look at them now, aren't they cute together?"
Rachael's boys had taken eager possession of their guest; the three were fast making friends as they trotted along together toward the old motor car that Rachael ran herself.
"It's a joy to them," their mother said. "Get in here next to me, Bill; I'm not going even to look at you until I get you home. Did you ever see the water look so delicious? We'll all go down for a dip pretty soon. I live so simply here that I'm entirely out of the way of entertaining a guest, but now that you're here, you must stay and have a little rest yourself!"
"Oh, thank you, but--" Billy began in perfunctory regret. Her tone changed: "I should love to!" she said honestly.
Rachael laughed. "So funny to hear your old voice, Bill, and your old expressions."
"I was just thinking that you've not changed much, Rachael."
"I? Oh, but I've gray hair! Getting old fast, Billum."
"And how's Greg?" Billy did not understand the sudden shadow that fell across Rachael's face, but she saw it, and wondered.
"Very well, my dear."
"Does he get down here often? It's a hard trip."
"He always comes in his car. They make it in--I don't know--something like two hours and ten minutes, I think. This is my house, with all its hydrangeas in full bloom. Yes, isn't it nice? And here's Mary for Breckenridge's bag."
Rachael had got out of the car, and now she gave Billy's boy her hand, and stood ready to help him down.
"Well, Breck," said she, "do you think you are going to like my house, and my little boys? Will you give Aunt Rachael a kiss?"
Billy said nothing as the child embraced his new-found relative heartily, nor when Rachael took her upstairs to show her the third hammock between the other two, and herself invested the visitor in blue overalls and a wide hat. But late that evening, after a silence, she said suddenly:
"You're more charming than ever, Rachael; you're one of the sweetest women I ever saw!"
"Thank you!" Rachael said with a little note of real pleasure under her laugh.
"You've grown so gentle, and good," said Billy a little awkwardly. "Perhaps it's just because you're so sweet to Breck, and because you have such a nice way with children, but I--I am ever and ever so grateful to you! I've often thought of you, all this time, and of the old days, and been glad that so much happiness of every sort has come to you. At first I felt dreadfully--at that time, you know--"
She stopped and faltered, but Rachael looked at her kindly. They were sitting on the wide porch, under the velvet-black arch of the starry sky, and watching the occasional twinkle of lights on the dark surface of the bay.
"You may say anything you like to me, Billy," Rachael said.
"Well, it was only--you know how I loved him--" Billy said quickly. "I've so often thought that perhaps you were the only person who knew what it all meant to me. I only thought he would be angry for a while. I thought then that Joe would surely win him. And afterward, I thought I would go crazy, thinking of him sitting there in the club. I had failed him, you know! I've never talked about it. I guess I'm all tired out from the trip down."
It was clumsily expressed; the words came as if every one were wrung from the jealous silence of the long years, but presently Billy was beside Rachael's chair, kneeling on the floor, and their arms were about each other.
"I killed him!" sobbed Billy. "He spoke of me the last of all. He said to Berry Stokes that he--he loved me. And he had a little old picture of me--you remember the one in the daisy frame?--over his heart. Oh, Daddy, Daddy!--always so good to me!"
"No, Bill, you mustn't say that you killed him," Rachael said, turning pale. "If you were to blame, I was, too, and your grandmother, and all of us who made him what he was. I didn't love him when I married him, and he was the sort of man who has to be loved; he knew he wasn't big, and admirable, and strong, but many a man like Clancy has been made so, been made worth while, by having a woman believe in him. I never believed in him for one second, and he knew it. I despised him, and where he sputtered and stammered and raged, I was cool and quiet, and smiling at him. It isn't right for human beings to feel that way, I see it now. I see now that love--love is the lubricant everywhere in the world, Bill. One needn't be a fool and be stepped upon; one has rights; but if loving enough goes into everything, why, it's bound to come out right."
"Oh, I do believe it!" said Billy fervently, kneeling on the floor at Rachael's feet, her wet, earnest eyes on Rachael's face, her arms crossed on the older woman's knees.
"I believe," Rachael said, "that in those seven years I might have won your father to something better if I had cared. He wasn't a hard man, just desperately weak. I've thought of it so often, of late, Bill. There might have been children. Clancy had a funny little pathetic fondness for babies. And he was a loving sort of person---"
"Ah, wasn't he?" Billy's eyes brimmed again. "Always that to me. But not to you, Rachael, and little cat that I was--I knew it. But you see I had no particular reverence for marriage, either. How should I? Why, my own mother and my half-sisters--hideous girls, they are, too--were pointed out to me in Rome a year ago. I didn't know them! I could have made your life much easier, Rachael. I wish I had. I was thinking that this afternoon when Breck was letting you carry him out into deep water, clinging to you so cunningly. He is a cute little kid, isn't he? And he'll love you to death! He's a great kisser."
