The Heart of Rachael Part 6

He looked at her in surprise; the sh.e.l.l of Mrs. Breckenridge's cool reserve was not often pierced.

"My dear girl--" he stammered. "Why, Rachael--!"

For battling with a moment of emotion she had flung her beautiful head back against the brilliant cretonne of the chair, her eyes closed, her hands grasping the chair-arms. A tear slipped from under her lids.

"I didn't for one second mean--" he began again uncomfortably.

Suddenly she straightened herself in her chair, and opened her eyes widely. He saw her lovely breast, under its filmy black chiffon, rise stormily. Her voice was rich with protest.

"No, you didn't mean anything, Greg, n.o.body means anything! n.o.body is anything but sorry for me: you, Billy, Elinor, the woman who expected us at dinner to-night, the servants at the club!" she said hotly. "n.o.body blames me, and yet every one wonders how it happens! n.o.body thinks it anything but a little amusing, a little shocking. I am to write the notes, and make the excuses, and be shamed--and shamed--shamed--"

Her voice broke. She rose to her feet, and rested an elbow on the mantel, and stared moodily at the fire. There was a silence.

"Rachael, I'm sorry!" Gregory said presently, impulsively.

Instantly her April smile rewarded him.

"I know you are, Greg!" she answered gratefully. "And I know," she added, in a low tone, "that you are one of the persons who will understand--when I end it all!"

"End it all!" he echoed sharply.

"Not suicide," she rea.s.sured him smilingly. She flung herself back in her chair again, holding her white hand, with its ring, between her face and the fire. "No," she said thoughtfully, "I mean divorce."

There eyes met; both were pale, serious.

"Divorce!" he echoed, after a pause. "I never thought of it--for you!"

"I haven't thought of it myself, much," Rachael admitted, with a troubled smile.

As a matter of fact she had thought of it, since the early days of her marriage, but never as an actual possibility. She had preferred bondage and social position to freedom and the uncomfortable status of the divorced woman. She realized now that she might think of it in a slightly different way. She had been a penniless n.o.body seven years ago; she was a personage now. The mere fact that he was a Breckenridge would win some sympathy for Clarence, but she would have her faction, too.

More than that, she would never be younger, never handsomer, never better able to take the plunge, and face the consequences.

"I'm twenty-eight, Greg," she said reasonably, "I'm not stupid, I'm not plain--don't interrupt me! Is this to be my fate? I'm capable of loving--of living--I don't want to be bored--bored-- bored for the rest of my life!"

Warren Gregory, stunned and surprised, eyed her sympathetically.

"Belvedere Bay bore you?" he asked, smiling a little uneasily.

"No--it's not that. I don't want more dinners and dances and jewels and gowns!" Rachael answered musingly. She stared sombrely at the fire, and there was a moment's silence.

Suddenly her mood changed. She smiled, and locking her hands together, as she leaned far forward in her chair, she looked straight into his eyes.

"Greg," she said, "do you know what I'd like to be? I'd like to be far away from cities and people, a fisherman's wife on an ocean sh.o.r.e, with a baby coming every year, and just the delicious sea to watch! I could be a good wife, Greg, if anybody really--loved me!"

Laughing as she looked at him, she did not disguise the fact that tears misted her lashes. Warren Gregory felt himself stirred as he had not been before in his life.

"Well," he said, with an unsteady laugh, "you could be anything!

With you for his wife, what couldn't a man do!"

Hardly conscious of what he did or said, he got to his feet, and she stood, too, smiling up at him. Both were breathing hard.

"To think," he said, with a sort of repressed violence, "that you, of all women, should be Clarence Breckenridge's wife!"

"Not long!" she answered, in a whisper.

"You mean that you are really going to leave him, Rachael?"

"I mean that I must, Greg, if I am not to go mad!"

"And where will you go?" she asked.

"Oh--to Vera, to Elinor." She paused, frowning. "Or away by myself," she decided suddenly. "Away from them all!"

"Rachael," he said quickly, "will you come to my mother?"

Rachael smiled. "To your mother!"

He read her incredulity in her voice.

"But she loves you," he said eagerly. "And she'd be--we'd both be so proud to show people--to prove--that we knew where the right lay!"

"My dear Don Quixote," she answered affectionately, "I love you for asking me! But I will be better alone. I must think, and plan.

I've made a mess of my life so far, Greg; I must take the next step carefully!"

He was clinging to her hands as she stood, in all her grave beauty, before him.

"If I hadn't been such a bat, Rachael, all those eleven years ago!" he said, daringly, breathlessly.

"Have we known each other so long, Greg?"

"Ever since that first visit of yours with little Persis Pomeroy!

And I remember you so well, Rachael. I remember that Bobby Governeur was enslaved!"

"Dear old Bobby! But I don't remember you, Greg!"

"Because I was thirty then, my dear, and you were seventeen! I was just home from four years' work in Germany; I was afraid of girls your age!"

"Afraid--of ME?" The three words were like a caress, like holding her in his arms.

"I'm afraid so!" he said, not quite steadily. "I'm afraid I've always liked you too well. I--I CARE--that you're unhappy, that you're unkindly treated. I--I--wish I could do something, Rachael."

"You DO do something," she said, deeply stirred in her turn. "I'm- -you don't know how fond I am of you, Greg!"

For answer she felt his arms about her, and for a throbbing minute they stood so; Rachael braced lightly, her beautiful breast rising and falling, her breath coming quickly. Her magnificent eyes, wide-open, like a frightened child's, were fixed steadily upon him. He caught the fragrance of her hair, of her fresh skin; he felt the softness and firmness of her slender arms.

"Rachael!" he said, in a sharp whisper. "Don't--don't say that--if you don't--mean it!"

"Greg!" she answered, in the same tone. "Don't--frighten me!"