The Seattle Star Newspaper, December 27, 1919, Page 9

Rac thieen Norris;, BY KATHLEEN NORRIS eartol By Ka copY¥Rronr Mare home Rachael mts @nridee, sick with overdr story of her mother's had taken Ber to Hngiand when he wae 14 yeu had lived tna girl's paradise ere she developed into @ beautiful young woman, and was brought ter in New York by Mra. Gouvernener Pomeroy Her love affair with a splendid young Bngitahim Paris she met Rreckenrtdge, whows firet wife had died. She married Aitempted to mother @aughter. Then nad come the years of toa, with the ara n that Breckesride Mis daughter and drink, but not to in se ae templation the past was suddenly arrival of Dr. Warren (re the busy aly effictent Dachelor physician and friend of the Hreckenridaes, Rachaet that he is giad to make the prof call, but that her busbagd’s flness do Fea Gregory and Rachael are old, true fri She unburdens her heart to him—tel sho Intends to ai her husband. Warren Gregory ts ewept by & desire to have this wonderful wor left the home refiecting on this strange « Me reeatied how his mother, with w first claim on his devotion. And he ¢ loved the w Rachael was vistied by ber husband's his apeited Littte | was devoted nded with Me tel ridiy-wine | King out for | lity ef eom to apead the summer in by saying that Maoh: things besides and gives her « «mall | age of plain folk, to her there Me surprises he Gresery. “Note she really furfous?t’ Ra finally goes to her husband asd tell wum of money eaves him and goes to await the return 0 Oresery, who ba and they arrange be married the {Continued From Yesterday) es a Ss ee 8 upremely happy, and could have held her— | But, of course, she was reminding | chac! asked, paling. Yet. even then, as Rachael Greg | herself presently, Greg had never | “Now, my dearest heart,” Warren ory admitted to herself months later,| been to Quaker Bridge, he had 00/ Gregory said, with an alr of author there had been a cloud in Qe sky—/ reason to suppose her tn actual dan |ity that she found strangely thrill @ clond so tiny and so vague that for) ger; indeed, perhaps the danger had/ ing and sweet, “from this moment many days she had been able to ban-|always been more tmagined than! on make up your mind that what my ish it in the flooding sunshine all|real. If his hosts had been merely | good mother does and says is abso- About her whenever it crossed her| bored by the weather, merely ¢riven| jutely unimportant to you and me! Viston. | to cards, how should he be alarmed?) she has lived her life, she ts old, and But tt was there, and after a while) “Did the Valentines know what a/ «ick, and unreasonable, and whatever ¢ Other tiny clouds came to bear {t)tide we were having !n Quaker we did wouldn't please her, and what- ~ company, and to make a formidable | Bridge?’ she asked, after a while, ever any one does, doen't natinty shadow that all her philosophy could) «yever dreamed it; didn't know|her, anyway! In 40 yeare—in lees not drive away. Philosophy is not) wog been cut off until it was all|than that, as far as I'm concerned- the bride's natural right; the honey | overt ‘That was reassuring, at least, you and Ill be just as bad = My moon ig a time of unreason; & CrUM|sAng you see, I couldn't say much | mother acted like @ martyr on the pled rose leaf in those first uncer! wour our plana Alice Valentine's | steamer; she was about as gay with tain weeks may loom larger than all) ni wool, of course, but she's any-/her old friends in London an you or the far more serious storms of th®/ ining but a yard wide! She wouldn’t| I'd be at a funeral; she had an alr years to come. of lofty endurance and forbearance | have understood—not that it matt } Rachael, loving at last, was over | but it was easier not! She was tall the way, and, as I sald to Mar od whelmed, intoxicated, carried derond | to you at the wedding, and she'll ask | garet Clay in Paris, the only time I/ 4 all sanity by the passion that poe|us to dinner, and you two will got |really thought she was enjoying her ¢] sessed her. along splendidly. But she's not as—| self was when she had to be hustled | into a hospital, and for a day or two he doean't Hike the—| there wo really thought she was go- unforgettable morning after the | divorce part of It ing to have pneumonia! storm, a chance allusion to Mrv. Val| “Or words to that effect.” the doo Rachael's delightful laugh rang out entine, the charming unknown lady tor answered, “Of spontaneousty from utter relief of with the gray hair, had distracted course, she'd never have mid @ word heart. Rachael's thoughts from the point at But they are sort of «imple and old | Yh, Greg, you're delicious! Tell But later on, during the long |fashioned. George understands—|me about old Lady Frothingham—ts| she had remembered it again. | that’s all I care abont. Do you see?" | she difficult, too? And how's pretty Greg, dear, did you tell me| “I see," she answered, slowly. Magste Clay?” a and