Of some of these things the woman who sat idly before the library fire was thinking, as the quiet evening wore on, and the purring of the flames and the ticking of the little mantel clock accented rather than disturbed the stillness.  She was unhappy with a cold, dry wretchedness that was deeper than any pang of passion or of hate.  The people she met, the books she read, the gowns she planned so carefully, and the social events that were her life, all—­all—­were dust and ashes.  Clarence was less a disappointment and a shame to her than an annoyance; he neglected her, he humiliated her, true, but this meant infinitely less than that he bored her so mercilessly.  Billy, with her youthful complacencies and arts, bored her; the sympathy of a few close friends bored her as much as the admiration and envy of the many who were not close.  Cards, golf, dinners, and dances bored her.  Rachael thought tonight of a woman she had known closely, a beautiful woman, too, and a rich and gifted woman, who, not many months ago, had quietly ended it all, had been found by horrified maids in her gray-and-silver boudoir lovelier than ever, in fixed and peaceful beauty, with the soft folds of her lacy gown spreading like the petals of a great flower about her and the little gleam of an empty bottle in her still, ringed hand...

A voice broke the library stillness.  Rachael roused herself.

“What is it, Helda?” she asked.  “Doctor Gregory?  Ask him to come in.  And ask Alfred—­is Alfred still downstairs?—­ask him to go up and see if Mr. Breckenridge is awake.

“This is very decent of you, Greg,” she said, a moment later, as the doctor came into the room.  “It doesn’t seem right to interfere with your dinner for the same old stupid thing!”

“Great pleasure to do anything for you, Rachael,” the newcomer said promptly and smilingly with the almost perfunctory courtesy that was a part of Warren Gregory’s stock in trade.  “You don’t call on me often!  I wish you did!”

She said to herself, as they both sat down before the fire, that it was probably true.  Doctor Gregory was notoriously glad of an opportunity to serve his friends.  He had not at all regretted the necessity of leaving his dinner partner at the salad for a professional call.  He was quite ready to enjoy the Breckenridge sitting-room, the fire, the lamplight, the company of a beautiful woman.  Rachael and he knew each other well, almost intimately; they had been friends for many years.  She had often been his guest at the opera, had often chaperoned his dinner-parties at the club, for Warren Gregory’s only woman relative was his old mother, who was neither of an age nor a type to take any part in his social life.

He was forty, handsome, dignified, with touches of gray in his close-clipped hair, but no other sign of years in his face or his big, well-built figure.  He had clever, fine eyes behind black-rimmed glasses, a surgeon’s clever hands, a pleasant voice.  He lived with his mother in a fine old house on Washington Square, in New York City, and worked as tirelessly as if he were a penniless be ginner at his profession instead of a rich man, a rich woman’s heir, and already recognized as a genius in his own line.