Rachael laughed out joyously.  The next instant she had flung up a window and leaned out in the spring darkness.  Trees on the drive were rustling over pools of light, a lighted steamboat went slowly up the river, the brilliant eyes of motor cars curved swiftly through the blackness.  A hurdy-gurdy, guarded by two shadowy forms, was pouring out a wild jangle of sound from the curb.  When the window was shut, a moment later, the old Italian man and woman who owned the musical instrument decided that they must mark this apartment house for many a future visit, and, chattering hopefully, went upon their way.  The belladonna in the spangled gown, who had looked down upon them for a brief interval, meanwhile ran down to her guests.

She was in wild spirits, inspired with her most enchanting mood; for an hour or two there was no resisting her.  Mrs. Whittaker and Mrs. Bowditch fell as certainly under her spell as did the three men.  “She really has changed since she married Greg,” said Louise Bowditch to Mrs. Whittaker; “but it’s all nonsense—­this talk about her being no more fun!  She’s more fun than ever!”

“She’s prettier than ever,” Gertrude Whittaker said with a sigh.

The next afternoon, a dreary, wet afternoon, at about four o’clock, Warren Gregory stepped out of the elevator, and quietly admitted himself to his own hallway with a latchkey.  It was an unusual hour for the doctor to come home, and in the butler’s carefully commonplace tone as he answered a few questions Warren knew that he knew.

The awning had been stretched across the sidewalk, caterers’ men were in possession, the lovely spacious rooms were full of flowers; the big studio had been emptied of furniture, there were great palms massed in the musicians’ corner; maids were quietly busy everywhere; no eye met the glance of the man of the house as he went upstairs.

He found Mrs. Gregory alone in her own luxurious room.  No one who had seen her in the excited beauty of the night before would have been likely to recognize her now.  She was pale, tense, and visibly nervous, wrapped in a great woolly robe, as if she were cold, and with her hair bound carelessly and tightly back as a woman binds it for bathing.

“You’ve seen it?” she said instantly, as her husband came in.

“George called my attention to it; I came straight home.  I knew”—­ he was kneeling beside her, one arm about her, all his tenderness and devotion in his face—­“I knew you’d need me.”

She laid an arm about his neck, sighed deeply, but continued to stare distractedly beyond him.

“Warren, what shall we do?” she said with a certain vagueness and brokenness in her manner that he found very disquieting.

“Do, sweetheart?” he echoed at a loss.

“With all those people coming to-night,” she added, mildly impatient.

“Why, what can we do, dear?”

“You don’t mean,” Rachael said incredulously, “that we shall have to go on with it?”