“The question is, what is Magsie doing?” said Alice.

“In my opinion, Rachael’s simply blown up,” George submitted.

“Magsie told her they had talked of marriage!” Alice countered.  George gave an incredulous snort.

“Well, then, Magsie lied,” he said firmly.

“She really isn’t the lying type, George.  And there’s no question that Greg and she did see each other every day, and that he wrote her letters and gave her presents!” Alice finished rather timidly, for her husband’s face was a thunder-cloud.  The old car flew along at thirty-five miles an hour.

“Damn fool!” George presently muttered.  Alice glanced at him in sympathetic concern.

“George, why don’t you see him?”

George preserved a stern silence for perhaps two flying minutes, then he sighed.

“Oh, he’ll come to me fast enough when he needs me!  Lord, I’ve pulled old Greg out of trouble before.”  His whole face grew tender as he added:  “You know Greg is a genius, Alice; he’s not like other men!”

“I should hope he wasn’t!” said Alice with spirit.

“We—­ll!” She was sorry for her vehemence when George merely shook his head and ended the conversation on the monosyllable.  After a while she attempted to reopen the subject.

“If geniuses can act that way, I’d rather have our girls marry grocers!”

The girls’ father smiled absently.

“Oh, well, of course!” he conceded.

“Greg is no more a genius than you are, George,” argued Alice.

“Oh, Alice, Alice!” he protested, really distressed, “don’t ever let anyone hear you say that!  Why, that only shows that you don’t know what Greg is.  Lord, the man seems to have an absolute instinct for bones; he’ll take a chance when not one of the rest will!  No, you mark my words, Alice, Greg has let Magsie Clay make a fool of him; he’s been overtired and nervous—­we’ve all seen that—­but he’s as innocent of any actual harm in this thing as our Gogo!”

“Innocent!” sniffed Alice.  “He’ll break Rachael’s heart with his innocence, and then he’ll marry Magsie Clay—­you’ll see!”

“He’ll come to me to get him out of it within the month—­you’ll see!” George retorted.

“He’ll keep out of your way!” Alice predicted confidently.  “I know Greg.  He has to be perfect or nothing.”

But it was only ten days later that Warren Gregory walked up the steps of the Valentine house at about ten o’clock on a silent, hazy morning.  George had not yet left the house for the day.  The drawing-room furniture was swathed in linen covers, and a collection of golf irons, fishing rods, canoe paddles, and tennis rackets crowded the hallway.  The young Valentines were departing for the country to-morrow, and their excited voices echoed from above stairs.

Warren had supposed them already gone.  Rachael was alone, then, he reflected, alone in that desolate little country village!  He nodded to the maid, and asked in a guarded tone for Doctor Valentine.  A moment later George Valentine came into the drawing-room, and the two men exchanged a look strange to their twenty years of affectionate intercourse.  Warren attempted mere cold dignity; he was on the defensive, and he knew it.  George’s look verged on contempt, thinly veiled by a polite interest in his visitor’s errand.