THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY

by EDITH WHARTON

1913

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY

I

"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising aprematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which alanguid "bell-boy" had just brought in. 

But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued tosmile on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick youngfingers, possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window toread it. 

"I guess it's meant for me, " she merely threw over her shoulder at hermother. 

"Did you EVER, Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs. Spragg murmured with deprecating pride. 

Mrs. Heeny, a stout professional-looking person in a waterproof, herrusty veil thrown back, and a shabby alligator bag at her feet, followedthe mother's glance with good-humoured approval. 

"I never met with a lovelier form, " she agreed, answering the spiritrather than the letter of her hostess's enquiry. 

Mrs. Spragg and her visitor were enthroned in two heavy gilt armchairsin one of the private drawing-rooms of the Hotel Stentorian. The Spraggrooms were known as one of the Looey suites, and the drawing-room walls, above their wainscoting of highly-varnished mahogany, were hung withsalmon-pink damask and adorned with oval portraits of Marie Antoinetteand the Princess de Lamballe. In the centre of the florid carpet a gilttable with a top of Mexican onyx sustained a palm in a gilt basket tiedwith a pink bow. But for this ornament, and a copy of "The Hound of theBaskervilles" which lay beside it, the room showed no traces of humanuse, and Mrs. Spragg herself wore as complete an air of detachment as ifshe had been a wax figure in a show-window. Her attire was fashionableenough to justify such a post, and her pale soft-cheeked face, withpuffy eye-lids and drooping mouth, suggested a partially-melted waxfigure which had run to double-chin. 

Mrs. Heeny, in comparison, had a reassuring look of solidity andreality. The planting of her firm black bulk in its chair, and thegrasp of her broad red hands on the gilt arms, bespoke an organized andself-reliant activity, accounted for by the fact that Mrs. Heeny was a"society" manicure and masseuse. Toward Mrs. Spragg and her daughtershe filled the double role of manipulator and friend; and it was in thelatter capacity that, her day's task ended, she had dropped in for amoment to "cheer up" the lonely ladies of the Stentorian. 

The young girl whose "form" had won Mrs. Heeny's professionalcommendation suddenly shifted its lovely lines as she turned back fromthe window. 

"Here--you can have it after all, " she said, crumpling the note andtossing it with a contemptuous gesture into her mother's lap. 

"Why--isn't it from Mr. Popple?" Mrs. Spragg exclaimed unguardedly. 

"No--it isn't. What made you think I thought it was?" snapped herdaughter; but the next instant she added, with an outbreak of childishdisappointment: "It's only from Mr. Marvell's sister--at least she saysshe's his sister. "

Mrs. Spragg, with a puzzled frown, groped for her eye-glass among thejet fringes of her tightly-girded front. 

Mrs. Heeny's small blue eyes shot out sparks of curiosity. "Marvell--what Marvell is that?"

The girl explained languidly: "A little fellow--I think Mr. Popple saidhis name was Ralph"; while her mother continued: "Undine met them bothlast night at that party downstairs. And from something Mr. Popple saidto her about going to one of the new plays, she thought--"

"How on earth do you know what I thought?" Undine flashed back, her greyeyes darting warnings at her mother under their straight black brows. 

"Why, you SAID you thought--" Mrs. Spragg began reproachfully; but Mrs. Heeny, heedless of their bickerings, was pursuing her own train ofthought. 

"What Popple? Claud Walsingham Popple--the portrait painter?"

"Yes--I suppose so. He said he'd like to paint me. Mabel Lipscombintroduced him. I don't care if I never see him again, " the girl said, bathed in angry pink. 

"Do you know him, Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs. Spragg enquired. 

"I should say I did. I manicured him for his first society portrait--afull-length of Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll. " Mrs. Heeny smiled indulgentlyon her hearers. "I know everybody. If they don't know ME they ain't init, and Claud Walsingham Popple's in it. But he ain't nearly AS in it, "she continued judicially, "as Ralph Marvell--the little fellow, as youcall him. "

Undine Spragg, at the word, swept round on the speaker with one of thequick turns that revealed her youthful flexibility. She was alwaysdoubling and twisting on herself, and every movement she made seemedto start at the nape of her neck, just below the lifted roll ofreddish-gold hair, and flow without a break through her whole slimlength to the tips of her fingers and the points of her slender restlessfeet. 

"Why, do you know the Marvells? Are THEY stylish?" she asked. 

Mrs. Heeny gave the discouraged gesture of a pedagogue who has vainlystriven to implant the rudiments of knowledge in a rebellious mind. 

"Why, Undine Spragg, I've told you all about them time and again!His mother was a Dagonet. They live with old Urban Dagonet down inWashington Square. "

To Mrs. Spragg this conveyed even less than to her daughter, "'way downthere? Why do they live with somebody else? Haven't they got the meansto have a home of their own?"

Undine's perceptions were more rapid, and she fixed her eyes searchinglyon Mrs. Heeny. 

"Do you mean to say Mr. Marvell's as swell as Mr. Popple?"

"As swell? Why, Claud Walsingham Popple ain't in the same class withhim!"

The girl was upon her mother with a spring, snatching and smoothing outthe crumpled note. 

"Laura Fairford--is that the sister's name?"

"Mrs. Henley Fairford; yes. What does she write about?"

Undine's face lit up as if a shaft of sunset had struck it through thetriple-curtained windows of the Stentorian. 

"She says she wants me to dine with her next Wednesday. Isn't it queer?Why does SHE want me? She's never seen me!" Her tone implied that shehad long been accustomed to being "wanted" by those who had. 

Mrs. Heeny laughed. "HE saw you, didn't he?"

"Who? Ralph Marvell? Why, of course he did--Mr. Popple brought him tothe party here last night. "

"Well, there you are... When a young man in society wants to meet a girlagain, he gets his sister to ask her. "

Undine stared at her incredulously. "How queer! But they haven't allgot sisters, have they? It must be fearfully poky for the ones thathaven't. "

"They get their mothers--or their married friends, " said Mrs. Heenyomnisciently. 

"Married gentlemen?" enquired Mrs. Spragg, slightly shocked, butgenuinely desirous of mastering her lesson. 

"Mercy, no! Married ladies. "

"But are there never any gentlemen present?" pursued Mrs. Spragg, feeling that if this were the case Undine would certainly bedisappointed. 

"Present where? At their dinners? Of course--Mrs. Fairford gives thesmartest little dinners in town. There was an account of one she gavelast week in this morning's TOWN TALK: I guess it's right here among myclippings. " Mrs. Heeny, swooping down on her bag, drew from it a handfulof newspaper cuttings, which she spread on her ample lap and proceededto sort with a moistened forefinger. "Here, " she said, holding one ofthe slips at arm's length; and throwing back her head she read, in aslow unpunctuated chant: '"Mrs. Henley Fairford gave another of hernatty little dinners last Wednesday as usual it was smart small andexclusive and there was much gnashing of teeth among the left-outsas Madame Olga Loukowska gave some of her new steppe dances afterdinner'--that's the French for new dance steps, " Mrs. Heeny concluded, thrusting the documents back into her bag. 

"Do you know Mrs. Fairford too?" Undine asked eagerly; while Mrs. Spragg, impressed, but anxious for facts, pursued: "Does she reside onFifth Avenue?"

"No, she has a little house in Thirty-eighth Street, down beyond ParkAvenue. "

The ladies' faces drooped again, and the masseuse went on promptly: "Butthey're glad enough to have her in the big houses!--Why, yes, I knowher, " she said, addressing herself to Undine. "I mass'd her for asprained ankle a couple of years ago. She's got a lovely manner, butNO conversation. Some of my patients converse exquisitely, " Mrs. Heenyadded with discrimination. 

Undine was brooding over the note. "It IS written to mother--Mrs. AbnerE. Spragg--I never saw anything so funny! 'Will you ALLOW your daughterto dine with me?' Allow! Is Mrs. Fairford peculiar?"

"No--you are, " said Mrs. Heeny bluntly. "Don't you know it's the thingin the best society to pretend that girls can't do anything withouttheir mothers' permission? You just remember that. Undine. You mustn'taccept invitations from gentlemen without you say you've got to ask yourmother first. "

"Mercy! But how'll mother know what to say?"

"Why, she'll say what you tell her to, of course. You'd better tell heryou want to dine with Mrs. Fairford, " Mrs. Heeny added humorously, asshe gathered her waterproof together and stooped for her bag. 

"Have I got to write the note, then?" Mrs. Spragg asked with risingagitation. 

Mrs. Heeny reflected. "Why, no. I guess Undine can write it as if it wasfrom you. Mrs. Fairford don't know your writing. "

This was an evident relief to Mrs. Spragg, and as Undine swept to herroom with the note her mother sank back, murmuring plaintively: "Oh, don't go yet, Mrs. Heeny. I haven't seen a human being all day, and Ican't seem to find anything to say to that French maid. "

Mrs. Heeny looked at her hostess with friendly compassion. She was wellaware that she was the only bright spot on Mrs. Spragg's horizon. Sincethe Spraggs, some two years previously, had moved from Apex City to NewYork, they had made little progress in establishing relations with theirnew environment; and when, about four months earlier, Mrs. Spragg'sdoctor had called in Mrs. Heeny to minister professionally to hispatient, he had done more for her spirit than for her body. Mrs. Heenyhad had such "cases" before: she knew the rich helpless family, strandedin lonely splendour in a sumptuous West Side hotel, with a fathercompelled to seek a semblance of social life at the hotel bar, and amother deprived of even this contact with her kind, and reduced toillness by boredom and inactivity. Poor Mrs. Spragg had done her ownwashing in her youth, but since her rising fortunes had made thisoccupation unsuitable she had sunk into the relative inertia which theladies of Apex City regarded as one of the prerogatives of affluence. AtApex, however, she had belonged to a social club, and, until they movedto the Mealey House, had been kept busy by the incessant struggle withdomestic cares; whereas New York seemed to offer no field for any formof lady-like activity. She therefore took her exercise vicariously, withMrs. Heeny's help; and Mrs. Heeny knew how to manipulate her imaginationas well as her muscles. It was Mrs. Heeny who peopled the solitude ofthe long ghostly days with lively anecdotes of the Van Degens, theDriscolls, the Chauncey Ellings and the other social potentates whoseleast doings Mrs. Spragg and Undine had followed from afar in the Apexpapers, and who had come to seem so much more remote since only thewidth of the Central Park divided mother and daughter from theirOlympian portals. 

Mrs. Spragg had no ambition for herself--she seemed to have transferredher whole personality to her child--but she was passionately resolvedthat Undine should have what she wanted, and she sometimes fancied thatMrs. Heeny, who crossed those sacred thresholds so familiarly, mightsome day gain admission for Undine. 

"Well--I'll stay a little mite longer if you want; and supposing I wasto rub up your nails while we're talking? It'll be more sociable, " themasseuse suggested, lifting her bag to the table and covering its shinyonyx surface with bottles and polishers. 

Mrs. Spragg consentingly slipped the rings from her small mottled hands. It was soothing to feel herself in Mrs. Heeny's grasp, and though sheknew the attention would cost her three dollars she was secure in thesense that Abner wouldn't mind. It had been clear to Mrs. Spragg, eversince their rather precipitate departure from Apex City, that Abner wasresolved not to mind--resolved at any cost to "see through" theNew York adventure. It seemed likely now that the cost would beconsiderable. They had lived in New York for two years without anysocial benefit to their daughter; and it was of course for that purposethat they had come. If, at the time, there had been other and morepressing reasons, they were such as Mrs. Spragg and her husbandnever touched on, even in the gilded privacy of their bedroom at theStentorian; and so completely had silence closed in on the subject thatto Mrs. Spragg it had become non-existent: she really believed that, as Abner put it, they had left Apex because Undine was too big for theplace. 

She seemed as yet--poor child!--too small for New York: actuallyimperceptible to its heedless multitudes; and her mother trembled forthe day when her invisibility should be borne in on her. Mrs. Spraggdid not mind the long delay for herself--she had stores of lymphaticpatience. But she had noticed lately that Undine was beginning to benervous, and there was nothing that Undine's parents dreaded so much asher being nervous. Mrs. Spragg's maternal apprehensions unconsciouslyescaped in her next words. 

"I do hope she'll quiet down now, " she murmured, feeling quieter herselfas her hand sank into Mrs. Heeny's roomy palm. 

"Who's that? Undine?"

"Yes. She seemed so set on that Mr. Popple's coming round. From the wayhe acted last night she thought he'd be sure to come round this morning. She's so lonesome, poor child--I can't say as I blame her. "

"Oh, he'll come round. Things don't happen as quick as that in NewYork, " said Mrs. Heeny, driving her nail-polisher cheeringly. 

Mrs. Spragg sighed again. "They don't appear to. They say New Yorkersare always in a hurry; but I can't say as they've hurried much to makeour acquaintance. "

Mrs. Heeny drew back to study the effect of her work. "You wait, Mrs. Spragg, you wait. If you go too fast you sometimes have to rip out thewhole seam. "

"Oh, that's so--that's SO!" Mrs. Spragg exclaimed, with a tragicemphasis that made the masseuse glance up at her. 

