Georges Ohnet - "Serge Panine, v3"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v23: The River Scamander &c."

P. G. Wodehouse - "A Man of Means"

T.S. Arthur - "The Home Mission"

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




Rachael stood as if she had been shot through the heart--
motionless, dumb. She felt the inward physical convulsion that
might have followed an actual shot. Her heart seemed to be
struggling under a choking flood, and black circles moved before
her eyes.

Watching her, Warren presently began to enlarge upon the subject.
His tone was that of frank and unashamed, if regretful, narrative.
Rachael perceived, with utter stupefaction, that although he was
sorry, and even angry at being drawn into this talk, he was far
from being confused or ashamed.

"I am sorry for this, Rachael," he began in the logical tone she
knew so well. "I think, frankly, that Magsie made a mistake in
coming to you. The situation isn't of my making. Magsie, being a
woman, being impulsive and impatient, has taken the law into her
own hands." He shrugged. "She may have been wise, or unwise, I
can't tell!"

He paused, but Rachael did not speak or stir.

Warren had rolled up the paper, and now, in his pacing, reaching
the end of the room, he turned, and, thrusting it into his armpit,
came back with folded arms.

"Now that this thing has come up," he said in a practical tone,
"it is a great satisfaction to me to realize how reasonable a
woman you are. I want you to know just how this whole thing
happened. Magsie has always been a most attractive girl to me. I
remember her in Paris, years ago, young, and with a pretty little
way of turning her head, and effective eyes."

"I know all this, Warren!" Rachael said wearily.

"I know you do. But let me recapitulate it," he said, resuming in
a businesslike voice: "When I met her at Hoyt's wedding I knew
right away that we had a personality to deal with--something rare!
I remember thinking then that it would be interesting to see whom
she cared for, what that volcanic little heart would be in love--
Time went on; we saw more of her. I met her, now and then, we had
the theatricals, and the California trip. One day, that fall, in
the Park, I took her for a drive, innocently enough, nothing
prearranged. And I remember asking if any lucky man had made an
impression upon her."

Warren smiled, his eyes absent. Rachael's look of superb scorn was
wasted.

"It came to me in a flash," he went on, "that Magsie had come to
care for me. Poor little Magsie, she hadn't meant to, she hadn't
seen it coming. I remember her looking up at me--she didn't have
to say a word. 'I'm sorry, Magsie,' I said. That was all. The
touching thing was that even in that trouble she turned to me. We
talked it over, I took her back to her hotel, and very simply she
said, 'Kiss me, once, Greg, and I'll be good!' After that I didn't
see her for a long, long time.

"It seemed to me a sacred charge--you can see that. I couldn't
doubt it, the evidence was right there before my eyes, and
thinking it over, I couldn't be much surprised. We were in the
fix, and of course there was nothing to be done. She went away and
that was the end of it, then. But when I saw her again last winter
the whole miserable business came up. The rest, of course, she
told you. She is unhappy and rebellious, or she would never have
dared to come to you! I can't understand her doing so, now, for
Magsie is a good little sport, Rachael; she knows you have the
right of way. The affair has always been with that understanding.
However much I feel for Magsie, and regret the whole thing--why, I
am not a cad!" He struck her to her heart with his friendly smile.
"You brought the subject up; I don't care to discuss it," he said.
"I don't question your actions, and all I ask is that you will not
question mine!"

"Perhaps--the world--may some day question them, Warren!" Rachael
tried to speak quietly, but she was beginning to be frightened at
her own violence. She shook with actual chill, her mouth was dry
and her cheeks blazing.

"The world?" He shrugged. "I can hardly see that it is the world's
business that you go your way and I go mine!" he said reasonably.
He glanced at his watch. "Perhaps you will be so good as to say no
more about it?" he suggested. "I have no time, now, anyway.
Marriage--"

"Warren!" Rachael interrupted hoarsely. She stopped.

"Marriage," he went on, "never stands still! A man and woman are
growing nearer together hourly, or they are growing apart. There
is no need, between reasonable beings, for recriminations and
bitterness. A man is only a man, after all, and if I have been
carried off my feet by Magsie--as I admit I have been--why, such
things have happened before! When she and my wife--who might have
protected my dignity--meet to discuss the question of their
feelings, and their rights, then I confess that I am beyond my
depth."

He took a deep chair and sat back, his knees crossed, his elbow on
the chair arm, his chin resting on his hand, as one conscious of
scoring a point.

