Books: The Heart of Rachael

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Magsie was in high feather; some tiresome preliminaries, and the
day was won! She had not planned so definite a campaign, but it
was all coming about in a fashion that more than fulfilled her
plans. So, said Magsie to herself, stirring her tea, that was to
be her fate: Paris, America, the stage, and then a rich marriage?
Well, so be it. She could not complain.

"Greg," she said a dozen times, "isn't it all like a dream?"

To Warren Gregory, as he walked down the street after leaving her
at the theatre, it was indeed like a dream, a frightful dream. He
could hardly credit his senses, hardly believe that all these
horrible things were true, that Rachael knew all about Magsie, and
that Magsie was quietly thinking of divorce and marriage! Rachael,
in such a rage, rushing away with the boys--why, he had made no
secret of his admiration for Magsie from Rachael, he had often
talked to her enthusiastically of Magsie! And here she was
furiously offering him his freedom.

Well, what had he done after all? What a preposterous fuss about
nothing. His thoughts were checked and chilled by the memory of
letters that Magsie had. Magsie could prove nothing by those
letters--

But what a fool they would make him! Warren Gregory remembered the
case of a dignified college professor whose private correspondence
had recently been given to the press, and he felt a cool shudder
run down his spine. Rachael, reading those letters! It was
unthinkable! She and the world would think him a fool! It came to
him suddenly that she and the world would be right. He was a fool,
and it was a fool's paradise in which he had been wandering: to
take his wife and home and sons for granted, and to spend all his
leisure at the feet of a calculating little girl like Magsie!

"What did you expect her to do?" Magsie had asked. What would any
sane man expect her to do? Smile with him at the new favorite's
charms, and take up her life in loneliness and neglect?

And now, Rachael was gone, and he stood promised to Magsie. So
much was clear. Rachael would fight for her divorce. Magsie would
fight for her husband.

"Oh, my God, how did we ever get into this sickening, sickening
mess?" Warren said out loud in his misery.

He had not dined, he did not think of dinner as he paced the
windy, cool city streets hour after hour. Nine struck, and he
hailed a cab, and went to the hospital, moving through his work
like a man in a dream. The woman whose life he chanced to save
throughout all her days would say she had had a lovely doctor.
Warren hardly saw her. He thought only of Magsie, Magsie who had
in her possession a number of compromising letters, every one
sillier than the last--Magsie, who expected him to divorce his
wife and marry her. He was in such a state of terror that he could
not think. Every instant brought more disquiet to his thoughts; he
felt as if, when he stepped out into the street again, the
newsboys might be calling his divorce, as if honor and safety and
happiness were gone forever.

He did not see Magsie again that night, but walked and walked,
entering his house sick and haggard, and sleeping the hours
restlessly away.

At nine o'clock the next morning he went to the telephone, and
called the Valentine house. Doctor Valentine was not at home, he
was informed. Was Mrs. Valentine there? Would she speak to Doctor
Gregory?

A long pause. Then the maid's pleasant impersonal voice again.
Mrs. Valentine begged Doctor Gregory to excuse her.

Warren felt as if he had been struck in the face. Under the eyes
of irreproachable and voiceless servants he moved about his silent
house. The hush of death seemed to him to lie heavy in the lovely
rooms that had been Rachael's delight, and over the city that was
just breaking into the green of spring. He dressed, and left
directions with unusual sternness; he would be at the hospital, or
the club, if he was wanted. He would come home to dinner at seven.

"Mrs. Gregory may be back in a day or so, Pauline," he said. "I
wish you'd keep her rooms in order--flowers, and all that."

"Yes, sir," Pauline said respectfully. "Excuse me, Doctor--" she
added.

"Well?" said Warren as she paused.

"Excuse me, Doctor, but I telephoned Mrs. Prince yesterday, as
Mrs. Gregory suggested," Pauline went on timidly, "and she would
be glad to have me come at any time, sir."

Warren's expression did not change.

"You mean that Mrs. Gregory dismissed you?" he suggested.

"Yes, sir!" said Pauline with a sniff. "She paid me for--"

"Then I should make an arrangement with Mrs. Prince, by all
means!" Warren said evenly. But a deathlike terror convulsed his
heart. Rachael had burned her bridges!

He sent Magsie a note and flowers. He was "troubled by unexpected
developments," he said, and too busy to see her to-day, but he
would see her to-morrow.