"Of course it's so. And it's more so in New York than anywhere. Thewrong set's like fly-paper: once you're in it you can pull and pull, butyou'll never get out of it again. "

Undine's mother heaved another and more helpless sigh. "I wish YOU'Dtell Undine that, Mrs. Heeny. "

"Oh, I guess Undine's all right. A girl like her can afford to wait. And if young Marvell's really taken with her she'll have the run of theplace in no time. "

This solacing thought enabled Mrs. Spragg to yield herself unreservedlyto Mrs. Heeny's ministrations, which were prolonged for a happyconfidential hour; and she had just bidden the masseuse good-bye, andwas restoring the rings to her fingers, when the door opened to admither husband. 

Mr. Spragg came in silently, setting his high hat down on thecentre-table, and laying his overcoat across one of the gilt chairs. Hewas tallish, grey-bearded and somewhat stooping, with the slack figureof the sedentary man who would be stout if he were not dyspeptic; andhis cautious grey eyes with pouch-like underlids had straight blackbrows like his daughter's. His thin hair was worn a little too long overhis coat collar, and a Masonic emblem dangled from the heavy gold chainwhich crossed his crumpled black waistcoat. 

He stood still in the middle of the room, casting a slow pioneeringglance about its gilded void; then he said gently: "Well, mother?"

Mrs. Spragg remained seated, but her eyes dwelt on him affectionately. "Undine's been asked out to a dinner-party; and Mrs. Heeny says it's toone of the first families. It's the sister of one of the gentlemen thatMabel Lipscomb introduced her to last night. "

There was a mild triumph in her tone, for it was owing to her insistenceand Undine's that Mr. Spragg had been induced to give up the housethey had bought in West End Avenue, and move with his family to theStentorian. Undine had early decided that they could not hope to geton while they "kept house"--all the fashionable people she knew eitherboarded or lived in hotels. Mrs. Spragg was easily induced to take thesame view, but Mr. Spragg had resisted, being at the moment unableeither to sell his house or to let it as advantageously as he had hoped. After the move was made it seemed for a time as though he had beenright, and the first social steps would be as difficult to make in ahotel as in one's own house; and Mrs. Spragg was therefore eager to havehim know that Undine really owed her first invitation to a meeting underthe roof of the Stentorian. 

"You see we were right to come here, Abner, " she added, and he absentlyrejoined: "I guess you two always manage to be right. "

But his face remained unsmiling, and instead of seating himself andlighting his cigar, as he usually did before dinner, he took two orthree aimless turns about the room, and then paused in front of hiswife. 

"What's the matter--anything wrong down town?" she asked, her eyesreflecting his anxiety. 

Mrs. Spragg's knowledge of what went on "down town" was of the mostelementary kind, but her husband's face was the barometer in which shehad long been accustomed to read the leave to go on unrestrictedly, or the warning to pause and abstain till the coming storm should beweathered. 

He shook his head. "N--no. Nothing worse than what I can see to, if youand Undine will go steady for a while. " He paused and looked across theroom at his daughter's door. "Where is she--out?"

"I guess she's in her room, going over her dresses with that Frenchmaid. I don't know as she's got anything fit to wear to that dinner, "Mrs. Spragg added in a tentative murmur. 

Mr. Spragg smiled at last. "Well--I guess she WILL have, " he saidprophetically. 

He glanced again at his daughter's door, as if to make sure of its beingshut; then, standing close before his wife, he lowered his voice to say:"I saw Elmer Moffatt down town to-day. "

"Oh, Abner!" A wave of almost physical apprehension passed over Mrs. Spragg. Her jewelled hands trembled in her black brocade lap, and thepulpy curves of her face collapsed as if it were a pricked balloon. 

"Oh, Abner, " she moaned again, her eyes also on her daughter's door. Mr. Spragg's black eyebrows gathered in an angry frown, but it was evidentthat his anger was not against his wife. 

"What's the good of Oh Abner-ing? Elmer Moffatt's nothing to us--nomore'n if we never laid eyes on him. "

"No--I know it; but what's he doing here? Did you speak to him?" shefaltered. 

He slipped his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. "No--I guess Elmer andI are pretty well talked out. "

Mrs. Spragg took up her moan. "Don't you tell her you saw him, Abner. "

"I'll do as you say; but she may meet him herself. "

"Oh, I guess not--not in this new set she's going with! Don't tell herANYHOW. "

He turned away, feeling for one of the cigars which he always carriedloose in his pocket; and his wife, rising, stole after him, and laid herhand on his arm. 

"He can't do anything to her, can he?"

"Do anything to her?" He swung about furiously. "I'd like to see himtouch her--that's all!"

II

Undine's white and gold bedroom, with sea-green panels and old rosecarpet, looked along Seventy-second Street toward the leafless tree-topsof the Central Park. 

She went to the window, and drawing back its many layers of lace gazedeastward down the long brownstone perspective. Beyond the Park lay FifthAvenue--and Fifth Avenue was where she wanted to be!

She turned back into the room, and going to her writing-table laid Mrs. Fairford's note before her, and began to study it minutely. She had readin the "Boudoir Chat" of one of the Sunday papers that the smartestwomen were using the new pigeon-blood notepaper with white ink; andrather against her mother's advice she had ordered a large supply, withher monogram in silver. It was a disappointment, therefore, to find thatMrs. Fairford wrote on the old-fashioned white sheet, without even amonogram--simply her address and telephone number. It gave Undine rathera poor opinion of Mrs. Fairford's social standing, and for a moment shethought with considerable satisfaction of answering the note onher pigeon-blood paper. Then she remembered Mrs. Heeny's emphaticcommendation of Mrs. Fairford, and her pen wavered. What if white paperwere really newer than pigeon blood? It might be more stylish, anyhow. Well, she didn't care if Mrs. Fairford didn't like red paper--SHE did!And she wasn't going to truckle to any woman who lived in a small housedown beyond Park Avenue... 

Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. Shewanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she couldnot help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusionof ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had tochoose between two courses. She hesitated a moment longer, and then tookfrom the drawer a plain sheet with the hotel address. 

It was amusing to write the note in her mother's name--she giggled asshe formed the phrase "I shall be happy to permit my daughter to takedinner with you" ("take dinner" seemed more elegant than Mrs. Fairford's"dine")--but when she came to the signature she was met by a newdifficulty. Mrs. Fairford had signed herself "Laura Fairford"--just asone school-girl would write to another. But could this be a proper modelfor Mrs. Spragg? Undine could not tolerate the thought of her mother'sabasing herself to a denizen of regions beyond Park Avenue, and sheresolutely formed the signature: "Sincerely, Mrs. Abner E. Spragg. " Thenuncertainty overcame her, and she re-wrote her note and copied Mrs. Fairford's formula: "Yours sincerely, Leota B. Spragg. " But this struckher as an odd juxtaposition of formality and freedom, and she made athird attempt: "Yours with love, Leota B. Spragg. " This, however, seemed excessive, as the ladies had never met; and after several otherexperiments she finally decided on a compromise, and ended the note:"Yours sincerely, Mrs. Leota B. Spragg. " That might be conventional. Undine reflected, but it was certainly correct. This point settled, sheflung open her door, calling imperiously down the passage: "Celeste!"and adding, as the French maid appeared: "I want to look over all mydinner-dresses. "

Considering the extent of Miss Spragg's wardrobe her dinner-dresses werenot many. She had ordered a number the year before but, vexed at herlack of use for them, had tossed them over impatiently to the maid. Since then, indeed, she and Mrs. Spragg had succumbed to the abstractpleasure of buying two or three more, simply because they were tooexquisite and Undine looked too lovely in them; but she had grown tiredof these also--tired of seeing them hang unworn in her wardrobe, like somany derisive points of interrogation. And now, as Celeste spread themout on the bed, they seemed disgustingly common-place, and as familiaras if she had danced them to shreds. Nevertheless, she yielded to themaid's persuasions and tried them on. 

The first and second did not gain by prolonged inspection: they lookedold-fashioned already. "It's something about the sleeves, " Undinegrumbled as she threw them aside. 

The third was certainly the prettiest; but then it was the one shehad worn at the hotel dance the night before and the impossibility ofwearing it again within the week was too obvious for discussion. Yet sheenjoyed looking at herself in it, for it reminded her of her sparklingpassages with Claud Walsingham Popple, and her quieter but more fruitfultalk with his little friend--the young man she had hardly noticed. 

"You can go, Celeste--I'll take off the dress myself, " she said: andwhen Celeste had passed out, laden with discarded finery. Undine boltedher door, dragged the tall pier-glass forward and, rummaging in a drawerfor fan and gloves, swept to a seat before the mirror with the air of alady arriving at an evening party. Celeste, before leaving, had drawndown the blinds and turned on the electric light, and the white and goldroom, with its blazing wall-brackets, formed a sufficiently brilliantbackground to carry out the illusion. So untempered a glare would havebeen destructive to all half-tones and subtleties of modelling; butUndine's beauty was as vivid, and almost as crude, as the brightnesssuffusing it. Her black brows, her reddish-tawny hair and the pure redand white of her complexion defied the searching decomposing radiance:she might have been some fabled creature whose home was in a beam oflight. 

Undine, as a child, had taken but a lukewarm interest in the diversionsof her playmates. Even in the early days when she had lived with herparents in a ragged outskirt of Apex, and hung on the fence with IndianaFrusk, the freckled daughter of the plumber "across the way, " she hadcared little for dolls or skipping-ropes, and still less for the riotousgames in which the loud Indiana played Atalanta to all the boyhood ofthe quarter. Already Undine's chief delight was to "dress up" in hermother's Sunday skirt and "play lady" before the wardrobe mirror. Thetaste had outlasted childhood, and she still practised the same secretpantomime, gliding in, settling her skirts, swaying her fan, moving herlips in soundless talk and laughter; but lately she had shrunk fromeverything that reminded her of her baffled social yearnings. Now, however, she could yield without afterthought to the joy of dramatizingher beauty. Within a few days she would be enacting the scene she wasnow mimicking; and it amused her to see in advance just what impressionshe would produce on Mrs. Fairford's guests. 

For a while she carried on her chat with an imaginary circle ofadmirers, twisting this way and that, fanning, fidgeting, twitching ather draperies, as she did in real life when people were noticing her. Her incessant movements were not the result of shyness: she thought itthe correct thing to be animated in society, and noise and restlessnesswere her only notion of vivacity. She therefore watched herselfapprovingly, admiring the light on her hair, the flash of teeth betweenher smiling lips, the pure shadows of her throat and shoulders as shepassed from one attitude to another. Only one fact disturbed her: therewas a hint of too much fulness in the curves of her neck and in thespring of her hips. She was tall enough to carry off a little extraweight, but excessive slimness was the fashion, and she shuddered at thethought that she might some day deviate from the perpendicular. 

Presently she ceased to twist and sparkle at her image, and sinking intoher chair gave herself up to retrospection. She was vexed, in lookingback, to think how little notice she had taken of young Marvell, whoturned out to be so much less negligible than his brilliant friend. Sheremembered thinking him rather shy, less accustomed to society; andthough in his quiet deprecating way he had said one or two droll thingshe lacked Mr. Popple's masterly manner, his domineering yet caressingaddress. When Mr. Popple had fixed his black eyes on Undine, andmurmured something "artistic" about the colour of her hair, she hadthrilled to the depths of her being. Even now it seemed incredible thathe should not turn out to be more distinguished than young Marvell: heseemed so much more in the key of the world she read about in the Sundaypapers--the dazzling auriferous world of the Van Degens, the Driscollsand their peers. 

She was roused by the sound in the hall of her mother's last words toMrs. Heeny. Undine waited till their adieux were over; then, opening herdoor, she seized the astonished masseuse and dragged her into the room. Mrs. Heeny gazed in admiration at the luminous apparition in whose holdshe found herself. 

"Mercy, Undine--you do look stunning! Are you trying on your dress forMrs. Fairford's?"

"Yes--no--this is only an old thing. " The girl's eyes glittered undertheir black brows. "Mrs. Heeny, you've got to tell me the truth--AREthey as swell as you said?"

"Who? The Fairfords and Marvells? If they ain't swell enough for you. Undine Spragg, you'd better go right over to the court of England!"

Undine straightened herself. "I want the best. Are they as swell as theDriscolls and Van Degens?"

Mrs. Heeny sounded a scornful laugh. "Look at here, now, you unbelievinggirl! As sure as I'm standing here before you, I've seen Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll of Fifth Avenue laying in her pink velvet bed with Honiton lacesheets on it, and crying her eyes out because she couldn't get askedto one of Mrs. Paul Marvell's musicals. She'd never 'a dreamt of beingasked to a dinner there! Not all of her money couldn't 'a bought herthat--and she knows it!"

Undine stood for a moment with bright cheeks and parted lips; then sheflung her soft arms about the masseuse. "Oh Mrs. Heeny--you're lovelyto me!" she breathed, her lips on Mrs. Heeny's rusty veil; while thelatter, freeing herself with a good-natured laugh, said as she turnedaway: "Go steady. Undine, and you'll get anywheres. "

GO STEADY, UNDINE! Yes, that was the advice she needed. Sometimes, inher dark moods, she blamed her parents for not having given it to her. She was so young... And they had told her so little! As she looked backshe shuddered at some of her escapes. Even since they had come to NewYork she had been on the verge of one or two perilous adventures, andthere had been a moment during their first winter when she had actuallyengaged herself to the handsome Austrian riding-master who accompaniedher in the Park. He had carelessly shown her a card-case with a coronet, and had confided in her that he had been forced to resign from a crackcavalry regiment for fighting a duel about a Countess; and as a resultof these confidences she had pledged herself to him, and bestowed on himher pink pearl ring in exchange for one of twisted silver, which he saidthe Countess had given him on her deathbed with the request that heshould never take it off till he met a woman more beautiful thanherself. 

