Andrew Lang - "Pickle the Spy"

Sam Vaknin - "Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema"

Samuel Butler - "Hudibras"

Juliet James - "Palaces and Courts of the Exposition"

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




"Billy, it was good of you to come," Rachael said, kissing her
quite naturally as they met.

"I never thought of doing anything else," Billy said, breathing
the fresh salt air with obvious pleasure. "I had no idea that it
was such a trip. But he was an angel--look at them now, aren't
they cute together?"

Rachael's boys had taken eager possession of their guest; the
three were fast making friends as they trotted along together
toward the old motor car that Rachael ran herself.

"It's a joy to them," their mother said. "Get in here next to me,
Bill; I'm not going even to look at you until I get you home. Did
you ever see the water look so delicious? We'll all go down for a
dip pretty soon. I live so simply here that I'm entirely out of
the way of entertaining a guest, but now that you're here, you
must stay and have a little rest yourself!"

"Oh, thank you, but--" Billy began in perfunctory regret. Her tone
changed: "I should love to!" she said honestly.

Rachael laughed. "So funny to hear your old voice, Bill, and your
old expressions."

"I was just thinking that you've not changed much, Rachael."

"I? Oh, but I've gray hair! Getting old fast, Billum."

"And how's Greg?" Billy did not understand the sudden shadow that
fell across Rachael's face, but she saw it, and wondered.

"Very well, my dear."

"Does he get down here often? It's a hard trip."

"He always comes in his car. They make it in--I don't know--
something like two hours and ten minutes, I think. This is my
house, with all its hydrangeas in full bloom. Yes, isn't it nice?
And here's Mary for Breckenridge's bag."

Rachael had got out of the car, and now she gave Billy's boy her
hand, and stood ready to help him down.

"Well, Breck," said she, "do you think you are going to like my
house, and my little boys? Will you give Aunt Rachael a kiss?"

Billy said nothing as the child embraced his new-found relative
heartily, nor when Rachael took her upstairs to show her the third
hammock between the other two, and herself invested the visitor in
blue overalls and a wide hat. But late that evening, after a
silence, she said suddenly:

"You're more charming than ever, Rachael; you're one of the
sweetest women I ever saw!"

"Thank you!" Rachael said with a little note of real pleasure
under her laugh.

"You've grown so gentle, and good," said Billy a little awkwardly.
"Perhaps it's just because you're so sweet to Breck, and because
you have such a nice way with children, but I--I am ever and ever
so grateful to you! I've often thought of you, all this time, and
of the old days, and been glad that so much happiness of every
sort has come to you. At first I felt dreadfully--at that time,
you know--"

She stopped and faltered, but Rachael looked at her kindly. They
were sitting on the wide porch, under the velvet-black arch of the
starry sky, and watching the occasional twinkle of lights on the
dark surface of the bay.

"You may say anything you like to me, Billy," Rachael said.

"Well, it was only--you know how I loved him--" Billy said
quickly. "I've so often thought that perhaps you were the only
person who knew what it all meant to me. I only thought he would
be angry for a while. I thought then that Joe would surely win
him. And afterward, I thought I would go crazy, thinking of him
sitting there in the club. I had failed him, you know! I've never
talked about it. I guess I'm all tired out from the trip down."

It was clumsily expressed; the words came as if every one were
wrung from the jealous silence of the long years, but presently
Billy was beside Rachael's chair, kneeling on the floor, and their
arms were about each other.

"I killed him!" sobbed Billy. "He spoke of me the last of all. He
said to Berry Stokes that he--he loved me. And he had a little old
picture of me--you remember the one in the daisy frame?--over his
heart. Oh, Daddy, Daddy!--always so good to me!"

"No, Bill, you mustn't say that you killed him," Rachael said,
turning pale. "If you were to blame, I was, too, and your
grandmother, and all of us who made him what he was. I didn't love
him when I married him, and he was the sort of man who has to be
loved; he knew he wasn't big, and admirable, and strong, but many
a man like Clancy has been made so, been made worth while, by
having a woman believe in him. I never believed in him for one
second, and he knew it. I despised him, and where he sputtered and
stammered and raged, I was cool and quiet, and smiling at him. 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.

