at her own and at other people's dinner-tables. But she hated
coarseness in any form, she hated contact with the sodden, self-
pitying, ugly animal that Clarence Breckenridge became under the
influence of drink.

To-night, when he presently fell asleep, somewhat more comfortable
in body, and soothed in spirit by the promise of a visit from the
doctor, Rachael went into her own room and sinking into a deep
chair sat staring stupidly at the floor. She did not think of the
husband she had just left, nor of the formal dinner party being
given, only half a mile away, to a great English novelist--a
dinner to which the Breckenridges had of course been asked and
upon which Rachael had weeks ago set her heart. She was tired, and
her thoughts floated lazily about nothing at all, or into some
opaque region of their own knowing, where the ills of the body
might not follow.

Presently Miss Vanderwall, clothed in a trailing robe of soft
Arabian cotton, came briskly out of the bathroom, her short dark
hair hanging in a mane about her rosy face.

"Why so pensive, Rachael?" she asked cheerfully, pressing a button
that lighted the circle of globes about the dressing-table mirror,
and seating herself before it. But under her loose locks she sent
a keen and concerned look at her hostess' thoughtful face.

"Tired," Rachael answered briefly, not changing her attitude, but
with a fleeting shadow of a smile.

"How's Clancy?"