Soon afterward, luckily. Undine had run across Mabel Lipscomb, whom shehad known at a middle western boarding-school as Mabel Blitch. MissBlitch occupied a position of distinction as the only New York girl atthe school, and for a time there had been sharp rivalry for herfavour between Undine and Indiana Frusk, whose parents had somehowcontrived--for one term--to obtain her admission to the sameestablishment. In spite of Indiana's unscrupulous methods, and of acertain violent way she had of capturing attention, the victory remainedwith Undine, whom Mabel pronounced more refined; and the discomfitedIndiana, denouncing her schoolmates as a "bunch of mushes, " haddisappeared forever from the scene of her defeat. 

Since then Mabel had returned to New York and married a stock-broker;and Undine's first steps in social enlightenment dated from the day whenshe had met Mrs. Harry Lipscomb, and been again taken under her wing. 

Harry Lipscomb had insisted on investigating the riding-master's record, and had found that his real name was Aaronson, and that he had leftCracow under a charge of swindling servant-girls out of their savings;in the light of which discoveries Undine noticed for the first time thathis lips were too red and that his hair was pommaded. That was one ofthe episodes that sickened her as she looked back, and made her resolveonce more to trust less to her impulses--especially in the matter ofgiving away rings. In the interval, however, she felt she had learned agood deal, especially since, by Mabel Lipscomb's advice, the Spraggs hadmoved to the Stentorian, where that lady was herself established. 

There was nothing of the monopolist about Mabel, and she lost no time inmaking Undine free of the Stentorian group and its affiliated branches:a society addicted to "days, " and linked together by membership incountless clubs, mundane, cultural or "earnest. " Mabel took Undine tothe days, and introduced her as a "guest" to the club-meetings, whereshe was supported by the presence of many other guests--"my friend MissStager, of Phalanx, Georgia, " or (if the lady were literary) simply "myfriend Ora Prance Chettle of Nebraska--you know what Mrs. Chettle standsfor. "

Some of these reunions took place in the lofty hotels moored like asonorously named fleet of battle-ships along the upper reaches of theWest Side: the Olympian, the Incandescent, the Ormolu; while others, perhaps the more exclusive, were held in the equally lofty but moreromantically styled apartment-houses: the Parthenon, the Tintern Abbeyor the Lido. 

Undine's preference was for the worldly parties, at which games wereplayed, and she returned home laden with prizes in Dutch silver; butshe was duly impressed by the debating clubs, where ladies of localdistinction addressed the company from an improvised platform, or themembers argued on subjects of such imperishable interest as: "What ischarm?" or "The Problem-Novel" after which pink lemonade and rainbowsandwiches were consumed amid heated discussion of the "ethical aspect"of the question. 

It was all very novel and interesting, and at first Undine envied MabelLipscomb for having made herself a place in such circles; but in timeshe began to despise her for being content to remain there. For it didnot take Undine long to learn that introduction to Mabel's "set" hadbrought her no nearer to Fifth Avenue. Even in Apex, Undine's tenderimagination had been nurtured on the feats and gestures of FifthAvenue. She knew all of New York's golden aristocracy by name, and thelineaments of its most distinguished scions had been made familiar bypassionate poring over the daily press. In Mabel's world she soughtin vain for the originals, and only now and then caught a tantalizingglimpse of one of their familiars: as when Claud Walsingham Popple, engaged on the portrait of a lady whom the Lipscombs described as "thewife of a Steel Magnet, " felt it his duty to attend one of his client'steas, where it became Mabel's privilege to make his acquaintance and toname to him her friend Miss Spragg. 

Unsuspected social gradations were thus revealed to the attentiveUndine, but she was beginning to think that her sad proficiency had beenacquired in vain when her hopes were revived by the appearance of Mr. Popple and his friend at the Stentorian dance. She thought she hadlearned enough to be safe from any risk of repeating the hideousAaronson mistake; yet she now saw she had blundered again indistinguishing Claud Walsingham Popple while she almost snubbed his moreretiring companion. It was all very puzzling, and her perplexity hadbeen farther increased by Mrs. Heeny's tale of the great Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll's despair. 

Hitherto Undine had imagined that the Driscoll and Van Degen clans andtheir allies held undisputed suzerainty over New York society. MabelLipscomb thought so too, and was given to bragging of her acquaintancewith a Mrs. Spoff, who was merely a second cousin of Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll's. Yet here was she. Undine Spragg of Apex, about to beintroduced into an inner circle to which Driscolls and Van Degens hadlaid siege in vain! It was enough to make her feel a little dizzy withher triumph--to work her up into that state of perilous self-confidencein which all her worst follies had been committed. 

She stood up and, going close to the glass, examined the reflectionof her bright eyes and glowing cheeks. This time her fears weresuperfluous: there were to be no more mistakes and no more follies now!She was going to know the right people at last--she was going to getwhat she wanted!

As she stood there, smiling at her happy image, she heard her father'svoice in the room beyond, and instantly began to tear off her dress, strip the long gloves from her arms and unpin the rose in her hair. Tossing the fallen finery aside, she slipped on a dressing-gown andopened the door into the drawing-room. 

Mr. Spragg was standing near her mother, who sat in a drooping attitude, her head sunk on her breast, as she did when she had one of her "turns. "He looked up abruptly as Undine entered. 

"Father--has mother told you? Mrs. Fairford has asked me to dine. She'sMrs. Paul Marvell's daughter--Mrs. Marvell was a Dagonet--and they'resweller than anybody; they WON'T KNOW the Driscolls and Van Degens!"

Mr. Spragg surveyed her with humorous fondness. 

"That so? What do they want to know you for, I wonder?" he jeered. 

"Can't imagine--unless they think I'll introduce YOU!" she jeered backin the same key, her arms around his stooping shoulders, her shininghair against his cheek. 

"Well--and are you going to? Have you accepted?" he took up her joke asshe held him pinioned; while Mrs. Spragg, behind them, stirred in herseat with a little moan. 

Undine threw back her head, plunging her eyes in his, and pressing soclose that to his tired elderly sight her face was a mere bright blur. 

"I want to awfully, " she declared, "but I haven't got a single thing towear. "

Mrs. Spragg, at this, moaned more audibly. "Undine, I wouldn't askfather to buy any more clothes right on top of those last bills. "

"I ain't on top of those last bills yet--I'm way down under them, " Mr. Spragg interrupted, raising his hands to imprison his daughter's slenderwrists. 

"Oh, well--if you want me to look like a scarecrow, and not get askedagain, I've got a dress that'll do PERFECTLY, " Undine threatened, in atone between banter and vexation. 

Mr. Spragg held her away at arm's length, a smile drawing up the loosewrinkles about his eyes. 

"Well, that kind of dress might come in mighty handy on SOME occasions;so I guess you'd better hold on to it for future use, and go and selectanother for this Fairford dinner, " he said; and before he could finishhe was in her arms again, and she was smothering his last word in littlecries and kisses. 

III

Though she would not for the world have owned it to her parents, Undinewas disappointed in the Fairford dinner. 

The house, to begin with, was small and rather shabby. There was nogilding, no lavish diffusion of light: the room they sat in afterdinner, with its green-shaded lamps making faint pools of brightness, and its rows of books from floor to ceiling, reminded Undine of the oldcirculating library at Apex, before the new marble building was put up. Then, instead of a gas-log, or a polished grate with electric bulbsbehind ruby glass, there was an old-fashioned wood-fire, like picturesof "Back to the farm for Christmas"; and when the logs fell forward Mrs. Pairford or her brother had to jump up to push them in place, and theashes scattered over the hearth untidily. 

The dinner too was disappointing. Undine was too young to take note ofculinary details, but she had expected to view the company through abower of orchids and eat pretty-coloured entrees in ruffled papers. Instead, there was only a low centre-dish of ferns, and plain roastedand broiled meat that one could recognize--as if they'd been dyspepticson a diet! With all the hints in the Sunday papers, she thought it dullof Mrs. Fairford not to have picked up something newer; and as theevening progressed she began to suspect that it wasn't a real "dinnerparty, " and that they had just asked her in to share what they had whenthey were alone. 

But a glance about the table convinced her that Mrs. Fairford could nothave meant to treat her other guests so lightly. They were only eightin number, but one was no less a person than young Mrs. Peter VanDegen--the one who had been a Dagonet--and the consideration which thisyoung lady, herself one of the choicest ornaments of the Society Column, displayed toward the rest of the company, convinced Undine that theymust be more important than they looked. She liked Mrs. Fairford, a small incisive woman, with a big nose and good teeth revealed byfrequent smiles. In her dowdy black and antiquated ornaments she was notwhat Undine would have called "stylish"; but she had a droll kind waywhich reminded the girl of her father's manner when he was not tired orworried about money. One of the other ladies, having white hair, did notlong arrest Undine's attention; and the fourth, a girl like herself, whowas introduced as Miss Harriet Ray, she dismissed at a glance as plainand wearing a last year's "model. "

The men, too, were less striking than she had hoped. She had notexpected much of Mr. Fairford, since married men were intrinsicallyuninteresting, and his baldness and grey moustache seemed naturally torelegate him to the background; but she had looked for some brilliantyouths of her own age--in her inmost heart she had looked for Mr. Popple. He was not there, however, and of the other men one, whom theycalled Mr. Bowen, was hopelessly elderly--she supposed he was thehusband of the white-haired lady--and the other two, who seemed to befriends of young Marvell's, were both lacking in Claud Walsingham'sdash. 

Undine sat between Mr. Bowen and young Marvell, who struck her as very"sweet" (it was her word for friendliness), but even shyer than at thehotel dance. Yet she was not sure if he were shy, or if his quietnesswere only a new kind of self-possession which expressed itselfnegatively instead of aggressively. Small, well-knit, fair, he satstroking his slight blond moustache and looking at her with kindly, almost tender eyes; but he left it to his sister and the others to drawher out and fit her into the pattern. 

Mrs. Fairford talked so well that the girl wondered why Mrs. Heeny hadfound her lacking in conversation. But though Undine thought silentpeople awkward she was not easily impressed by verbal fluency. All theladies in Apex City were more voluble than Mrs. Fairford, and hada larger vocabulary: the difference was that with Mrs. Fairfordconversation seemed to be a concert and not a solo. She kept drawing inthe others, giving each a turn, beating time for them with her smile, and somehow harmonizing and linking together what they said. She tookparticular pains to give Undine her due part in the performance; butthe girl's expansive impulses were always balanced by odd reactions ofmistrust, and to-night the latter prevailed. She meant to watch andlisten without letting herself go, and she sat very straight and pink, answering promptly but briefly, with the nervous laugh that punctuatedall her phrases--saying "I don't care if I do" when her host asked herto try some grapes, and "I wouldn't wonder" when she thought any one wastrying to astonish her. 

This state of lucidity enabled her to take note of all that was beingsaid. The talk ran more on general questions, and less on people, thanshe was used to; but though the allusions to pictures and books escapedher, she caught and stored up every personal reference, and the pink inher cheeks deepened at a random mention of Mr. Popple. 

"Yes--he's doing me, " Mrs. Peter Van Degen was saying, in her slightlydrawling voice. "He's doing everybody this year, you know--"

"As if that were a reason!" Undine heard Mrs. Fairford breathe to Mr. Bowen; who replied, at the same pitch: "It's a Van Degen reason, isn'tit?"--to which Mrs. Fairford shrugged assentingly. 

"That delightful Popple--he paints so exactly as he talks!" thewhite-haired lady took it up. "All his portraits seem to proclaim whata gentleman he is, and how he fascinates women! They're not pictures ofMrs. Or Miss So-and-so, but simply of the impression Popple thinks he'smade on them. "

Mrs. Fairford smiled. "I've sometimes thought, " she mused, "that Mr. Popple must be the only gentleman I know; at least he's the only manwho has ever told me he was a gentleman--and Mr. Popple never fails tomention it. "

Undine's ear was too well attuned to the national note of irony for hernot to perceive that her companions were making sport of the painter. She winced at their banter as if it had been at her own expense, yetit gave her a dizzy sense of being at last in the very stronghold offashion. Her attention was diverted by hearing Mrs. Van Degen, undercover of the general laugh, say in a low tone to young Marvell: "Ithought you liked his things, or I wouldn't have had him paint me. "

Something in her tone made all Undine's perceptions bristle, and shestrained her ears for the answer. 

"I think he'll do you capitally--you must let me come and see some daysoon. " Marvell's tone was always so light, so unemphasized, that shecould not be sure of its being as indifferent as it sounded. She lookeddown at the fruit on her plate and shot a side-glance through her lashesat Mrs. Peter Van Degen. 

