Kathleen Thompson Norris

“ Warren asked.
"Oh, I would gain--security," Rachael said vaguely, but with a suspicion of tears in her eyes. "I would have something to--to stand upon, to be guided by. There is a purity, an austerity, about that old church-going, loving-God-and-your-neighbor ideal. Truth and simplicity and integrity and uprightness--my old great-grandmother used to use those words, but one doesn't ever hear them any more! Everything's half black and half white nowadays; we're all as good or as bad as we happen to be born. There's no more discipline, no more self-denial, no more development of character! ”

“ And I am older, Rachael."
"I am not younger," Rachael said, smiling. "And I think I am changed, too. All the pressure, all the nervous worry of the last few years, seem to be gone. Washed away, perhaps, by tears--there have been tears enough! But somehow--somehow I am confident, Warren, as I never was before, that happiness is ahead. Somehow I feel sure that you and I have won to happiness, now, won to sureness. With each other, and the boys, and books and music, and Home Dunes, the years to come seem all bright. After all, we are young to have learned how to live!" ”

“ The world, divorce mad, spun blindly on, and the echo of her own complacent "one in twelve" came faintly, sickly back to her after the happy years.
"Divorce has actually no place in our laws, it isn't either wrong or right," Rachael said one autumn day when they were walking slowly to the beach. Over their heads the trees were turning scarlet; the days were still soft and warm, but twilight fell earlier now, and in the air at morning and evening was the intoxicating sharpness, the thin blue and clear steel color that mark the dying summer. ”

“ Let me feel, all this summer, that it wasn't said. Let me feel that while I was living under one man's roof, and spending his money, that I didn't even THINK of another man. It's done all the time, you say, that's true. But I HATE it. Whether I leave Clarence, and make my own life under new conditions, and never remarry, or whether, in a year or two--but I won't think of that!" And to his surprise and concern, as she stopped short on the grassy path, the eyes that Rachael turned toward him were brimming with tears. "You s-see what a baby I am becoming, Greg," she said unsteadily. ”

“ But first Mary and Rachael must talk over the terrible and wonderful night, and Rachael must creep down the hall, to smile at the nurse, who sat by the heavily sleeping Derry.
Then she slept, for hours and hours, while the winter sun smiled down on the bare trees in the square and women in furs and babies in woolens walked and chattered on the leaf-strewn paths.
Such a sleep and such a waking are memorable in a lifetime. Rachael woke, smiling and refreshed, in a radiant world. Afternoon sunshine was streaming in at her windows, she felt rested, deliciously ready for life again. ”

“ When they met downtown for dinner there was always the little ceremony of finding the florist, and all the operas this winter were mingled for Rachael with the most exquisite fragrance in the world.
These days were perfect. It was only when the outside world entered their paradise that anything less than perfect happiness entered, too. Rachael's old friends--Judy Moran, Elinor, and the Villalongas--said, and said with truth, that she had changed. She had not tried to change, but it was hard for her to get the old point of view now, to laugh at the old jokes, to listen to the old gossip. ”

“ But a second later Rachael dropped them, and they rested upon her own slender hand, lying idle upon the teatable, with its plain gold ring guarded by a dozen blazing stones. Had he really stirred her, Warren Gregory wondered, as he watched the thoughtful face under the bright, cherry-loaded hat.
"You know how often there is neither cool reason nor any cause for laughter in my life, Greg," she said, after a moment. "As for love--I don't think I know what love is! I am an absolutely calculating woman, and my first, last, and only view of anything is just how much it affects me and my comfort." ”

“ They were so happy together; there was never enough time to talk and to be silent, never enough of their little luncheons all by themselves, their theatre trips, their afternoon drives through the sweet, clear early winter sunshine on the Park.
Always in the later years Rachael could feel the joy of these days again when she caught the scent of fresh violets. Never a day passed that Warren did not send her or bring her a fragrant boxful. They quivered on the breast of her gown, and on her dressing-table they made her bedroom sweet. ”

“ You love me and I love you; why can't we give up our work and the city and everything else, and just be happy!'"
"And what did--Warren say?" Rachael asked in a whisper.
"Oh, Rachael! That's what I've been remembering ever since!" Magsie said. "That's what made me want to come to you; I KNEW you would understand! You're so good; you want people to be happy," said Magsie, fighting tears again and trying to smile. "You have everything: your sons, your position, your beauty--everything! I'm--I'm different from some women, Rachael. I can't just run away with him. ”

