“It’s done all the time,” was the doctor’s simple defence.  “And oh, my dear,” he added, “you will know—­and I will know—­we can’t keep knowing—­”

She stopped short, her lovely face serious in the shade of her parasol, her dark-blue eyes burning with a sort of noble shame.

“Greg!” she said quickly and breathlessly.  “Please—–­Let’s not—­ let’s not say it.  Let me feel, all this summer, that it wasn’t said.  Let me feel that while I was living under one man’s roof, and spending his money, that I didn’t even think of another man.  It’s done all the time, you say, that’s true.  But I hate it.  Whether I leave Clarence, and make my own life under new conditions, and never remarry, or whether, in a year or two—­but I won’t think of that!” And to his surprise and concern, as she stopped short on the grassy path, the eyes that Rachael turned toward him were brimming with tears.  “You s-see what a baby I am becoming, Greg,” she said unsteadily.  “It’s all your doing, I’m afraid!  I haven’t cried for years—­loneliness and injustice and unhappiness don’t make me cry!  But just lately I’ve known what it was to dream of—­of joy, Greg.  And if that joy is ever really coming to us, I want to be worthy of it.  I want to start right this time.  I want to spend the summer quietly somewhere, thinking and reading.  I’m going to give up cards and even cocktails.  You smile, Greg, but I truly am!  Just for this time, I mean.  And it’s come to me, just lately, that I wouldn’t leave Clarence if he really needed me, or if it would make him unhappy.  I’m going to be different—­everything seems different already—­”

“Don’t you know why?” he said with his grave smile, as she paused.  It was enchanting to him to see the color flood her face, to see her shy eyes suddenly averted.  She did not answer, and they walked slowly toward the clubhouse steps.

“There’s only one thing more to say,” Warren Gregory said, arresting her for one more moment.  “It’s this:  as soon as you’re free, I’m coming for you.  You may not have made up your mind by that time, Rachael.  My mind will never change.”

Shaken beyond all control by his tone, Rachael did not even raise her eyes.  Her flush died away, leaving her face pale.  He saw her breast rise on a quick breath.

“Will you write me?” he asked, after a moment.

“Oh, yes, Greg!” she answered quickly, in a voice hardly above a whisper.  “When do you go?”

“On Wednesday—­a week from to-day, in fact.  And that reminds me, Billy says you are coming into town early next week?”

“Monday, probably.”  Rachael was coming back to the normal.  “She needs things for camp, and I’ve got a little shopping to do.”

“Then could you lunch with Mother?  Little Charley’ll be there:  no one else.  Bring Billy.  Mother’d love it.  You’re a great favorite there, you know.”

“I may not always be a favorite there,” Rachael said with a rueful smile.