That his overtired nerves and her exhausted soul and body would have
recovered balance in time, did not occur to Rachael. She suffered with
all the intensity of a strongly passionate nature. Warren had changed
to her; that was the terrible fact. She went about stunned and sick,
neglecting her meals, forgetting her tonic, refusing the distractions
that would have been the best thing possible for her. Little things
troubled her; she said to herself bitterly that everything, anything,
caused irritation between herself and Warren now. Sometimes the
atmosphere brightened for a few days, then the old hopeless tugging at
cross purposes began again.
"You're sick, Rachael, and you don't know it!" said Magsie Clay
breezily. June was coming in, and Magsie was leaving town for the
Villalonga camp. She told Rachael that she was "crazy" about Kent
Parmalee, and Rachael's feeling of amazement that Magsie Clay could
aspire to a Parmalee was softened by an odd sensation of relief at
hearing Magsie's plans--a relief she did not analyze.
"I believe I am sick!" Rachael agreed. "I shall be glad to get down to
the shore next week." She told Warren of Magsie's admission that night.
"Kent! She wouldn't look at him!" Warren said comfortably.
"It would be a brilliant match for her," Rachael countered quietly.
She saw that she had antagonized him, but he did not speak again. One
of their unhappy silences fell.
Home Dunes, as always, restored health and color magically. Rachael
felt more like herself after the first night's sleep on the breezy
porch, the first invigorating dip in the ocean. She began to enjoy her
meals again, she began to look carefully to her appearance. Presently
she was laughing, singing, bubbling with life and energy. Alice,
watching her, rejoiced and marvelled at her recovery. Rachael's beauty,
her old definite self-reliance, came back in a flood. She fairly
radiated charm, glowing as she held George and Alice under the spell of
her voice, the spell of her happy planning. Her letters to Warren were
in the old, tender, vivacious strain. She was interested in everything,
delighted with everything in Clark's Hills. She begged him for news;
Vivian had a baby? And Kent Parmalee was engaged to Eliza
Bowditch--what did Magsie's say? And did he miss her? The minute she
got home she was going to talk to him about having a big porch built
on, outside the nursery, and at the back of the house; what about it?
Then the children could sleep out all the year through. George and
Alice positively stated that they were going around the world in two
years, and if they did, why couldn't the Gregorys go, too?
"You're wonderful!" said Alice one day. "You're not the same woman you
were last winter!"
"I was ill last winter, woman! And never so ill as when they all
thought I was entirely cured! Besides--" Rachael looked down at her
tanned arm and slender brown fingers marking grooves in the sand.
"Besides, it's partly--bluff, Alice," she confessed. "I'm fighting
myself these days. I don't want to think that we--Greg and I--can't go
back, can't be to each other--what we were!"
What an April creature she was, thought Alice, seeing that tears were
close to the averted eyes, and hearing the tremble in Rachael's voice.
"Goose!" she said tenderly. "You were a nervous wreck last year, and
Warren was working far too hard! Make haste slowly, Rachael."
"But it's three weeks since he was here," Rachael said in a low voice.
"I don't understand it, that's all!"
"Nor I--nor he!" Alice said, smiling.
"Next week!" Rachael predicted bravely. And a second later she had
sprung up from the sand and was swimming through the surf as if she
swam from her own intolerable thoughts.
The next week-end would bring him she always told herself, and usually
after two or three empty Sundays there would come a happy one, with the
new car which was built like a projectile, purring in the road, George
and Alice shouting greetings as they came in the gate, Louise excitedly
attempting to outdo herself on the dinner, and the sunburned noisy
babies shrieking themselves hoarse as they romped with their father.
To be held tight in his arms, to get his first big kiss, to come into
the house still clinging to him, was bliss to Rachael now. But as the
summer wore away she noticed that in a few hours the joy of homecoming
would fade for him, he would become fitfully talkative, moodily silent,
he would wonder why the Valentines were always late, and ask his wife
patiently if she would please not hum, his head ached--
"Dearest! Why didn't you say so!"
"I don't know. It's been aching all day!"
"And you let those great boys climb all over you!"
"Oh, that's all right."
"Would you like a nap, Warren, or would you like to go over to the
beach, just you and me, and have a swim?"
"No, thank you. I may run the car into Katchogue"--Katchogue, seven
miles away, was the site of the nearest garage--"and have that fellow
look at my magneto. She didn't act awfully well coming down!"