"He's a great darling," smiled Rachael, "and all small boys I adore. He'll begin to put on weight in no time. And--I was thinking, Bill--he would have reconciled Clancy to you and Joe, perhaps; one can't tell! If I had not left him, Clarence might have been living to-day, that I know. He only--did what he did in one of those desperate lonely times he used to dread so."
"Ah, but he was terrible to you, Rachael!" Billy said generously. "You deserved happiness if anyone ever did!" Again she did not understand Rachael's sharp sigh, nor the little silence that followed it. Their talk ran on quite naturally to other topics: they discussed all the men and women of that old world they both had known, the changes, the newcomers, and the empty places. Mrs. Barker Emory had been much taken up by Mary Moulton, and was a recognized leader at Belvedere Bay now; Straker Thomas was in a sanitarium; old Lady Torrence was dead; Marian Cowles had snatched George Pomeroy away from one of the Vanderwall girls at the last second; Thomas Prince was paralyzed; Agnes Chase had married a Denver man whom nobody knew; the Parker Hoyts had a delicate little baby at last; Vivian Sartoris had left her husband, nobody knew why. Billy was quite her old self as she retailed these items and many more for Rachael's benefit.
But Rachael saw that the years had made a sad change in her before the three days' visit was over. Poor little, impudent, audacious Billy was gone forever--Billy, who had always been so exquisite in dress, so prettily conspicuous on the floor of the ballroom, so superbly self-conscious in her yachting gear, her riding-clothes, her smart little tennis costumes! She was but a shadow of her old self now. The smart hats, the silk stockings, the severely trim frocks were still hers, but the old delicious youth, her roses, her limpid gaze, the velvety curve of throat and cheek, these were gone. Billy had been spirited, now she was noisy. She had been amusingly precocious, now she was assuming an innocence, a naivete, that were no longer hers, had never been natural to her at any time. She had always been coolly indifferent to the lives of other men and women. Now she was embittered as to her own destiny, and full of ugly and eager gossip concerning everyone she knew. She chanced upon the name of Magsie Clay, little dreaming how straight the blow went to Rachael's heart, but had excellent reasons of her own for not expressing the belief that Magsie would soon leave the stage, and so gave no hint of Magsie's rich and mysterious lover. She did tell Rachael that she herself meant to go on the stage, but imparted no details as to her hopes for doing so.
"Just how much money is left, Billy?" Rachael presently felt herself justified in asking.
"Oh, well"--Billy had always hated statistics--"we sold the Belvedere Bay place last year, you know, but it was a perfect wreck, and the Moultons said they had to put seventeen thousand dollars into repairs, but I don't believe it, and that money, and some other things, were put into the bank. Joe was just making a scene about it--we have to draw now and then--we sank I don't know what into those awful ponies, and we still have that place--it's a lovely house, but it doesn't rent. It's too far away. The kid adores it of course, but it's too far away, it gives me the creeps. It's just going to wreck, too. Joe says sometimes that he's going to raise chickens there. I see him!" Billy scowled, but as Rachael did not speak, she presently came back to the topic. "But just how much of my money is left, I don't know. There are two houses in East One Hundredth--way over by the river. Daddy took them for some sort of debt."
Rachael remembered them perfectly. But she could not revert to the days when she was Clarence's wife without a pang, and so let the allusion go.
"Why he took them I don't know," Billy resumed, "ten flats, and all empty. They say it would cost us ten thousand dollars to get them into shape. They're mortgaged, anyway."
"But Billy, wouldn't that bring you in a fair income, in itself, if it was once filled?"
"My dear, perhaps it would. But do you think you could get Joe Pickering to do it? As long as the money in the bank lasts--I forget what it is, several thousand, more than twenty, I think--we'll go along as we are. Joe has a half-interest in a patent, anyway, some sort of curtain-pole; it's always going to make us a fortune!"
"But, Billy, if you and the boy took a little place somewhere, and you had one good maid--up there on the pony farm, for instance--surely it would be saner, surely it would be wiser, than trying to think of the stage now with him on your hands!"
"Except that I would simply die!" Billy said. "I love the city, and the excitement of not knowing what will turn up. And if Joe would behave himself, and if I should make a hit, why, we'll be all right."
