She never knew that the silent, gray-haired waiter recognized her, and recognized both the man and woman who sat only thirty feet away.  She had not ordered coffee, but he brought her a smoking pot.  It was not the first time he had encountered the situation.  Rachael drank the vivifying fluid, and her nerves responded at once.

She sat up, set her lips firmly, forced herself to dispose of gloves and napkin in the usual way.  Her breath was coming more evenly—­so much was gained.  As for this deadly cold and quivering sensation of nausea, that was no more than fatigue and the frightfully cold wind.

So it was Magsie.  Rachael had not been seven years a wife to misread Warren’s eyes as he looked at the girl.  No woman could misread their attitude together, an attitude of wonderful, sweet familiarity with each other’s likes and dislikes under all its thrilling newness.  Rachael had seen him turn that very glance, that smiling-eyed yet serious look—­

Oh, God! it could not be that he had come to care for Magsie!  Her hard-won calm was shattered in a second, she was panting and quivering again.  Her husband, her own big, tender, clever Warren—­ but he was hers, and the boys—­he was hers!  Her husband—­and this other woman was looking at him with all her soul in her eyes, this other woman cared—­all the world might see how she cared for him—­ and was loved in return!

What had she been hearing, lately, of Magsie?  Rachael began dizzily to recall what she could.  Magsie had been “on the road,” she had had a small part in an unsuccessful play early in the winter.  Rachael had been for some reason unable to see it, but she had sent Magsie flowers, and—­she remembered now—­Warren had represented himself as having looked in on the play with some friends, one evening, and as having found it pretty poor stuff.  So little had Magsie and Magsie’s affairs seemed to matter, then, that Rachael could not even remember the name of the play, nor of hearing it discussed.  The world in general had not seemed inclined to make much of the professional advent of Miss Margaret Clay, and presently the play closed, and Warren, in answer to a careless question from Rachael, had said that they would probably take it on the road until spring.

And then, some weeks ago, she had asked about Magsie again, and Warren had said:  “I believe she’s in town.  Somebody told me the other day that she was to have a part in one of Bowman’s things this winter.”

“It’s amazing to me that Magsie doesn’t get ahead faster,” Rachael had mused.  No more was said.

And how pretty she was, how young she was, Rachael thought now, with a stabbing pain at her heart.  How earnestly they were talking—­no ordinary conversation.  Presently tears were in the little actress’s eyes; she had no handkerchief, but Warren had.  He gave it to her, and she surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and smiled at him, like a pretty child, in her furs.