"Why, what CAN we do, dear?"
"You don"t mean," Rachael said incredulously, "that we shall have to GO ON with it?"
"Think a minute, dearest. Why shouldn"t we?"
"But"--her color, better since his entrance, was waning again-- "with Clarence Breckenridge dying while we dance!" she shuddered.
"Could anything be more preposterous than your letting anything that concerns Clarence Breckenridge affect what you do now?" he asked with kindly patience.
"No, it"s not that!" she answered feverishly. "But--but for any old friend one would--would make a difference, and surely--surely he was more than that!"
"He WAS more than that, of course, but he has been less than nothing to you for a long time!"
"Yes, legally--technically, of course," Rachael agreed nervously.
She sat silent for a moment, frowning over some sombre thought.
"But, Warren, they"ll all know of it, they"ll all be THINKING of it," she said presently. "I--really I don"t think I can go through it!"
"It"s too bad, of course," Warren Gregory said with his arm still about her. "I"d give ten thousand dollars to have had the poor fellow select some other time. But you"ve had nothing to do with it, and you simply must put it out of your mind!"
"It was Billy"s marriage, of course!"
"Of course. She was married yesterday, you see, the day she came of age. Poor kid--it"s rather a sad start for her, especially with no one but Joe Pickering to console her!"
"She was mad about her father," Rachael said in a preoccupied whisper. "Poor Billy--poor Billy! She never crossed him in anything but this. What did you see it in?"
"The World. How did you hear it?"
"Etta brought up the paper." She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "It seemed to jump at me--his picture and the name.
Is he living--where is he?"
"At St. Mark"s. He won"t live. Poor fellow!" Warren Gregory scowled thoughtfully as he gave a moment"s thought to the other man"s situation, and then smiled sunnily at his wife with a brisk change of topic. "Well," he said cheerfully, "is anyone in this place glad to see me, or not, or what?"
"It just seems to me that I CANNOT face all those people to- night!" Rachael said, giving him a quick, unthinking kiss before she gently put him away from her, and got to her feet. "It seems so wrong--so coa.r.s.e--to be utterly and totally indifferent to the man who was my husband a year ago. I don"t love him, he is nothing to me, but it"s all wrong, this way. If it was Peter Pomeroy or Joe Butler, of COURSE we"d put off our dance--Warren," she turned to him with sudden hope in her eyes, "do you suppose anybody"ll come?"
"My dear girl," he said, displeased, "why are you working yourself into a fever over this? It"s most unfortunate, but as far as you"re concerned, it"s unavoidable, and you"ll simply have to put a brave face on it, and get through it SOMEHOW! I am absolutely confident that when you"ve pulled yourself together you"ll come through with flying colors. Of course everyone"ll come; this is their chance to show you exactly how little they ever think of you as Breckenridge"s wife! And this is your chance, too, to act as if you"d never heard of him. Dash it! it does spoil our little party, but it can"t be helped!"
"Do you suppose Billy"s with him?" Rachael asked, her absent, glittering eyes fixed upon her own person as she sat before her mirror.
"Oh, no--she and Pickering sailed yesterday for England--that"s the dreadful thing for her. Clarence evidently spent the whole night at the club, sitting in the library, thinking. Berry Stokes went in for his mail after the theatre, and they had a little talk. He promised to dine there to-night. At about ten this morning Billings, the steward there, saw old Maynard going out-- Maynard"s one of the directors--and asked him if he wouldn"t please go and speak to Mr. Breckenridge. Mayn went over to him, and Clarence said, "Anything you say--""
Rachael gave a gasp that was like a shriek, and put her two elbows on the dressing-table, and her face in her hands. It was Clarence"s familiar phrase.
"Oh, don"t--don"t--don"t--Greg!"
"Well, that was all there was to it," her husband said, watching her anxiously. "He had the thing in his pocket. He stood up-- everybody heard it. Fellows came rushing in from everywhere. They got him to a hospital."
"Florence is with him, of course?"
"Florence is at Palm Beach."
"Then who IS with him, Greg?"
"My dear girl, how do I know? It"s none of my affair!"
Rachael sat still for perhaps two minutes, while her husband, ostentatiously cheerful, moved about the room selecting a change of clothes.
"To-morrow you can take it as hard as you like, sweet," said he.
"But to-night you"ll have to face the music! Now get into something warm--it"s a little cool out--and I"ll take you for a spin, and we"ll have dinner somewhere. Then we"ll get back here about eight o"clock, and take our time dressing."
"Yes, I"ll do that," Rachael agreed automatically. A moment later she said urgently: "Warren, isn"t there a chance that I"m right about this? Mightn"t it be better simply to telephone everyone that the dance is postponed? Make it next week, or Mi-Careme-- anything. If they talk--let them! I don"t care what they say.