A queer, hectic, unsatisfying life it must be, Rachael thought, saying good-bye to her guest a day or two later. Dressing, rouging, lacing, pinning on her outrageously expensive hats, jerking on her extravagant white gloves, drinking, rushing, screaming with laughter, screaming with anger, Billy was one of that large class of women that the big city breeds, and that cannot live elsewhere than in the big city. She would ride in a thousand taxicabs, worrying as she watched the metre; she would drink a thousand glasses of champagne, wondering anxiously if Joe were to pay for it; she would gossip of a dozen successful actresses without the self-control to work for one-tenth of their success, and she would move through all the life of the theatres and hotels without ever having her place among them, and her share of their little glory. And almost as reckless in action as she was in speech, she would cling to the brink of the conventions, never quite a good woman, never quite anything else, a fond and loyal if a foolish and selfish mother, some day noisily informing her admirers that she actually had a boy in college, and enjoying their flattering disbelief. And so would disappear the last of the handsome fortune that poor Clarence's father had bequeathed to him, and Clarence's grandson must fight his way with no better start than his grandfather had had financially, and with an infinitely less useful brain and less reliable pair of hands. Billy might be widowed or freed in some less unexceptionable way, and then Billy would marry again, and it would be a queer marriage; Rachael could read her fate in her character.
She wondered, walking slowly the short mile that lay between her house and the station, when Billy was gone, just how a discerning eye might read her own fate in her own character. Just what did the confused mixture of good motives and bad motives, erratic unselfishnesses and even more erratic weaknesses that was Rachael, deserve of Fate? She had bought some knowledge, but it had been dearly bought; she had bought some goodness, but at what a cost of pain!
"I don't believe that Warren ever did one-tenth the silly things we suspected him of!" Alice exclaimed one day. "I believe he was just an utter fool, and Magsie took advantage of it!"
Rachael did not answer, but there was no brightening of her sombre look. Her eyes, grave and sad, held for Alice no hope that she had come, as George and Alice had come, to a softer view of Warren's offence.
"I see him always as he was that last horrible morning," she said to Alice. "And I pray that I will never look upon his face again!" And when presently Alice hinted that George was receiving an occasional letter from Warren, Rachael turned pale.
"Don't quote it to me, Alice," she said gently; "don't ask me to hear it. It's all over. I haven't a heart any more, just a void and a pain. You only hurt me--I can't ever be different. You and George love me, I know that. Don't drive me away. Don't ever feel that it will be different from what it is now. I--I wish him no ill, God knows, but--I can't. It wouldn't be happiness for me or for him. Please, PLEASE--!"
Alice, in tears, could only give her her way.
Upon the discontented musings of Miss Margaret Clay one hot September morning came Mrs. Joseph Pickering, very charming in coffee-colored madras, with an exquisite heron cockade upon her narrow tan hat. Magsie was up, but not dressed, and was not ill pleased to have company. Her private as well as professional affairs were causing her much dissatisfaction of late, and she was at the moment in the act of addressing a letter to Warren, now on the ocean, from whom she had only this morning had an extremely disquieting letter.
Warren had come to see her the day before sailing, and with a grave determination new to their intercourse, had repeated several unpalatable truths. Rachael, on second thoughts, he told her, had absolutely refused him a divorce.
"But she can't do that! She wrote me herself--" Magsie had begun in anger. His distressed voice interrupted her.
"She's acting for the boys, Magsie. And she's right."
"Right!" The little actress turned pale as the full significance of his words and tone dawned upon her. "But--but what do you mean! What about ME?"
To this Warren had only answered with an exquisitely uncomfortable look and the simple phrase, "Magsie, I'm sorry."
"You mean that you're not going to MAKE her keep her word?"
And again she had put an imperative little hand upon his arm, sure of her power to win him ultimately. Days afterward the angry blood came into her face when she remembered his kind, his almost fatherly, smile, as he dislodged the hand.
"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."
Magsie, repulsed, had flung herself the length of the little room.
"You DARE tell me that, Greg?"
"I'm sorry, Magsie!"
"Sorry!" Her tone was vitriol. "Why, but I've got your letters. I've got your own words! Everyone knows-the whole world knows! Can you deny that you gave me this?--and this? Can you deny--"
"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."
Magsie had dropped into a chair with her back to him.
"I've made you cross," she said penitently, "and you're punishing me! Was it my seeing Richie, Greg? You know I never cared---"
"Don't take that tone," he said.
Her color flamed again, and she set her little teeth. He saw her breast rise and fall.
"Don't think you can do this, Greg," she said with icy viciousness. "Don't delude yourself! I can punish you, and I will. Alice and George Valentine can fix it all up to suit themselves, but they don't know me! You've said your say now, and I've listened. Very well!"