“ Rachael, except for the falling of her arm, was motionless. Her eyes were far away, she seemed utterly unconscious of herself and her surroundings. Magsie wanted to think of one more thing to say, one clinching sentence, but everything seemed to be said. Something of the other woman's weariness and coldness of spirit seemed to communicate itself to her; she felt tired and desolate. It seemed a small and insignificant matter that she had had her momentous talk with Rachael, and had succeeded in her venture. Love was failing her, life was failing. ”

“ Rachael had once seen in this quality a certain godlike supremacy, a bigness, and splendidness of vision that rose above the ordinary standards of ordinary men; now it filled her with uneasiness.
"Well," she thought, with a certain desperate philosophy, "in a certain number of months or years this will all be over, and I must simply endure it until that time comes. Life is full of trouble, anyway!"
Life was full of trouble; she saw it on all sides. But what trivial matters they were, after all, that troubled Elinor and Vera and Judy Moran! ”

“ Rachael said in a low, tense tone.
"There you are!" Warren exclaimed. "It's all absurd on the face of it--the whole tangle!"
His wife looked at him in grave, dispassionate scrutiny. Of what was he made, this handsome, well-groomed man of forty-eight? What fatal infection had poisoned heart and brain? She saw him this morning as a stranger, and as a most repellent stranger.
"But it is a tangle in which one still sees right and wrong, Warren," she said, desperately struggling for calm. "Human relationships can't be discussed as if they were the moves on a chess-board. ”

“ Rachael answered with an odd, new sense of being somehow sedate and old-fashioned beside this composed young woman. Miss Clay was not listening. Her brown eyes were moving idly over the room, and now she suddenly bowed and smiled.
"There's Greg!" she said. "What a comfort it is to see a man dress as that man dresses!"
"I've been looking for you," Warren Gregory said, coming up to his wife, and, noticing the other woman, he added enthusiastically: "Well, Margaret! I didn't know you! Bless my life and heart, how you children grow up!" ”

“ She selected the little gowns and hats in which the radiant Billy went off for long days alone with "Daddy," and she presently graciously consented to share the little girl's luxurious room because Billy sometimes awakened nervously at night. Rachael had been accustomed to difficulties in dealing with the persons nearest her; she met them resolutely. Sometimes a baffling sense of failure smote the surface of her life, like a cold wind that turns to white metal the smooth waters of a lake, but she held her head proudly above it, and even Clarence and his daughter never guessed what she endured. ”

“ Why, that only shows that you don't know what Greg is. Lord, the man seems to have an absolute instinct for bones; he'll take a chance when not one of the rest will! No, you mark my words, Alice, Greg has let Magsie Clay make a fool of him; he's been overtired and nervous--we've all seen that--but he's as innocent of any actual harm in this thing as our Gogo!"
"Innocent!" sniffed Alice. "He'll break Rachael's heart with his innocence, and then he'll marry Magsie Clay--you'll see!" ”

“ It isn't right for human beings to feel that way, I see it now. I see now that love--love is the lubricant everywhere in the world, Bill. One needn't be a fool and be stepped upon; one has rights; but if loving enough goes into everything, why, it's bound to come out right."
"Oh, I do believe it!" said Billy fervently, kneeling on the floor at Rachael's feet, her wet, earnest eyes on Rachael's face, her arms crossed on the older woman's knees. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Long before they were ready for the world it began to make its demands. Rachael loved her own home--they had chosen a large duplex apartment on Riverside Drive--loved the memorable little meals they had before the fire, the lazy, enchanting hours of reading or of music in the big studio that united the two large floors, the scent of her husband's cigar, the rustle of her own gown, the snow slipping and lisping against the window, and it was with great reluctance that she surrendered even one evening. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Clarence's pride, Clarence's child, had they been so hurt as her pride and her children were to be hurt now?
She must not allow herself to be so easily frightened. She had been thinking too many months of the one thing; she could not see it fairly. Why, Magsie had been infinitely more dangerous in the early days of her success; there was nothing to fear from the simple, apprehensive Magsie of this afternoon! The only sensible thing was to stop thinking of it, and to go to sleep. But Rachael felt sick and frightened, experienced sensations of faintness, sensations like hunger. ”