"Would you like me to go with you, Warren?"
"Love it, my dear, but I have to take Pierre. He's got twice the sense
I have about it!"
And again a sense of heaviness, of helplessness, would fall upon
Rachael, so that on Sunday afternoon it was almost a relief to have him
go away.
"Well," she would say in the nursery again, after the good-byes,
kissing the fat little shoulder of Gerald Fairfax Gregory where the old
baby white ran into the new boyish tan, "we will not be introspective
and imaginative, and cry for the moon. We will take off our boys'
little old, hot rumply shirts, and put them into their nice cool
nighties, and be glad that we have everything in the world--almost! Get
me your Peter Rabbit Book, Jimmy, and get up here on my other arm.
Everybody hasn't the same way of showing love, and the main thing is to
be grateful that the love is there. Daddy loves his boys, and his home,
and his boys' mother, only it doesn't always occur to him that--"
"Are you talking for me, or for you, Mother?" Jimmy would sometimes
ask, after puzzled and attentive listening.
"For me, this time, but now I'll talk for you!" Rachael satisfied her
hungry heart with their kisses, and was never so happy as when both fat
little bodies were in her arms. She grudged every month that carried
them away from babyhood, and one day Alice Valentine found her looking
at a book of old photographs with an expression of actual sadness on
her face.
"Look at Jim, Alice, that second summer--before Derry was born! Wasn't
he the dearest little fatty, tumbling all over the place!"
"Rachael, don't speak as if the child was dead!" Alice laughed.
"Well, one loses them almost as completely," Rachael said, smiling.
"Jim is such a great big, brown, mischievous creature now, and to think
that my Derry is nearly two!"
"Think of me, with Mary fifteen!" Mrs. Valentine countered, "and just
as baby-hungry as ever! But I shall have to do nothing but chaperon
now, for a few years, and wait for the grandchildren."
"I shouldn't mind getting old, Alice," Rachael said, "if I were like
you; you're so temperate and unselfish and sweet that no one could help
loving you! Besides, you don't sit around worrying about what people
think, you just go on cutting out cookies, and putting buttons on
gingham dresses, and let other people do the worrying!"
And suddenly, to the other woman's concern, she burst into bitter
crying, and covered her face with her hands.
"I'm so frightened, Alice!" sobbed Rachael. "I don't know what's the
matter with me, but I FEEL--I feel that something is all wrong! I don't
seem to have any HOLD on Warren any more--you can't explain such
things--but I'm--"
She got to her feet, a splendid figure of tragedy, and walked blindly
to the end of the long porch, where she stood staring down at the
heaving, sun-flooded expanse of the blue sea, and at the roofs of
little Quaker Bridge beyond the bar. Lazy waves were creaming, in great
interlocked circles, on the white beach, the air was as clear as
crystal on the cloudless September morning. Not a breath of wind
stirred the tufted grass on the dunes; down by the weather-blown
bath-houses a dozen children, her own among them, were shouting and
splashing in the spreading shallows.
Alice Valentine, her plain, sweet face a picture of sympathy, sat dumb
and unmoving. In her own heart she felt that Rachael's was a terrible
situation. What WAS the matter with Warren Gregory, anyway, wondered
Alice; he had a beautiful wife, and beautiful children, and if George,
with all his summer substituting and hospital work, could come to his
family, as he did come every Friday night, it was upon no claim of hard
work that Warren could remain away. As a matter of fact, Alice knew it
was not for work that he stayed, for George, the least critical of
friends, had once or twice told her of yachting parties in which Warren
had participated--men's parties, of which Rachael perhaps might not
have disapproved, but of which Rachael certainly did not know. George
had told her vaguely that Greg liked to play golf on Saturday
afternoons, and sleep late on Sunday, and seemed to feel it more of a
rest than coming down to the shore.
"I am a fool to break down this way," said Rachael, interrupting her
guest's musings to come back to her chair, and showing a composed face
despite her red eyes, "but my--my heart is heavy to-day!" Something in
the simple dignity of the words brought the tears to Alice's eyes. She
held out her hand and Rachael took it and clung to it, as she went on:
"I had a birthday yesterday--and Warren forgot it!"
"They all do that!" Alice said cheerfully. "George never remembers
mine!"