Mrs. Van Degen was neither beautiful nor imposing: just a darkgirlish-looking creature with plaintive eyes and a fidgety frequentlaugh. But she was more elaborately dressed and jewelled than the otherladies, and her elegance and her restlessness made her seem less aliento Undine. She had turned on Marvell a gaze at once pleading andpossessive; but whether betokening merely an inherited intimacy (Undinehad noticed that they were all more or less cousins) or a more personalfeeling, her observer was unable to decide; just as the tone ofthe young man's reply might have expressed the open avowal ofgood-fellowship or the disguise of a different sentiment. All wasblurred and puzzling to the girl in this world of half-lights, half-tones, eliminations and abbreviations; and she felt a violentlonging to brush away the cobwebs and assert herself as the dominantfigure of the scene. 

Yet in the drawing-room, with the ladies, where Mrs. Fairford came andsat by her, the spirit of caution once more prevailed. She wanted to benoticed but she dreaded to be patronized, and here again her hostess'sgradations of tone were confusing. Mrs. Fairford made no tactlessallusions to her being a newcomer in New York--there was nothing asbitter to the girl as that--but her questions as to what pictures hadinterested Undine at the various exhibitions of the moment, and which ofthe new books she had read, were almost as open to suspicion, since theyhad to be answered in the negative. Undine did not even know that therewere any pictures to be seen, much less that "people" went to see them;and she had read no new book but "When The Kissing Had to Stop, " ofwhich Mrs. Fairford seemed not to have heard. On the theatre they wereequally at odds, for while Undine had seen "Oolaloo" fourteen times, andwas "wild" about Ned Norris in "The Soda-Water Fountain, " she had notheard of the famous Berlin comedians who were performing Shakespeare atthe German Theatre, and knew only by name the clever American actresswho was trying to give "repertory" plays with a good stock company. Theconversation was revived for a moment by her recalling that she had seenSarah Bernhard in a play she called "Leg-long, " and another which shepronounced "Fade"; but even this did not carry them far, as she hadforgotten what both plays were about and had found the actress a gooddeal older than she expected. 

Matters were not improved by the return of the men from thesmoking-room. Henley Fairford replaced his wife at Undine's side; andsince it was unheard-of at Apex for a married man to force his societyon a young girl, she inferred that the others didn't care to talk toher, and that her host and hostess were in league to take her off theirhands. This discovery resulted in her holding her vivid head very high, and answering "I couldn't really say, " or "Is that so?" to all Mr. Fairford's ventures; and as these were neither numerous nor striking itwas a relief to both when the rising of the elderly lady gave the signalfor departure. 

In the hall, where young Marvell had managed to precede her. Undinefound Mrs. Van Degen putting on her cloak. As she gathered it about hershe laid her hand on Marvell's arm. 

"Ralphie, dear, you'll come to the opera with me on Friday? We'll dinetogether first--Peter's got a club dinner. " They exchanged what seemed asmile of intelligence, and Undine heard the young man accept. Then Mrs. Van Degen turned to her. 

"Good-bye, Miss Spragg. I hope you'll come--"

"--TO DINE WITH ME TOO?" That must be what she was going to say, andUndine's heart gave a bound. 

"--to see me some afternoon, " Mrs. Van Degen ended, going down the stepsto her motor, at the door of which a much-furred footman waited withmore furs on his arm. 

Undine's face burned as she turned to receive her cloak. When she haddrawn it on with haughty deliberation she found Marvell at her side, inhat and overcoat, and her heart gave a higher bound. He was going to"escort" her home, of course! This brilliant youth--she felt now that heWAS brilliant--who dined alone with married women, whom the "Van Degenset" called "Ralphie, dear, " had really no eyes for any one but herself;and at the thought her lost self-complacency flowed back warm throughher veins. 

The street was coated with ice, and she had a delicious momentdescending the steps on Marvell's arm, and holding it fast while theywaited for her cab to come up; but when he had helped her in he closedthe door and held his hand out over the lowered window. 

"Good-bye, " he said, smiling; and she could not help the break of pridein her voice, as she faltered out stupidly, from the depths of herdisillusionment: "Oh--good-bye. "

IV

"Father, you've got to take a box for me at the opera next Friday. "

From the tone of her voice Undine's parents knew at once that she was"nervous. "

They had counted a great deal on the Fairford dinner as a means oftranquillization, and it was a blow to detect signs of the oppositeresult when, late the next morning, their daughter came dawdling intothe sodden splendour of the Stentorian breakfast-room. 

The symptoms of Undine's nervousness were unmistakable to Mr. And Mrs. Spragg. They could read the approaching storm in the darkening of hereyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her straightblack brows met above them and the red curves of her lips narrowed to aparallel line below. 

Mr. Spragg, having finished the last course of his heterogeneous meal, was adjusting his gold eye-glasses for a glance at the paper whenUndine trailed down the sumptuous stuffy room, where coffee-fumes hungperpetually under the emblazoned ceiling and the spongy carpet mighthave absorbed a year's crumbs without a sweeping. 

About them sat other pallid families, richly dressed, and silentlyeating their way through a bill-of-fare which seemed to have ransackedthe globe for gastronomic incompatibilities; and in the middle of theroom a knot of equally pallid waiters, engaged in languid conversation, turned their backs by common consent on the persons they were supposedto serve. 

Undine, who rose too late to share the family breakfast, usually had herchocolate brought to her in bed by Celeste, after the manner describedin the articles on "A Society Woman's Day" which were appearing inBoudoir Chat. Her mere appearance in the restaurant therefore preparedher parents for those symptoms of excessive tension which a nearerinspection confirmed, and Mr. Spragg folded his paper and hooked hisglasses to his waistcoat with the air of a man who prefers to know theworst and have it over. 

"An opera box!" faltered Mrs. Spragg, pushing aside the bananas andcream with which she had been trying to tempt an appetite too languidfor fried liver or crab mayonnaise. 

"A parterre box, " Undine corrected, ignoring the exclamation, andcontinuing to address herself to her father. "Friday's the stylishnight, and that new tenor's going to sing again in 'Cavaleeria, '" shecondescended to explain. 

"That so?" Mr. Spragg thrust his hands into his waistcoat pockets, andbegan to tilt his chair till he remembered there was no wall to meet it. He regained his balance and said: "Wouldn't a couple of good orchestraseats do you?"

"No; they wouldn't, " Undine answered with a darkening brow. He looked ather humorously. "You invited the whole dinner-party, I suppose?"

"No--no one. "

"Going all alone in a box?" She was disdainfully silent. "I don't s'poseyou're thinking of taking mother and me?"

This was so obviously comic that they all laughed--even Mrs. Spragg--andUndine went on more mildly: "I want to do something for Mabel Lipscomb:make some return. She's always taking me 'round, and I've never done athing for her--not a single thing. "

This appeal to the national belief in the duty of reciprocal "treating"could not fail of its effect, and Mrs. Spragg murmured: "She never HAS, Abner, "--but Mr. Spragg's brow remained unrelenting. 

"Do you know what a box costs?"

"No; but I s'pose you do, " Undine returned with unconscious flippancy. 

"I do. That's the trouble. WHY won't seats do you?"

"Mabel could buy seats for herself. "

"That's so, " interpolated Mrs. Spragg--always the first to succumb toher daughter's arguments. 

"Well, I guess I can't buy a box for her. "

Undine's face gloomed more deeply. She sat silent, her chocolatethickening in the cup, while one hand, almost as much beringed as hermother's, drummed on the crumpled table-cloth. 

"We might as well go straight back to Apex, " she breathed at lastbetween her teeth. 

Mrs. Spragg cast a frightened glance at her husband. These strugglesbetween two resolute wills always brought on her palpitations, and shewished she had her phial of digitalis with her. 

"A parterre box costs a hundred and twenty-five dollars a night, " saidMr. Spragg, transferring a toothpick to his waistcoat pocket. 

"I only want it once. "

He looked at her with a quizzical puckering of his crows'-feet. "Youonly want most things once. Undine. "

It was an observation they had made in her earliest youth--Undine neverwanted anything long, but she wanted it "right off. " And until she gotit the house was uninhabitable. 

"I'd a good deal rather have a box for the season, " she rejoined, and hesaw the opening he had given her. She had two ways of getting thingsout of him against his principles; the tender wheedling way, and theharsh-lipped and cold--and he did not know which he dreaded most. As achild they had admired her assertiveness, had made Apex ring with theirboasts of it; but it had long since cowed Mrs. Spragg, and it wasbeginning to frighten her husband. 

"Fact is, Undie, " he said, weakening, "I'm a little mite strapped justthis month. "

Her eyes grew absent-minded, as they always did when he alluded tobusiness. THAT was man's province; and what did men go "down town" forbut to bring back the spoils to their women? She rose abruptly, leavingher parents seated, and said, more to herself than the others: "ThinkI'll go for a ride. "

"Oh, Undine!" fluttered Mrs. Spragg. She always had palpitations whenUndine rode, and since the Aaronson episode her fears were not confinedto what the horse might do. 

"Why don't you take your mother out shopping a little?" Mr. Spraggsuggested, conscious of the limitation of his resources. 

Undine made no answer, but swept down the room, and out of the doorahead of her mother, with scorn and anger in every line of her arrogantyoung back. Mrs. Spragg tottered meekly after her, and Mr. Spragglounged out into the marble hall to buy a cigar before taking the Subwayto his office. 

Undine went for a ride, not because she felt particularly disposed forthe exercise, but because she wished to discipline her mother. She wasalmost sure she would get her opera box, but she did not see why sheshould have to struggle for her rights, and she was especially annoyedwith Mrs. Spragg for seconding her so half-heartedly. If she and hermother did not hold together in such crises she would have twice thework to do. 

Undine hated "scenes": she was essentially peace-loving, and would havepreferred to live on terms of unbroken harmony with her parents. Butshe could not help it if they were unreasonable. Ever since she couldremember there had been "fusses" about money; yet she and her mother hadalways got what they wanted, apparently without lasting detriment to thefamily fortunes. It was therefore natural to conclude that there wereample funds to draw upon, and that Mr. Spragg's occasional resistanceswere merely due to an imperfect understanding of what constituted thenecessities of life. 

When she returned from her ride Mrs. Spragg received her as if she hadcome back from the dead. It was absurd, of course; but Undine was inuredto the absurdity of parents. 

"Has father telephoned?" was her first brief question. 

"No, he hasn't yet. "

Undine's lips tightened, but she proceeded deliberately with the removalof her habit. 

"You'd think I'd asked him to buy me the Opera House, the wayhe's acting over a single box, " she muttered, flinging aside hersmartly-fitting coat. Mrs. Spragg received the flying garment andsmoothed it out on the bed. Neither of the ladies could "bear" to havetheir maid about when they were at their toilet, and Mrs. Spragg hadalways performed these ancillary services for Undine. 

"You know, Undie, father hasn't always got the money in his pocket, andthe bills have been pretty heavy lately. Father was a rich man for Apex, but that's different from being rich in New York. "

She stood before her daughter, looking down on her appealingly. 

Undine, who had seated herself while she detached her stock andwaistcoat, raised her head with an impatient jerk. "Why on earth did weever leave Apex, then?" she exclaimed. 

Mrs. Spragg's eyes usually dropped before her daughter's inclement gaze;but on this occasion they held their own with a kind of awe-struckcourage, till Undine's lids sank above her flushing cheeks. 

She sprang up, tugging at the waistband of her habit, while Mrs. Spragg, relapsing from temerity to meekness, hovered about her with obstructivezeal. "If you'd only just let go of my skirt, mother--I can unhook ittwice as quick myself. "

Mrs. Spragg drew back, understanding that her presence was no longerwanted. But on the threshold she paused, as if overruled by a strongerinfluence, and said, with a last look at her daughter: "You didn't meetanybody when you were out, did you, Undie?"

Undine's brows drew together: she was struggling with her longpatent-leather boot. 

"Meet anybody? Do you mean anybody I know? I don't KNOW anybody--I nevershall, if father can't afford to let me go round with people!"

The boot was off with a wrench, and she flung it violently across theold-rose carpet, while Mrs. Spragg, turning away to hide a look ofinexpressible relief, slipped discreetly from the room. 

The day wore on. Undine had meant to go down and tell Mabel Lipscombabout the Fairford dinner, but its aftertaste was flat on her lips. Whatwould it lead to? Nothing, as far as she could see. Ralph Marvell hadnot even asked when he might call; and she was ashamed to confess toMabel that he had not driven home with her. 

Suddenly she decided that she would go and see the pictures of whichMrs. Fairford had spoken. Perhaps she might meet some of the people shehad seen at dinner--from their talk one might have imagined that theyspent their lives in picture-galleries. 

The thought reanimated her, and she put on her handsomest furs, and ahat for which she had not yet dared present the bill to her father. Itwas the fashionable hour in Fifth Avenue, but Undine knew none of theladies who were bowing to each other from interlocked motors. She had tocontent herself with the gaze of admiration which she left in her wakealong the pavement; but she was used to the homage of the streets andher vanity craved a choicer fare. 

When she reached the art gallery which Mrs. Fairford had named she foundit even more crowded than Fifth Avenue; and some of the ladies andgentlemen wedged before the pictures had the "look" which signifiedsocial consecration. As Undine made her way among them, she was aware ofattracting almost as much notice as in the street, and she flung herselfinto rapt attitudes before the canvases, scribbling notes in thecatalogue in imitation of a tall girl in sables, while ripples ofself-consciousness played up and down her watchful back. 