"I believe," Rachael said, "that in those seven years I might have
won your father to something better if I had cared. He wasn't a
hard man, just desperately weak. I've thought of it so often, of
late, Bill. There might have been children. Clancy had a funny
little pathetic fondness for babies. And he was a loving sort of
person---"

"Ah, wasn't he?" Billy's eyes brimmed again. "Always that to me.
But not to you, Rachael, and little cat that I was--I knew it. But
you see I had no particular reverence for marriage, either. How
should I? Why, my own mother and my half-sisters--hideous girls,
they are, too--were pointed out to me in Rome a year ago. I didn't
know them! I could have made your life much easier, Rachael. I
wish I had. I was thinking that this afternoon when Breck was
letting you carry him out into deep water, clinging to you so
cunningly. He is a cute little kid, isn't he? And he'll love you
to death! He's a great kisser."

"He's a great darling," smiled Rachael, "and all small boys I
adore. He'll begin to put on weight in no time. And--I was
thinking, Bill--he would have reconciled Clancy to you and Joe,
perhaps; one can't tell! If I had not left him, Clarence might
have been living to-day, that I know. He only--did what he did in
one of those desperate lonely times he used to dread so."

"Ah, but he was terrible to you, Rachael!" Billy said generously.
"You deserved happiness if anyone ever did!" Again she did not
understand Rachael's sharp sigh, nor the little silence that
followed it. Their talk ran on quite naturally to other topics:
they discussed all the men and women of that old world they both
had known, the changes, the newcomers, and the empty places. Mrs.
Barker Emory had been much taken up by Mary Moulton, and was a
recognized leader at Belvedere Bay now; Straker Thomas was in a
sanitarium; old Lady Torrence was dead; Marian Cowles had snatched
George Pomeroy away from one of the Vanderwall girls at the last
second; Thomas Prince was paralyzed; Agnes Chase had married a
Denver man whom nobody knew; the Parker Hoyts had a delicate
little baby at last; Vivian Sartoris had left her husband, nobody
knew why. Billy was quite her old self as she retailed these items
and many more for Rachael's benefit.

But Rachael saw that the years had made a sad change in her before
the three days' visit was over. Poor little, impudent, audacious
Billy was gone forever--Billy, who had always been so exquisite in
dress, so prettily conspicuous on the floor of the ballroom, so
superbly self-conscious in her yachting gear, her riding-clothes,
her smart little tennis costumes! She was but a shadow of her old
self now. The smart hats, the silk stockings, the severely trim
frocks were still hers, but the old delicious youth, her roses,
her limpid gaze, the velvety curve of throat and cheek, these were
gone. Billy had been spirited, now she was noisy. She had been
amusingly precocious, now she was assuming an innocence, a
naivete, that were no longer hers, had never been natural to her
at any time. She had always been coolly indifferent to the lives
of other men and women. Now she was embittered as to her own
destiny, and full of ugly and eager gossip concerning everyone she
knew. She chanced upon the name of Magsie Clay, little dreaming
how straight the blow went to Rachael's heart, but had excellent
reasons of her own for not expressing the belief that Magsie would
soon leave the stage, and so gave no hint of Magsie's rich and
mysterious lover. She did tell Rachael that she herself meant to
go on the stage, but imparted no details as to her hopes for doing
so.

"Just how much money is left, Billy?" Rachael presently felt
herself justified in asking.

"Oh, well"--Billy had always hated statistics--"we sold the
Belvedere Bay place last year, you know, but it was a perfect
wreck, and the Moultons said they had to put seventeen thousand
dollars into repairs, but I don't believe it, and that money, and
some other things, were put into the bank. Joe was just making a
scene about it--we have to draw now and then--we sank I don't know
what into those awful ponies, and we still have that place--it's a
lovely house, but it doesn't rent. It's too far away. The kid
adores it of course, but it's too far away, it gives me the
creeps. It's just going to wreck, too. Joe says sometimes that
he's going to raise chickens there. I see him!" Billy scowled, but
as Rachael did not speak, she presently came back to the topic.
"But just how much of my money is left, I don't know. There are
two houses in East One Hundredth--way over by the river. Daddy
took them for some sort of debt."

Rachael remembered them perfectly. But she could not revert to the
days when she was Clarence's wife without a pang, and so let the
allusion go.

"Why he took them I don't know," Billy resumed, "ten flats, and
all empty. They say it would cost us ten thousand dollars to get
them into shape. They're mortgaged, anyway."

"But Billy, wouldn't that bring you in a fair income, in itself,
if it was once filled?"

