There's no sense in antagonizing her--"

"No, I suppose there isn't," Billy said slowly. "But I wish she'd not ask us every summer. I suppose we shall be doing this for the rest of our lives!"

She trailed slowly from the room, and Clarence took one or two fretful glances at his paper.

"Gosh, how you do love to spoil things!" he said bitterly to his wife in a sudden burst.

Rachael did not answer. She rose after a few moments, and carried her letters into the adjoining room. When Clarence presently pa.s.sed the door she called him in.

"Now or never--now or never!" said Rachael's fast-beating heart.

She was pale and breathing quickly as he came in. But Clarence, sick and headachy, did not notice these signs of strong emotion.

"Clarence, I need some money," Rachael said simply.

"What for?" he asked unencouragingly.

The color came into his wife's face. She did not ask often for money, although he was rich, and she had been his wife for seven years. It was a continual humiliation to Rachael that she must ask him at all for the little actual money she spent, and tell him what she did with it when she got it. Clarence might lose more money at poker in a single night than Rachael touched in a month; it had come to him without effort, and of the two, she was the one who made a real effort to hold the home together. Yet she was a pensioner on his bounty, obliged to wait for the propitious mood and moment. Under her hand at this moment was Mary Moulton's check for one thousand dollars, more than she had ever had at one time in her life. She could not touch it, but Clarence would turn it into bills, and stuff them carelessly into his pocket, to be scattered in the next week or two wherever his idle fancy saw fit.

"Why, for living, and travelling expenses," she answered, with what dignity she could muster.

"Thought you had some money," he grumbled in evident distaste.

"Come in here a moment," Rachael said in a voice that rather to his surprise he obeyed. "Sit down there," she went on, and Clarence, staring at her a little stupidly, duly seated himself.

His wife twisted about in her desk chair so that she could rest an arm upon the back of it, and faced him seriously across that arm.

"Clarence," said she, conscious of a certain dryness in her mouth, and a sick quivering and weakness through-out her whole body, "I want to end this."

"What?" asked Clarence, puzzled and dull, as she paused.

"I want to be free," Rachael said, stumbling awkwardly over the phrase that sounded so artificial and dramatic. They looked at each other, Clarence's bewildered look slowly changing to one of comprehension under his wife's significant expression. There was a silence.

"Well?" Clarence said, ending it with an indifferent shrug.

"Our marriage has been a farce for years--almost from the beginning," Rachael a.s.serted eagerly. "You know it, and I know it- -everyone does. You're not happy, and I'm wretched. I'm sick of excuses, and pretending, and prevaricating. There isn't a thing in the world we feel alike about; our life has become an absolute sham. It isn't as if I could have any real influence over you--you go your way, and do as you please, and I take the consequences. I realize now that every word I say jars on you. Why, sometimes when you come into a room and find me there I can tell by the expression on your face that you're angry just at that! I've too much self-respect, I've too much pride, to go on this way. You know how I hate divorce--no woman in the world hates it more--but tell me, honestly, what do we gain by keeping up a life like this?

I used to be happy and confident and full of energy a few years ago; now I'm bored all the time. What's the use, what's the use-- that's the way I feel about everything--"

"You're not any more tired of it than I am!" Clarence interrupted sullenly.

"Then why keep it up?" she asked urgently. "You've Billy, and your clubs, and your car, to fill your time. There'll be a fuss, of course, and I hate that, but we'll both be away. We've given it a fair trial, but we simply aren't meant for each other. Good heavens! it isn't as if we were the first man and woman who--"

"Don't talk as if I were opposing you," Clarence said with a weary frown.

Rachael, snubbed, instantly fell silent.

"I've got my side in all this dissatisfied business, too," the man presently said with unsteady dignity. "You never cared a d.a.m.n for me, or what became of me! I've had you ding-donging your troubles at me day and night; it never occurs to you what I'm up against."

He looked at his watch. "You want some money?" he asked.

"If you please," Rachael answered, scarlet-cheeked.

"Well, I can write a check--" he began.

"Here's this check of Mary Moulton's for July," Rachael said, nervously adding: "She wants to pay month by month, because I think she hopes you'll rent after August. I believe she'd keep the place indefinitely, on account of being near her mother, and for the boys."

