Part 40 (1/2)

”You've been seeing each other?” Rachael asked stupidly.

”Oh, every day! At tea, you know, or sometimes especially before you came back, at dinner. And, Rachael, n.o.body will ever know what it's done for me! Greg's managed all my business, and whenever I was utterly discouraged and tired he had the kindest way of saying: 'Never mind, Magsie, I'm tired and discouraged, too!'”

Magsie's face glowed happily at the memory of it. ”I know I'm not worthy of Greg's friends.h.i.+p,” she said eagerly. ”And all the time I've thought of you, Rachael, as having the first right, as being far, far above me in everything! But--I'm telling you everything, you see--” Magsie interrupted herself to explain.

”Go on!” Rachael urged, clearing her throat.

”Well, it's not much. But a week or two ago Greg was talking to me about your being eager to get the boys into the country early this year. He looked awfully tired that afternoon, and he said that he thought he would close this house, and live at the club this summer, and he said 'That means you have a dinner date every night, Magsie!' And suddenly, Rachael--I don't know what came over me, but I burst out crying”--Magsie's eyes filled now as she thought of it--”and I said, 'Oh, Greg, we need each other! Why can't we belong to each other! You love me and I love you; why can't we give up our work and the city and everything else, and just be happy!'”

”And what did--Warren say?” Rachael asked in a whisper.

”Oh, Rachael! That's what I've been remembering ever since!”

Magsie said. ”That's what made me want to come to you; I KNEW you would understand! You're so good; you want people to be happy,”

said Magsie, fighting tears again and trying to smile. ”You have everything: your sons, your position, your beauty--everything!

I'm--I'm different from some women, Rachael. I can't just run away with him. There is an honorable and a right way to do it, and I want to ask you if you'll let us take that way!”

”An honorable way?” Rachael echoed in an unnatural voice.

”Well--” Magsie widened innocent eyes. ”n.o.body has ever blamed YOU for taking it, Rachael!” she said simply. ”And n.o.body ever blamed Clarence, with Paula!”

Rachael, looking fixedly at her, sat as if turned to stone.

”You are brave, Magsie, to come and tell me this,” she said at last quietly.

”You are kind to listen to me,” Magsie answered with disarming sincerity. ”I know it is a strange thing to do.” She laughed nervously. ”Of course, I know THAT!” she added. ”But it came to me that I would the other day. Greg and I were talking about dreams, you know--things we wanted to do. And we talked about going away to some beach, and swimming, and moonlight, and just rest--and quiet--”

”I see,” Rachael said.

”Greg said, 'This is only a dream, Magsie, and we mustn't let ourselves dream!'” Magsie went on. ”But--but sometimes dreams come true, don't they?”

She stopped. There was an unearthly silence in the room.

”I've tried to fight it, and I cannot,” Magsie presently said in a small, tired voice; ”it comes between me and everything I do. I'm not a great actress--I know that. I don't even want to be any more. I want to go away where no one will ever see me or hear of me again. I've heard of this--feeling”--she sent Rachael a brave if rather uncertain smile--”but I never believed in it before! I never believed that when--when you care”--Rachael was grateful to be spared the great word--”you can't live or breathe or think anything”--again there was an evasion--”but the one thing!”

And with a long, tired sigh, again she relapsed into silence.

Rachael could find nothing to say.

”Honestly, HONESTLY,” the younger woman presently added, ”you mustn't think that either one of us saw this coming! We were simply carried away. It was only this year, only a few months ago, that I began to think that perhaps--perhaps if you understood, you would set--Greg free. You want to live just for the boys, you love the country, and books, and a few friends. Your life would go on, Rachael, just as it has, only he would be happy, and I would be happy. Oh, my G.o.d,” said Magsie, with quivering lips and br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, ”how happy I would be!”

Rachael looked at her in impa.s.sive silence.

”At all events,” the visitor said more composedly, ”I have been planning for a week to come to you, Rachael, and have this talk. I may have done more harm than good--I don't know; but from the instant I thought of it I have simply been drawn, as if I were under a spell. I haven't said what I meant to, I know that. I haven't said”--her smile was wistful and young and sweet, as, rising from her chair, she stood looking down at Rachael--”how badly I feel that it--it happens so,” said Magsie. ”But you know how deeply I've always admired you! It must seem strange to you that I would come to you about it. But Ruskin, wasn't it, and Wagner--didn't they do something like this? I knew, even if things were changed between you and Greg, that you would be big enough and good enough to help us all to find the--the solution, if there is one!”

Rachael stood up, too, so near her guest that she could put one hand on Magsie's shoulder. The girl looked up at her with the faith of a distressed child.

”I'm glad you did come, Magsie,” said Rachael painfully, ”although I never dreamed, until this afternoon, that--this--could possibly have been in Warren's thoughts. You speak of--divorce, quite naturally, as of course anyone may, to me. But I never had thought of it. It's a sad tangle, whatever comes of it, and perhaps you're right in feeling that we had better face it, and try to find the solution, if, as you say, there is one.”

And Rachael, breathing a little hard, stood looking down at Magsie with something so benign, so tragic, and so heroic in her beautiful face that the younger woman was a little awed, even a little puzzled, where she had been so sure. She would have liked to put her arms about her hostess's neck, and to seal their extraordinary treaty with a kiss, but she knew better. As well attempt to kiss the vision of a ministering angel. Rachael, one arm on Magsie's shoulder, her whole figure and her face expressing painful indecision, had never seemed so remote, so G.o.ddesslike.

”And--and you won't tell him of this?” faltered Magsie.