"But Warren always has before," Rachael said, smiling sadly, "and--and
it came to me last night--I didn't sleep very well--that I am
thirty-four, and--and I have given him all I have!"
Again tears threatened her self-control, but she fought them
resolutely, and in a moment was herself again.
"You love too hard, my dear woman," Alice Valentine remonstrated
affectionately; "nothing is worse than extremes in anything. Say to
yourself, like a sensible girl, that you have a good husband, and let
it go at that! Be as cool and cheerful with Warren as if he
were--George, for instance, and try to interest yourself in something
entirely outside your own home. I wonder if perhaps this place isn't a
little lonely for you? Why don't you try Bar Harbor or one of the
mountain places next year, and go about among people, and entertain a
little more?"
"But, Alice, people BORE me so--I've had so much of it, and it's always
the same thing!"
"I know; I hate it, too. But there are funny phases in marriage,
Rachael, and one has to take them as they come. Warren might like it."
Rachael pondered. Elinor Pomeroy and the Villalongas, the Whittakers
and Stokes and Parmalees again! Noise and hurry, and dancing and
smoking and drinking again! She sighed.
"I believe I'll suggest it to Warren, Alice. Then if he's keen for it,
we'll do it next year."
"I would." Mrs. Valentine rose, and looked toward the beach with an
idea of locating Martha and Katrina before sending for them. "Isn't it
almost lunch time?" she asked, adding in a matter-of-fact tone: "Don't
worry any more, Rachael; it's largely a bad habit. Just look the whole
thing in the face, and map it out like a campaign. 'The way to begin
living the ideal life is to begin,' my father used to say!"
This talk, and others like it, had the effect of bracing Rachael to
fresh endurance and of spurring her to fresh courage for the few days
that its effect lasted. But sooner or later her bravery would die away,
and an increasing discouragement possess her. Lying in her bare, airy
bedroom at night, with sombre eyes staring at the arch of stars above
the moving sea, an almost unbearable loneliness would fall upon soul
and body; she needed Warren, she said to herself, often with bitter
tears. Warren, splashing in his bath, scattering wet towels and
discarded garments so royally about the place; Warren, in a discursive
mood, regarding some operation as he stropped his razor; Warren's old,
half-unthinking "you look sweet, dear," when, fresh and dainty, his
wife was ready to go downstairs--for these and a thousand other
memories of him she yearned with an aching desire that racked her like
a bodily pain.
"Oh, it isn't right for him to torture me so!" she would whisper to
herself. "It isn't right!"
October found them all back in the city, an apparently united and
devoted family again. Rachael entered with great zest into the delayed
matter of redecorating and refurnishing the old home on Washington
Square, finding the dignified house--Warren's birthplace--more and more
to her liking as modern enamel fixtures went into the bathrooms, simple
modern hangings let sunshine and air in at the long-darkened windows,
and rich tapestry papers and Oriental rugs subdued the effect of severe
cream woodwork and colonial mantels.
She found Warren singularly unenthusiastic about it, almost ungracious
when he answered her questions or decided for her any detail. But
Rachael was firmly resolved to ignore his moods, and went blithely
about her business, displaying an indifference--or an assumed
indifference--that was evidently somewhat puzzling to Warren and to all
her household. She equipped the boys in dark-blue coats and
squirrel-skin caps for the winter, marvelling a little sadly that their
father did not seem to see the charms so evident to all the world. A
rosier, gayer, more sturdy pair of devoted little brothers never
stamped through snowy parks, or came chattering in for chops and baked
potatoes. Every woman in the neighborhood, every policeman, knew Jim
and Derry Gregory; their morning walks were so many separate little
adventures in popularity. But Warren, beyond paternal greetings at
breakfast, and an occasional perfunctory query as to their health, made
no attempt to enter into their lives. They were still too small to
interest their father except as good and satisfactory babies.
One bitter December day the thunderbolt fell. Rachael felt that she had
always known it, that she had been sitting in this hideous hotel
dining-room for years watching Warren--and Margaret Clay.
There was a bitter taste of salt water in her mouth, there was a
hideous drumming at her heart. She felt sick and cold from her
bewildered brain down to her very feet. When one felt like this--one
fainted.
But Rachael did not faint, although it was by sheer power of will that
she held her reeling senses. No scene--no, there mustn't be a
scene--for Jimmy's sake, for Derry's sake, no scene. She was here, in
the Waldorf Grill, of course. She had been--what had she been doing?