Presently her attention was drawn to a lady in black who was examiningthe pictures through a tortoise-shell eye-glass adorned with diamondsand hanging from a long pearl chain. Undine was instantly struck by theopportunities which this toy presented for graceful wrist movementsand supercilious turns of the head. It seemed suddenly plebeian andpromiscuous to look at the world with a naked eye, and all her floatingdesires were merged in the wish for a jewelled eye-glass and chain. Soviolent was this wish that, drawn on in the wake of the owner of theeye-glass, she found herself inadvertently bumping against a stouttight-coated young man whose impact knocked her catalogue from her hand. 

As the young man picked the catalogue up and held it out to her shenoticed that his bulging eyes and queer retreating face were suffusedwith a glow of admiration. He was so unpleasant-looking that she wouldhave resented his homage had not his odd physiognomy called up somevaguely agreeable association of ideas. Where had she seen before thisgrotesque saurian head, with eye-lids as thick as lips and lips as thickas ear-lobes? It fled before her down a perspective of innumerablenewspaper portraits, all, like the original before her, tightly coated, with a huge pearl transfixing a silken tie.... 

"Oh, thank you, " she murmured, all gleams and graces, while he stood hatin hand, saying sociably:

"The crowd's simply awful, isn't it?"

At the same moment the lady of the eye-glass drifted closer, and with atap of her wand, and a careless "Peter, look at this, " swept him to theother side of the gallery. 

Undine's heart was beating excitedly, for as he turned away she hadidentified him. Peter Van Degen--who could he be but young Peter VanDegen, the son of the great banker, Thurber Van Degen, the husband ofRalph Marvell's cousin, the hero of "Sunday Supplements, " the captor ofBlue Ribbons at Horse-Shows, of Gold Cups at Motor Races, the owner ofwinning race-horses and "crack" sloops: the supreme exponent, in short, of those crowning arts that made all life seem stale and unprofitableoutside the magic ring of the Society Column? Undine smiled as sherecalled the look with which his pale protruding eyes had rested onher--it almost consoled her for his wife's indifference!

When she reached home she found that she could not remember anythingabout the pictures she had seen... 

There was no message from her father, and a reaction of disgust set in. Of what good were such encounters if they were to have no sequel? Shewould probably never meet Peter Van Degen again--or, if she DID runacross him in the same accidental way, she knew they could not continuetheir conversation without being "introduced. " What was the use of beingbeautiful and attracting attention if one were perpetually doomed torelapse again into the obscure mass of the Uninvited?

Her gloom was not lightened by finding Ralph Marvell's card on thedrawing-room table. She thought it unflattering and almost impolite ofhim to call without making an appointment: it seemed to show that hedid not wish to continue their acquaintance. But as she tossed the cardaside her mother said: "He was real sorry not to see you. Undine--he sathere nearly an hour. "

Undine's attention was roused. "Sat here--all alone? Didn't you tell himI was out?"

"Yes--but he came up all the same. He asked for me. "

"Asked for YOU?"

The social order seemed to be falling in ruins at Undine's feet. Avisitor who asked for a girl's mother!--she stared at Mrs. Spragg withcold incredulity. "What makes you think he did?"

"Why, they told me so. I telephoned down that you were out, and theysaid he'd asked for me. " Mrs. Spragg let the fact speak for itself--itwas too much out of the range of her experience to admit of even ahypothetical explanation. 

Undine shrugged her shoulders. "It was a mistake, of course. Why onearth did you let him come up?"

"I thought maybe he had a message for you, Undie. "

This plea struck her daughter as not without weight. "Well, did he?" sheasked, drawing out her hat-pins and tossing down her hat on the onyxtable. 

"Why, no--he just conversed. He was lovely to me, but I couldn't makeout what he was after, " Mrs. Spragg was obliged to own. 

Her daughter looked at her with a kind of chill commiseration. "Younever CAN, " she murmured, turning away. 

She stretched herself out moodily on one of the pink and gold sofas, andlay there brooding, an unread novel on her knee. Mrs. Spragg timidlyslipped a cushion under her daughter's head, and then dissembled herselfbehind the lace window-curtains and sat watching the lights spring outdown the long street and spread their glittering net across the Park. Itwas one of Mrs. Spragg's chief occupations to watch the nightly lightingof New York. 

Undine lay silent, her hands clasped behind her head. She was plunged inone of the moods of bitter retrospection when all her past seemed like along struggle for something she could not have, from a trip to Europe toan opera-box; and when she felt sure that, as the past had been, so thefuture would be. And yet, as she had often told her parents, all shesought for was improvement: she honestly wanted the best. 

Her first struggle--after she had ceased to scream for candy, or sulkfor a new toy--had been to get away from Apex in summer. Her summers, as she looked back on them, seemed to typify all that was dreariest andmost exasperating in her life. The earliest had been spent in the yellow"frame" cottage where she had hung on the fence, kicking her toesagainst the broken palings and exchanging moist chewing-gum andhalf-eaten apples with Indiana Frusk. Later on, she had returned fromher boarding-school to the comparative gentility of summer vacations atthe Mealey House, whither her parents, forsaking their squalid suburb, had moved in the first flush of their rising fortunes. The tessellatedfloors, the plush parlours and organ-like radiators of the Mealey Househad, aside from their intrinsic elegance, the immense advantage oflifting the Spraggs high above the Frusks, and making it possible forUndine, when she met Indiana in the street or at school, to chill heradvances by a careless allusion to the splendours of hotel life. Buteven in such a setting, and in spite of the social superiority itimplied, the long months of the middle western summer, fly-blown, torrid, exhaling stale odours, soon became as insufferable as they hadbeen in the little yellow house. At school Undine met other girls whoseparents took them to the Great Lakes for August; some even went toCalifornia, others--oh bliss ineffable!--went "east. "

Pale and listless under the stifling boredom of the Mealey Houseroutine, Undine secretly sucked lemons, nibbled slate-pencils and drankpints of bitter coffee to aggravate her look of ill-health; and when shelearned that even Indiana Frusk was to go on a month's visit to Buffaloit needed no artificial aids to emphasize the ravages of envy. Herparents, alarmed by her appearance, were at last convinced of thenecessity of change, and timidly, tentatively, they transferredthemselves for a month to a staring hotel on a glaring lake. 

There Undine enjoyed the satisfaction of sending ironic post-cards toIndiana, and discovering that she could more than hold her ownagainst the youth and beauty of the other visitors. Then she made theacquaintance of a pretty woman from Richmond, whose husband, a miningengineer, had brought her west with him while he inspected thenewly developed Eubaw mines; and the southern visitor's dismay, herrepugnances, her recoil from the faces, the food, the amusements, thegeneral bareness and stridency of the scene, were a terrible initiationto Undine. There was something still better beyond, then--moreluxurious, more exciting, more worthy of her! She once said to herself, afterward, that it was always her fate to find out just too late aboutthe "something beyond. " But in this case it was not too late--andobstinately, inflexibly, she set herself to the task of forcing herparents to take her "east" the next summer. 

Yielding to the inevitable, they suffered themselves to be impelled to aVirginia "resort, " where Undine had her first glimpse of more romanticpossibilities--leafy moonlight rides and drives, picnics in mountainglades, and an atmosphere of Christmas-chromo sentimentality thattempered her hard edges a little, and gave her glimpses of a moredelicate kind of pleasure. But here again everything was spoiled by apeep through another door. Undine, after a first mustering of the othergirls in the hotel, had, as usual, found herself easily first--till thearrival, from Washington, of Mr. And Mrs. Wincher and their daughter. Undine was much handsomer than Miss Wincher, but she saw at a glancethat she did not know how to use her beauty as the other used herplainness. She was exasperated too, by the discovery that Miss Wincherseemed not only unconscious of any possible rivalry between them, butactually unaware of her existence. Listless, long-faced, supercilious, the young lady from Washington sat apart reading novels or playingsolitaire with her parents, as though the huge hotel's loud life ofgossip and flirtation were invisible and inaudible to her. Undine nevereven succeeded in catching her eye: she always lowered it to her bookwhen the Apex beauty trailed or rattled past her secluded corner. Butone day an acquaintance of the Winchers' turned up--a lady from Boston, who had come to Virginia on a botanizing tour; and from scraps of MissWincher's conversation with the newcomer, Undine, straining her earsbehind a column of the long veranda, obtained a new glimpse into theunimagined. 

The Winchers, it appeared, found themselves at Potash Springs merelybecause a severe illness of Mrs. Wincher's had made it impossible, atthe last moment, to move her farther from Washington. They had let theirhouse on the North Shore, and as soon as they could leave "this dreadfulhole" were going to Europe for the autumn. Miss Wincher simply didn'tknow how she got through the days; though no doubt it was as good asa rest-cure after the rush of the winter. Of course they would havepreferred to hire a house, but the "hole, " if one could believe it, didn't offer one; so they had simply shut themselves off as bestthey could from the "hotel crew"--had her friend, Miss Wincherparenthetically asked, happened to notice the Sunday young men? Theywere queerer even than the "belles" they came for--and had escaped thepromiscuity of the dinner-hour by turning one of their rooms into adining-room, and picnicking there--with the Persimmon House standards, one couldn't describe it in any other way! But luckily the awful placewas doing mamma good, and now they had nearly served their term... 

Undine turned sick as she listened. Only the evening before she hadgone on a "buggy-ride" with a young gentleman from Deposit--a dentist'sassistant--and had let him kiss her, and given him the flower from herhair. She loathed the thought of him now: she loathed all the peopleabout her, and most of all the disdainful Miss Wincher. It enraged herto think that the Winchers classed her with the "hotel crew"--with the"belles" who awaited their Sunday young men. The place was foreverblighted for her, and the next week she dragged her amazed but thankfulparents back to Apex. 

But Miss Wincher's depreciatory talk had opened ampler vistas, and thepioneer blood in Undine would not let her rest. She had heard the callof the Atlantic seaboard, and the next summer found the Spraggs at SkogHarbour, Maine. Even now Undine felt a shiver of boredom as she recalledit. That summer had been the worst of all. The bare wind-beaten inn, allshingles without and blueberry pie within, was "exclusive, " parochial, Bostonian; and the Spraggs wore through the interminable weeks in blankunmitigated isolation. The incomprehensible part of it was that everyother woman in the hotel was plain, dowdy or elderly--and most of themall three. If there had been any competition on ordinary lines Undinewould have won, as Van Degen said, "hands down. " But there wasn't--theother "guests" simply formed a cold impenetrable group who walked, boated, played golf, and discussed Christian Science and the Subliminal, unaware of the tremulous organism drifting helplessly against theirrock-bound circle. 

It was on the day the Spraggs left Skog Harbour that Undine vowed toherself with set lips: "I'll never try anything again till I try NewYork. " Now she had gained her point and tried New York, and so far, itseemed, with no better success. From small things to great, everythingwent against her. In such hours of self-searching she was ready enoughto acknowledge her own mistakes, but they exasperated her less than theblunders of her parents. She was sure, for instance, that she was onwhat Mrs. Heeny called "the right tack" at last: yet just at the momentwhen her luck seemed about to turn she was to be thwarted by herfather's stupid obstinacy about the opera-box... 

She lay brooding over these things till long after Mrs. Spragg had goneaway to dress for dinner, and it was nearly eight o'clock when she heardher father's dragging tread in the hall. 

She kept her eyes fixed on her book while he entered the room and movedabout behind her, laying aside his hat and overcoat; then his steps cameclose and a small parcel dropped on the pages of her book. 

"Oh, father!" She sprang up, all alight, the novel on the floor, herfingers twitching for the tickets. But a substantial packet emerged, like nothing she had ever seen. She looked at it, hoping, fearing--shebeamed blissful interrogation on her father while his sallow smilecontinued to tantalize her. Then she closed on him with a rush, smothering his words against her hair. 

"It's for more than one night--why, it's for every other Friday! Oh, youdarling, you darling!" she exulted. 

Mr. Spragg, through the glittering meshes, feigned dismay. "That so?They must have given me the wrong--!" Then, convicted by her radianteyes as she swung round on him: "I knew you only wanted it ONCE foryourself. Undine; but I thought maybe, off nights, you'd like to send itto your friends. "

Mrs. Spragg, who from her doorway had assisted with moist eyes at thisclosing pleasantry, came forward as Undine hurried away to dress. 

"Abner--can you really manage it all right?"

He answered her with one of his awkward brief caresses. "Don't you fretabout that, Leota. I'm bound to have her go round with these people sheknows. I want her to be with them all she can. "

A pause fell between them, while Mrs. Spragg looked anxiously into hisfagged eyes. 

"You seen Elmer again?"

"No. Once was enough, " he returned, with a scowl like Undine's. 

"Why--you SAID he couldn't come after her, Abner!"

"No more he can. But what if she was to get nervous and lonesome, andwant to go after him?"

Mrs. Spragg shuddered away from the suggestion. "How'd he look? Just thesame?" she whispered. 

"No. Spruced up. That's what scared me. "

It scared her too, to the point of blanching her habitually lifelesscheek. She continued to scrutinize her husband broodingly. "You lookfairly sick, Abner. You better let me get you some of those stomachdrops right off, " she proposed. 