They"ll talk anyway. But every fibre of my being, every delicate or decent instinct I ever had, rebels against this. Say I"m not well, and let them buzz! I know what you are going to say--I know that it would SEEM less sensitive, less fine, to mourn for one man while I"m another man"s wife, than to absolutely ignore what happens to him, but you know what"s the truth! I never loved him, and I love every hair of your head--you know that. Only--"
She stopped short, baffled by the difficulty of expressing herself accurately.
"If you really love me, do what I ask you to-night," Warren Gregory said firmly.
His wife sat as if turned to stone for only a few seconds. When she spoke it was naturally and cheerfully.
"I"ll be ready in no time, dear. Where are we to dine?" She glanced at her little crystal clock as she spoke, as if she were computing casually the length of the drive before dinner. But what she said in her heart was, "At this time to-morrow it will all have been over for many hours!"
A few days later the Gregorys sailed for Bermuda, Rachael with a sense of whipped and smarting shame that was all the more acute because she could not share it with this dearest comrade and confidant. Warren thought indeed that the miserable episode of the past week had been dismissed from her mind, and delighting like a boy in the little holiday, and proud of his beautiful wife, he found their hours at sea cloudless. With two men, whose acquaintance was made on the steamer, they played bridge, and Rachael"s game drew other players from all sides to watch her leads and grin over her bidding. They walked up and down the deck for hours together, they lay side by side in deck chairs lazily watching the blue water creep up and down the painted white ropes of the rail; but they never spoke of Clarence Breckenridge.
The Mardi-Gras dance had been like a hideous dream to Rachael. She had known that it would be hard from the first sick moment in which the significance of Clarence"s suicide had rushed upon her.
She had known that her arriving guests would be gay and conversational, that the dance and the supper would go with a dash and swing which no other circ.u.mstance could more certainly have a.s.sured for them; and she knew that in every heart would be the knowledge that Clarence Breckenridge was dying by his own hand, and his daughter on the ocean, and that this woman in the Indian dress, with painted lips and a tiger skin outlining her beautiful figure, had been his wife.
This she had expected, and this was as she had expected. But there were other circ.u.mstances that made her feel even more acutely the turn of the screw. Joe Butler, always Clarence"s closest friend, did not come to the dance, and at about twelve o"clock an innocent maid delivered to Warren a message that several persons besides Warren heard: "Mr. Butler to speak to you on the telephone, Doctor Gregory."
Everyone could surmise where Joe Butler was, but no one voiced the supposition. Warren, handsome in his skirted coat, knee breeches, and ruffles, disappeared from the room, and the dancing went on.
The scene was unbelievably brilliant, the hot, bright air sweet with flowers and perfume, and the more subtle odors of silk and fine linen and powder on delicate skin. Warren was presently among them again, and there was a supper, the hostess" lovely face showing no more strain or concern than was natural to a woman eager to make comfortable nearly a hundred guests.
After supper there was more dancing, and an augmented gayety.
There were no more telephone messages, nor was there any definite foundation for the rumor that was presently stealthily circulating. Women, powdering their noses as they waited for their wraps, murmured it in the dressing-rooms; a clown, smoking in the hall, confided it to a Mephistopheles; a pastry cook, after his effusive good-nights, confirmed it as he climbed into the motorcar that held the Pierrette who was his wife: "Dead, poor fellow!"
"Dead, poor Clarence!" said Mrs. Prince, magnificent as Queen Elizabeth, as she and Elinor Vanderwall went downstairs. She had once danced a fancy dance with him more than twenty years ago.
"Awful!" said Elinor, shuddering.
After the last guest was gone Warren telephoned to the hospital, Rachael, a little tired and pale in the Indian costume, watching and listening tensely. She was sick at heart. Even into the library, where they stood, the Mardi-Gras disorder had penetrated: a blue silk mask was lying across Warren"s blotter, a spatter of confetti lay on the polished floor, and on the reading table was a tray on which were two gla.s.ses through whose amber contents a lazy bubble still occasionally rose. The logs that had snapped in the fireplace were gone, only gray ashes remained, and to Rachael, at least, the room"s desolation and disorder seemed to typify her own state of mind.
She could tell from Warren"s look that he found the whole matter painful and distasteful to an almost unbearable degree; on his handsome serious face was an expression of grim endurance, of hurt yet dignified protest against events. He did not blame her, how could he blame her? But he was suffering in every fibre of his sensitive soul at this sordid notoriety, at this blatant voicing of a hundred ugly whispers in a matter so closely touching the woman he loved.
"Dead?" Rachael said quietly, when his brief conversation was over.
Warren Gregory, setting the telephone back upon the desk, nodded gravely.
Rachael made no comment. For a moment her eyes widened nervously, and a little shudder rippled through her. Then silently she gathered up the leather belt and chains of beads that she had been loosening as she listened, and slowly went toward the door.
They did not speak again of Clarence that night, although they chatted easily for the next hour on other topics, even laughing a little as the various episodes of the evening were pa.s.sed in review.