“Could you—­buy her off?” George presently asked after thought.

“Magsie?  Never!  She’s not that type.  She’s one of ourselves as to that, George.  It was that that made me like Magsie—­she’s a lady, you know.  She thinks she’s in love; she wants to be married.  And if Rachael divorces me, what else can I do?”

“Rachael wants the divorce for the boys,” George said.  “She told Alice so.  She said that except for that, nothing on earth would have made her consider it.  But she doesn’t want you and Magsie Clay to have any hold over her sons—­and can you blame her?  She’s been dragged through all this once.  You might have thought of that!”

“Oh, my God!” Warren said, stopping by the mantel, and putting his face in his hands.

“Well, what did you think would happen?” George asked as Magsie had asked.

Then for perhaps two long minutes there was absolute silence, while Warren remained motionless, and George, in great distress, rubbed his upstanding hair.

“George, what shall I do?” Warren burst out at length.

“Why, now I’ll tell you,” the older man said in a tone that carried exquisite balm to his listener.  “Alice and I have talked this over, of course, and this seems to me to be the only way out:  we know you, old man—­that’s what hurts.  Alice and I know exactly what has got you into this thing.  You’re too easy, Warren.  You think because you mean honorably by Magsie Clay, and amuse yourself by being generous to her, that Magsie means honorably by you.  You’ve got a high standard of morals, Greg, but where they differ from the common standards you fail.  If the world is going to put a certain construction upon your attentions to an actress, it doesn’t matter what private construction you happen to put upon them!  Wake up, and realize what a fool you are to try to buck the conventions!  What you need is to study other people’s morals, not to be eternally justifying and analyzing your own.  I don’t know how you’ll come out of this thing.  Upon my word, it’s the worst mess we ever got into since you misquoted Professor Diggs and he sued you.  Remember that?”

“Oh, George—­my God—­how you stood by me then,” Warren said.  “Get me out of this, and I’ll believe that there never was a friend like you in the world!  I don’t know what I ever did to have you and Alice stand by me—­”

“Alice isn’t standing by you to any conspicuous extent,” George Valentine said smilingly, “although, last night, when she was putting the girls to bed, she put her arms about Martha, and said, ’George, she wouldn’t be here to-day if Greg hadn’t taken the chance and cut that thing out of her throat!’ At which, of course,” Doctor Valentine added with his boyish smile, “Martha’s dad had to wipe his eyes, and Martha’s mother began to cry!”

And again he frankly wiped his eyes.