The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page B

least until you were sure it was wanted. After that,
of course, you could be so proud of it that you might become utterly
shameless. She was afraid sometimes that she was the sort to be utterly
shameless. Yet, for all her halcyon hours, there were little things that
worried her. Wallie Sayre, for instance, always having to be kept from
saying things she didn't want to hear. And Nina. She wasn't sure that
Nina was entirely happy. And, of course, there was Jim.
    Jim was difficult. Sometimes he was a man, and then again he was a boy,
and one never knew just which he was going to be. He was too old for
discipline and too young to manage himself. He was spending almost all
his evenings away from home now, and her mother always drew an inaudible
sigh when he was spoken of.
    Elizabeth had waited up for him one night, only a short time before, and
beckoning him into her room, had talked to him severely.
    "You ought to be ashamed, Jim," she said. "You're simply worrying mother
sick."
    "Well, why?" he demanded defiantly. "I'm old enough to take care of
myself."
    "You ought to be taking care of her, too."
    He had looked rather crestfallen at that, and before he went out he
offered a half-sheepish explanation.
    "I'd tell them where I go," he said, "but you'd think a pool room was on
the direct road to hell. Take to-night, now. I can't tell them about it,
but it was all right. I met Wallie Sayre and Leslie at the club before
dinner, and we got a fourth and played bridge. Only half a cent a point.
I swear we were going on playing, but somebody brought in a chap
named Gregory for a cocktail. He turned out to be a brother of Beverly
Carlysle, the actress, and he took us around to the theater and gave us
a box. Not a thing wrong with it, was there?"
    "Where did you go from there?" she persisted inexorably. "It's half past
one."
    "Went around and met her. She's wonderful, Elizabeth. But do you know
what would happen if I told them? They'd have a fit."
    She felt rather helpless, because she knew he was right from his own
standpoint.
    "I know. I'm surprised at Les, Jim."
    "Oh, Les! He just trailed along. He's all right."
    She kissed him and he went out, leaving her to lie awake for a long
time. She would have had all her world happy those days, and all her
world good. She didn't want anybody's bread and butter spilled on the
carpet.
    So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicated
pattern: Bassett speeding West, and David in his quiet room; Jim
and Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered
dressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter
brooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands,
figuratively, of course—the village was entirely well-bred; Gregory
calling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that
he had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying in
the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven
her soul to the limit of her strength so that she might face her Maker.
    Out of all of them it was Clare Rossiter who made the first conscious
move of the shuttle; Clare, affronted and not a little malicious, but
perhaps still dramatizing herself, this time as the friend who
feels forced to carry bad tidings. Behind even that, however, was
an unconscious desire to see Dick again, and this time so to impress
herself on him that never again could he pass her in the street
unnoticed.
    On the day, then, that David first sat up in bed Clare went to the house
and took her place in the waiting-room. She was dressed with extreme
care, and she carried a parasol. With it, while she waited, she drilled
small nervous indentations in the old office carpet, and formulated her
line of action.
    Nevertheless she found it hard to begin.
    "I don't want to keep you, if you're busy," she said, avoiding his eyes.
"If you are in a hurry—"
    "This is my business," he said patiently. And waited.
    "I wonder if you are going to