"My dear, perhaps it would. But do you think you could get Joe
Pickering to do it? As long as the money in the bank lasts--I
forget what it is, several thousand, more than twenty, I think--
we'll go along as we are. Joe has a half-interest in a patent,
anyway, some sort of curtain-pole; it's always going to make us a
fortune!"

"But, Billy, if you and the boy took a little place somewhere, and
you had one good maid--up there on the pony farm, for instance--
surely it would be saner, surely it would be wiser, than trying to
think of the stage now with him on your hands!"

"Except that I would simply die!" Billy said. "I love the city,
and the excitement of not knowing what will turn up. And if Joe
would behave himself, and if I should make a hit, why, we'll be
all right."

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; she would gossip of a dozen successful
actresses without the self-control to work for one-tenth of their
success, and she would move through all the life of the theatres
and hotels without ever having her place among them, and her share
of their little glory. And almost as reckless in action as she was
in speech, she would cling to the brink of the conventions, never
quite a good woman, never quite anything else, a fond and loyal if
a foolish and selfish mother, some day noisily informing her
admirers that she actually had a boy in college, and enjoying
their flattering disbelief. And so would disappear the last of the
handsome fortune that poor Clarence's father had bequeathed to
him, and Clarence's grandson must fight his way with no better
start than his grandfather had had financially, and with an
infinitely less useful brain and less reliable pair of hands.
Billy might be widowed or freed in some less unexceptionable way,
and then Billy would marry again, and it would be a queer
marriage; Rachael could read her fate in her character.

She wondered, walking slowly the short mile that lay between her
house and the station, when Billy was gone, just how a discerning
eye might read her own fate in her own character. Just what did
the confused mixture of good motives and bad motives, erratic
unselfishnesses and even more erratic weaknesses that was Rachael,
deserve of Fate? She had bought some knowledge, but it had been
dearly bought; she had bought some goodness, but at what a cost of
pain!

"I don't believe that Warren ever did one-tenth the silly things
we suspected him of!" Alice exclaimed one day. "I believe he was
just an utter fool, and Magsie took advantage of it!"

Rachael did not answer, but there was no brightening of her sombre
look. Her eyes, grave and sad, held for Alice no hope that she had
come, as George and Alice had come, to a softer view of Warren's
offence.

"I see him always as he was that last horrible morning," she said
to Alice. "And I pray that I will never look upon his face again!"
And when presently Alice hinted that George was receiving an
occasional letter from Warren, Rachael turned pale.

"Don't quote it to me, Alice," she said gently; "don't ask me to
hear it. It's all over. I haven't a heart any more, just a void
and a pain. You only hurt me--I can't ever be different. You and
George love me, I know that. Don't drive me away. Don't ever feel
that it will be different from what it is now. I--I wish him no
ill, God knows, but--I can't. It wouldn't be happiness for me or
for him. Please, PLEASE--!"

Alice, in tears, could only give her her way.




CHAPTER V


Upon the discontented musings of Miss Margaret Clay one hot
September morning came Mrs. Joseph Pickering, very charming in
coffee-colored madras, with an exquisite heron cockade upon her
narrow tan hat. Magsie was up, but not dressed, and was not ill
pleased to have company. Her private as well as professional
affairs were causing her much dissatisfaction of late, and she was
at the moment in the act of addressing a letter to Warren, now on
the ocean, from whom she had only this morning had an extremely
disquieting letter.

Warren had come to see her the day before sailing, and with a
grave determination new to their intercourse, had repeated several
unpalatable truths. Rachael, on second thoughts, he told her, had
absolutely refused him a divorce.

"But she can't do that! She wrote me herself--" Magsie had begun
in anger. His distressed voice interrupted her.

"She's acting for the boys, Magsie. And she's right."

"Right!" The little actress turned pale as the full significance
of his words and tone dawned upon her. "But--but what do you mean!
What about ME?"

To this Warren had only answered with an exquisitely uncomfortable
look and the simple phrase, "Magsie, I'm sorry."

"You mean that you're not going to MAKE her keep her word?"

And again she had put an imperative little hand upon his arm, sure
of her power to win him ultimately. Days afterward the angry blood
came into her face when she remembered his kind, his almost
fatherly, smile, as he dislodged the hand.

