Pansy (aka Isabella Alden) - "Tip Lewis and His Lamp"

Meriwether Lewis et al - "The Journals of Lewis and Clark"

Walter Scott - "Ivanhoe"

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, V3"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Heart of Rachael

K >> Kathleen Norris >> The Heart of Rachael




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.




CHAPTER VI


Only Miss Margaret Clay perused the papers on the following
morning with an avidity to equal that of Mrs. Warren Gregory.
Magsie read hungrily for praise, Rachael was as eager to discover
blame. The actress, lying in her soft bed, wrapped in embroidered
silk, and sleepily conscious that she was wakening to fame and
fortune, gave, it is probable, only an occasional fleeting thought
to her benefactor's wife, but Rachael, crisp and trim over her
breakfast, thought of nothing but Magsie while she read.

Praise--and praise--and praise. But there was blame, too; there
was even sharply contemptuous criticism. On the whole, Rachael had
almost as much satisfaction from her morning's reading as Magsie
did. The three most influential papers did not comment upon Miss
Clay's acting at all. In two more, little Miss Elsie Eaton and
Bryan Masters shared the honors. The Sun remarked frankly that
Miss Clay's amateurish acting, her baby lisp, her utter
unacquaintance with whatever made for dramatic art, would
undoubtedly insure the play a long run. Rachael knew that Warren
would see all these papers, but she cut out all the pleasanter
reviews and put them on his dresser.

"Did you see these?" she asked him at six o'clock.

"I glanced at some of them. You've not got The Sun here?"

"No--that was a mean one," Rachael said sweetly. "I thought it
might distress you, as it probably did Magsie."

"I saw it," he said, evidently with no thought of her feeling in
the matter. "Lord, no one minds what The Sun thinks!"

"She's really scored a success," said Rachael reluctantly. Warren
did not answer.

For the next three evenings he did not come home to dinner, nor
until late at night. Rachael bore it with dignity, but her heart
was sick within her. She must simply play the waiting game, as
many a better woman had before her, but she would punish Warren
Gregory for this some day!

She dressed herself charmingly every evening, and dined alone,
with a book. Sometimes the old butler saw her look off from the
page, and saw her breast rise on a quick, rebellious breath; and
old Mary could have told of the hours her mistress spent in the
nursery, sitting silent in the darkness by the sleeping boys, but
both these old servants were loyalty's self, and even Rachael
never suspected their realization of the situation and their
resentment. To Vera, to Elinor, even to Alice Valentine, she said
never a word. She had discussed Clarence Breckenridge easily
enough seven years before, but she could not criticise Warren
Gregory to anyone.

On the fourth evening, when they were to dine with friends, Warren
reached home in time to dress, and duly accompanied his wife to
the affair. He complained of a headache after dinner, and they
went home at about half-past ten. Rachael felt his constraint in
the car, and for very shame could not make it hard for him when he
suggested that he should go downtown again, to look in at the
club.

"But is this right, is it fair?" she asked herself sombrely while
she was slowly disrobing. "Could I treat him so? Of course I could
not! Why, I have never even looked at a man since our very wedding
day--never wanted to. And I will be reasonable now. I will be
reasonable, but he tries me hard--he makes it hard!"

She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Warren was deluded
and under a temporary spell, but still her dear and good and
handsome husband, her dearest companion and confidant. And she
missed him.

Oh, to have him back again, in the old way, so infinitely dear and
interested, so quick with laughter, so vigorous with comment, so
unsparing where he blamed! To have him come and kiss the white
parting of her hair once more as she sat waiting for him at the
breakfast table, turn to her in the car with his quick "Happy?"
once more, hold her tight once more against his warm heart!

How unlike him it was, how contemptible it was, this playing with
the glorious thing that had been their love! For the first time in
her life Rachael could have played the virago, could have raged
and stamped, could have made him absolutely afraid to misuse her
so. He did not deserve such consideration, he should not be
treated so gently.

While she sat alone, in the long evenings, she tried to follow him
in her thoughts. He was somewhere in the big, warm, dark theatre,
watching the little pool of brightness in which Magsie moved,
listening to the crisp, raw freshness of Magsie's voice. Night
after night he must sit there, drinking in her beauty and charm,
torturing himself with the thought of her inaccessibility.