"And what about the boys' feelings and rights?" 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. I make no claim for myself--the time has gone by when
I could do so--but there is honor and decency in the world, there
is simple uprightness! Your attentions, as a married man, can only
do Magsie harm, and your daring"--suddenly she began restlessly to
pace the floor as he had done--"your daring in coming here to me,
to tell me that any other woman has a claim on you," she said,
beginning to breathe violently, "only shows me how blind, how
drugged you are with--I don't know what to call it--with your own
utter lawlessness! What right has Margaret Clay compared to MY
right? Are my claims, and my sons' claims, to be swept aside
because a little idle girl of Magsie's age chooses to flirt with
my husband? What is marriage, anyway--what is parenthood? Are you
mad, Warren, that you can come here to our home and talk of
'tangles'--and rights? Do you think I am going to argue it with
you, going to belittle my own position by admitting, for one
second, that it is open to question?"

She flashed him one blazing look, then resumed her walking and her
angry rush of words.

"Why, if some four-year-old child came in here and began to
contend for Derry's place," Rachael asked passionately, "how long
would we seriously consider his right? If I must dispute the title
of Magsie Clay this year, why not of Jennie Jones next year, of
Polly Smith the year after that? If--"

"Now you are talking recklessly," Warren Gregory said quietly,
"and you have entirely lost sight of the point at issue. Nobody is
attempting a controversy with you."

The cool, analytical voice robbed Rachael of all her fire. She sat
down, and was silent.

"What you say is quite true," pursued Warren, "and of course, if a
woman chooses to stand on her RIGHTS--if it becomes a question of
legal obligation--"

"Warren! When was our marriage that?"

"I don't say it was that! I am protesting because YOU talk of
rights and titles. I only say that if the problem has come down to
a mere question of what is LEGAL, why, that in itself is a
confession of failure!"

"Failure!" she echoed with white lips.

"I am not speaking of ourselves, I tell you!" he said, annoyed.
"But can any sane person in these days deny that when a man and
woman no longer pull together in double harness, our world accepts
an honorable change?"

Rachael was silent. These had been her words eight years ago.

"They may have reasons for not making that change," Warren went on
logically; "they may prefer to go on, as thousands of people do,
to present a perfectly smooth exterior to the world. But don't be
so unfair as to assume that what hundreds of good and reputable
men and women are doing every day is essentially wrong!"

"You know that you may say this--to me, Warren," she said with a
leaden heart.

"Anybody may say it to anybody!" he answered irritably. "Tying a
man and a woman together doesn't necessarily make them--"

She interrupted with a quick, breathless, "WARREN!"

"Well!" Again he shrugged his shoulders and again glanced at his
watch. "It seems to me that you shouldn't have spoken of the
matter if you were not prepared to discuss it!" he said.

Rachael felt the room whirling. She could neither see nor feel
anything now but the fury that possessed her. Perhaps twice in her
life before, never with him, had she so given way to anger.

"_I_ shouldn't have spoken of it, Warren!" she echoed. "I should
have borne it, and smiled, and said nothing! Perhaps I should!
Perhaps some women would have done that--"

"Rachael!" he interrupted quickly. But she swept down his words in
the wild tide of her own.

"Warren!" she said with deadly decision, "I'm not that sort of
woman. You've had your fun--now it's my turn! Now it's my turn!"
Rachael repeated in a voiceless undertone as she rapidly paced the
room. "Now you can turn to the world, and SEE what the world
thinks! Let them know how often you and Magsie have been together,
let them know that she came here to ask me to set you free, and
then see what the general verdict is! I'm not going to hush this
up, to refrain from discussing it because you don't care to,
because it hurts your feelings! It SHALL be discussed, and you
shall be free! You shall be free, and if you choose to put Magsie
Clay here in my place, you may do so!"

"Rachael!" he said angrily. And he caught her thin wrists in his
hands.

"Don't touch me!" she said, wrenching herself free. "Don't touch
me, you cruel and wicked and heartless--! Go to Magsie! Tell her
that I sent you to her! Take your hands off me, Warren--"

Standing back, discomfited, he attempted reason.

"Rachael! Don't talk so! I don't know what to make of you! Why, I
never saw you like this. I never heard you--"

The door of her room closed behind her. She was gone. A long
silence fell in the troubled room where their voices had warred so
lately.

