"No, dear!" he smiled as she moved to one side of the seat, and packed her thin skirts neatly under her, "not to-day! I'll--"
"Warren Gregory!" said Magsie sternly, "you get right straight in here, and come and have your breakfast! Now, what's nearest? The Biltmore!" She poked the upper door with her slim umbrella. "To the Biltmore!" commanded Magsie.
At a quiet table Warren had coffee and eggs and toast, and more coffee, and finally his cigar. The color came back into his face, and he looked less tired.
Magsie was a rather simple little soul under her casing of Parisian veneer, and was often innocently surprised at the potency of her own charm. That men, big men and wise men, were inclined to take her artful artlessness at its surface value was a continual revelation to her. Like Rachael, she had gone to bed the night before in a profoundly thoughtful frame of mind, a little apprehensive as to Warren's view of her call, and uneasy as to the state in which she had left his wife. But, unlike Rachael, Magsie had not been wakeful long. The consideration of other people's attitudes never troubled her for more than a few consecutive minutes. She had been genuinely stirred by her talk that afternoon, and was honestly determined to become Mrs. Warren Gregory; but these feelings did not prevent her from looking back, with thrilled complacence, to the scene in Rachael's sitting-room, and from remembering that it was a dramatic and heroic thing for a slender, pretty girl in white to go to a man's wife and plead for her love. "No harm done, anyway!" Magsie had reflected drowsily, drifting off to sleep; and she had awakened conscious of no emotion stronger than a mild trepidation at the possibility of Warren's wrath.
Dainty and sweet, she came to meet him halfway, and now sat congratulating herself that he was soothed, fed, and placidly smoking before their conversation reached deep channels.
"Greg, dear, I've got a horrible confession to make!" began Magsie when this propitious moment arrived.
"You mean your call on Rachael?" he asked quickly, the shadow coming back to his eyes. "Why did you do it?"
Magsie was conscious of being frightened.
"Was she surprised, Greg?"
"I don't know that she was surprised. Of course she was angry."