“Let her alone, Fascination Fledgerby!” said Mrs. Breckenridge briskly.  “Why can’t we take you home with us, Elinor?  We go your way.”

“You may,” said Miss Vanderwall, rising.  “You’re dining at the Chases’, aren’t you, Billy?  So am I. But I was going to change here.  Where are you dining, Rachael?”

“Change at my house,” Mrs. Breckenridge suggested, or rather commanded.  “I’m dining in my room, I think.  I’m all in.”  But the clear and candid eyes deceived no one.  Clarence was misbehaving again, everybody decided, and poor Rachael could not bespeak five minutes of her own time until this particular period of intemperance was over.  Miss Vanderwall, settling herself in the beautiful Breckenridge car five minutes later, faced the situation boldly.

“Where’s Clarence, Rachael?”

“I haven’t the remotest idea, my dear woman,” said Mrs. Breckenridge frankly, yet with a warning glance at the back of her stepdaughter’s head.  Billy was at the wheel.  “He didn’t dine at home last night—­”

“But we knew where he was,” Billy said quickly, half turning.

“We knew where he was,” agreed the older woman.  “Watch where you’re going, Bill!  He told Alfred that he was dining in town, with a friend, talking business.”

“I thought it was the night of Berry Stokes’ dinner,” suggested Miss Vanderwall.

“He wasn’t there—­I asked him not to go,” said Billy.

“Oh—­” Miss Vanderwall began and then abruptly stopped.  “Oh!” said she mildly, in polite acquiescence.

They were sweeping through the April roadsides so swiftly that it was only a moment later when Rachael, reaching for the door, remarked cheerfully, “Here we are!”

The car had entered a white stone gateway, and was approaching a certain charming country mansion, one that was not conspicuous among a thousand others strewn over the neighboring hills and valleys, but a beautiful home nevertheless.  Vines climbed the brick chimneys, and budding hydrangeas, in pots, topped the white balustrades of the porch.  A hundred little details of perfect furnishing would have been taken for granted by the casual onlooker, yet without its lawns, its awnings, its window boxes and snowy curtaining, its glimpse of screened veranda and wicker chairs, its trim assembly of garage, stable, and servants’ cottages, its porte-cochere, sleeping porches, and tennis court, it would have seemed incomplete and uncomfortable to its owners.

Rachael Breckenridge neither liked it nor disliked it.  It had been her home for the seven years of her married life, except for the month or two she spent every winter in a New York hotel.  She had never had any great happiness in it, to be sure, but then her life had been singularly lacking in moments of real happiness, and she had valued other elements, and desired other elements more.  She had not expected to be happy in this house, she had expected to be rich and envied, and secure, and she was all of these things.  That they were not worth attaining, no one knew better than Rachael now.