She had been--she came downtown after breakfast--of course, shopping.
Shopping for the children's Christmas. They were to have coasters--they
were old enough for coasters--she must go on this quiet way, thinking
of the children--five was old enough for coasters--and Jim always
looked out for Derry.
She couldn't go out. They hadn't seen her; they wouldn't see her, here
in this corner. But she dared not stand up and pass them again.
Warren--and Magsie. Warren--and Magsie. Oh, God--God--God--what should
she do--she was going to faint again.
Here was her shopping list, a little wet and crumpled because she had
put her glove on the snowy handle of the motor-car door. Mary had said
that it would be a white Christmas--how could Mary tell?--this was only
the eighteenth, only the eighteenth--ridiculous to be panting this way,
like a runner. Nothing was going to hurt her--
"Anything--anything!" she said to the waiter, with dry, bloodless lips,
and a ghastly attempt at a smile. "Yes, that will do. Thank you, yes, I
suppose so. Yes, if you will. Thank you. That will do nicely."
And now she must be quiet. That was the main thing now. They must not
see her. She had been shopping, and now she was having her lunch in the
Grill. If she could only breathe a little less violently--but she
seemed to have no control over her heaving breast, she could not even
close her mouth. Nobody suspected anything, and if she could but
control herself, nobody would, she told herself desperately.
She never knew that the silent, gray-haired waiter recognized her, and
recognized both the man and woman who sat only thirty feet away. She
had not ordered coffee, but he brought her a smoking pot. It was not
the first time he had encountered the situation. Rachael drank the
vivifying fluid, and her nerves responded at once.
She sat up, set her lips firmly, forced herself to dispose of gloves
and napkin in the usual way. Her breath was coming more evenly--so much
was gained. As for this deadly cold and quivering sensation of nausea,
that was no more than fatigue and the frightfully cold wind.
So it was Magsie. Rachael had not been seven years a wife to misread
Warren's eyes as he looked at the girl. No woman could misread their
attitude together, an attitude of wonderful, sweet familiarity with
each other's likes and dislikes under all its thrilling newness.
Rachael had seen him turn that very glance, that smiling-eyed yet
serious look--
Oh, God! it could not be that he had come to care for Magsie! Her
hard-won calm was shattered in a second, she was panting and quivering
again. Her husband, her own big, tender, clever Warren--but he was
hers, and the boys--he was HERS! Her husband--and this other woman was
looking at him with all her soul in her eyes, this other woman
cared--all the world might see how she cared for him--and was loved in
return!
What had she been hearing, lately, of Magsie? Rachael began dizzily to
recall what she could. Magsie had been "on the road," she had had a
small part in an unsuccessful play early in the winter. Rachael had
been for some reason unable to see it, but she had sent Magsie flowers,
and--she remembered now--Warren had represented himself as having
looked in on the play with some friends, one evening, and as having
found it pretty poor stuff. So little had Magsie and Magsie's affairs
seemed to matter, then, that Rachael could not even remember the name
of the play, nor of hearing it discussed. The world in general had not
seemed inclined to make much of the professional advent of Miss
Margaret Clay, and presently the play closed, and Warren, in answer to
a careless question from Rachael, had said that they would probably
take it on the road until spring.
And then, some weeks ago, she had asked about Magsie again, and Warren
had said: "I believe she's in town. Somebody told me the other day that
she was to have a part in one of Bowman's things this winter."
"It's amazing to me that Magsie doesn't get ahead faster," Rachael had
mused. No more was said.
And how pretty she was, how young she was, Rachael thought now, with a
stabbing pain at her heart. How earnestly they were talking--no
ordinary conversation. Presently tears were in the little actress's
eyes; she had no handkerchief, but Warren had. He gave it to her, and
she surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and smiled at him, like a pretty
child, in her furs.
Rachael felt actually sick with shock. She felt as if some vital cord
in her anatomy had been snapped, and as if she could never control
these heavy languid limbs of hers again. Her head ached. A lassitude
seemed to possess her. She felt cold, and old, and helpless in the face
of so much youth and beauty.
Magsie--and Warren. She must accustom herself to the thought. They
cared for each other. They cared--Rachael's heart seemed to shut with
an icy spasm, she felt herself choking and shut her eyes.