CHAPTER II

Magsie had awakened to a sense of pleasure impending. It was many
months since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her
self-esteem had received more than one blow of late. Bowman had
attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little Lady" on the
road; Magsie had indignantly declined. He had then offered her a
poor part in a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet made up
her mind.

Now, she said to herself, reading Warren's note over her late
breakfast tray, perhaps she might treat Mr. Bowman to the snubbing
she had long been anxious to give him. Perhaps she might spend the
summer quietly, inconspicuously, somewhere, placidly awaiting the
hour when she would come out gloriously before the world as Warren
Gregory's wife. Not at all a bad prospect for the daughter of old
Mrs. Torrence's companion and housekeeper.

A caller was announced and was admitted, a thin, restless woman
who looked thirty-five despite or perhaps because of the rouge on
her sunken cheeks and the smart gown she wore. The years had not
treated Carol Pickering kindly: she was an embittered,
dissatisfied woman now, noisily interested in the stage as a
possible escape from matrimony for herself, and hence interested
in Magsie, with whom she had lately formed a sort of suspicious
and resentful intimacy.

Joe Pickering had entirely justified in eight years the misgivings
felt toward him by everyone who had Carol Breckenridge's interests
at heart. His wife had come to him rich, and a few hours after
their wedding her father's death had more than doubled the fortune
left her by her grandmother. But it would be a sturdy legacy
indeed that might hope to resist such inroads as the aimless and
ill-matched young couple made upon it from their first day
together.

Idly acquiring, idly losing, being cheated and robbed on all
sides, they drifted through an unhappy and exciting year or two,
finally investing much of their money in bonds, and a handsome
residue in that favorite dream of such young wasters: the breeding
of horses for the polo market. "What if we lose it all--which we
won't--we've still got the bonds!" Joe Pickering, leaden pockets
under his eyes, his weak lips hanging loose, had said with his
unsteady laugh. What inevitably followed, and what he had not
foreseen, was that he should lose more than half the bonds, too.
They were seriously crippled now, and began to quarrel, to hate
each other for a greater part of the time; and their little son's
handsome dark eyes fell on some sad scenes. But now, in the
child's sixth year, they were still together, still appearing in
public, and still, in that mysterious way known only to their
type, rushing about on motor parties, buying champagne, and
entertaining after a fashion in their cramped but pretentious
apartment.

Of late Billy had been seriously considering the stage. She was
but twenty-six, after all, and she still had a girl's thirst for
admiration and for excitement. She had called on Magsie,
entertained the young actress, and the two had discovered a
certain affinity. Magsie was delighted to see her now. They
greeted each other affectionately, and Magsie, sending out her
tray, settled herself comfortably in her pillows, and took the
interested Carol entirely into her confidence, with the single
reservation of Warren Gregory's name.

"Handsome, and rich as Croesus, and his wife would divorce him,
and belongs to one of the best families," summarized Billy. "Why,
I think you would be a fool to do anything else!"

"S'pose I would," dimpled Magsie in interesting embarrassment.

"Have a heart, and tell me who it is," teased Carol, slipping her
foot from her low shoe to study a hole in the heel of her silk
stocking.

"Oh, I couldn't!" Magsie protested.

"Well, I shall guess, if I can," the other woman warned her. And
presently she added: "I'll tell you what, if you do give it up,
I'm going straight to Bowman, and ask for your place in your new
show! There's nothing about it that I couldn't do, and I believe
he might give me a chance! I'll tell you what: you wait until the
last moment before you tell him, and then he can't be prepared in
advance. And I'll risk having Jacqueline make me a couple of
gowns, and be all ready to jump in. I'll learn the part, too,"
said Billy kindling; "you'll coach me in it, won't you?"

"Of course I will!" Magsie agreed, but she did not say it
heartily. The conversation was not extremely pleasing to Magsie at
the moment. She loved Warren, of course, but it was certainly a
good deal to resign, even to marry a Gregory of New York! Why,
here was Billy, who had been a rich man's daughter, and had
married the man of her choice, and had a nice child, mad to step
into her shoes!

And it was a painful reflection that probably Billy could do it.
Billy was smart, she had a dash and finish about her that might
well catch a manager's eye, and more than that, it was a rather
poor part. It was no such part as Magsie had had in "The Bad
Little Lady." There was a comedian in this cast, and a matinee
idol for a leading man, and Magsie must content herself with a
part and a salary much smaller than was given to either of these.

