Before she was sixteen he began to take her about with him: to
dances, to the theatre, and for long trips in his car. He entered
eagerly into her young friendships, frantic to prove himself as
young at heart as she. He paid her the extravagant compliments of
a lover, and gave her her grandmother's beautiful jewelry, as well
as every trinket that caught her eye.

And Billy accepted his attentions with a finished coquetry that
was far from childlike, a flush on her satin cheek, a dimple
puckering the corner of her mouth, and silky lashes lowered over
her satisfied eyes. She was inevitably precocious in many ways,
but she was young enough still to fancy herself one of the
irresistible beauties and belles of the world, and to flaunt a
perfectly conscious arrogance in the eyes of all other women.

All this was bewildering and painful to Rachael. She had never
loved her husband--love entered into none of her relationships--
her marriage had been only a step in the steady progress of her
life toward the position she desired in the world. But she had
liked him. She had liked his child, and she had come into the new
arrangement kindly and gallantly determined to make the venture at
least as profitable to them both as it was to her.

To be ignored, to be deliberately set aside, to be insulted by a
selfishness so calculating and so deliberate as to make her own
attitude seem all warmth and generosity by comparison, genuinely
astonished her. At first, indeed, a sort of magnificent impatience
had prevented her from feeling any stronger emotion than
astonishment. It was too ridiculous, said the bride to herself