“Wouldn’t Florence and Gardner buzz!” she thought with a smile.  “And if they buzzed at the divorce, what wouldn’t they say if I really did remarry?  But the worst of it is”—­and Rachael reaching for The Way of All Flesh sighed wearily—­“the worst of it is that one never does carry out plans, or I never do, any more.  I used to feel equal to any situation, now I don’t—­getting old, perhaps.  I wonder”—­she stared dreamily at the soft shadows in the big room—­“I wonder if things are as queer to most people as they are to me?  I don’t get much joy out of life, as it is, and yet I don’t dare cut loose and go away.  No maid, no club, living at some cheap hotel—­no, I couldn’t do that!  I wish there was someone who could advise me—­some disinterested person, someone who—­well, who loved me, and who knew that I’ve always tried to be decent, always tried to play the game.  All I want is to be reasonably well treated; to have a good time and be among pleasant people—­”

Her thoughts wandered about among the various friends whose judgment might serve at this crisis to clear her own thoughts and simplify the road before her.  Strangely enough, Warren Gregory’s own mother was the first of whom she thought; that pure and austere and uncompromising heart would certainly find the way.  Whether Rachael had the courage to follow it was another question.  She loved old Mrs. Gregory; they were good friends.  But Rachael dismissed her with a little shudder, as from the spatter of icy water against her bared breast.  The bishop?  Rachael and Clarence duly kept a pew in one of the city’s fashionable churches; it was the Breckenridge family pew, rented by the family for a hundred years.  But they never sat in it, although Rachael felt vaguely sometimes that for reasons undefined they should, and Clarence was apt in moments of sentiment to reproach his wife with the statement that his grandmother had been a faithful church woman, and his mother had always attended church on pleasant mornings in winter.

But the bishop called on Rachael once a year, and Rachael liked him, and mingled an air of pretty penitence for past negligences with a gracious promise of better conduct in future.  His Grace was a fine, breezy, broadminded man, polished in manner, sympathetic, and tolerant.  He had not risen to his present eminence by too harsh a rebuke of the sinner.

His handsome young assistant, Father Graves, as he liked to be called, was far more radical.  But a great deal was forgiven this attractive boyish celibate by the women of the Episcopal parish.  They enjoyed his scoldings, gave him their confidences, and asked his advice, though they never followed it.  His slender, black-clad figure, with the Roman collar, was admired by many bright eyes at receptions and church bazaars.

Still, Rachael could not somehow consider herself as seriously asking either of these two clergymen for advice.  She could see the bishop, fitting finely groomed fingers together, pursing his lips for a judicial reply.