"Magsie, I'm sorry. You can't despise me as I despise myself,
dear. I'm ashamed. Some day, perhaps, there'll be something I can
do for you, and then you'll see by the way I do it that I want
with all my heart to make it up to you. But I'm going away now,
Magsie, and we mustn't see each other any more."

Magsie, repulsed, had flung herself the length of the little room.

"You DARE tell me that, Greg?"

"I'm sorry, Magsie!"

"Sorry!" Her tone was vitriol. "Why, but I've got your letters.
I've got your own words! Everyone knows-the whole world knows! Can
you deny that you gave me this?--and this? Can you deny--"

"No, I'm not denying anything, Magsie. Except--that I never meant
to hurt you. And I hope there was some happiness in it for you as
there was for me."

Magsie had dropped into a chair with her back to him.

"I've made you cross," she said penitently, "and you're punishing
me! Was it my seeing Richie, Greg? You know I never cared---"

"Don't take that tone," he said.

Her color flamed again, and she set her little teeth. He saw her
breast rise and fall.

"Don't think you can do this, Greg," she said with icy
viciousness. "Don't delude yourself! I can punish you, and I will.
Alice and George Valentine can fix it all up to suit themselves,
but they don't know me! You've said your say now, and I've
listened. Very well!"

"Magsie," he said almost pleadingly, interrupting the hard little
voice, "can't you see what a mistake it's all been?"

She looked at him with eyes suddenly flooded with tears.

"M-m-mistake to s-s-say we loved each other, Greg?"

The man did not answer. Presently Magsie began to speak in a sad,
low tone.

"You can go now if you want to, Greg. I'm not going to try to hold
you. But I know you'll come back to me to-morrow, and tell me it
was all just the trouble other people tried to make between us--it
wasn't really you, the man I love!"

"I'll write you," he said after a silence. And from the doorway he
added, "Good-bye." Magsie did not turn or speak; she could not
believe her ears when she heard the door softly close.

Next day brought her only a letter from the steamer, a letter
reiterating his good-byes, and asking her again to forgive him.
Magsie read it in stupefaction. He was gone, and she had lost him!

The first panic of surprise gave way to more reasonable thinking.
There were ways of bringing him back; there were arguments that
might persuade Rachael to adhere to her original resolution. It
could not be dropped so easily. Magsie began to wonder what a
lawyer might advise. Billy came in upon her irresolute musing.

"Hello, dearie! But I'm interrupting---" said Billy.

"Oh, hello, darling! No, indeed you're not," Magsie said, tearing
up an envelope lazily. "I was trying to write a letter, but I have
to think it over before it goes."

"I should think you could write a letter to your beau with your
eyes shut," Billy said. "You've had practice enough! I know you're
busy, but I won't interrupt you long. Upon my word, I had a hard
enough time getting to you. There was no boy at the lift, and only
a dear old Irish girl mopping up the floors. We had a long heart-
to-heart talk, and I gave her a dollar."

"A dollar! I'll have to move-you're raising the price of living!"
said Magsie. "She's the janitor's wife, and they're rich already.
What possessed you?"

"Well, she unpinned her skirts and went after the boy," Billy said
idly, "and it was the only thing I had." She was trying quietly to
see the name on the envelope Magsie had destroyed, but being
unsuccessful, she went on more briskly, "How is the beau, by the
way?"

"I wish I had never seen the man!" Magsie said, glad to talk of
him. "His wife is raising the roof now---"

"I thought she would!" Billy said wisely. "I didn't see any woman,
especially if she's not young, giving all that up without a fight!
You know I said so."

"I know you did," said Magsie ruefully. "But I don't see what she
can do!"

"Well, she can refuse to give him his divorce, can't she?" Billy
said sensibly.

"But CAN she?" Magsie was obviously not sure.

"Of course she can!"

"But she doesn't want him. I went to see her--"

"Went to see her? For heaven's sake, what did you do that for?"

"Because I cared for him," Magsie said, coloring.

"For heaven's sake! You had your nerve! And what sort of a person
is she?"

"Oh, beautiful! I knew her before. And she said that she would not
interfere. She was as willing as he was; then---"

"But now she's changed her mind?"

"Apparently." Magsie scowled into space.

"Well, what does HE say?" Billy asked after a pause.

"Why, he can't--or he seems to think he can't--force her."