She thought of Warren, and also fleetingly of Bryan Masters, and
even of Richie Gardiner, and decided that it was a bitter and
empty world, and she wished she had never been born. Bowman would
be smart enough to see that he need pay Billy almost no salary,
that she might be a discovery--the discovery for which all
managers are always so pathetically on the alert, and that in case
the play failed--Magsie was sure, this morning, that it would be
the flattest failure ever seen on Broadway--he would have no irate
leading lady to pacify; Billy would be only too grateful for the
opportunity to try and fail.

"Farce is the most difficult thing in the world to play," she
said, now clinging desperately to her little distinction.

"Oh, I know that!" Billy answered absently. She would have a smart
apartment on the Drive, and dear little old Breck should drive
with her in the Park, and go to the smartest boys' school in the
country--

"And of course, I may not marry!" said Magsie.

Carol hardly heard her. She was looking about the comfortable
hotel apartment, all in a pretty disorder now, with Magsie's
various possessions scattered about. There were pictures of actors
on the mantel, heavily autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly
into vases. There was a great sheaf of Killarney roses; the
envelope that had held a card still dangled from their stems.
Carol would have given a great deal to know whose card had been
torn from it, and whose name was ringing just now in Magsie's
brain. She even cared enough to tentatively interrogate Anna,
Magsie's faithful Swedish woman.

"Well, perhaps we shall have a change here, Anna?" Billy said
brightly but cautiously, when she was in the hall. She wondered
whether the woman would let her slip a bill into her hand.

"Maybe," said Anna impassively.

"How shall you like keeping house for a man and wife?" Billy
pursued.

"Aye do that bayfore," remarked Anna, responsive to this kindly
interest; "aye ban hahr savan yahre, now, en des country."

"And do you like Miss Clay's young man?" Billy said boldly. But at
this shift of topic the light faded from Anna's infantile blue
eyes, and a wary look replaced it.

"She got more as one feller," she remarked discouragingly. Billy,
outfaced, departed, feeling rather contemptible as she walked down
the street. Joe was at home; she had left him in bed when she left
the house at ten o'clock, and little Breck had been rather
listlessly chatting with the colored boy in the elevator, and had
begged his mother to take him downtown. Billy was really sorry for
the little boy, but she did not know what to do about it; she
wondered what other women did with little lonely boys of six. If
she went home, it would not materially better the situation; the
cook was cross to-day anyway, and would be crosser if Joe shouted
for his breakfast in his usual ungracious manner. She could not go
to Jacqueline and talk dresses unless she was willing to pay
something on the last bill.

Billy thought of the bank, as she always did think of the bank,
when her reflections reached this point. There were the bonds, not
as many as they had been, but still fine, salable bonds. She could
pay the cook, pay the dressmaker, take Breck home a game, look at
hats, spend the day in exactly the manner that pleased her best.
She had promised Joe that they would discuss the sale of the next
one together when they had sold the last bond, a month ago, and
avoid it if possible. But what difference did one make?--a paltry
fifty dollars a year! Perhaps it would be possible not to tell
Joe--

Billy looked in her purse. She had a dollar bill and fifty cents,
more than enough to take her to the bank in appropriate style. She
signalled a taxicab.

Magsie did not see Warren the next day, but they had tea and a
talk on the day following. She told him gayly that he needed
cheering, and presently took him into Tiffany's, where Warren
found himself buying her a coveted emerald. Somehow during the
afternoon he found himself talking and planning as if they really
loved each other, and really were to be married. But it was an
unsatisfactory hour. Magsie was excited and nervous, and was
rather relieved than otherwise that her interviews with her
admirer were necessarily short. As a matter of fact, the
undisciplined little creature was overtired and unreasonable. She
would have given her whole future for a quiet week in bed, with
frivolous novels to read, and Anna to spoil her, no captious
manager to please, no exhausting performances to madden her with a
sense of her own and other people's imperfections, and no Warren
to worry her with his long face.

Added to Magsie's trials, in this dreadful week, was an interview
with the imposing mother of young Richie Gardiner, a handsome,
florid lady, who had inherited a large fortune from the miner
husband whose fortunes she had gallantly shared through some
extraordinary adventures in Nome. Mrs. Gardiner idolized her son;
she was not inclined to be generous to the little flippant actress
who had broken his heart. Richie would not go to the healing
desert, he would not go to any place out of sound of Miss Clay's
voice, out of the light of Miss Clay's eyes. Mrs. Gardiner had no
objection to Magsie's person, nor to her profession, the fact
being that her own origin had been even more humble than that of
Miss Clay, but she wanted the treasure of her boy's love to be
appreciated; she had been envying, since the hour of his birth,
the woman who should win Richie's love.