“ And remarriage, a brilliant second marriage, was universally approved. Even such a stern old judge as Warren's mother counted among her acquaintances the divorced and remarried. To reappear, triumphant, beloved, beautiful, before one's old world--
But no--of this Rachael would not permit herself to think. Time alone could tell what her next step must be. The only consideration now must be that, even if Warren Gregory had never existed, even if there were no other man than Clarence Breckenridge in the world, she must take the step. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Vines climbed the brick chimneys, and budding hydrangeas, in pots, topped the white balustrades of the porch. A hundred little details of perfect furnishing would have been taken for granted by the casual onlooker, yet without its lawns, its awnings, its window boxes and snowy curtaining, its glimpse of screened veranda and wicker chairs, its trim assembly of garage, stable, and servants' cottages, its porte-cochere, sleeping porches, and tennis court, it would have seemed incomplete and uncomfortable to its owners.
Rachael Breckenridge neither liked it nor disliked it. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Clara, having cast her fortunes in with her lord, was faithful to him through every breath she drew. But before Rachael's first crying, feverish little summer was over there had been some definite changes at the ranch. Thomas was gone, and Clara, pale and exhausted with the heat, engaged Ella, a young woman servant of her mother's selecting, to bake and wash and carry in stove-wood. Clara managed them all, Gerald, the baby, and the maid. Perhaps at first she was just a little astonished to find her husband as easily managed as Ella and far more easily managed than Rachael. ”

“ These being facts for Rachael, what facts had Magsie? Rachael's heart rose on a wild rush of confidence. Magsie had no basis for her pretension. Magsie was young, and she had madly and blindly fallen in love. There was her single claim: she loved. Rachael could not doubt it after that hour in the sitting-room. But what pitiable folly! To love and to admit love for another woman's husband!
Thinking, thinking, thinking, Rachael lay awake all night. She composed herself a hundred times for sleep, and a hundred times sleep evaded her. Magsie--Warren--Rachael. ”

“ There was none of Judy's and Gertrude's and Vera's excitability and restlessness here. Alice was concerned neither with her own appearance nor her own wants; she was free to comment with amusement or wonder or admiration upon larger affairs. Rachael wondered, as beautiful women have wondered since time began, what held this man so tightly to this mild, plain woman, and by what special gift of the gods Alice Valentine might know herself secure beyond all question in a world of beauty and charm and youth. ”

“ A queer, hectic, unsatisfying life it must be, Rachael thought, saying good-bye to her guest a day or two later. Dressing, rouging, lacing, pinning on her outrageously expensive hats, jerking on her extravagant white gloves, drinking, rushing, screaming with laughter, screaming with anger, Billy was one of that large class of women that the big city breeds, and that cannot live elsewhere than in the big city. She would ride in a thousand taxicabs, worrying as she watched the metre; she would drink a thousand glasses of champagne, wondering anxiously if Joe were to pay for it ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Billy had never doubted her stepmother's judgment; like all of the new Mrs. Breckenridge's friends, she was deeply, dumbly impressed with that lady's amazing efficiency. She had been a spoiled and discontented little rowdy. She became an entirely self-satisfied little gentlewoman. Clarence, jealously watching her progress, knew that Rachael was doing for his daughter far more than he could ever do himself.
But Rachael, if she had expected reward, reaped none. Her husband was a supremely selfish man, and his daughter inherited his sublime ability to protect his own pleasure at any cost. ”

“ She was sorry that Billy's mother was living, but then one couldn't have everything, and, after all, she was married again, which seemed to mitigate the annoyance. Rachael said to herself that this was a wiser marriage than the proposed one with poor Stephen: Stephen had been a wild, romantic boy, full of fresh passion and dazed with exultant dreams; Clarence was a man, longing less for moonshine and roses and the presence of his beloved one than for a gracious, distinguished woman who would take her place before the world as mistress of his home and guardian of his child. ”

“ It remained for the beautiful woman in the drawing-room to look with melancholy eyes upon the springtime, and tear out her heart in an agony no human power could cure.
"It all rests with Warren," Rachael said. Magsie was nothing, she was nothing; the world, the boys, were nothing. It was for Warren to hold their destinies in his hands and decide for them all. No use in raging, in reasoning, in arguing. No use in setting forth the facts, the palpable right and wrong. ”

“ Philosophy is not the bride's natural right; the honeymoon is a time of unreason; a crumpled rose-leaf in those first uncertain weeks may loom larger than all the far more serious storms of the years to come.
Rachael, loving at last, was overwhelmed, intoxicated, carried beyond all sanity by the passion that possessed her.
When Warren Gregory came to find her at Quaker Bridge on that unforgettable morning after the storm, a chance allusion to Mrs. Valentine, the charming unknown lady with the gray hair, had distracted Rachael's thoughts from the point at issue. ”

“ She stopped again, and Magsie hung her head.
"I'm sorry," she said slowly. And with the childish words came childish tears. "I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Gardiner," stammered Magsie. "I know--I've known all along--how Richie feels to me. I suppose I could have stopped him, got him to go away, perhaps, in time. But--but I've been unhappy myself, Mrs. Gardiner. A person--I love has been cruel to me. I don't know what I'm going to do. I worry and worry!" Magsie was frankly crying now. "I wish there was something I could do for Richie, but I can't tell him I care!" she sobbed. ”