Well, what could they do--at worst? Could Magsie go out now, and get
into the Gregory motor car, and say, "Home, Martin!" to the man? Could
Magsie run up the steps of the Washington Square house, gather the
cream of the day's news from the butler in a breath, and, flinging off
furs and wraps, catch the two glorious boys to her heart?
No! However the situation developed, Rachael was still the wife.
Rachael held the advantage, and whatever poor Magsie's influence was,
it could be but temporary, it must be unrecognized and unapproved by
the world.
Slowly self-control came back, the dizziness subsided, the room sank
and settled into its usual aspect. It was hideous, but it was a fact,
she must face it--she must face it. There was an honorable way, and a
dignified way, and that must be her way. No one must know.
Presently the table near her was empty, and she began to breathe more
naturally. She pondered so deeply that for a long time the room was
forgotten, and the moving crowd shifted about her unseen. Then
abstractedly she rose, and went slowly out to the waiting car. She
carried a heart of lead.
"I've kept you waiting, Martin?"
Martin merely touched his hat. It was four o'clock.
And so Rachael found herself facing an unbelievable situation. To love,
and to know herself unloved, was a cold, dull misery that clung like a
weight to her heart. Her thoughts stumbled in a close, hot fog; from
sheer weariness she abandoned them again and again.
She had never been a reasonable woman, but she forced herself to be
reasonable now. Logic and philosophy had never been her natural
defences, but she brought logic and philosophy to bear upon this
hideous circumstance. She did not waste time and tears upon a futile
"Why?" It was too late now to question; the fact spoke for itself.
Warren's senses were wrapped in the charms of another woman. His own
devoted and still young and beautiful wife was not the first devoted
and young and beautiful woman to have her claim displaced.
For days after the episode in the Waldorf lunch-room she moved like a
conspirator, watching, thinking. Warren had never seemed more
considerate of her happiness, more satisfied with life. He was full of
agreeable chatter at breakfast, interested in her plans, amused at the
boys. He did not come home for luncheon, but usually ran up the steps
at five o'clock, and was reading or dressing when Rachael wandered into
his room to greet him after the day. He never kissed her now, or
touched her hand even by chance; she was reminded, in his general
aspect, of those occasions when the delicious Derry wandered out from
the nursery, evading the nap which was his duty, but full of the airy
conversation and small endearments that only a child on sufferance
knows.
Rachael tried in vain to understand the affair; what evil genius
possessed Warren; what possessed Magsie? She tried to think kindly of
Magsie; poor child, she had had no ugly intention, she was simply
spoiled, simply an egotist undeveloped in brain and soul!
But--Warren! Well, Warren's soft, simple heart had been touched by all
that endearing kittenish confidence, by Magsie's belief that he was the
richest and cleverest and most powerful of men.
So they were meeting for lunch, for tea--where else? What did they talk
about, what did they plan or hope or expect? Through all her hot
impatience Rachael believed that she could trust them both, in the
graver sense. Warren was as unlikely to take advantage of Magsie's
youthful innocence as Magsie was to definitely commit herself to a
reckless course.
But what then? Absurd, preposterous as it was, it was not all a joke.
It had already shut the sun from all Rachael's sky. What was it doing
to Warren--to Magsie? With Rachael in a cold and dangerous mood, Warren
evasive, unresponsive, troubled, what was Magsie feeling and thinking?
Proudly, and with a bitter pain at her heart, Rachael went through her
empty days. Her household affairs ran as if by magic; never was there a
more successful conspiracy for one man's comfort than that organized by
Rachael and her maids. For the first time since their marriage she and
Warren were occupying separate rooms now, but Rachael made it a special
charge to go in and out of his room constantly when he was there. She
would come in with his mail and his newspaper at nine o'clock, full of
cheerful solicitude, or follow him in for the half-hour just before
dinner, chatting with apparent ease of heart while he dressed.
Only apparent ease of heart, however, for Warren's invariable courtesy
and sweetness filled his wife with sick apprehension. Ah, for the old
good hours when he scolded and argued, protested and laughed over the
developments of the day. Sometimes, nowadays, he hardly heard her,
despite his bright, interested smile. Once he had commented upon her
gown the instant she came into the room; now he never seemed to see her
at all; as a matter of fact, their eyes never met.
In February he told her suddenly that Margaret Clay was to open in
another fortnight at the Lyric, in a new play by Gideon Barrett, called
"The Bad Little Lady."