Warren looked at his watch, looked at her door. Then he went out
the other door, and downstairs, and out of the house. Rachael
heard him go. She was still breathing fast, still blind to
everything but her own fury. She would punish him, she would
punish him. He should have his verdict from the world he trusted
so serenely; he should have his Magsie.

The clocks struck eleven: first the slow clock in her sitting-
room, then the quick silvery echo from downstairs. Rachael glanced
about nervously. The Bank--the boys' lunches--the trunks--

She went downstairs. In the little breakfast-room off the big
dining-room the array of Warren's breakfast waited. Old Mary, with
the boys, had just come in the side door.

"Mary," Rachael said quickly, "I want you to help me. Pack some
clothes for the boys and me, and give them some luncheon. We are
going down to Clark's Hills on the two o'clock train--"

"My God! Mrs. Gregory, you look very bad, my dear!" said Mary.

The unconscious endearment, the shock and concern visible on
Mary's homely, honest face were too much for Rachael. Her face
changed to ivory, she put one hand to her throat, and her lips
quivered.

"Help me--some coffee--Mary!" she whispered. "I think--I'm dying!"




BOOK III




CHAPTER I


Warren went to the hospital and performed his operation. It was a
long, hard strain for all concerned, and the nurses told each
other afterward that you could see Doctor Gregory's heart was in
it, he looked as bad as the child's father and mother did. It was
after one o'clock when the surgeons got out of their white gowns,
and Warren was in the cold, watery sunlight of the street before
he realized that he had had nothing to eat since his dinner in
Albany last night.

He looked about vaguely; there were plenty of places all about
where he could get a meal. He saw Magsie--

Magsie often drove about in hansom-cabs--they were one of her
delights; and more than once of late she had come to meet Warren
at some hospital, or even to pick him up at the club. But this was
the first time that she had done so without prearrangement.

She leaned out of the cab, a picture of youth and beauty, and
waved a white glove. How did she know he was in here? she echoed
his question. He had written her from Albany that he would operate
at Doctor Berry's hospital this morning she reminded him. And
where was he going now?

"I'm awfully worried this morning, honey-girl," said Warren, "and
I can't stop to play with nice little Magsies in new blue dresses!
My head is blazing, and I believe I'll go home--"

"When did you get in, and where did you have breakfast?" she asked
with pretty concern. "Greg, you've not had any? Oh, I believe he
hasn't had any! And it's after one, and you've been operating! Get
STRAIGHT in--"

"No, dear!" he smiled as she moved to one side of the seat, and
packed her thin skirts neatly under her, "not to-day! I'll--"

"Warren Gregory!" said Magsie sternly, "you get right straight in
here, and come and have your breakfast! Now, what's nearest? The
Biltmore!" She poked the upper door with her slim umbrella. "To
the Biltmore!" commanded Magsie.

At a quiet table Warren had coffee and eggs and toast, and more
coffee, and finally his cigar. The color came back into his face,
and he looked less tired.

Magsie was a rather simple little soul under her casing of
Parisian veneer, and was often innocently surprised at the potency
of her own charm. That men, big men and wise men, were inclined to
take her artful artlessness at its surface value was a continual
revelation to her. Like Rachael, she had gone to bed the night
before in a profoundly thoughtful frame of mind, a little
apprehensive as to Warren's view of her call, and uneasy as to the
state in which she had left his wife. But, unlike Rachael, Magsie
had not been wakeful long. The consideration of other people's
attitudes never troubled her for more than a few consecutive
minutes. She had been genuinely stirred by her talk that
afternoon, and was honestly determined to become Mrs. Warren
Gregory; but these feelings did not prevent her from looking back,
with thrilled complacence, to the scene in Rachael's sitting-room,
and from remembering that it was a dramatic and heroic thing for a
slender, pretty girl in white to go to a man's wife and plead for
her love. "No harm done, anyway!" Magsie had reflected drowsily,
drifting off to sleep; and she had awakened conscious of no
emotion stronger than a mild trepidation at the possibility of
Warren's wrath.

Dainty and sweet, she came to meet him halfway, and now sat
congratulating herself that he was soothed, fed, and placidly
smoking before their conversation reached deep channels.

"Greg, dear, I've got a horrible confession to make!" began Magsie
when this propitious moment arrived.

"You mean your call on Rachael?" he asked quickly, the shadow
coming back to his eyes. "Why did you do it?"