Dr. Valentine drove| But when he «poke again the eun-| “Now, if we'te married tomorrow,” | yesterday in all that frightful | shine came back to her heart; he had| the doctor went on, too much ab-| orm?” | planned this, he had planned that, he/ sorbed in his topic to be lightly dis | “No, no, of course not, my child;/had wired Elinor, the power boat tracted. “Hut do you hear me,/ we came down late the night before| was ready. She was a woman, after/ma‘am? How @oee it sound?” | why, yesterday we couldn't get as/all, and young, and the bright hours| t sounds delicious! Go on™ far as the gate! Mrs. Valentine's | of shopping, of being admired and en-| “If we're married tomorrow, I say brother was there, and we played 32/ vied, and, above all, of being #0/ tr could be today just an well, but) rubbers of bridge! Sweet situation,| newly loved and protected. were)1 suppose you girls bave to buy you two miles away, and me held up| opening before her. What woman in |elothes, and have your hands mant- after three months of waiting’ the world had more than she, what! cured, and ro on—" She sald to. herself, with a little) woman, indend, she asked herself. as) “You know we do, to say nothing | pain at her heart, that she didn’t un-| he turned toward her his keen, amik/o¢ jying awake all night talking / Gerstand ft. It was all right, of|ing look of solicitude and devotion, | gbout our beaux!” whatever Gree did was all| had onetenth as much? | Well™—he conceded ft somewhat Later on, in that same day, there) retuctantly—"then, tomorrow, some was another tiny shadow. Fachael,| time before I go with Valentine to/ When Warren came to) dig as George.” Gregory find her at Quaker Bridge on that “You mean, si war of wind and water raging over | however, had foreseen this moment. | cay for you, co down to see my _ the world, and not to come somehow | and met it bravely. |mother. She'll kiss me, and «igh, —to swim or row or ride to her, to) “How's your mother, Greg?’ sheland feel martyred. In a month or} bring her delicious companionsh!p | asked, suddenty. two she'll call on me at the office. and reassurances out of the storm!| “Fine! he answered, and with ®/ ‘Why don’t you and your wife come had she known that Greg was! ewift smile for her he added, “and to gee me, James? “Would you like no elements that ever raged furious!” | us to, Mother? We fancied you were "DESMOND jof course, but I have never been lanery. Wl you come tamorrow| | night?’ And “when we go. my dear, | you'a never dream that there was ectog amine, I anwure you! | “Pll make ber love me!” said Ra- chael, emiling tenderly. “Perhaps some day you'll have a | very powerful argument,” he ead | | with a significant glance that brought | the quick blood to her face, “Mother | couldn't resist thatr | She did not answer, It was a part | of this new freshness and purity of | ampect that she could net answer. | ‘You anked about Margaret Clay, the doctor remembered, presently. | “She was the same old strpence, only growing up now; she owns to 19—~ ien't she more than that? She al) pane did romance andeyarn so much | about herself that you can't believe NS mah Paden Be RO A thought. “Did they say anything about Parker and Leila’ “No, but the old lady can’t do much harm there. She'll not last an THE SEATTLE STAR—SATURDAY, DEC. 27, 1919 SECOND AVENUE AND UNIVERSITY STREET Announcing for Monday, Dec. 2 weetcuss: se a aetses . a ee ee os The Most Important Movey Day Sale Of the Year Our Annuall Year-End Clearance With Radical Reductions On All Broken Lines, Incomplete Assortments and Short Lengths _ Offering Extraordimary Values a a gs Throughout the Store — First Run} other six months, She may leave| | Margaret a alice, but it won't be| much of a slice, for Parker could) | fight if it was. Lalia’s pretty safe.| | We'll have to go to that wedding, by | the way!” “Oh, Greg, the fan of going places! together!” She waa her happiest self| again. His mother and Alice Valen-| | tine and everything else but their| great joy was forgotten as they ltn-| gered over their luncheon 4 | planned for their wedding ¢: . 2.8 2 ee: ee} If they could only have been alone together, always, thought the new | made wife, when two perfect weeks jon the powerful motor boat were busily announcing that Dr. and Mra. | Warren Gregory were fur-| |nishing thelr luxurious ap rtment| lin the Rotterdam, where they would |apend the winter. They “0 together; there was ne enough time to talk and to be silent, never enough of their little lunch eons all by themselves, their theatre | their afternoon drives thru the , clear early winter sunshine of | thepark Always in the later years Ra | could tpel thé Joy of these days again |when she caught the scent of fresh | violets. Never a day passed that! Warren did not send her or bring her| i fragrant boxful. They the breast of her gown were er} quivered or and on her dressing table they mado her be room sweet ow and then when ind