"At the Lyric!" Rachael said in a rush of something almost like joy
that they could speak of Magsie at last, "and one of Barrett's! Well,
Magsie is coming on! What part does she take?"
"The lead--the title part--Patricia Something-or-other, I believe."
"The LEAD! At the Lyric--why, isn't that an astonishing compliment to
Magsie!"
Warren looked for his paper-cutter, cut a page, and shrugged his
shoulders without glancing up from his book.
"Well, yes, I suppose it is. But of course she's gone steadily ahead."
"But I thought she wasn't so successful last winter, Warren?"
"I don't know," he said politely, wearily, uninterestedly.
"How did you hear this, Warren?" his wife asked, with a deceitful air
of innocence.
"Met her," he answered briefly.
"Well, we must see the play," Rachael said briskly. For some reason her
heart was lighter than it had been for weeks. This was something
definite and in the open at last after all these days of blundering in
the dark. "We could take a box, couldn't we, and ask George and Alice?"
she added. Warren's expression was that of a boy whose way with his
first sweetheart is too suddenly favored by parents and guardians, and
Rachael could have laughed at his face.
"Well," he said without enthusiasm. A week later he told her that he
had secured the box, but suggested that someone else than the
Valentines be asked, Elinor and Peter, for instance.
"You and George aren't quite as good friends as you were, are you?"
Rachael said, gravely.
"Quite," Warren said with his bright, deceptive smile and his usual
averted glance. "Ask anyone you please--it was merely a suggestion!"
Rachael asked Peter and Elinor, and gave them a delicious dinner before
the play. She looked her loveliest, a little fuller in figure than she
had been seven years before, and with gray here and there in her rich
hair, but still a beautiful and winning presence, and still with
something of youth in her spontaneous, quick speech and ready laughter.
Warren was, as always, the attentive host, but Rachael noticed that he
was abstracted and nervous to-night, and wondered, with a chill at her
heart, if Magsie's new venture meant so much to him as his manner
implied.
It was an early dinner, and they reached the theatre before the curtain
rose.
"It looks like a good house," said Rachael, settling herself
comfortably.
"You can't tell anything by this," Warren said, quickly; "it's a first
night and papered."
"Aren't you smart with your professional terms?" Elinor Pomeroy
laughed, dropping the lorgnette through which she had been idly
studying the house. "What _I_'D like to know," she added interestedly,
"what _I_'D like to know is, who's doing this for Magsie Clay? Vera
Villalonga says she knows, but I don't believe it. Magsie's a little
nobody, she has no special talent, and here she is leading in a Barrett
play--"
Peter Pomeroy's foot here pressed lightly against Rachael's; a hint,
Rachael instantly suspected, that was intended for his wife.
"Now I think Magsie's as straight as a string," the unconscious Mrs.
Pomeroy went on, "but she must have a rich beau up her sleeve, and the
question is, who is he? I don't--"
But here, it was evident, Peter's second appeal to his wife's
discretion was felt, and it suddenly arrested her flow of eloquence.
"--I don't doubt," floundered Elinor, "that--that is--and of course
Magsie IS a talented creature, so that naturally--naturally--some girl
makes a hit every year, and why shouldn't it be Magsie? Which is right,
Peter, 'why shouldn't it be she' or 'why shouldn't it be her?' I never
know," she finished somewhat incoherently.
"I should think any investment in Magsie would be perfectly safe," said
Rachael's delightful voice. And boldly she added: "Do you know who is
backing this, Warren?"
"To a certain extent--I am," Warren said, after an imperceptible pause.
To Peter he added, in a lower voice, the voice in which men discuss
business matters: "It was a question of the whole deal falling
through--I think she'll make good--this fellow Barrett--"
Rachael began to chat with Elinor, but there was bitterness in her
soul. She had leaped into the breach, she had saved the situation, at
least before Elinor and Peter. But it was not fair--not fair for Warren
to have been deep in this affair with Magsie, with never a word to his
wife! She--Rachael--would have been all interest, all sympathy. There
was no reason between civilized human beings why this eternal question
of sex should debar men and women from common ambitions and common
interests! Let Warren admire Magsie if he wanted to do so, let him buy
her her play, and stand between her and financial responsibility, jet
him admire her--yes, even love her, in his generous, big-brotherly way!
