Warren had at first found this touching; it had humbled him.  Later, in the first months of their marriage, he had shared it, and their mutual passion had seemed to them both a source of inexhaustible delight.  But now, even while he smiled at her, his keen sensitiveness where her dignity was concerned had shown him that there was in her attitude something a little pitiful, something even a little absurd.

Judy and Gertrude and little Mrs. Sartoris listened interestedly when Rachael talked of Greg, of his likes, his dislikes, his favorite words, his old-maidish way of arranging his ties, his marvellous latest operation.  But Warren, watching his wife’s flushed, lovely face, wondered if they were laughing at her.  He smiled uncomfortably when she interrupted her bridge game to come across the club porch to him, to ask him if the tennis had been good, to warn him that he would catch cold if he did not instantly get out of those wet flannels, to ask Frank Whittaker what he meant by beating her big boy three sets in succession?

“Rachael, I’m dealing for you—­come back here!” Gertrude might call.

“Deal away!” Rachael, one hand on Warren’s arm, would look saucily at the others over his shoulder.  “I like my beau,” she would assert brazenly, “and if you say a word more, I’ll kiss him here and now!”

They all shrieked derisively when the kiss was duly delivered and Gregory Warren with a self-conscious laugh had escaped to his shower.  But Rachael saw nothing absurd; she told Warren that she loved him, and let them laugh if they liked!

“Listen, dearest!” he said on the last night of their stay.  “Will you be a darling, and not trail round the links if we play to-morrow?”

“Why not?” asked Rachael absently, fluffing his hair from her point of vantage on the arm of his chair.

“Well, wouldn’t you rather stay up on the porch with the girls?”

“If you men want to swear at your strokes, I decline to be a party to it!” Rachael said maternally.

“I know.  But, darling, it does rather affect our game,” Warren said uncertainly; “that is, you don’t play, you see!  And it only gets you hot and mussy, and I love my wife to be waiting when we come up.  It isn’t that I don’t think you’re a darling to want to do it,” he added in hasty concern.

No use.  She was deeply hurt.  She went to her dressing-table and began her preparations for the night with a downcast face.  Certainly she wouldn’t bother Warren.  She only did it because she loved him so.  A tear splashed down on her white hand.

Next day she triumphantly accompanied the golfers.  Warren had petted and coaxed her out of her sulks, and she was radiant again.  When they had said their good-byes to Judy, and were spinning into town in the car that afternoon, she made him confess that she had not spoiled the game at all; he couldn’t make her believe that Frank and Tom and Peter had been pretending their pleasure at having her go along!