But she said to herself that she knew now the worst evil of divorce.  She knew that it coarsened whomever it touched, that it irresistibly degraded, that it lowered all the human standard of goodness and endurance, and self-sacrifice.  However justified, it was an evil; however properly consummated, it soiled the little group it affected.  The disinclination of a good woman like Alice Valentine to enter into a close friendship with a younger and richer and more beautiful woman whose history was the history of Rachael Gregory was no mere prejudice.  It was the feeling of a restrained and disciplined nature for an unchecked and ill-regulated one; it was the feeling of a woman who, at any cost, had kept her solemn marriage vow toward a woman who had broken her word.

Rachael was beginning to find it more comprehensible, even more acceptable, than the attitude of her own old world.  Fresh from the Eden that was her life with Warren, she had turned back to the friends whose viewpoint had been hers a few months ago.

Were they changed, or was she?  Both were changed, she decided.  She had been a cold queen among them once, flattered by their praise and laughter, reckless in speech, and almost as reckless in action.  But now her only kingdom was in Warren Gregory’s heart.  She had no largesse for these outsiders; she could not answer them with her old quick wit now; indeed she hardly heard them.  And on their side, where once there had been that certain deference due to the woman who, however wretched and neglected, was still Clarence Breckenridge’s wife, now she noticed, with quick shame, a familiarity, a carelessness, that indicated plainly exactly the fine claim to delicacy that she had forfeited.  Her position in every way was better now than it had been then.  But in some subtle personal sense she had lost caste.  A story was ventured when she chanced to be alone with Frank Whittaker and George Pomeroy that her presence would have forbidden in the old days, and Allen Parmalee gave her a sensation of absolute sickness by merrily introducing her to his sister from Kentucky with the words:  “Don’t stare at her so hard, Bess!  Of course you remember her:  she was Mrs. Breckenridge last year, but now she’s making a much better record as Mrs. Gregory!”

The women were even more frank; Clarence’s name was often mentioned in her presence; she was quite simply congratulated and envied.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Cowles, at a women’s luncheon, “you were extraordinarily clever, of course, but don’t forget that you were extremely lucky, too.  Clarence making no fuss, taking all the trouble to provide the evidence, and Greg being only too anxious to step into his shoes, made it easy for you!”

“I’m no prude,” Rachael smiled, over a raging heart.  “But I couldn’t see this coming, nobody did.  All I could do was to break free before my self-respect was absolutely gone!”

“Go tell that to the White Wings, darling,” laughed Mrs. Villalonga, lazily blowing smoke into rings and spirals.