"Magsie," he said almost pleadingly, interrupting the hard little voice, "can't you see what a mistake it's all been?"
She looked at him with eyes suddenly flooded with tears.
"M-m-mistake to s-s-say we loved each other, Greg?"
The man did not answer. Presently Magsie began to speak in a sad, low tone.
"You can go now if you want to, Greg. I'm not going to try to hold you. But I know you'll come back to me to-morrow, and tell me it was all just the trouble other people tried to make between us--it wasn't really you, the man I love!"
"I'll write you," he said after a silence. And from the doorway he added, "Good-bye." Magsie did not turn or speak; she could not believe her ears when she heard the door softly close.
Next day brought her only a letter from the steamer, a letter reiterating his good-byes, and asking her again to forgive him. Magsie read it in stupefaction. He was gone, and she had lost him!
The first panic of surprise gave way to more reasonable thinking. There were ways of bringing him back; there were arguments that might persuade Rachael to adhere to her original resolution. It could not be dropped so easily. Magsie began to wonder what a lawyer might advise. Billy came in upon her irresolute musing.
"Hello, dearie! But I'm interrupting---" said Billy.
"Oh, hello, darling! No, indeed you're not," Magsie said, tearing up an envelope lazily. "I was trying to write a letter, but I have to think it over before it goes."
"I should think you could write a letter to your beau with your eyes shut," Billy said. "You've had practice enough! I know you're busy, but I won't interrupt you long. Upon my word, I had a hard enough time getting to you. There was no boy at the lift, and only a dear old Irish girl mopping up the floors. We had a long heart-to-heart talk, and I gave her a dollar."
"A dollar! I'll have to move-you're raising the price of living!" said Magsie. "She's the janitor's wife, and they're rich already. What possessed you?"
"Well, she unpinned her skirts and went after the boy," Billy said idly, "and it was the only thing I had." She was trying quietly to see the name on the envelope Magsie had destroyed, but being unsuccessful, she went on more briskly, "How is the beau, by the way?"
"I wish I had never seen the man!" Magsie said, glad to talk of him. "His wife is raising the roof now---"
"I thought she would!" Billy said wisely. "I didn't see any woman, especially if she's not young, giving all that up without a fight! You know I said so."
"I know you did," said Magsie ruefully. "But I don't see what she can do!"
"Well, she can refuse to give him his divorce, can't she?" Billy said sensibly.
"But CAN she?" Magsie was obviously not sure.
"Of course she can!"
"But she doesn't want him. I went to see her--"
"Went to see her? For heaven's sake, what did you do that for?"
"Because I cared for him," Magsie said, coloring.
"For heaven's sake! You had your nerve! And what sort of a person is she?"
"Oh, beautiful! I knew her before. And she said that she would not interfere. She was as willing as he was; then---"
"But now she's changed her mind?"
"Apparently." Magsie scowled into space.
"Well, what does HE say?" Billy asked after a pause.
"Why, he can't--or he seems to think he can't--force her."
"Well, I don't know that he can--here. There are states--"
"Yes, I know, but we're here in New York," Magsie said briefly. A second later she sat up, suddenly energetic and definite in voice and manner. "But there ARE ways of forcing her, as she will soon see," said Magsie in a venomous voice. "I have his letters. I could put the whole thing into a lawyer's hands. There's such a thing as-as a breach of promise suit--"
"Not with a married man," Billy interrupted. Magsie halted, a little dashed.
"How do you know?" she demanded.
"You'd have to show you had been injured--and you've known all along he was married," Billy said.
"Well"--Magsie was scarlet with anger--"I could make him sorry, don't worry about that!" she said childishly.
"Of course, if his wife DID consent, and then changed her mind, and you sent his letters to her," Billy said after cogitation. "It might--he may have glossed it all over, to her, you know."
"Exactly!" Magsie said triumphantly. "I knew there was a way! She's a sensitive woman, too. You know you can't go as far as you like with a girl, Billy," she went on argumentatively, "without paying for it somehow!"
"Make him pay!" said the practical Billy.
"I don't want--just money," Magsie said discontentedly. "I want--I don't want to be interfered with. I believe I shall do just that," she went on with a brightening eye. "I'll write him---"
"Tell him. Ever so much more effective than writing!" Billy suggested.
"Tell him then," Magsie did not mean to betray his identity if she could help it, "that I really will send these things on to his wife--that's just what I'll do!"
"Are there children?" asked Billy.
"Two--girls," Magsie said with barely perceptible hesitation.