Magsie was conscious of being frightened.

"Was she surprised, Greg?"

"I don't know that she was surprised. Of course she was angry."

"Well," Magsie said, widening her childish eyes, "didn't you
EXPECT her to be angry?"

"I didn't expect her to take any attitude whatever," Warren said
with a look half puzzled and half reproving.

"Greg!" Magsie was quite honestly astonished. "What did you expect
her to do? Give you a divorce without any feeling whatever?"

There was no misunderstanding her. For a full minute Warren stared
at her in silence. In that minute he remembered some of his recent
talks with Magsie, some of his notes and presents, he remembered
the plan that involved a desert island, sea-bathing, moonlight,
and solitude.

"I think, if you had been listening to us," Magsie went on, as he
did not answer, "you could not have objected to one word I said!
And Rachael was lovely, Greg. She told me she would not contest
it--"

"She told you THAT?"

"Well, she said several times that it must be as you decide."
Magsie dimpled demurely. "And I was--nice, too!" she asserted
youthfully. "I didn't tell her about this--and this!" and with one
movement of her pretty hand Magsie indicated the big emerald on
her ring finger and the heavy bracelet of mesh gold about her
wrist. Suddenly her face brightened, and with an eager movement
she leaned across the narrow table, and caught his hand in both
her own. "Ah, Greg," she said tenderly, "does it seem true, that
after all these months of talking, and hoping, you and I are going
to belong to each other?"

"But I have no idea that Rachael is seriously considering a
divorce," Warren said slowly. "Why should she? She has no cause!"

"She thinks she has!" Magsie said triumphantly.

"She isn't the sort of woman to think things without reason,"
Warren said.

"She doesn't have to think," Magsie assured him with the same air
of satisfaction; "she knows! Everyone knows how much you and I
have been together: everyone knows that you backed 'The Bad Little
Lady'--"

"Everyone has no right to draw conclusions from that!" Warren
said.

Magsie shrugged her shoulders.

"And what do we care, Greg? I don't care what the world thinks as
long as I have you! Let them have the letters, let them buzz--
we'll be miles away, and we won't care! And in a year or two,
Greg, we'll come back, and they'll all flock about us--you'll see!
That's the advantage of a name like the Gregory name! Why, who
among them all dropped Clarence on Paula's account, or Rachael on
Clarence's?"

"Your going to see her has certainly--complicated things," Warren
said reflectively.

"On the contrary," Magsie said confidently, "it has cleared things
up. It had to come, Greg; every time you and I talked about it we
brought the inevitable nearer! Why, you weren't ever at home.
Could that have gone on forever? You had no home, no wife, no
freedom. I was simply getting sick of the whole thing! Now at
least we're all open and aboveboard; all we've got to do is
quietly set the wheels in motion!"

"Well, I'll tell you what must be the first step, Magsie," Warren
said after thought; "I'm going home now to see Rachael. I'll talk
the whole thing over with her. Then I'll come to see you."

"Positively?" asked Magsie.

"Positively."

"You won't just telephone that you're delayed, Greg, and leave me
to wonder and worry?" the girl asked wistfully. "I'll wait until
any hour!" He looked at her kindly, with a gentleness of aspect
new in their relationship.

"No, dear. It's nearly three now. I'll come take you to tea at,
say, half-past four. I am operating again to-night, at nine, and
SOME TIME I've got to get in a bath and some sleep. But there'll
be time for tea."

Magsie chattered gayly, but Warren was almost silent as they
gathered together their belongings, and went out to the street. He
called her another cab and beckoned to the man who was waiting
with his own car.

"In a few months, perhaps," said Magsie at parting, "when he's all
tired and cross, I'll make him coffee AT HOME, and see that he
gets his rest and quiet whenever he needs it!"

She did not like his answer.

"Rachael's a wonder at that sort of thing," he said. Magsie had
not heard him speak so of his wife for months. "In fact, she
spoils me," he added.

"Spoils you by leaving you alone in this hot town for six months
out of every year?" Magsie laughed lightly. "Good-bye, dear! At
half-past four?"

But even while he nodded Warren Gregory was resolving, in his
soul, that he must never see Magsie Clay again. His world was
strange and alarming; was falling to pieces about him. He was
thirsting for Rachael: her voice, her reproaches, her forgiveness.
In seven minutes he would be at home talking to his wife--

Dennison reported, with an impassive face, that Mrs. Gregory had
left two hours ago with the children. He believed that they were
gone to the Long Island house, sir. Warren, stupefied, went slowly
upstairs to have the news confirmed by Pauline. Mrs. Gregory had
taken Mary and Millie, sir. And there was a note.