"Well, I don't know that he can--here. There are states--"

"Yes, I know, but we're here in New York," Magsie said briefly. A
second later she sat up, suddenly energetic and definite in voice
and manner. "But there ARE ways of forcing her, as she will soon
see," said Magsie in a venomous voice. "I have his letters. I
could put the whole thing into a lawyer's hands. There's such a
thing as-as a breach of promise suit--"

"Not with a married man," Billy interrupted. Magsie halted, a
little dashed.

"How do you know?" she demanded.

"You'd have to show you had been injured--and you've known all
along he was married," Billy said.

"Well"--Magsie was scarlet with anger--"I could make him sorry,
don't worry about that!" she said childishly.

"Of course, if his wife DID consent, and then changed her mind,
and you sent his letters to her," Billy said after cogitation. "It
might--he may have glossed it all over, to her, you know."

"Exactly!" Magsie said triumphantly. "I knew there was a way!
She's a sensitive woman, too. You know you can't go as far as you
like with a girl, Billy," she went on argumentatively, "without
paying for it somehow!"

"Make him pay!" said the practical Billy.

"I don't want--just money," Magsie said discontentedly. "I want--I
don't want to be interfered with. I believe I shall do just that,"
she went on with a brightening eye. "I'll write him---"

"Tell him. Ever so much more effective than writing!" Billy
suggested.

"Tell him then," Magsie did not mean to betray his identity if she
could help it, "that I really will send these things on to his
wife--that's just what I'll do!"

"Are there children?" asked Billy.

"Two--girls," Magsie said with barely perceptible hesitation.

"Grown?" pursued the visitor.

"Ye-es, I believe so." Magsie was too clever to multiply
unnecessary untruths. She began to dress.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" asked Billy. "I have the
Butlers' car for the day. Joe brought it into town to be fixed,
and can't drive it out until tomorrow. We might do something. It's
a gorgeous car."

"I'm not doing one thing in the world. Where's Joe?"

"Joe Pickering?" asked Billy. "Oh, he's gone off with some men for
some golf and poker. We might find someone, and go on a party.
Where could we go--Long Beach? It's going to be stifling hot."

"Stay and have lunch with me," said Magsie.

"I can't to-day. I'm lunching with a theatrical man at Sherry's. I
tell you I'm in deadly earnest. I'm going to break in! Suppose I
come here for you at just three. Meanwhile, you think up someone.
How about Bryan Masters?"

Magsie made a face.

"Well," said Billy, departing, "you think of someone, and I will.
Perhaps the Royces would go--a nice little early party. The worst
of it is, no one's in town!"

She ran downstairs and jumped into the beautiful car.

"Sherry's, please, Hungerford," said Billy easily. "And then you
might get your lunch, and come for me sharp at half-past two."

The man touched his hat. Billy leaned back against the rich
leather upholstery luxuriously; she was absolutely content. Joe
was quiet and away, dear little old Breck was in seventh heaven
down on the cool seashore, and there was a prospect of a party to-
night. As they rolled smoothly downtown the passing throng might
well have envied the complacent little figure in coffee-colored
madras with the big heron feather in her hat.

When Billy was gone, Magsie, with a thoughtful face and compressed
lips, took two packages of letters from her desk and wrapped them
for posting. She fell into deep musing for a few minutes before
she wrote Rachael's name on the wrapper, but after that she
dressed with her usual care, and carried the package to the
elevator boy for mailing. As she came back to her rooms a caller
was announced and followed her name into Magsie's apartment almost
immediately. Magsie, with a pang of consternation, found herself
facing Richie Gardiner's mother.

Anna would never have permitted this, was Magsie's first resentful
thought, but Anna was on a vacation, and the elevator boy could
not be expected to discriminate.

"Good morning, Mrs. Gardiner," said Magsie; "you'll excuse my
dressing all over the place, but I have no maid this week. How's
Richie?"

Mrs. Gardiner was oblivious of anything amiss. She sat down, first
removing a filmy scarf of Magsie's from a chair, and smiled, the
little muscle-twitching smile of a person in pain, as if she
hardly heard Magsie's easy talk.

"He doesn't seem to get better, Miss Clay," said she, almost
snorting in her violent effort to breathe quietly. "Doctor doesn't
say he gets worse, but of course he don't fool me--I know my boy's
pretty sick."

The agony of helpless motherhood was not all lost upon Magsie,
even though it was displayed by a large, plain woman in
preposterous clothes, strangely introduced into her pretty rooms,
and a most incongruous figure there.