Long before they were ready for the world it began to make its demands.  Rachael loved her own home—­they had chosen a large duplex apartment on Riverside Drive—­loved the memorable little meals they had before the fire, the lazy, enchanting hours of reading or of music in the big studio that united the two large floors, the scent of her husband’s cigar, the rustle of her own gown, the snow slipping and lisping against the window, and it was with great reluctance that she surrendered even one evening.  But there was hospitable Vera Villalonga and her dreadful New Year’s dance, and there were the Bowditch dinner and the Hoyt dinner and the Parmalee’s dance for Katrina.  Unwillingly the beautiful Mrs. Gregory yielded to the swift current, and presently they were caught in the rush of the season, and could not have withdrawn themselves except for serious cause.

Rachael smiled a little wryly one morning over Mrs. George Valentine’s cordially worded invitation to an informal dinner, but she accepted it as a matter of course, and wore her most beautiful gown.  She deliberately set out to capture her hostess’ friendship, and simple, sweet Mrs. Valentine could not long resist her guest’s beauty and charm—­such a young, fresh creature as she was, not a bit one’s idea of an adventuress, so genuinely interested in the children, so obviously devoted to Warren.

Rachael, on her side, contemplated the Valentines with deep interest.  She found them a rather puzzling study, unlike any married couple that she had ever chanced to know.  Alice was one of those good, homely, unfashionable women who seem utterly devoid of the instinct for dressing properly.  Her masses of dull brown hair she wore strained from her high forehead and wound round her head in a fashion hopelessly obsolete.  Her evening gown, of handsome gray silk, was ruined by those little fussy touches of lace and ruffling that brand a garment instantly as “homemade.”

George was one of the plainest of men, shy, awkward, insignificant looking, with a long-featured, pleasant face, and red hair.  Warren had told his wife at various times that George was “a prince,” and physically, at least, Rachael found him disappointing, especially beside her own handsome husband.  She knew he was clever, with a large practice besides his work as head surgeon at one of the big hospitals, but Warren had added to this the information that George was a poor business man, and ill qualified to protect his own interests.

Yet, in his own home—­a handsome and yet shabby brownstone house in the West Fifties—­he appeared to better advantage.  There was a brightness in his plain face when he looked at his wife, and an adoring response in her glance that after twelve years of married life seemed admirable to Rachael.  “Alice” was a word continually on his lips; what Alice said and thought and did was evidently perfection.  Before the Gregorys had been ten minutes in the house on their first visit he had gone downstairs