Stout, overdressed, deep-voiced, she came to see the actress, and
they both cried; Magsie said that she was sorry--she was so
bitterly sorry--but, yes, there was someone else. Mrs. Gardiner
shrugged philosophically, wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath. No
help for it! Presently she heavily departed; her solid weight, her
tinkling spangles, and her rainbow plumes vanished into the
limousine, and she was whirled away.

Magsie sighed; these complications were romantic. What could one
do?

CHAPTER III

Silent, abstracted, unsmiling, Rachael got through the days. She
ate what Mary put before her, slept fairly well, answered the
puzzled boys the second time they addressed her. She buckled
sandals, read fairy tales, brushed the unruly heads, and listened
to the wavering prayers day after day. Her eyes were strained, her
usually quick, definite motions curiously uncertain; otherwise
there was little change.

Alice, in spite of her husband's half protest, went down to
Clark's Hills, deciding in the first hour that the worst of the
matter was all over and Rachael quite herself, gradually becoming
doubtful, and returning home in despair. Her tearful account took
George down to the country house a week later.

Rachael met them; they dined with her. She was interested about
the Valentine children, interested in their summer plans. She
laughed as she quoted Derry's latest ventures with words. She
walked to her gate to wave them good-bye on Monday morning, and
told Alice that she was counting the days until the big family
came down. But George and Alice were heavy hearted as they drove
away.

"What IS it?" asked Alice, anxious eyes upon her husband's kind,
homely face. "She's like a person recovering from a blow. She's
not sick; but, George, she isn't well!"

"No, she's not well," George agreed soberly. "Bad glitter in her
eyes, and I don't like that calm for fiery Rachael! Well, you'll
be down here in a week or two--"

"Last week," Alice said not for the first time, "she only spoke
of--of the trouble, you know--once. We were just going out to
dinner, and she turned to me, and said: 'I didn't like my bargain
eight years ago, Alice, and I tore my contract to pieces! Now I'll
pay for it.'"

"And you said?"

"I said, 'Oh, nonsense, Rachael. Don't be morbid! There's no
parallel between the cases!'"

"H'm!" The doctor was silent for a long time. "I don't know what
Greg's doing," he added after thought.

"The question is, what is Magsie doing?" said Alice.

"In my opinion, Rachael's simply blown up," George submitted.

"Magsie told her they had talked of marriage!" Alice countered.
George gave an incredulous snort.

"Well, then, Magsie lied," he said firmly.

"She really isn't the lying type, George. And there's no question
that Greg and she did see each other every day, and that he wrote
her letters and gave her presents!" Alice finished rather timidly,
for her husband's face was a thunder-cloud. The old car flew along
at thirty-five miles an hour.

"Damn FOOL!" George presently muttered. Alice glanced at him in
sympathetic concern.

"George, why don't you see him?"

George preserved a stern silence for perhaps two flying minutes,
then he sighed.

"Oh, he'll come to me fast enough when he needs me! Lord, I've
pulled old Greg out of trouble before." His whole face grew tender
as he added: "You know Greg is a genius, Alice; he's not like
other men!"

"I should hope he wasn't!" said Alice with spirit.

"We--ll!" She was sorry for her vehemence when George merely shook
his head and ended the conversation on the monosyllable. After a
while she attempted to reopen the subject.

"If geniuses can act that way, I'd rather have our girls marry
grocers!"

The girls' father smiled absently.

"Oh, well, of course!" he conceded.

"Greg is no more a genius than you are, George," argued Alice.

"Oh, Alice, Alice!" he protested, really distressed, "don't ever
let anyone hear you say that! 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!"

"He'll come to me to get him out of it within the month--you'll
see!" George retorted.

"He'll keep out of your way!" Alice predicted confidently. "I know
Greg. He has to be perfect or nothing."

But it was only ten days later that Warren Gregory walked up the
steps of the Valentine house at about ten o'clock on a silent,
hazy morning. George had not yet left the house for the day. The
drawing-room furniture was swathed in linen covers, and a
collection of golf irons, fishing rods, canoe paddles, and tennis
rackets crowded the hallway. The young Valentines were departing
for the country to-morrow, and their excited voices echoed from
above stairs.

Warren had supposed them already gone. Rachael was alone, then, he
reflected, alone in that desolate little country village! He
nodded to the maid, and asked in a guarded tone for Doctor
Valentine. A moment later George Valentine came into the drawing-
room, and the two men exchanged a look strange to their twenty
years of affectionate intercourse. Warren attempted mere cold
dignity; he was on the defensive, and he knew it. George's look
verged on contempt, thinly veiled by a polite interest in his
visitor's errand.