Warren were to be alone she braided her dark hair and wound it bout her head, tucking a few violets ugainat the rich plaits, conselo the classic simplicity of the arr: | | ment enhanced her beauty, and | pleased in his pleasure It suited her whim to carry out the little affectation in her soaps and| tollet waters; he could not pick up her handkerchief or hold her wrap| for her without freeing the delicate | faint odor of her favorite flower. | When they met down town for din ner there was always the little cere mony of finding the florist, and all the operas this winter were mingled for Rachael with the moat exquisite | rance in the world Be 4 were perfect. It was only when the outside world entered over, and all the society editors were| if HE ee ee . “But I believe that, my darlin: She smiled at his wide, innocent look, @ mother’s amused yet ho leas smile, and as they rose from thelr late luncheon he put his arm about her and tipped her beautiful face up toward his own. “Don't you realize, my darling, that just as you are, you are perfect to me—not nearly perfect, or 99 per cent perfect, but pressed down and running over, 1,000 per cent, 1,000,- 000 per cent?” he asked. Her dark beauty glowed; she was more lovely than ever in her ex- quisite content, “Oh, Warren, if you'd only say that to me over and over! she berred. occasions, he hated to enter hotels by the wrong doors, to hear her dis praise an opera generally approved, | from hin old prejudice, found nothing or find good in a book branded by the | troublesome now in the thought that critics as worthless, With all his| she had been another man’s wife; it pride in her beauty, he could not) was a common situation, it was cen bear to have her conspicuoun; if her| erally approved. As in other things, laughter or her unusual voice at-|he had had stupidly conventional tracted any attention in a public/{deas about it onee—that was all. place, she could see that it made| But Rachael winced at the sound of him uncomfortable, These things|the word “divorce,” not because of Rachael might have considered flaws | her own divores, but at the thought in another man. In Warren they|that some other man and woman | were only deliciously amusing, and| had promised in their first love what his reliance upon her, where she had| later they could not fulfil, and hated expected only absolute self-posses.|each other now where they had sion from him, seemed to make him|loved each other once, at the more her own, thought that perhaps—perhaps one Rachael, daughter of wandering | of them loved the other still! thetr paradive that anything less than perfect happiness entered, too. Rachael's old friends—Jud¢y Moran, Elinor, and the Villalongna—nald, and sald with truth, that she had changed.. She had not tried to change, but {t was hard for her to get the old point of view now, to laugh at the old jokes, to listen to the old gossip. She had been cold and wretched only a year before, but she had had the confident self-sufficiency of a gypsy who walks bare-headed | and Irreaponsible thru a world whore treasure will never come her Way. Now Rachael, tremulous and afraid, the guardian of the great treas- ure, she knew now what love meant 4 she could no longer face even) Warren, freed once and for all an the thought of a life without love. |adventurers, had a thousand times| “Divorce s—monstrous!” she said| “Dear heaven, hear the woman! ireleasly, and with increasing *At-| more assurance than he. In her se-|*oberly to her husband in one of | What else do I do?” Isfaction, she studied her husband's) cret heart she had no regard for any | thelr hours of perfect confidence. “Oh, I don't mean now, I mean character, finding, like all new wives. | social law: soclety was a tool to be| “How ean we say it, of all pert] !ways, all thru our lives, It's all that almost all her preconceived] yeod, not a weight under which one|sons, my darling? Don't be hide-|1 want to hear!” ideas of him had been wrong. Like | strugried helplessly. She dictated | bound!” “Do you realize that you are an ab- til the world, she had always Mlncied | where he followed precedent; she| «yfo," she smiled, reluctantly, “1]#lute—little—tyrant?” he asked, ’ nething of an autocrat, POs) jaughed where he was filled with ap-| «uppose we can't. But—but 1 naver| @Ushing. Radiantly, she laughed nont to atubbornness If hi8! prehension. Seriously, she set her| foot like @ divorced worhan, Warten, | ck: ‘ wits and her love to the task of! 1 ¢ool like a different woman, but not T only fealize one thing in these Jow it was amusing to discover! accustoming him to joy, and day by] as i¢ that term fitted me, It sounds yg she anewered; “T only live for that ho wan really a rather mild per-|day he flung off the old, halfdefined | go—c@arse! Don't you think it does?” |O"® thine! on, except where his work was con-| reluctances that still bound him, and| «No, 1 never thought of it quite)/* * * © © © ¢ #@ @ erned, rather taking the initiative) entered more fully into the delights|that way. Every one makes mis-| It was true. ‘The world for her now in their praising or blaming anybody | of the care-free, nt hours that) takes," he answered, cheerfully, was all in her husband, his smile was anything, deeply influenced by| lay before them “Don't you care—that it's true of| her light, atid she lived almost per: the views of other per and con! iia wife saw the change in him,|me?