"Why, if some four-year-old child came in here and began to contend for Derry's place," Rachael asked pa.s.sionately, "how long would we seriously consider his right? If I must dispute the t.i.tle of Magsie Clay this year, why not of Jennie Jones next year, of Polly Smith the year after that? If--"

"Now you are talking recklessly," Warren Gregory said quietly, "and you have entirely lost sight of the point at issue. n.o.body is attempting a controversy with you."

The cool, a.n.a.lytical voice robbed Rachael of all her fire. She sat down, and was silent.

"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--"

"Warren! When was our marriage that?"

"I don't say it was that! I am protesting because YOU talk of rights and t.i.tles. 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!"

"Failure!" she echoed with white lips.

"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?"

Rachael was silent. These had been her words eight years ago.

"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 a.s.sume that what hundreds of good and reputable men and women are doing every day is essentially wrong!"

"You know that you may say this--to me, Warren," she said with a leaden heart.

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

She interrupted with a quick, breathless, "WARREN!"

"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 felt the room whirling. She could neither see nor feel anything now but the fury that possessed her. Perhaps twice in her life before, never with him, had she so given way to anger.

"_I_ shouldn't have spoken of it, Warren!" she echoed. "I should have borne it, and smiled, and said nothing! Perhaps I should!

Perhaps some women would have done that--"

"Rachael!" he interrupted quickly. But she swept down his words in the wild tide of her own.

"Warren!" she said with deadly decision, "I'm not that sort of woman. You've had your fun--now it's my turn! Now it's my turn!"

Rachael repeated in a voiceless undertone as she rapidly paced the room. "Now you can turn to the world, and SEE what the world thinks! Let them know how often you and Magsie have been together, let them know that she came here to ask me to set you free, and then see what the general verdict is! I'm not going to hush this up, to refrain from discussing it because you don't care to, because it hurts your feelings! It SHALL be discussed, and you shall be free! You shall be free, and if you choose to put Magsie Clay here in my place, you may do so!"

"Rachael!" he said angrily. And he caught her thin wrists in his hands.

"Don't touch me!" she said, wrenching herself free. "Don't touch me, you cruel and wicked and heartless--! Go to Magsie! Tell her that I sent you to her! Take your hands off me, Warren--"

Standing back, discomfited, he attempted reason.

"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--"

The door of her room closed behind her. She was gone. A long silence fell in the troubled room where their voices had warred so lately.

Warren looked at his watch, looked at her door. Then he went out the other door, and downstairs, and out of the house. Rachael heard him go. She was still breathing fast, still blind to everything but her own fury. She would punish him, she would punish him. He should have his verdict from the world he trusted so serenely; he should have his Magsie.

The clocks struck eleven: first the slow clock in her sitting- room, then the quick silvery echo from downstairs. Rachael glanced about nervously. The Bank--the boys' lunches--the trunks--

She went downstairs. In the little breakfast-room off the big dining-room the array of Warren's breakfast waited. Old Mary, with the boys, had just come in the side door.

"Mary," Rachael said quickly, "I want you to help me. Pack some clothes for the boys and me, and give them some luncheon. We are going down to Clark's Hills on the two o'clock train--"

"My G.o.d! Mrs. Gregory, you look very bad, my dear!" said Mary.

The unconscious endearment, the shock and concern visible on Mary's homely, honest face were too much for Rachael. Her face changed to ivory, she put one hand to her throat, and her lips quivered.

"Help me--some coffee--Mary!" she whispered. "I think--I'm dying!"

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

Warren went to the hospital and performed his operation. It was a long, hard strain for all concerned, and the nurses told each other afterward that you could see Doctor Gregory's heart was in it, he looked as bad as the child's father and mother did. It was after one o'clock when the surgeons got out of their white gowns, and Warren was in the cold, watery sunlight of the street before he realized that he had had nothing to eat since his dinner in Albany last night.

He looked about vaguely; there were plenty of places all about where he could get a meal. He saw Magsie--

Magsie often drove about in hansom-cabs--they were one of her delights; and more than once of late she had come to meet Warren at some hospital, or even to pick him up at the club. But this was the first time that she had done so without prearrangement.

She leaned out of the cab, a picture of youth and beauty, and waved a white glove. How did she know he was in here? she echoed his question. He had written her from Albany that he would operate at Doctor Berry's hospital this morning she reminded him. And where was he going now?

"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--"

"When did you get in, and where did you have breakfast?" she asked with pretty concern. "Greg, you've not had any? Oh, I believe he hasn't had any! And it's after one, and you've been operating! Get STRAIGHT in--"

"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--"

"Warren Gregory!" said Magsie sternly, "you get right straight in here, and come and have your breakfast! Now, what's nearest? The Biltmore!" She poked the upper door with her slim umbrella. "To the Biltmore!" commanded Magsie.

At a quiet table Warren had coffee and eggs and toast, and more coffee, and finally his cigar. The color came back into his face, and he looked less tired.

Magsie was a rather simple little soul under her casing of Parisian veneer, and was often innocently surprised at the potency of her own charm. That men, big men and wise men, were inclined to take her artful artlessness at its surface value was a continual revelation to her. Like Rachael, she had gone to bed the night before in a profoundly thoughtful frame of mind, a little apprehensive as to Warren's view of her call, and uneasy as to the state in which she had left his wife. But, unlike Rachael, Magsie had not been wakeful long. The consideration of other people's att.i.tudes never troubled her for more than a few consecutive minutes. She had been genuinely stirred by her talk that afternoon, and was honestly determined to become Mrs. Warren Gregory; but these feelings did not prevent her from looking back, with thrilled complacence, to the scene in Rachael's sitting-room, and from remembering that it was a dramatic and heroic thing for a slender, pretty girl in white to go to a man's wife and plead for her love. "No harm done, anyway!" Magsie had reflected drowsily, drifting off to sleep; and she had awakened conscious of no emotion stronger than a mild trepidation at the possibility of Warren's wrath.

Dainty and sweet, she came to meet him halfway, and now sat congratulating herself that he was soothed, fed, and placidly smoking before their conversation reached deep channels.

"Greg, dear, I've got a horrible confession to make!" began Magsie when this propitious moment arrived.

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