Of some of these things the woman who sat idly before the library
fire was thinking, as the quiet evening wore on, and the purring
of the flames and the ticking of the little mantel clock accented
rather than disturbed the stillness. She was unhappy with a cold,
dry wretchedness that was deeper than any pang of passion or of
hate. The people she met, the books she read, the gowns she
planned so carefully, and the social events that were her life,
all--all--were dust and ashes. Clarence was less a disappointment
and a shame to her than an annoyance; he neglected her, he
humiliated her, true, but this meant infinitely less than that he
bored her so mercilessly. Billy, with her youthful complacencies
and arts, bored her; the sympathy of a few close friends bored her
as much as the admiration and envy of the many who were not close.
Cards, golf, dinners, and dances bored her. Rachael thought
tonight of a woman she had known closely, a beautiful woman, too,
and a rich and gifted woman, who, not many months ago, had quietly
ended it all, had been found by horrified maids in her gray-and-
silver boudoir lovelier than ever, in fixed and peaceful beauty,
with the soft folds of her lacy gown spreading like the petals of
a great flower about her and the little gleam of an empty bottle
in her still, ringed hand...
A voice broke the library stillness. Rachael roused herself.
"What is it, Helda?" she asked. "Doctor Gregory? Ask him to come
in. And ask Alfred--is Alfred still downstairs?--ask him to go up
and see if Mr. Breckenridge is awake.
"This is very decent of you, Greg," she said, a moment later, as
the doctor came into the room. "It doesn't seem right to interfere
with your dinner for the same old stupid thing!"
"Great pleasure to do anything for you, Rachael," the newcomer
said promptly and smilingly with the almost perfunctory courtesy
that was a part of Warren Gregory's stock in trade. "You don't
call on me often! I wish you did!"
She said to herself, as they both sat down before the fire, that
it was probably true. Doctor Gregory was notoriously glad of an
opportunity to serve his friends. He had not at all regretted the
necessity of leaving his dinner partner at the salad for a
professional call. He was quite ready to enjoy the Breckenridge
sitting-room, the fire, the lamplight, the company of a beautiful
woman. Rachael and he knew each other well, almost intimately;
they had been friends for many years. She had often been his guest
at the opera, had often chaperoned his dinner-parties at the club,
for Warren Gregory's only woman relative was his old mother, who
was neither of an age nor a type to take any part in his social
life.