* she asked | petually in the sunshine, When they tent to be rather a } 1d OM-/and rejoiced, But what she did not Are you trying to make me jeal.| were parted—and they were never looker than an active participant '"/ 466, ag the months went on, was the|ous, you gypsy?” he laughed. But|long parted--the memory of this what did not immediately concern! no joas marked change in herself.| there was no answering laughter in| glance or-that tone, this eager phrase him. Ttachael found this, for some) Ay Warren's nature expanded, and|her face or that sudden laugh, was enough to subtle reasons of her own, Highly as he began to réeach quite natu “Yes, perhaps I am,” she admitted,| keep her Happy. When they met pleasing. It made her leas afraid of) rally for the various pleasure all|as if she were 4 little surprised that| again, whether she came to meet him her husband's eritielam, and spared) put him, Rachael's soul expert-|it was eo. And in her next slowly|in his own hallway, or rose, lovely her mang of those tremors COmMOD | eheed an alteration almost directly| worded sentence she discovered for|in hér furs, and walked toward him ute to the first months of married herself anbdther truth, "I mind {t,|in some restaurant or hotel, Joy lent Also, it gave her an occasional She became thoughtful, almost re-| Warren! sho said. “I wish, with all| her a new and almost fearful beauty, chance to influence him, even to Pro) served, she began to show a certain} my heart, that {t wasn't so! To dress for him, to make him laugh, tect him from his own indifference to| pexpect for convention—not for the| “That isn't very consistent, sweet.|to hold his interest, this was all thi ue or that social conventions at which she had| Your life made you what you were, | that interested her, and for the world he laughed at him, accusing him|always laughed, and still laughed,|the one woman in the world I could | outside of their own house sho cared ine an impostor, Why, every| but for the fundamental laws of|ever have loved. Why quarrel with|not at all. ‘They had thelr own vo- thourht Dr. Warren Gregory,| truth, simplicity, and cleanness, upon) the process?” pulary, their own phrases for mo- with his big scowl and his firm set| which the fdeal of ctvitization, at] “f wish you cared,” she said wist-| ments of mirth or tenderhess; among jaw, was an absolute Tartar, she least, in based, She noticed that she} fully, het gowns he had his favorites; ulted, when as a matter of fact he} was beginning to like “good” per “Cared?" among the many expressions of his was only a little boy aftaid of his| sons, even homely, dowdy, good per-| "¥es—suffered over it—objected.| sensitive face there were some that wife! He hated, she learned, to be| sons, Ike Allee and George Valen-|'Then I could keep proving to you/!t was her whimsical pleasure alw uncertain ax to Just the degree of|tine, She lost her old appetite for} that I never in my life loved any one,|to commend. ‘Their conversation, as is the way with lovers, was all of ’ dressing expected of him on different scandal, for ugly storids, for reckless man, woman, or child, until now!” i ® it. themselves, and all of praise. Long before they were ready the world it began to make its mands. Rachael loved her own —they had chosen a large di apartment on Riverside drt the memorable little meals they had before the fire, the lazy, hours of reading or of music in the. big studio that united the two ' floors, the scent of her hi f cigar, the rustle of het own i the snow slipping and lisping the window, and it was with reluctance that she surrendered one evening. But there was ble Vera Villalonga and her ful New Year's dance, and there were, the Bowditch dinner and the Hay’ dinner and the Parmalees’ oF Katrina. Unwillingly the t Mrs. Gregory yielded to the current, and presently they caught in the rush of the and could not have withdrawn Selves except for serious cause Rachael smiled a little morning over Mrs. @ tine’s cordially worded in’ fn informa dinner, but she t as a matter of cou her most beautiful sown ite erately set out to capture her ess’ friendship, and simple, Mrs. Valentine could not long her guest's beauty and et a young, fresh creature as she not a bit one’s idea of an turess, so genuinely interested in children, 80 obviously devoted — Warren. "y (Continued Monday) n cdvect Said the absent-minded barber, After he had mowed the lawn; “Would you like @ nice shampoo Or shall I put some tonic on?”