But he parried this with his unfailing humour. "I guess I'm too sick torisk that. " He passed his hand through her arm with the conjugal gesturefamiliar to Apex City. "Come along down to dinner, mother--I guessUndine won't mind if I don't rig up to-night. "

V

She had looked down at them, enviously, from the balcony--she had lookedup at them, reverentially, from the stalls; but now at last she was on aline with them, among them, she was part of the sacred semicircle whoseprivilege it is, between the acts, to make the mere public forget thatthe curtain has fallen. 

As she swept to the left-hand seat of their crimson niche, waving MabelLipscomb to the opposite corner with a gesture learned during herapprenticeship in the stalls, Undine felt that quickening of thefaculties that comes in the high moments of life. Her consciousnessseemed to take in at once the whole bright curve of the auditorium, fromthe unbroken lines of spectators below her to the culminating blazeof the central chandelier; and she herself was the core of that vastillumination, the sentient throbbing surface which gathered all theshafts of light into a centre. 

It was almost a relief when, a moment later, the lights sank, thecurtain rose, and the focus of illumination was shifted. The music, thescenery, and the movement on the stage, were like a rich mist temperingthe radiance that shot on her from every side, and giving her time tosubside, draw breath, adjust herself to this new clear medium which madeher feel so oddly brittle and transparent. 

When the curtain fell on the first act she began to be aware of a subtlechange in the house. In all the boxes cross-currents of movement hadset in: groups were coalescing and breaking up, fans waving and headstwinkling, black coats emerging among white shoulders, late comersdropping their furs and laces in the red penumbra of the background. Undine, for the moment unconscious of herself, swept the house with heropera-glass, searching for familiar faces. Some she knew without beingable to name them--fixed figure-heads of the social prow--others sherecognized from their portraits in the papers; but of the few from whomshe could herself claim recognition not one was visible, and as shepursued her investigations the whole scene grew blank and featureless. 

Almost all the boxes were full now, but one, just opposite, tantalizedher by its continued emptiness. How queer to have an opera-box and notuse it! What on earth could the people be doing--what rarer delightcould they be tasting? Undine remembered that the numbers of the boxesand the names of their owners were given on the back of the programme, and after a rapid computation she turned to consult the list. Mondaysand Fridays, Mrs. Peter Van Degen. That was it: the box was emptybecause Mrs. Van Degen was dining alone with Ralph Marvell! "PETER WILLBE AT ONE OF HIS DINNERS. " Undine had a sharp vision of the Van Degendining-room--she pictured it as oak-carved and sumptuous with gilding--with a small table in the centre, and rosy lights and flowers, andRalph Marvell, across the hot-house grapes and champagne, leaning totake a light from his hostess's cigarette. Undine had seen such sceneson the stage, she had come upon them in the glowing pages of fiction, and it seemed to her that every detail was before her now, from theglitter of jewels on Mrs. Van Degen's bare shoulders to the way youngMarvell stroked his slight blond moustache while he smiled and listened. 

Undine blushed with anger at her own simplicity in fancying that he hadbeen "taken" by her--that she could ever really count among these happyself-absorbed people! They all had their friends, their ties, theirdelightful crowding obligations: why should they make room for anintruder in a circle so packed with the initiated?

As her imagination developed the details of the scene in the Van Degendining-room it became clear to her that fashionable society washorribly immoral and that she could never really be happy in such apoisoned atmosphere. She remembered that an eminent divine was preachinga series of sermons against Social Corruption, and she determined to goand hear him on the following Sunday. 

This train of thought was interrupted by the feeling that she was beingintently observed from the neighbouring box. She turned around with afeint of speaking to Mrs. Lipscomb, and met the bulging stare of PeterVan Degen. He was standing behind the lady of the eye-glass, who hadreplaced her tortoise-shell implement by one of closely-set brilliants, which, at word from her companion, she critically bent on Undine. 

"No--I don't remember, " she said; and the girl reddened, diviningherself unidentified after this protracted scrutiny. 

But there was no doubt as to young Van Degen's remembering her. She waseven conscious that he was trying to provoke in her some reciprocal signof recognition; and the attempt drove her to the haughty study of herprogramme. 

"Why, there's Mr. Popple over there!" exclaimed Mabel Lipscomb, makinglarge signs across the house with fan and play-bill. 

Undine had already become aware that Mabel, planted, blond and brimming, too near the edge of the box, was somehow out of scale and out ofdrawing; and the freedom of her demonstrations increased the effectof disproportion. No one else was wagging and waving in that way: agestureless mute telegraphy seemed to pass between the other boxes. Still, Undine could not help following Mrs. Lipscomb's glance, andthere in fact was Claud Popple, taller and more dominant than ever, andbending easily over what she felt must be the back of a brilliant woman. 

He replied by a discreet salute to Mrs. Lipscomb's intemperate motions, and Undine saw the brilliant woman's opera-glass turn in theirdirection, and said to herself that in a moment Mr. Popple would be"round. " But the entr'acte wore on, and no one turned the handle oftheir door, or disturbed the peaceful somnolence of Harry Lipscomb, who, not being (as he put it) "onto" grand opera, had abandoned the struggleand withdrawn to the seclusion of the inner box. Undine jealouslywatched Mr. Popple's progress from box to box, from brilliant woman tobrilliant woman; but just as it seemed about to carry him to their doorhe reappeared at his original post across the house. 

"Undie, do look--there's Mr. Marvell!" Mabel began again, with anotherconspicuous outbreak of signalling; and this time Undine flushed to thenape as Mrs. Peter Van Degen appeared in the opposite box with RalphMarvell behind her. The two seemed to be alone in the box--as they haddoubtless been alone all the evening!--and Undine furtively turned tosee if Mr. Van Degen shared her disapproval. But Mr. Van Degen haddisappeared, and Undine, leaning forward, nervously touched Mabel's arm. 

"What's the matter. Undine? Don't you see Mr. Marvell over there? Isthat his sister he's with?"

"No. --I wouldn't beckon like that, " Undine whispered between her teeth. 

"Why not? Don't you want him to know you're here?"

"Yes--but the other people are not beckoning. "

Mabel looked about unabashed. "Perhaps they've all found each other. Shall I send Harry over to tell him?" she shouted above the blare of thewind instruments. 

"NO!" gasped Undine as the curtain rose. 

She was no longer capable of following the action on the stage. Twopresences possessed her imagination: that of Ralph Marvell, small, unattainable, remote, and that of Mabel Lipscomb, near-by, immense andirrepressible. 

It had become clear to Undine that Mabel Lipscomb was ridiculous. Thatwas the reason why Popple did not come to the box. No one would care tobe seen talking to her while Mabel was at her side: Mabel, monumentaland moulded while the fashionable were flexible and diaphanous, Mabelstrident and explicit while they were subdued and allusive. At theStentorian she was the centre of her group--here she revealed herselfas unknown and unknowing. Why, she didn't even know that Mrs. Peter VanDegen was not Ralph Marvell's sister! And she had a way of trumpetingout her ignorances that jarred on Undine's subtler methods. It wasprecisely at this point that there dawned on Undine what was to be oneof the guiding principles of her career: "IT'S BETTER TO WATCH THAN TOASK QUESTIONS. "

The curtain fell again, and Undine's eyes flew back to the Van Degenbox. Several men were entering it together, and a moment later she sawRalph Marvell rise from his seat and pass out. Half-unconsciously sheplaced herself in such a way as to have an eye on the door of the box. But its handle remained unturned, and Harry Lipscomb, leaning backon the sofa, his head against the opera cloaks, continued to breathestentorously through his open mouth and stretched his legs a littlefarther across the threshold... 

The entr'acte was nearly over when the door opened and two gentlemenstumbled over Mr. Lipscomb's legs. The foremost was Claud WalsinghamPopple; and above his shoulder shone the batrachian countenance of PeterVan Degen. A brief murmur from Mr. Popple made his companion known tothe two ladies, and Mr. Van Degen promptly seated himself behind Undine, relegating the painter to Mrs. Lipscomb's elbow. 

"Queer go--I happened to see your friend there waving to old Popp acrossthe house. So I bolted over and collared him: told him he'd got tointroduce me before he was a minute older. I tried to find out whoyou were the other day at the Motor Show--no, where was it? Oh, thosepictures at Goldmark's. What d'you think of 'em, by the way? You oughtto be painted yourself--no, I mean it, you know--you ought to get oldPopp to do you. He'd do your hair ripplingly. You must let me come andtalk to you about it... About the picture or your hair? Well, your hairif you don't mind. Where'd you say you were staying? Oh, you LIVE here, do you? I say, that's first rate!"

Undine sat well forward, curving toward him a little, as she had seenthe other women do, but holding back sufficiently to let it be visibleto the house that she was conversing with no less a person than Mr. Peter Van Degen. Mr. Popple's talk was certainly more brilliant andpurposeful, and she saw him cast longing glances at her from behind Mrs. Lipscomb's shoulder; but she remembered how lightly he had been treatedat the Fairford dinner, and she wanted--oh, how she wanted!--to haveRalph Marvell see her talking to Van Degen. 

She poured out her heart to him, improvising an opinion on the picturesand an opinion on the music, falling in gaily with his suggestion ofa jolly little dinner some night soon, at the Café Martin, andstrengthening her position, as she thought, by an easy allusion to heracquaintance with Mrs. Van Degen. But at the word her companion's eyeclouded, and a shade of constraint dimmed his enterprising smile. 

"My wife--? Oh, SHE doesn't go to restaurants--she moves on too high aplane. But we'll get old Popp, and Mrs. --, Mrs. --, what'd you say yourfat friend's name was? Just a select little crowd of four--and some kindof a cheerful show afterward... Jove! There's the curtain, and I mustskip. "

As the door closed on him Undine's cheeks burned with resentment. IfMrs. Van Degen didn't go to restaurants, why had he supposed that SHEwould? and to have to drag Mabel in her wake! The leaden sense offailure overcame her again. Here was the evening nearly over, and whathad it led to? Looking up from the stalls, she had fancied that to sitin a box was to be in society--now she saw it might but emphasize one'sexclusion. And she was burdened with the box for the rest of the season!It was really stupid of her father to have exceeded his instructions:why had he not done as she told him?... Undine felt helpless andtired... Hateful memories of Apex crowded back on her. Was it going tobe as dreary here as there?

She felt Lipscomb's loud whisper in her back: "Say, you girls, I guessI'll cut this and come back for you when the show busts up. " They heardhim shuffle out of the box, and Mabel settled back to undisturbedenjoyment of the stage. 

When the last entr'acte began Undine stood up, resolved to stay nolonger. Mabel, lost in the study of the audience, had not noticed hermovement, and as she passed alone into the back of the box the dooropened and Ralph Marvell came in. 

Undine stood with one arm listlessly raised to detach her cloak from thewall. Her attitude showed the long slimness of her figure and the freshcurve of the throat below her bent-back head. Her face was paler andsofter than usual, and the eyes she rested on Marvell's face looked deepand starry under their fixed brows. 

"Oh--you're not going?" he exclaimed. 

"I thought you weren't coming, " she answered simply. 

"I waited till now on purpose to dodge your other visitors. "

She laughed with pleasure. "Oh, we hadn't so many!"

Some intuition had already told her that frankness was the tone to takewith him. They sat down together on the red damask sofa, against thehanging cloaks. As Undine leaned back her hair caught in the spangles ofthe wrap behind her, and she had to sit motionless while the young manfreed the captive mesh. Then they settled themselves again, laughing alittle at the incident. 

A glance had made the situation clear to Mrs. Lipscomb, and they saw herreturn to her rapt inspection of the boxes. In their mirror-hung recessthe light was subdued to a rosy dimness and the hum of the audience cameto them through half-drawn silken curtains. Undine noticed the delicacyand finish of her companion's features as his head detached itselfagainst the red silk walls. The hand with which he stroked his smallmoustache was finely-finished too, but sinewy and not effeminate. Shehad always associated finish and refinement entirely with her own sex, but she began to think they might be even more agreeable in a man. Marvell's eyes were grey, like her own, with chestnut eyebrows anddarker lashes; and his skin was as clear as a woman's, but pleasantlyreddish, like his hands. 

As he sat talking in a low tone, questioning her about the music, askingher what she had been doing since he had last seen her, she was awarethat he looked at her less than usual, and she also glanced away; butwhen she turned her eyes suddenly they always met his gaze. 

His talk remained impersonal. She was a little disappointed that he didnot compliment her on her dress or her hair--Undine was accustomed tohearing a great deal about her hair, and the episode of the spangles hadopened the way to a graceful allusion--but the instinct of sex told herthat, under his quiet words, he was throbbing with the sense of herproximity. And his self-restraint sobered her, made her refrain from theflashing and fidgeting which were the only way she knew of taking partin the immemorial love-dance. She talked simply and frankly of herself, of her parents, of how few people they knew in New York, and of how, attimes, she was almost sorry she had persuaded them to give up Apex. 

"You see, they did it entirely on my account; they're awfully lonesomehere; and I don't believe I shall ever learn New York ways either, " sheconfessed, turning on him the eyes of youth and truthfulness. "Of courseI know a few people; but they're not--not the way I expected New Yorkpeople to be. " She risked what seemed an involuntary glance at Mabel. "I've seen girls here to-night that I just LONG to know--they look solovely and refined--but I don't suppose I ever shall. New York's notvery friendly to strange girls, is it? I suppose you've got so many ofyour own already--and they're all so fascinating you don't care!" As shespoke she let her eyes rest on his, half-laughing, half-wistful, andthen dropped her lashes while the pink stole slowly up to them. 

