Part 41 (1/2)

Derry, however, howled on unconsoled, and Rachael, stopping, half- dressed, to take him in her arms, mused while she kissed him over the tiny sorrow that could so convulse him. Was she no more than a howling baby robbed of a toy? Nothing could be more real than Derry's sense of loss, no human being could weep more desolately or more unreasonably. Were her love and her life no more than a string of baubles, scattered and flung about by some irresponsible hand? Was nothing real except the great moving sea and the arch of stars above the spring nights? Life and death, and laughter and tears, how unimportant they were! Eight years ago she had felt herself to be unhappy; now she knew that in those days she had known neither sorrow nor joy. Since then, what an ecstasy of fulfilled desire had been hers! She had lived upon the heights, she had tasted the fullest and the sweetest of human emotions.

What other woman--Cleopatra, Helen, all the great queens of countries and of art--had known more exquisite delight than hers had been in those first days when she had waited for Warren to come to her with violets?

The morning went on like an ugly dream. At nine o'clock Rachael sent down an untouched breakfast tray. Mary took the boys out into the struggling suns.h.i.+ne. The house was still.

Rachael lay on her wide couch, staring wretchedly into s.p.a.ce. Her head ached. The moonfaced clock struck a slow ten, the hall clock downstairs following it with a brisk silver chime. Vendors in the square called their wares; the first carts of potted spring flowers were going their rounds.

Shortly after ten o'clock she heard Warren run upstairs and into his room. She could hear his voice at the telephone; he wanted the hospital--Doctor Gregory wished to speak to Miss Moore.

Miss Moore? Doctor Gregory would be there at eleven ... please have everything ready. Miss Moore, who was a veteran nurse and a privileged character, asked some question as to the Albany case; Warren wearily answered that the patient had not rallied; it was too bad--too bad.

Once it would have been Rachael's delight to soothe him, to give him the strong coffee he needed before eleven o'clock, to ask about the poor Albany man. Now she hardly heard him. Beginning to tremble, she sat up, her heart beating fast.

”Warren!” she called in a shaken voice.

He came to her door immediately, and they faced each other, his perfunctory greeting arrested by her look.

”Warren,” said Rachael with a desperate effort at control, ”I want you to tell me about--about you and Magsie Clay.”

Instantly his face darkened. He gazed back at her steadily, narrowing his eyes.

”What about it?” he asked sharply.

Rachael knew that she was growing angry against her pa.s.sionate resolution to keep the conversation in her own hands.

”Magsie came to see me yesterday,” she said, panting.

Had she touched him? She could not tell. There was no wavering in his impa.s.sive face.

”What about it?” he asked again after a silence.

His wife pushed the rich, tumbled hair from her face with a wild gesture, as if she fought for air.

”What about it?” she echoed, in a constrained tone, still with that quickened shallow breath. ”Do you think it is CUSTOMARY for a girl to come to a man's wife, and tell her that she cares for him?

Do you think it is CUSTOMARY for a man to have tea every day with a young actress who admits she is in love with him--”

”I don't know what you're talking about!” Warren said, his face a dull red.

”Do you mean to tell me that you don't know that Margaret Clay cares for you,” Rachael asked in rising anger, ”and that you have never told her you care for her--that you and she have never talked about it, have never wished that you were free to belong to each other!”

”You will make yourself ill!” Warren said quietly, watching her.

His tone brought Rachael abruptly to her senses. Fury and accusation were not her best defence. With Warren calm and dignified she would only hurt her claim by this course. In a second she was herself again, her breath grew normal, she straightened her hair, and with a brief shrug walked slowly from the room into her own sitting-room adjoining. Following her, Warren found her looking down at the square from the window.

”If you are implying anything against Magsie, you are merely making yourself ridiculous, Rachael,” he said nervously. ”Neither Magsie nor I have forgotten your claim for a single instant. If she came here and talked to you, she did so absolutely without my knowledge.”

”She said so,” Rachael admitted, heart and mind in a whirl.

”From a sense of protection--for her,” Warren went on, ”I did NOT tell you how much we have come to mean to each other. I am extremely--unwilling--to discuss it now. There is nothing to be said, as far as I am concerned. It is better not to discuss it; we shall not agree. That Magsie could come here and talk to you surprises me. I naturally don't know what she said, or what impression she gave you. I would only remind you that she is young--and unhappy.” He glanced at the morning paper he carried in his hand with an air of casual interest, and added in a moderate undertone, ”It's an unhappy business!”

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.