Clarence took the check, and, hardly glancing at it, scrawled his slovenly "C. L. Breckenridge" across the back with a gold-mounted fountain pen. Rachael, whose face was burning, received it back from his hand with a husky "Thank you. You'll have to furnish the grounds, I presume--there will be a referee--nothing need get out beyond the fact that I am the complainant. You--won't contest?

You--won't oppose anything?" She hated herself for the question, but it had to be asked.

"Nope," the man said impatiently.

"And"--Rachael hesitated--"and you won't say anything, Clarence,"

she suggested, "because the papers will get hold of it fast enough!"

"You can't tell me anything about that," he said sullenly. Then there came a silence. Rachael, looking at him, wished that she could hate him a little more, wished that his neglects and faults had made a little deeper impression. For a minute or two neither spoke. Then Clarence got up and left the room, and Rachael sat still, the little slip held lightly between her fingers. The color ebbed slowly from her face, her heart resumed its normal beat, moments went by, the little clock on her desk ticked on and on. It was all over; she was free. She felt strangely shaken and cold, and desolately lonely.

He loved her as little as she loved him. They had never needed each other, yet there was in this severance of the bond between them a strange and unexpected pain. It was as if Rachael's heart yearned over the wasted years, the love and happiness that might have been. Not even the thought of Warren Gregory seemed warm or real to-day; a great void surrounded her spirit; she felt a chilled weariness with the world, with all men--she was sick of life.

On the following day she gave Florence a hint of the situation. It was only fair to warn the important, bustling matron a trifle in advance of the rest of the world. Rachael had had a long night's sleep; she already began to feel deliciously young and free. She was to spend a few nights at the Havilands', and the next week supposedly go to the Princes' at Bar Harbor; really she planned to disappear for a time from her world. She must go up to town for a consultation with her lawyer, and then, when the storm broke, she would slip away to little Quaker Bridge, the tiny village far down on Long Island upon which, quite by chance, she had stumbled two years before. No one would recognize her there, no one of her old world could find her, and there for a month or two she could walk and bathe and dream in wonderful solitude. Then--then Greg would be home again.

"I want to tell you something, Florence," Rachael said to her sister-in-law when she was stretched upon the wide couch in Florence's room, watching with the placidity of a good baby that lady's process of dressing for an afternoon of bridge, or rather the operations with cold cream, rubber face brush, hair tonic, eyebrow stick, powder, rouge, and lip paste that preceded the process of dressing. Mrs. Haviland, even with this a.s.sistance, would never be beautiful; in justice it must be admitted that she never thought herself beautiful. But she thought rouge and powder and paste improved her appearance, and if through fatigue or haste she was ever led to omit any or all of these embellishments, she presented herself to the eyes of her family and friends with a genuine sensation of guilt. Perhaps three hours out of all her days were spent in some such occupation; between bathing, manicuring, hair-dressing, and intervals with her dressmaker and her corset woman it is improbable that the subject of her appearance was long out of the lady's mind. Yet she was not vain, nor was she particularly well satisfied with herself when it was done. That about one-fifth of her waking time--something more than two months out of the year--was spent in an unprofitable effort to make herself, not beautiful nor attractive, but something only a little nearer than was natural to a vague standard of beauty and attractiveness, never occurred, and never would occur, to Florence Haviland.

"What is it?" she asked now sharply, pausing with one eyebrow beautifully pencilled and the other less definite than ever by contrast.

"I don't suppose it will surprise you to hear that Clarence and I have decided to try a change," Rachael said slowly.

"How do you mean a change?" the other woman said, instantly alert and suspicious.

"The usual thing," Rachael smiled.

"What madness has got hold of that boy now?" his sister exclaimed aghast.

"It's not entirely Clarence," Rachael explained with a touch of pride.

"Well, then, YOU'RE mad!" the older woman said shortly.

"Not necessarily, my dear," Rachael answered, resolutely serene.

"Go talk to someone who's been through it," Florence warned her.

"You don't know what it is! It's bad enough for him, but it's simple suicide for you!"

"Well, I wanted you to hear it from me," Rachael submitted mildly.

"Do you mean to say you've decided, seriously, to do it?"

"Very seriously, I a.s.sure you!"

"How do you propose to do it?" Florence asked after a pause, during which she stared with growing discomfort at her sister-in- law.

"The way other people do it," Rachael said with a.s.sumed lightness.

"Clarence agrees. There will be evidence."