When he left her he asked if he might hope to find her at home the nextday. 

The night was fine, and Marvell, having put his cousin into her motor, started to walk home to Washington Square. At the corner he was joinedby Mr. Popple. "Hallo, Ralph, old man--did you run across our auburnbeauty of the Stentorian? Who'd have thought old Harry Lipscomb'd haveput us onto anything as good as that? Peter Van Degen was fairly takenoff his feet--pulled me out of Mrs. Monty Thurber's box and dragged me'round by the collar to introduce him. Planning a dinner at Martin'salready. Gad, young Peter must have what he wants WHEN he wants it! Iput in a word for you--told him you and I ought to be let in on theground floor. Funny the luck some girls have about getting started. Ibelieve this one'll take if she can manage to shake the Lipscombs. Ithink I'll ask to paint her; might be a good thing for the spring show. She'd show up splendidly as a PENDANT to my Mrs. Van Degen--Blonde andBrunette... Night and Morning... Of course I prefer Mrs. Van Degen'stype--personally, I MUST have breeding--but as a mere bit of flesh andblood... Hallo, ain't you coming into the club?"

Marvell was not coming into the club, and he drew a long breath ofrelief as his companion left him. 

Was it possible that he had ever thought leniently of the egregiousPopple? The tone of social omniscience which he had once found so comicwas now as offensive to him as a coarse physical touch. And the worst ofit was that Popple, with the slight exaggeration of a caricature, reallyexpressed the ideals of the world he frequented. As he spoke of MissSpragg, so others at any rate would think of her: almost every one inRalph's set would agree that it was luck for a girl from Apex to bestarted by Peter Van Degen at a Café Martin dinner... 

Ralph Marvell, mounting his grandfather's doorstep, looked up at thesymmetrical old red house-front, with its frugal marble ornament, as hemight have looked into a familiar human face. 

"They're right, --after all, in some ways they're right, " he murmured, slipping his key into the door. 

"They" were his mother and old Mr. Urban Dagonet, both, from Ralph'searliest memories, so closely identified with the old house inWashington Square that they might have passed for its innerconsciousness as it might have stood for their outward form; and thequestion as to which the house now seemed to affirm their intrinsicrightness was that of the social disintegration expressed bywidely-different architectural physiognomies at the other end of FifthAvenue. As Ralph pushed the bolts behind him, and passed into the hall, with its dark mahogany doors and the quiet "Dutch interior" effect ofits black and white marble paving, he said to himself that what Popplecalled society was really just like the houses it lived in: a muddle ofmisapplied ornament over a thin steel shell of utility. The steel shellwas built up in Wall Street, the social trimmings were hastily addedin Fifth Avenue; and the union between them was as monstrous andfactitious, as unlike the gradual homogeneous growth which flowersinto what other countries know as society, as that between the Bloisgargoyles on Peter Van Degen's roof and the skeleton walls supportingthem. 

That was what "they" had always said; what, at least, the Dagonetattitude, the Dagonet view of life, the very lines of the furniture inthe old Dagonet house expressed. Ralph sometimes called his mother andgrandfather the Aborigines, and likened them to those vanishing denizensof the American continent doomed to rapid extinction with the advance ofthe invading race. He was fond of describing Washington Square as the"Reservation, " and of prophesying that before long its inhabitants wouldbe exhibited at ethnological shows, pathetically engaged in the exerciseof their primitive industries. 

Small, cautious, middle-class, had been the ideals of aboriginal NewYork; but it suddenly struck the young man that they were singularlycoherent and respectable as contrasted with the chaos of indiscriminateappetites which made up its modern tendencies. He too had wanted to be"modern, " had revolted, half-humorously, against the restrictions andexclusions of the old code; and it must have been by one of the ironicreversions of heredity that, at this precise point, he began to see whatthere was to be said on the other side--his side, as he now felt it tobe. 

VI

Upstairs, in his brown firelit room, he threw himself into an armchair, and remembered... Harvard first--then Oxford; then a year of wanderingand rich initiation. Returning to New York, he had read law, and nowhad his desk in the office of the respectable firm in whose charge theDagonet estate had mouldered for several generations. But his professionwas the least real thing in his life. The realities lay about him now:the books jamming his old college bookcases and overflowing on chairsand tables; sketches too--he could do charming things, if only he hadknown how to finish them!--and, on the writing-table at his elbow, scattered sheets of prose and verse; charming things also, but, like thesketches, unfinished. 

Nothing in the Dagonet and Marvell tradition was opposed to thisdesultory dabbling with life. For four or five generations it had beenthe rule of both houses that a young fellow should go to Columbia orHarvard, read law, and then lapse into more or less cultivated inaction. The only essential was that he should live "like a gentleman"--that is, with a tranquil disdain for mere money-getting, a passive openness tothe finer sensations, one or two fixed principles as to the quality ofwine, and an archaic probity that had not yet learned to distinguishbetween private and "business" honour. 

No equipment could more thoroughly have unfitted the modern youth forgetting on: it hardly needed the scribbled pages on the desk to completethe hopelessness of Ralph Marvell's case. He had accepted the fact witha humorous fatalism. Material resources were limited on both sides ofthe house, but there would always be enough for his frugal wants--enoughto buy books (not "editions"), and pay now and then for a holiday dashto the great centres of art and ideas. And meanwhile there was the worldof wonders within him. As a boy at the sea-side, Ralph, between tides, had once come on a cave--a secret inaccessible place with glaucouslights, mysterious murmurs, and a single shaft of communication with thesky. He had kept his find from the other boys, not churlishly, for hewas always an outspoken lad, but because he felt there were things aboutthe cave that the others, good fellows as they all were, couldn't beexpected to understand, and that, anyhow, it would never be quite hiscave again after he had let his thick-set freckled cousins play smugglerand pirate in it. 

And so with his inner world. Though so coloured by outer impressions, it wove a secret curtain about him, and he came and went in it withthe same joy of furtive possession. One day, of course, some one woulddiscover it and reign there with him--no, reign over it and him. Once ortwice already a light foot had reached the threshold. His cousin ClareDagonet, for instance: there had been a summer when her voice hadsounded far down the windings... But he had run over to Spain for theautumn, and when he came back she was engaged to Peter Van Degen, andfor a while it looked black in the cave. That was long ago, as time isreckoned under thirty; and for three years now he had felt for her onlya half-contemptuous pity. To have stood at the mouth of his cave, andhave turned from it to the Van Degen lair--!

Poor Clare repented, indeed--she wanted it clearly but she repented inthe Van Degen diamonds, and the Van Degen motor bore her broken heartfrom opera to ball. She had been subdued to what she worked in, and shecould never again find her way to the enchanted cave... Ralph, sincethen, had reached the point of deciding that he would never marry;reached it not suddenly or dramatically, but with such sober advisednessas is urged on those about to take the opposite step. What he mostwanted, now that the first flutter of being was over, was to learn andto do--to know what the great people had thought, think about theirthinking, and then launch his own boat: write some good verse ifpossible; if not, then critical prose. A dramatic poem lay among thestuff at his elbow; but the prose critic was at his elbow too, and notto be satisfied about the poem; and poet and critic passed the nightsin hot if unproductive debate. On the whole, it seemed likely that thecritic would win the day, and the essay on "The Rhythmical Structures ofWalt Whitman" take shape before "The Banished God. " Yet if the light inthe cave was less supernaturally blue, the chant of its tides less ladenwith unimaginable music, it was still a thronged and echoing place whenUndine Spragg appeared on its threshold... 

His mother and sister of course wanted him to marry. They had the usualtheory that he was "made" for conjugal bliss: women always thought thatof a fellow who didn't get drunk and have low tastes. Ralph smiled atthe idea as he sat crouched among his secret treasures. Marry--but whom, in the name of light and freedom? The daughters of his own race soldthemselves to the Invaders; the daughters of the Invaders boughttheir husbands as they bought an opera-box. It ought all to have beentransacted on the Stock Exchange. His mother, he knew, had no suchambitions for him: she would have liked him to fancy a "nice girl" likeHarriet Ray. 

Harriet Ray was neither vulgar nor ambitious. She regarded WashingtonSquare as the birthplace of Society, knew by heart all the cousinshipsof early New York, hated motor-cars, could not make herself understoodon the telephone, and was determined, if she married, never to receive adivorced woman. As Mrs. Marvell often said, such girls as Harriet weregrowing rare. Ralph was not sure about this. He was inclined to thinkthat, certain modifications allowed for, there would always be plenty ofHarriet Rays for unworldly mothers to commend to their sons; and he hadno desire to diminish their number by removing one from the ranks of themarriageable. He had no desire to marry at all--that had been the wholetruth of it till he met Undine Spragg. And now--? He lit a cigar, andbegan to recall his hour's conversation with Mrs. Spragg. 

Ralph had never taken his mother's social faiths very seriously. Surveying the march of civilization from a loftier angle, he had earlymingled with the Invaders, and curiously observed their rites andcustoms. But most of those he had met had already been modified bycontact with the indigenous: they spoke the same language as his, thoughon their lips it had often so different a meaning. Ralph had never seenthem actually in the making, before they had acquired the speech of theconquered race. But Mrs. Spragg still used the dialect of her people, and before the end of the visit Ralph had ceased to regret that herdaughter was out. He felt obscurely that in the girl's presence--frankand simple as he thought her--he should have learned less of life inearly Apex. 

Mrs. Spragg, once reconciled--or at least resigned--to the mysteriousnecessity of having to "entertain" a friend of Undine's, had yielded tothe first touch on the weak springs of her garrulity. She had not seenMrs. Heeny for two days, and this friendly young man with the gentlemanner was almost as easy to talk to as the masseuse. And then she couldtell him things that Mrs. Heeny already knew, and Mrs. Spragg likedto repeat her stories. To do so gave her almost her sole sense ofpermanence among the shifting scenes of life. So that, after she hadlengthily deplored the untoward accident of Undine's absence, and hervisitor, with a smile, and echoes of divers et ondoyant in his brain, had repeated her daughter's name after her, saying: "It's a wonderfulfind--how could you tell it would be such a fit?"--it came to her quiteeasily to answer: "Why, we called her after a hair-waver father put onthe market the week she was born--" and then to explain, as he remainedstruck and silent: "It's from UNdoolay, you know, the French forcrimping; father always thought the name made it take. He was quite ascholar, and had the greatest knack for finding names. I remember thetime he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible toget the name... No, father didn't start IN as a druggist, " she went on, expanding with the signs of Marvell's interest; "he was educated for anundertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was alwaysa beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into theministry. Of course it didn't pay him anything like as well, so finallyhe opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though hisheart was always in the pulpit. But after he made such a success withhis hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehoweverything went--though Mr. Spragg did all he COULD--. " Mrs. Spragg, when she found herself embarked on a long sentence, always ballasted itby italicizing the last word. 

Her husband, she continued, could not, at the time, do much for hisfather-in-law. Mr. Spragg had come to Apex as a poor boy, and theirearly married life had been a protracted struggle, darkened by domesticaffliction. Two of their three children had died of typhoid in theepidemic which devastated Apex before the new water-works were built;and this calamity, by causing Mr. Spragg to resolve that thereafterApex should drink pure water, had led directly to the founding of hisfortunes. 

"He had taken over some of poor father's land for a bad debt, and whenhe got up the Pure Water move the company voted to buy the land andbuild the new reservoir up there: and after that we began to be betteroff, and it DID seem as if it had come out so to comfort us some aboutthe children. "

Mr. Spragg, thereafter, had begun to be a power in Apex, and fat yearshad followed on the lean. Ralph Marvell was too little versed in affairsto read between the lines of Mrs. Spragg's untutored narrative, and heunderstood no more than she the occult connection between Mr. Spragg'sdomestic misfortunes and his business triumph. Mr. Spragg had "helpedout" his ruined father-in-law, and had vowed on his children's gravesthat no Apex child should ever again drink poisoned water--and outof those two disinterested impulses, by some impressive law ofcompensation, material prosperity had come. What Ralph understood andappreciated was Mrs. Spragg's unaffected frankness in talking of herearly life. Here was no retrospective pretense of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland butundeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been "plain people" and had notyet learned to be ashamed of it. The fact drew them much closer to theDagonet ideals than any sham elegance in the past tense. Ralph feltthat his mother, who shuddered away from Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll, wouldunderstand and esteem Mrs. Spragg. 

But how long would their virgin innocence last? Popple's vulgar handswere on it already--Popple's and the unspeakable Van Degen's! Once theyand theirs had begun the process of initiating Undine, there was noknowing--or rather there was too easy knowing--how it would end! It wasincredible that she too should be destined to swell the ranks of thecheaply fashionable; yet were not her very freshness, her malleability, the mark of her fate? She was still at the age when the flexible souloffers itself to the first grasp. That the grasp should chance to be VanDegen's--that was what made Ralph's temples buzz, and swept away all hisplans for his own future like a beaver's dam in a spring flood. Tosave her from Van Degen and Van Degenism: was that really to be hismission--the "call" for which his life had obscurely waited? It wasnot in the least what he had meant to do with the fugitive flash ofconsciousness he called self; but all that he had purposed for thattransitory being sank into insignificance under the pressure of Undine'sclaims. 