It seemed strange to Rachael that this world-old tragedy should
come into her life with all the stinging novelty of a calamity.
People and press talked about a murder, about an earthquake, about
a fire. Yet what was death or ruin or flames beside the horror of
knowing love to be outgrown, of living beside this empty mask and
shell of a man whose mind and soul were in bondage elsewhere?
Rachael came to know love as a power, and herself a victim of that
power abused.

Slowly resentment began to find room in her heart. It was all so
childish, so futile, so unnecessary! A prominent surgeon, the
husband of a devoted wife, the father of two splendid sons, thus
flinging pride and sanity to the wind, thus being caught in the
lightly flung net of an ordinary, pretty little actress, the
daughter of a domestic servant and a soldier in the ranks! And
what was to be the outcome? Rachael mused sombrely. Was Warren to
tire simply of his folly, Magsie to carelessly fill his place in
the ranks of her admirers, Rachael to gracefully forgive and
forget?

It was an unpalatable role, yet she saw no other open to her. What
was to be gained by coldness, by anger, by controversy? Was a man
capable of Warren's curious infatuation to be merely scolded and
punished like a boy? She was helpless and she knew it. Until he
actually transgressed against their love, she could make no move.
Even when he did, or if he did, her only recourse was the hated
one of a public scandal: accusations, recriminations.

She began to understand his nature as she had not understood it in
all these years. Bits of his mother's brief comment upon him came
back to her; uncomprehensible when she first heard them, they were
curiously illuminating now. He had been a naturally good boy,
awkward, silent, conscientious; turning toward integrity as
normally as many of his companions turned toward vice. Despite his
natural shyness, his diffidence of manner, he had been strong
himself and had scorned weakness in anyone; upright, he needed
little guiding. The praise of servants and of his mother's friends
had been quite frankly his; even his severe mother and father had
been able to find little fault in the boy. But they had early
learned that when a minor correction was demanded by their first-
born's character, it was almost impossible to effect it. His
standard of behavior was high, fortunately, for it was also
unalterable. There was no hope of their grafting upon his
conscience any new roots. James knew right from wrong with
infallible instinct; he was not often wrong, but when he was, no
outside criticism affected him. As a baby, he would defend his
rare misdeeds, as a boy, he was never thrashed, because there was
always some good reason for what he did. He had been misinformed,
he certainly understood the other fellows to say this; he
certainly never heard the teacher forbid that; handsome,
reasonable, self-respecting, he won approval on all sides, and
because of this mysterious predisposition toward what was right
and just, came safely to the years when he was his own master and
could live unchallenged by the high moral standard he set himself.

Some of this Rachael began to perceive. It was a key to his
conduct now. He respected Magsie, he admired her; there was no
reason why he should not indulge his admiration. No unspoken
criticism from his wife could affect him, because he had seen the
whole situation clearly and had decided what was seemly and safe
in the matter. Criticism only brought a resentful, dull red color
to Warren Gregory's face, and confirmed him more stubbornly in the
course he was pursuing. He could even enjoy a certain martyr-like
satisfaction under undeserved censure, all censure being equally
incomprehensible and undeserved. 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! Vera was eternally rushing into fresh,
furious hospitalities, welcoming hordes of men and women she
scarcely knew into her house; chattering, laughing, drinking;
flattering the debutantes, screaming at the telephone, standing
patient hours under the dressmaker's hands; never rested, never
satisfied, never stopping to think. Judy Moran's trouble was that
she was too fat; nothing else really penetrated the shell of her
indolent good nature. Kenneth might be politely dropped from the
family firm, her husband might die and be laid away, her brother-
in-law commence an ugly suit for the reclamation of certain jewels
and silver tableware, but all these things meant far less to Mrs.
Moran than the unflattering truths her bedroom scales told her
every morning. She had reached the age of fifty without ever
acquiring sufficient self-control to rid herself of the surplus
forty pounds, yet she never buttered a muffin at breakfast time,
or crushed a French pastry with her fork at noon, without an
inward protest. She spent large sums of money for corsets and
gowns that would disguise her immense weight rather than deny
herself one cup of creamed-and-sugared tea or one box of
chocolates. And she suffered whenever a casual photograph, or an
unexpected glimpse of herself in a mirror, brought to her notice
afresh the dreadful two hundred and twenty pounds.