She found Warren singularly unenthusiastic about it, almost ungracious when he answered her questions or decided for her any detail.  But Rachael was firmly resolved to ignore his moods, and went blithely about her business, displaying an indifference—­or an assumed indifference—­that was evidently somewhat puzzling to Warren and to all her household.  She equipped the boys in dark-blue coats and squirrel-skin caps for the winter, marvelling a little sadly that their father did not seem to see the charms so evident to all the world.  A rosier, gayer, more sturdy pair of devoted little brothers never stamped through snowy parks, or came chattering in for chops and baked potatoes.  Every woman in the neighborhood, every policeman, knew Jim and Derry Gregory; their morning walks were so many separate little adventures in popularity.  But Warren, beyond paternal greetings at breakfast, and an occasional perfunctory query as to their health, made no attempt to enter into their lives.  They were still too small to interest their father except as good and satisfactory babies.

One bitter December day the thunderbolt fell.  Rachael felt that she had always known it, that she had been sitting in this hideous hotel dining-room for years watching Warren—­and Margaret Clay.

There was a bitter taste of salt water in her mouth, there was a hideous drumming at her heart.  She felt sick and cold from her bewildered brain down to her very feet.  When one felt like this—­ one fainted.

But Rachael did not faint, although it was by sheer power of will that she held her reeling senses.  No scene—­no, there mustn’t be a scene—­for Jimmy’s sake, for Derry’s sake, no scene.  She was here, in the Waldorf Grill, of course.  She had been—­what had she been doing?  She had been—­she came downtown after breakfast—­of course, shopping.  Shopping for the children’s Christmas.  They were to have coasters—­they were old enough for coasters—­she must go on this quiet way, thinking of the children—­five was old enough for coasters—­and Jim always looked out for Derry.

She couldn’t go out.  They hadn’t seen her; they wouldn’t see her, here in this corner.  But she dared not stand up and pass them again.  Warren—­and Magsie.  Warren—­and Magsie.  Oh, God—­God—­God—­ what should she do—­she was going to faint again.

Here was her shopping list, a little wet and crumpled because she had put her glove on the snowy handle of the motor-car door.  Mary had said that it would be a white Christmas—­how could Mary tell?- -this was only the eighteenth, only the eighteenth—­ridiculous to be panting this way, like a runner.  Nothing was going to hurt her--

“Anything—­anything!” she said to the waiter, with dry, bloodless lips, and a ghastly attempt at a smile.  “Yes, that will do.  Thank you, yes, I suppose so.  Yes, if you will.  Thank you.  That will do nicely.”

And now she must be quiet.  That was the main thing now.  They must not see her.  She had been shopping, and now she was having her lunch in the Grill.  If she could only breathe a little less violently—­but she seemed to have no control over her heaving breast, she could not even close her mouth.  Nobody suspected anything, and if she could but control herself, nobody would, she told herself desperately.