“Think a minute, dearest.  Why shouldn’t we?”

“But”—­her color, better since his entrance, was waning again—­ “with Clarence Breckenridge dying while we dance!” she shuddered.

“Could anything be more preposterous than your letting anything that concerns Clarence Breckenridge affect what you do now?” he asked with kindly patience.

“No, it’s not that!” she answered feverishly.  “But—­but for any old friend one would—­would make a difference, and surely—­surely he was more than that!”

“He was more than that, of course, but he has been less than nothing to you for a long time!”

“Yes, legally—­technically, of course,” Rachael agreed nervously.  She sat silent for a moment, frowning over some sombre thought.  “But, Warren, they’ll all know of it, they’ll all be thinking of it,” she said presently.  “I—­really I don’t think I can go through it!”

“It’s too bad, of course,” Warren Gregory said with his arm still about her.  “I’d give ten thousand dollars to have had the poor fellow select some other time.  But you’ve had nothing to do with it, and you simply must put it out of your mind!”

“It was Billy’s marriage, of course!”

“Of course.  She was married yesterday, you see, the day she came of age.  Poor kid—­it’s rather a sad start for her, especially with no one but Joe Pickering to console her!”

“She was mad about her father,” Rachael said in a preoccupied whisper.  “Poor Billy—­poor Billy!  She never crossed him in anything but this.  What did you see it in?”

“The World.  How did you hear it?”

“Etta brought up the paper.”  She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.  “It seemed to jump at me—­his picture and the name.  Is he living—­where is he?”

“At St. Mark’s.  He won’t live.  Poor fellow!” Warren Gregory scowled thoughtfully as he gave a moment’s thought to the other man’s situation, and then smiled sunnily at his wife with a brisk change of topic.  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “is anyone in this place glad to see me, or not, or what?”

“It just seems to me that I cannot face all those people to-night!” Rachael said, giving him a quick, unthinking kiss before she gently put him away from her, and got to her feet.  “It seems so wrong—­so coarse—­to be utterly and totally indifferent to the man who was my husband a year ago.  I don’t love him, he is nothing to me, but it’s all wrong, this way.  If it was Peter Pomeroy or Joe Butler, of course we’d put off our dance—­Warren,” she turned to him with sudden hope in her eyes, “do you suppose anybody’ll come?”

“My dear girl,” he said, displeased, “why are you working yourself into a fever over this?  It’s most unfortunate, but as far as you’re concerned, it’s unavoidable, and you’ll simply have to put a brave face on it, and get through it somehow!  I am absolutely confident that when you’ve pulled yourself together you’ll come through with flying colors.  Of course everyone’ll come; this is their chance to show you exactly how little they ever think of you as Breckenridge’s wife!  And this is your chance, too, to act as if you’d never heard of him.  Dash it! it does spoil our little party, but it can’t be helped!”