But why shut out of this new interest the kindly cooperation of his
devoted wife, who had never failed him, who had borne him sons, who had
given him the whole of her passionate heart in the full glory of youth,
and in health, and in sickness, when it came, had turned to him for all
the happiness of her life!
The play began, and presently the house was applauding the entrance of
Miss Margaret Clay. She came down a wide, light-flooded stairway, and
in her childish white gown and flower-wreathed shepherdess hat looked
about sixteen. "How young she is!" Rachael thought with a pang. Her
voice was young, too, the fact being that Magsie was frightened, and
that Nature was helping her play her first big ingenue part.
Rachael glanced in the darkness at Warren. He had not joined in the
applause, nor did his handsome face express any pleasure. He was
leaning forward, his hands locked and hanging between his knees, his
eyes riveted on the little white figure that was moving and talking
down there in the bright bath of light beyond the footlights.
Despite all reason, despite her desperate effort at self-control,
Rachael felt an agony of pure jealousy seize her. In an absolute
passion of envy she looked down at Magsie Clay. The young,
flower-crowned head, the slender, slippered feet, the youthful and
appealing voice--what weapons had she against these? And beyond these
was the additional lure--as old as the theatre itself--of the
fascinating profession: the work that is like play, the rouge and
curls, the loves and rages so openly assumed yet so strangely and
stirringly effective! Rachael had gowns a thousand times handsomer than
these youthful muslins and embroideries; Rachael's own home was a
setting far more beautiful than any that could be simulated within the
limits of a stage; if Magsie was a successful ingenue, Rachael might
have been called a natural queen of tragedy and of comedy! And yet--
And yet, it was because she, too, saw the charm and came under the
spell, that Rachael suffered to-night. If she could have laughed it to
scorn, could have admired the surface prettiness, and congratulated
Magsie upon the almost perfect illusion, then she would have had the
most effective of all medicines with which to cure Warren's midsummer
madness.
But it seemed to Rachael, stunned with the terrible force of jealousy,
that Magsie was the great star of the stage, that there never had been
such a play and such a leading lady. It seemed to her that not only
to-night's triumph, but a thousand other triumphs were before her, not
only the admiration of these twelve or fifteen hundred persons, but
that of thousands more! Magsie would be a rage! Magsie's young favors
would be sought far and wide. Magsie's summer home, Magsie's winter
apartments, Magsie's clothes and fads, these would belong to the
adoring public of the most warmhearted and impressionable city in the
world! Rachael saw it all coming with perhaps more certainty than did
even the little actress behind the footlights.
"Cute play, but I don't think much of Magsie!" Elinor Pomeroy said
frankly. Elinor Vanderwall would not have been so impolitic. But
Rachael felt that she would have liked to kiss her guest.
"I think Magsie is rather good," she said deliberately.
"Nothing like praising the girl with faint damns!" Peter Pomeroy
chuckled.
"Well, what do you think, Peter?" his hostess asked.
"I--oh, Lord! I don't see a play once a year," he said, with the
manner, if not the actual presence, of a yawn. "I think it's rather
good. I'll tell you what, Greg, I don't see you losing any money on
it," he added, with interest; "it'll run; the matinee girls will come!"
"Magsie'd kill you for that," Elinor said.
"I don't suppose we could see Magsie, Warren, after this is over?"
Rachael asked to make him speak.
"What did you say, dear?" He brought his gaze from a general study of
the house to a point only a few inches out of range of her own. "No, I
hardly think so," he answered when she had repeated her question.
"She's probably excited and tired."
"You wouldn't mind my sending a line down by the boy?" Rachael
persisted.
"Well, I don't think I'd do that--" He hesitated.
"Oh, I'm strong for it!" Elinor said vivaciously. "It'll cheer Magsie
up. She's probably scared blue, and even I can see that this isn't
making much of a hit!"
The note was accordingly scribbled and dispatched; Rachael's heart was
singing because Warren had not denied Elinor's comment upon the success
of the play. The leading man, a popular and prominent actor, was
disturbingly good, and there was the part of an Irish maid, a comedy
part, so well filled by some hitherto unknown young actress that it
might really influence the run of the play; but still, there was a
consoling indication already in the air that Margaret Clay's talent was
somewhat too slight to sustain a leading woman.
At eleven it was over, and if Rachael had had to endure the comment
that the second act was "the best yet," there was the panacea,
immediately to follow, that the end of the play was "pretty flat."