Of course there was a note. To emotion like Rachael's emotion
silence was the only unthinkable thing. She had planned a dozen
notes, written perhaps five. The one she left was brief:

MY DEAR WARREN: I am leaving with the children for Clark's Hills.
You will know best what steps to take in the matter of the freedom
you desire. I will cooperate in any way. I have written Magsie
that I will not contest your divorce. If for any reason you come
to Clark's Hills, I will of course be obliged to see you. I ask
you not to come. Please spare me another such talk as ours this
morning. I have plenty of money.

Always faithfully, R. G.

Warren read it, and stood in the middle of her bedroom with the
sheet crushed in his hand. Pauline had put the empty room in
order--in terrible and desolate order. Usually there were flowers
in the jars and glass bowls, a doll's chair by the bed, and a
woolly animal seated in the chair; a dainty litter of lace
scattered on Rachael's sewing-table. Usually she was there when he
came in tired, to look up beautiful and concerned: "Something to
eat, dear, or are you going to lie down?"

Standing here with the note that ended it all in his hand, he
wondered if he was the same man who had so often met that inquiry
with an impatient: "Just please don't bother me, dear!" Who had
met the succeeding question with, "I don't know whether I shall
dine here or not!"

It was half-past three. In an hour he would see Magsie.

In that hour Magsie had received Rachael's note, and her heart
sang. For the first time, in what she would have described as this
"funny, mixed-up business," she began seriously to contemplate her
elevation to the dignity of Warren Gregory's wife. Rachael's note
was capable of only one interpretation: she would no longer stand
in their way. She was taking the boys to the country, and had
given Warren the definite assurance of her agreement to his
divorce. If necessary, on condition that her claim to the children
was granted, she would establish her residence in some Western
city, and proceed with the legal steps from there.

Magsie was frightened, excited, and thrilled all at once. She felt
as if she had set some enormous machinery in motion, and was not
quite sure of how it might be controlled. But on the whole,
complacency underlay all other emotions. She was going to be
married to the richest and nicest and most important man of her
acquaintance!

At heart, however, her manner belied her; Magsie had little self-
confidence. She lived in a French girl's terror that youth would
leave her before she had time to make a good match. If nobody knew
better than Magsie that she was pretty, also nobody knew better
that she was not clever. Men tired of her dimples and giggles and
round eyes. Bryan Masters admired her, to be sure, but then Bryan
Masters was also a divorced man, and an actor whose popularity was
already on the wane. Richie Gardiner admired her in his pathetic,
hopeless way, and Richie was young and rich. But Magsie shuddered
away from Richie's coughing and fainting; his tonics and his diet
had no place in her robust and joyous scheme of life. Besides, all
Magsie's world would envy her capture of Greg; he belonged to New
York. And Richie's father had been a miner, and his mother was
"impossible!"

Magsie dressed exquisitely for the tea; it seemed to her that she
had never been so pleasantly excited in her life. She felt a part
of the humming, crowded city, the spring wind and the uncertain
sky. Life was thrilling and surprising.

Half-past four o'clock came, and Warren came. They were in
Magsie's little apartment now, and she could go into his arms.
Warren was rather quiet as they went out to tea, but Magsie did
not notice it.

As a matter of fact, the man was bewildered; he was tired and
worried about his work; but that was the least of it. He could not
believe that the day's dazing and flying memories were real--the
Albany train, Rachael's room, the hospital, Magsie and the
Biltmore breakfast-room, Rachael's room again, and now again
Magsie.

Were the lawsuits about which one read in the papers based on no
more than this? Apparently not. Magsie seemed perfectly confident
of the outcome; Rachael had not shown any doubt. One woman had
practically presented him to the other; the law was to be
consulted.

The law? How would those letters of Magsie's read if the law got
hold of them? His memory flew from note to note. These hastily
scratched words would be flung to the wind of gossip, that wind
that blew so merrily among the houses where he was known. He had
called Magsie his "wonder-child" and his "good little bad girl!"
He had given her rings and sashes and a gold purse and a hat and
white fox furs--any one gift he had made her was innocent enough
in itself! But taken with all the others--