There was a bitter taste of salt water in her mouth, there was a hideous drumming at her heart. She felt sick and cold from her bewildered brain down to her very feet. When one felt like this--one fainted.
But Rachael did not faint, although it was by sheer power of will that she held her reeling senses. No scene--no, there mustn't be a scene--for Jimmy's sake, for Derry's sake, no scene. She was here, in the Waldorf Grill, of course. She had been--what had she been doing? She had been--she came downtown after breakfast--of course, shopping. Shopping for the children's Christmas. They were to have coasters--they were old enough for coasters--she must go on this quiet way, thinking of the children--five was old enough for coasters--and Jim always looked out for Derry.
She couldn't go out. They hadn't seen her; they wouldn't see her, here in this corner. But she dared not stand up and pass them again. Warren--and Magsie. Warren--and Magsie. Oh, God--God--God--what should she do--she was going to faint again.
Here was her shopping list, a little wet and crumpled because she had put her glove on the snowy handle of the motor-car door. Mary had said that it would be a white Christmas--how could Mary tell?--this was only the eighteenth, only the eighteenth--ridiculous to be panting this way, like a runner. Nothing was going to hurt her--
"Anything--anything!" she said to the waiter, with dry, bloodless lips, and a ghastly attempt at a smile. "Yes, that will do. Thank you, yes, I suppose so. Yes, if you will. Thank you. That will do nicely."
And now she must be quiet. That was the main thing now. They must not see her. She had been shopping, and now she was having her lunch in the Grill. If she could only breathe a little less violently--but she seemed to have no control over her heaving breast, she could not even close her mouth. Nobody suspected anything, and if she could but control herself, nobody would, she told herself desperately.
She never knew that the silent, gray-haired waiter recognized her, and recognized both the man and woman who sat only thirty feet away. She had not ordered coffee, but he brought her a smoking pot. It was not the first time he had encountered the situation. Rachael drank the vivifying fluid, and her nerves responded at once.
She sat up, set her lips firmly, forced herself to dispose of gloves and napkin in the usual way. Her breath was coming more evenly--so much was gained. As for this deadly cold and quivering sensation of nausea, that was no more than fatigue and the frightfully cold wind.
So it was Magsie. Rachael had not been seven years a wife to misread Warren's eyes as he looked at the girl. No woman could misread their attitude together, an attitude of wonderful, sweet familiarity with each other's likes and dislikes under all its thrilling newness. Rachael had seen him turn that very glance, that smiling-eyed yet serious look--
Oh, God! it could not be that he had come to care for Magsie! Her hard-won calm was shattered in a second, she was panting and quivering again. Her husband, her own big, tender, clever Warren--but he was hers, and the boys--he was HERS! Her husband--and this other woman was looking at him with all her soul in her eyes, this other woman cared--all the world might see how she cared for him--and was loved in return!