tolerantly; it could not go on, of course, this preposterous
consideration of a child of ten, this belittling consideration of
her own place in the scheme as less Clarence's wife than Billy's
mother. It must adjust itself with every week that they three
lived together, the child slipping back to her own life, the
husband and wife sharing theirs. When Clarence's first fears for
his daughter's comfort under the new rule were set at rest, when
his confidence in the wisdom and efficiency of his wife was fully
established, then a normal relationship must ensue. "Surely
Clarence wouldn't ask a woman to marry him just to give Billy a
home and social backing?" Rachael asked herself, in those first
puzzled days in Paris.

That was seven years ago. She knew exactly that for truth now.
Long ago she had learned that whatever impulse had moved Clarence
Breckenridge to ask her to marry him was quickly displaced by his
vision of Billy's need as being greater than his own.

It had been an unpalatable revelation, for Rachael was a woman
proud as well as beautiful. But presently she had accepted the
situation as it stood, somehow fighting her way, as the years went
by, to fresh acceptances: the acceptance of Billy's ripening
charms, the acceptance of Clarence's more and more frequent times
of inebriated irresponsibility. Silently she made her mental
adjustments, moving through her gay and empty life in an
unsuspected bitterness of solitude, won to protest and rebellion
only when the cold surface she presented to the world was
threatened from within or without.

It was distinctly threatened now, she realized with a little sick