"George," said Warren suddenly, when he had asked for Alice and
the children, and an awkward silence had made itself felt;
"George, I'm in trouble. I--I wonder if you can help me out?"

He could hardly have made a more fortunate beginning; halting as
the words were, and miserable as was the look that accompanied
them, both rang true to the older man, and went straight to his
heart.

"I'm sorry to hear it," George said.

Warren folded his arms, and regarded his friend steadily across
them.

"You know Rachael has left me, George?" he began.

"I--well, yes, Alice went down there first, and then I went down,"
George said. "We only came back ten days ago." There was another
brief silence.

"She--she hasn't any cause for this, you know, George," Warren
said, ending it, after watching the other man hopefully for
further suggestion.

"Hasn't, huh?" George asked thoughtfully, hopefully.

"No, she hasn't!" Warren reiterated, gaining confidence. "I've
been a fool, I admit that, but Rachael has no cause to go off at
half-cock, this way!"

"What d'you mean by that?" George asked flatly. "What do you mean-
-you've been a fool?"

"I've been a fool about Magsie Clay," Warren admitted, "and
Rachael learned about it, that's all. My Lord! there never was an
instant in my life when I took it seriously, I give you my word,
George!"

"Well, if Rachael takes it seriously, and Magsie takes it
seriously, you may find yourself beginning to take it seriously,
too," George said with a dull man's simple evasion of confusing
elements.

"Rachael may get her divorce," Warren said desperately. "I can't
help that, I suppose. I've got a letter from her here--she left
it. I don't know what she thinks! But I'll never marry Margaret
Clay--that much is settled. I'll leave town--my work's ended, I
might as well be dead. God knows I wish I were!"

"Just how far have you gone with Magsie?" George interrupted
quietly.

"Why, nothing at all!" Warren said. "Flowers, handbags, things
like that! I've kissed her, but I swear Rachael never gave me any
reason to think she'd mind that."

"How often have you seen her?" George asked in a somewhat relieved
tone. "Have you seen her once a week?"

"Oh, yes! I say frankly that this was a--a flirtation, George.
I've seen her pretty nearly every day---"

"But she hasn't got any letters--nothing like that?"

Warren's confident expression changed.

"Well, yes, she has some letters. I--damn it! I am a fool, George!
I swear I wrote them just as I might to anybody. I--I knew it
mattered to her, you know, and that she looked for them. I don't
know how they'd read!"

George was silent, scowling, and Warren said, "Damn it!" again
nervously, before the other man said:

"What do you think she will do?"

"I don't know, George," Warren said honestly.

"Could you--buy her off?" George presently asked after thought.

"Magsie? Never! She's not that type. She's one of ourselves as to
that, George. It was that that made me like Magsie--she's a lady,
you know. She thinks she's in love; she wants to be married. And
if Rachael divorces me, what else can I do?"

"Rachael wants the divorce for the boys," George said. "She told
Alice so. She said that except for that, nothing on earth would
have made her consider it. But she doesn't want you and Magsie
Clay to have any hold over her sons--and can you blame her? She's
been dragged through all this once. You might have thought of
that!"

"Oh, my God!" Warren said, stopping by the mantel, and putting his
face in his hands.

"Well, what did you think would happen?" George asked as Magsie
had asked.

Then for perhaps two long minutes there was absolute silence,
while Warren remained motionless, and George, in great distress,
rubbed his upstanding hair.

"George, what shall I do?" Warren burst out at length.

"Why, now I'll tell you," the older man said in a tone that
carried exquisite balm to his listener. "Alice and I have talked
this over, of course, and this seems to me to be the only way out:
we know you, old man--that's what hurts. Alice and I know exactly
what has got you into this thing. You're too easy, Warren. You
think because you mean honorably by Magsie Clay, and amuse
yourself by being generous to her, that Magsie means honorably by
you. You've got a high standard of morals, Greg, but where they
differ from the common standards you fail. If the world is going
to put a certain construction upon your attentions to an actress,
it doesn't matter what private construction you happen to put upon
them! Wake up, and realize what a fool you are to try to buck the
conventions! What you need is to study other people's morals, not
to be eternally justifying and analyzing your own. I don't know
how you'll come out of this thing. Upon my word, it's the worst
mess we ever got into since you misquoted Professor Diggs and he
sued you. Remember that?"

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