Breckenridge never was in love but once in his life--no, I don't mean with Paula. I mean with Billy." And as a general nodding of heads confirmed this theory, the speaker went on decidedly: "Since that child was born she's been all the world to him. When he and Paula were divorced--she was the offender--he fretted himself sick for fear he'd done that precious five-year-old an injury. She didn't get on with her grandmother, she drove governesses insane, for two or three years there was simply no end of trouble. Finally he took her abroad, for the excellent reason that she wanted to go. In Paris they ran into Rachael Fairfax and her mother--let's see, that was seven years ago. Rachael was only about twenty-one or two then. But she'd been out since she was sixteen. She had the bel air, she was beautiful--not as pretty as she is now, perhaps--and of course her father was dead, and Rachael was absolutely on the make. She took both Clarence and Billy in hand. I understand the child was wearing jewelry and staying up until all hours every night. Rachael mothered her, and of course the child came to admire her. The funny thing is that Rachael and Billy hit it off very well to this day.

"She and Clarence were married quietly, and came home. And I don't think it was weeks, it was DAYS--and not many days--later, that Rachael realized what a fool she'd been. Clarence had eyes for no one but the girl, and of course she was a fascinating little creature, and she's more fascinating every year."

"She's not as attractive as Rachael at that," said Peter Pomeroy.

"I know, my dear Peter," Miss Vanderwall assented quickly. "But Billy's impulsive, and affectionate, at least, and Rachael is neither. Anyway, Billy's at the age now when she can't think of anything but herself. Her frocks, her parties, her friends--that's all Clarence cares about!"

"Selfish ass!" said a man's voice in the firelight.

"I KNOW Clarence takes Carol and her friends off on week-end trips," some woman said, "and leaves Rachael at home. If Rachael wants the car, she has to ask them their plans. If she accepts a dinner invitation, why, Clarence may drop out the last moment because Carol's going to dine alone at home and wants her Daddy."

"Rachael's terribly decent about it," said the deep voice of old Mrs. Torrence, who was chaperoning a grandson, glad of any excuse to be at the club. "Upon my word I wouldn't be! She will breakfast upstairs many a morning because Clarence likes Carol to pour his coffee. And when that feller comes home tipsy--"

"Five nights a week!" supplemented Peter Pomeroy.

"Five nights a week," the old lady agreed, nodding, "she makes him comfortable, quiets the house, and telephones around generally that Clarence has come home with a splitting headache, and they can't come--to dinner, or cards, or whatever it may be. But of course I don't claim that she loves him, nor pretends to. I can imagine the scornful look with which she goes about it."

"Well, why does she stand it?" said Mrs. Barker Emory, a handsome but somewhat hard-faced woman, with a manner curiously compounded of eagerness and uncertainty.

"Y'know, that's what I've been wondering," an Englishman added interestedly.

"Why, what else would she do?" Miss Vanderwall asked briskly.

"Rachael's a perfectly adorable and brilliant and delightful creature," summarized Peter Pomeroy, "but she's not got a penny nor a relative in the world that I've ever heard of! She's got no grounds for divorcing Clarence, and if she simply wanted to get out, why, now that she's brought Billy up, introduced her generally, whipped the girl into some sort of shape and got her the right sort of friends, I suppose she might get out and welcome!"

"No, Billy honestly likes her," objected Vivian Sartoris.

"She doesn't care for her enough to see that there's fair play," Elinor Vanderwall said quickly.

"Why doesn't she take a leaf from Paula's book," somebody suggested, "and marry again? She could go out West and get a divorce on any grounds she might choose to name."

"Well, Rachael's a cold woman, and a hard woman--in a way," Miss Vanderwall said musingly, after a pause, when the troubles of the Breckenridges kept the group silent for a moment. "But she's a good sport. She gets a home, and clothes, and the club, and a car and all the rest out of it, and she knows Billy and Clarence do need her, in a way, to run things, and to keep up the social end. More than that, Clarence can't keep up this pace long--he's going to pieces fast--and Billy may marry any day--"

"I understand Joe Pickering's a little bit touched in that quarter," said Mrs. Torrence.

"Yes--well, Clarence will never stand for THAT," somebody said.

Little Miss Sartoris neglected the Torrence grandson long enough to say decidedly:

"She wouldn't LOOK at Joe Pickering! Joe drinks, and Billy's had enough of that with her father. Besides, he has no money of his own! He's impossible!"

"Where's the mother all this time?" asked the Englishman. "I mean to say, she's living, isn't she, and all that?"

"Very much alive," Miss Vanderwall said. "Married to an Italian count--Countess Luca d' Asafo. His people have cut him off; they're Catholics. She has two little girls; there's an uncle who's obliged to leave property to a son, and it serves Paula quite right, I think. Where they live, or what on, I haven't the remotest idea. I saw her in a car on Fifth Avenue, not so long ago, with two heavy little black-haired girls; she looked sixty."

"Her sister, you know, was thick with my niece, Barbara Olliphant," said Peter Pomeroy. "And funny thing!--when Barbara was married..."

It was a long story, and fortunately moved away from the previous topic; so that when it was presently interrupted by the arrival of two women, everybody in the group had cause to feel gratitude for a merciful deliverance.

The two women were Rachael and Carol Breckenridge, who came in a little breathless, the throbbing engine of their motor car still sounding faintly from the direction of the club doorway. Carol, a slender, black-eyed, dusky-skinned girl of seventeen, took her place beside Miss Sartoris on the fender, granting a brief unsmiling nod to one or two friends, and eying the group between the loose locks of her smoky, cropped black hair with the inscrutable, almost brooding, expression that was her favorite affectation. Her lithe, loosely built little body was as flat as a boy's, she clasped her crossed knees with slender, satin-smooth little brown hands, exposing by her attitude a frill of embroidered petticoat, a transparent stretch of ash-gray silk stocking, and smart ash-gray buckskin slippers with silver buckles.

She was an effective little figure in the mingled twilight and firelight, but it was toward her beautiful stepmother that everybody looked as Rachael Breckenridge seated herself on the arm of old Mrs. Torrence's chair and sent a careless greeting about the circle.

"Hello, everybody!" she said, in a voice of extraordinary richness and sweetness, "Peter, Dolly, Vivian--HELLO, Elinor! How do you do, Mrs. Emory?" There was an aside when the newcomer said imperatively to a club attendant, "We'll have some light here, please!" Then she resumed easily: "I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Emory, I interrupted you--"

"I only said that you were a little late for tea," said Mrs. Emory, sweetly, wishing with a sort of futile rage that she could learn to say almost nothing when this other woman, with her insulting bright air of making one feel inferior, was about. The Emorys had lived in Belvedere Hills for two years, coming from Denver with much money and irrefutable credentials. They had been members of the club perhaps half that time, members in good standing. But Mrs. Emory would have paid a large sum to have Rachael Breckenridge call her "Belle," and Rachael Breckenridge knew it.

The lights, duly poured in a soft flood from all sides of the room, revealed in Mrs. Breckenridge one of those beauties that an older