Presently they all filed back to the dark, windy stage, and joined
Magsie in her dressing-room. She was glowing, excited, eager for
praise. Never was a young and lovely woman more confident of her charm
than Magsie to-night. A flushed self-satisfaction was present on her
face during every second of the ten minutes she gave them; her laughter
was self-conscious, her smile full of artless gratification; she could
not speak to any member of the little group unless the attention of
everyone present was riveted upon her.
A callow youth, evidently her adorer, was awaiting her. She spoke
slightingly of Bryan Masters, the leading man.
"He's charming, Rachael," said Magsie, smiling her bored young smile,
with deliciously red lips, as she was buttoned into a long fur coat,
"but--he wants to impose on the fact that--well, that I have arrived,
if you know what I mean? As everyone knows, his day is pretty well
over. Now you think I'm conceited, don't you, Greg. Oh, I like him, and
he does do it rather well, don't you think? But Richie"--Richie was the
escorting young man--"Richie and I tease him by breaking into French
now and then, don't we?" laughed Magsie.
Sauntering out from the stage entrance with her friends, Miss Clay was
the cynosure of all eyes, and knew it; part of the audience still
waited for the tedious line of limousines to disperse. She could not
move her bright glance to Warren's without encountering the admiring
looks of men and women all about her; she could not but hear their
whispers: "There, there she is--that's Miss Clay now!" Richie,
introduced as Mr. Gardiner, muttered that his car was somewhere; it
proved to be a handsome car with a chauffeur. Magsie raised her bright
face pleadingly to Warren's as she took his hands for goodbye.
"Say you were proud of me, Warren?"
He laughed, his indulgent glance flashing to Elinor and to Rachael, as
one who invited their admiration of an attractive child, before he
looked down at her again.
"Proud of you! Why, I'm as happy as you are about it!"
"You know," Magsie said to Elinor naively, still holding Warren's
hands, "he's helped me--tremendously. He's been just--an absolute angel
to me!" And real and becoming tears came suddenly to her eyes; she
dropped Warren's hands to find a filmy little handkerchief. A second
later her smile flashed out again. "You don't mind his being kind to
me, do you, Rachael?" she asked childishly.
Rachael's mouth was dry, she felt that her smile was hideous.
"Why should I, Magsie?" she asked a little huskily, "He's kind to
everyone!"
A moment later the Gregorys and their guests were in the car whirling
toward the Pomeroy home and supper. It was more than an hour later that
Rachael and her husband were alone, and then she only said mildly:
"I wish you had let me know you were helping Magsie, so--so
conspicuously, Warren. One hates to be taken unawares that way."
"She asked me to keep the thing confidential," he answered with his
baffling simplicity. "She had this good chance, but she couldn't quite
swing it. I had no idea that you would care, one way or the other."
"Well, she ought to be launched now," Rachael said. She hated to talk
of Magsie, especially in his company, where she could do nothing but
praise, but she could somehow find it difficult to speak of anything
else tonight.
"Cunning little thing, there she was, holding on to my hands, as
innocently as a child!" Warren said with a musing smile. "She's a funny
girl--all fire and ice, as she says herself!"
Rachael smothered a scornful interjection. Let Magsie employ the arts
of a schoolgirl if she would, but at least let the great Doctor Gregory
perceive their absurdity!
"Young Mr. Richie Gardiner seemed louche" she observed after a silence
which Warren seemed willing indefinitely to prolong.
"H'm!" Warren gave a short, contented laugh.
"He's crazy about her, but of course to her he's only a kid," he
volunteered. "She's funny about that, too. She's emotional, of course,
full of genius, and full of temperament. She says she needs a
safety-valve, and Gardner is her safety-valve. She says she can sputter
and rage and laugh, and he just listens and quiets her down. To-night
she called him her 'bread-and-butter'--did you hear her?"
"I wonder what she considers you--her champagne?" Rachael asked with a
poor assumption of amusement.
But Warren was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice it.
"It's curious how I do inspire and encourage her," he admitted. "She
needs that sort of thing. She's always up in the clouds or down in the
dumps."
"Do you see her often, Warren?" Rachael asked with deadly calm.
"I've seen her pretty regularly since this thing began," he answered
absently, still too much wrapped in the memories of the evening to
suspect his wife's emotion. Rachael did not speak again.