"Do you realize," Mrs. Haviland said, "that everyone is beginning
to talk?"
"Perfectly," Rachael admitted. "But what do you expect me to do?"
"SOMETHING must be done," said the other woman firmly.
"By whom?" Rachael countered lightly.
"Well--by Clarence, I suppose," Mrs. Haviland suggested
discontentedly.
"Clarence!" Rachael's tone was but a scornful breath. Her glance
toward the ceiling evoked more clearly than any words a vision of
Clarence's condition at the moment.
"Well, I suppose he can't do anything just now, anyway," his
sister conceded ruefully. "Can't you--couldn't you talk to her,
Rachael?"
"Talk to her?" Mrs. Breckenridge smiled at some memory. "My dear
Florence, you don't suppose I haven't talked to her!"
"Well, I suppose of course you have," Mrs. Haviland said hastily.
"But my dear, it's dreadful! People are beginning to ask
questions; a reporter--we don't know who he was--telephoned
Gardner. Of course Gardner hung up--"
"I can say no more than I have said," Rachael observed
thoughtfully. "What authority have I? Clarence could influence
her, I think, but she lies simply and flatly to Clarence."
Mrs. Haviland winced at the ugly word.
"Joe drinks," Rachael went on, "but he doesn't drink as much as
her adored Daddy does. Joe is thirty-nine and Billy is seventeen--
well, that's not his fault. Joe is divorced--well, but Carol's
mother is living, and Clarence's second wife isn't exactly
ostracised by society! A clergyman of your own church married
Clarence and me--" The little scornful twist of the beautiful
mouth stung a church woman conscious of personal integrity, and
Mrs. Haviland said: "A great many of them won't! The church is going to take a stand
in the matter. The bishops are considering a canon. ..."
Mrs. Breckenridge shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Theology
did not interest her.
"And as Billy is too young and too blind to see that Joe isn't a
gentleman," she continued, "or to realize that Lucy got her
divorce against his will, to believe that her money might well
influence a gentleman of Joe's luxurious tastes and dislike for
office work--why, I suppose they will be married!"
"Never!" said Florence Haviland, with some heat, "DON'T!"
"Unless Clarence shoots him," submitted Rachael. A look of intense
anxiety clouded Mrs. Haviland's eyes.
"I believe he would," she said, in a wretched whisper, with a
cautious glance about.
"He might," his wife said seriously. "If ever it comes to that, we
shall simply have to keep them apart. You see Billy--the clever
little devil--"
"Oh, Rachael, DON'T use such words!" said the church woman.
"Father Graves was saying only the other day that one's speech
should be 'yea, yea' and--"
"I daresay!" Mrs. Breckenridge's smile was indulgent. It had been
many years since Florence had succeeded in ruffling her. "Billy,
then," she resumed, "keeps her father happy in the thought that he
is all the world to her, and that her occasional chats with Joe
are of an entirely uplifting and impersonal character."