Ralph Marvell's notion of women had been formed on the experiencescommon to good-looking young men of his kind. Women were drawn to him asmuch by his winning appealing quality, by the sense of a youthful warmthbehind his light ironic exterior, as by his charms of face and mind. Except during Clare Dagonet's brief reign the depths in him had not beenstirred; but in taking what each sentimental episode had to give he hadpreserved, through all his minor adventures, his faith in the greatadventure to come. It was this faith that made him so easy a victimwhen love had at last appeared clad in the attributes of romance: theimaginative man's indestructible dream of a rounded passion. 

The clearness with which he judged the girl and himself seemed thesurest proof that his feeling was more than a surface thrill. He was notblind to her crudity and her limitations, but they were a part of hergrace and her persuasion. Diverse et ondoyante--so he had seen her fromthe first. But was not that merely the sign of a quicker response to theworld's manifold appeal? There was Harriet Ray, sealed up tight in thevacuum of inherited opinion, where not a breath of fresh sensation couldget at her: there could be no call to rescue young ladies sosecured from the perils of reality! Undine had no such traditionalsafeguards--Ralph guessed Mrs. Spragg's opinions to be as fluid asher daughter's--and the girl's very sensitiveness to new impressions, combined with her obvious lack of any sense of relative values, wouldmake her an easy prey to the powers of folly. He seemed to see her--ashe sat there, pressing his fists into his temples--he seemed to see herlike a lovely rock-bound Andromeda, with the devouring monster Societycareering up to make a mouthful of her; and himself whirling down on hiswinged horse--just Pegasus turned Rosinante for the nonce--to cut herbonds, snatch her up, and whirl her back into the blue... 

VII

Some two months later than the date of young Marvell's midnight vigil, Mrs. Heeny, seated on a low chair at Undine's knee, gave the girl's lefthand an approving pat as she laid aside her lapful of polishers. 

"There! I guess you can put your ring on again, " she said with a laughof jovial significance; and Undine, echoing the laugh in a murmur ofcomplacency, slipped on the fourth finger of her recovered hand a bandof sapphires in an intricate setting. 

Mrs. Heeny took up the hand again. "Them's old stones, Undine--they'vegot a different look, " she said, examining the ring while she rubbed hercushioned palm over the girl's brilliant finger-tips. "And the setting'squaint--I wouldn't wonder but what it was one of old Gran'ma Dagonet's. "

Mrs. Spragg, hovering near in fond beatitude, looked up quickly. 

"Why, don't you s'pose he BOUGHT it for her, Mrs. Heeny? It came in aTiff'ny box. "

The manicure laughed again. "Of course he's had Tiff'ny rub it up. Ain't you ever heard of ancestral jewels, Mrs. Spragg? In the Eu-ropeanaristocracy they never go out and BUY engagement-rings; and Undine'smarrying into our aristocracy. "

Mrs. Spragg looked relieved. "Oh, I thought maybe they were trying toscrimp on the ring--"

Mrs. Heeny, shrugging away this explanation, rose from her seat androlled back her shiny black sleeves. 

"Look at here, Undine, if you really want me to do your hair it's timewe got to work. "

The girl swung about in her seat so that she faced the mirror on thedressing-table. Her shoulders shone through transparencies of laceand muslin which slipped back as she lifted her arms to draw thetortoise-shell pins from her hair. 

"Of course you've got to do it--I want to look perfectly lovely!"

"Well--I dunno's my hand's in nowadays, " said Mrs. Heeny in a tone thatbelied the doubt she cast on her own ability. 

"Oh, you're an ARTIST, Mrs. Heeny--and I just couldn't have had thatFrench maid 'round to-night, " sighed Mrs. Spragg, sinking into a chairnear the dressing-table. 

Undine, with a backward toss of her head, scattered her loose locksabout her. As they spread and sparkled under Mrs. Heeny's touch, Mrs. Spragg leaned back, drinking in through half-closed lids her daughter'sloveliness. Some new quality seemed added to Undine's beauty: it had amilder bloom, a kind of melting grace, which might have been lent to itby the moisture in her mother's eyes. 

"So you're to see the old gentleman for the first time at this dinner?"Mrs. Heeny pursued, sweeping the live strands up into a loosely wovencrown. 

"Yes. I'm frightened to death!" Undine, laughing confidently, took up ahand-glass and scrutinized the small brown mole above the curve of herupper lip. 

"I guess she'll know how to talk to him, " Mrs. Spragg averred with akind of quavering triumph. 

"She'll know how to LOOK at him, anyhow, " said Mrs. Heeny; and Undinesmiled at her own image. 

"I hope he won't think I'm too awful!"

Mrs. Heeny laughed. "Did you read the description of yourself in theRadiator this morning? I wish't I'd 'a had time to cut it out. I guessI'll have to start a separate bag for YOUR clippings soon. "

Undine stretched her arms luxuriously above her head and gazed throughlowered lids at the foreshortened reflection of her face. 

"Mercy! Don't jerk about like that. Am I to put in thisrose?--There--you ARE lovely!" Mrs. Heeny sighed, as the pink petalssank into the hair above the girl's forehead. Undine pushed her chairback, and sat supporting her chin on her clasped hands while she studiedthe result of Mrs. Heeny's manipulations. 

"Yes--that's the way Mrs. Peter Van Degen's flower was put in the othernight; only hers was a camellia. --Do you think I'd look better with acamellia?"

"I guess if Mrs. Van Degen looked like a rose she'd 'a worn a rose, "Mrs. Heeny rejoined poetically. "Sit still a minute longer, " she added. "Your hair's so heavy I'd feel easier if I was to put in another pin. "

Undine remained motionless, and the manicure, suddenly laying both handson the girl's shoulders, and bending over to peer at her reflection, said playfully: "Ever been engaged before, Undine?"

A blush rose to the face in the mirror, spreading from chin to brow, andrunning rosily over the white shoulders from which their covering hadslipped down. 

"My! If he could see you now!" Mrs. Heeny jested. 

Mrs. Spragg, rising noiselessly, glided across the room and became lostin a minute examination of the dress laid out on the bed. 

With a supple twist Undine slipped from Mrs. Heeny's hold. 

"Engaged? Mercy, yes! Didn't you know? To the Prince of Wales. I brokeit off because I wouldn't live in the Tower. "

Mrs. Spragg, lifting the dress cautiously over her arm, advanced with areassured smile. 

"I s'pose Undie'll go to Europe now, " she said to Mrs. Heeny. 

"I guess Undie WILL!" the young lady herself declared. "We're going tosail right afterward. --Here, mother, do be careful of my hair!" Sheducked gracefully to slip into the lacy fabric which her mother heldabove her head. As she rose Venus-like above its folds there was a tapon the door, immediately followed by its tentative opening. 

"Mabel!" Undine muttered, her brows lowering like her father's; andMrs. Spragg, wheeling about to screen her daughter, addressed herselfprotestingly to the half-open door. 

"Who's there? Oh, that YOU, Mrs. Lipscomb? Well, I don't know as youCAN--Undie isn't half dressed yet--"

"Just like her--always pushing in!" Undine murmured as she slipped herarms into their transparent sleeves. 

"Oh, that don't matter--I'll help dress her!" Mrs. Lipscomb's largeblond person surged across the threshold. "Seems to me I ought to lend ahand to-night, considering I was the one that introduced them!"

Undine forced a smile, but Mrs. Spragg, her soft wrinkles deepening withresentment, muttered to Mrs. Heeny, as she bent down to shake out thegirl's train: "I guess my daughter's only got to show herself--"

The first meeting with old Mr. Dagonet was less formidable than Undinehad expected. She had been once before to the house in WashingtonSquare, when, with her mother, she had returned Mrs. Marvell'sceremonial visit; but on that occasion Ralph's grandfather had notbeen present. All the rites connected with her engagement were new andmysterious to Undine, and none more so than the unaccountable necessityof "dragging"--as she phrased it--Mrs. Spragg into the affair. It was anaccepted article of the Apex creed that parental detachment should becompletest at the moment when the filial fate was decided; and to findthat New York reversed this rule was as puzzling to Undine as to hermother. Mrs. Spragg was so unprepared for the part she was to playthat on the occasion of her visit to Mrs. Marvell her helplessness hadinfected Undine, and their half-hour in the sober faded drawing-roomremained among the girl's most unsatisfactory memories. 

She re-entered it alone with more assurance. Her confidence in herbeauty had hitherto carried her through every ordeal; and it wasfortified now by the feeling of power that came with the sense of beingloved. If they would only leave her mother out she was sure, in herown phrase, of being able to "run the thing"; and Mrs. Spragg hadprovidentially been left out of the Dagonet dinner. 

It was to consist, it appeared, only of the small family group Undinehad already met; and, seated at old Mr. Dagonet's right, in the highdark dining-room with mahogany doors and dim portraits of "Signers"and their females, she felt a conscious joy in her ascendancy. Old Mr. Dagonet--small, frail and softly sardonic--appeared to fall at onceunder her spell. If she felt, beneath his amenity, a kind of delicatedangerousness, like that of some fine surgical instrument, she ignoredit as unimportant; for she had as yet no clear perception of forces thatdid not directly affect her. 

Mrs. Marvell, low-voiced, faded, yet impressive, was less responsiveto her arts, and Undine divined in her the head of the opposition toRalph's marriage. Mrs. Heeny had reported that Mrs. Marvell had otherviews for her son; and this was confirmed by such echoes of the shortsharp struggle as reached the throbbing listeners at the Stentorian. Butthe conflict over, the air had immediately cleared, showing the enemy inthe act of unconditional surrender. It surprised Undine that there hadbeen no reprisals, no return on the points conceded. That was not heridea of warfare, and she could ascribe the completeness of the victoryonly to the effect of her charms. 

Mrs. Marvell's manner did not express entire subjugation; yet she seemedanxious to dispel any doubts of her good faith, and if she left theburden of the talk to her lively daughter it might have been becauseshe felt more capable of showing indulgence by her silence than in herspeech. 

As for Mrs. Fairford, she had never seemed more brilliantly benton fusing the various elements under her hand. Undine had alreadydiscovered that she adored her brother, and had guessed that thiswould make her either a strong ally or a determined enemy. The latteralternative, however, did not alarm the girl. She thought Mrs. Fairford"bright, " and wanted to be liked by her; and she was in the state ofdizzy self-assurance when it seemed easy to win any sympathy she choseto seek. 

For the only other guests--Mrs. Fairford's husband, and the elderlyCharles Bowen who seemed to be her special friend--Undine had noattention to spare: they remained on a plane with the dim pictureshanging at her back. She had expected a larger party; but she wasrelieved, on the whole, that it was small enough to permit of herdominating it. Not that she wished to do so by any loudness ofassertion. Her quickness in noting external differences had alreadytaught her to modulate and lower her voice, and to replace "The I-dea!"and "I wouldn't wonder" by more polished locutions; and she had not beenten minutes at table before she found that to seem very much in love, and a little confused and subdued by the newness and intensity of thesentiment, was, to the Dagonet mind, the becoming attitude for a younglady in her situation. The part was not hard to play, for she WAS inlove, of course. It was pleasant, when she looked across the table, tomeet Ralph's grey eyes, with that new look in them, and to feel that shehad kindled it; but I it was only part of her larger pleasure inthe general homage to her beauty, in the sensations of interest andcuriosity excited by everything about her, from the family portraitsoverhead to the old Dagonet silver on the table--which were to be herstoo, after all!

The talk, as at Mrs. Fairford's, confused her by its lack of thepersonal allusion, its tendency to turn to books, pictures and politics. "Politics, " to Undine, had always been like a kind of back-kitchen tobusiness--the place where the refuse was thrown and the doubtful messeswere brewed. As a drawing-room topic, and one to provoke disinterestedsentiments, it had the hollowness of Fourth of July orations, and hermind wandered in spite of the desire to appear informed and competent. 

Old Mr. Dagonet, with his reedy staccato voice, that gave polish andrelief to every syllable, tried to come to her aid by questioning heraffably about her family and the friends she had made in New York. But the caryatid-parent, who exists simply as a filial prop, is not afruitful theme, and Undine, called on for the first time to view her ownprogenitors as a subject of conversation, was struck by their lack ofpoints. She had never paused to consider what her father and mother were"interested" in, and, challenged to specify, could have named--withsincerity--only herself. On the subject of her New York friends it wasnot much easier to enlarge; for so far her circle had grown less rapidlythan she expected. She had fancied Ralph's wooing would at once admither to all his social privileges; but he had shown a puzzling reluctanceto introduce her to the Van Degen set, where he came and went with suchfamiliarity; and the persons he seemed anxious to have her know--a fewfrumpy "clever women" of his sister's age, and one or two briskold ladies in shabby houses with mahogany furniture and Stuartportraits--did not offer the opportunities she sought. 

"Oh, I don't know many people yet--I tell Ralph he's got to hurry up andtake me round, " she said to Mr. Dagonet, with a side-sparkle for Ralph, whose gaze, between the flowers and lights, she was aware of perpetuallydrawing. 

"My daughter will take you--you must know his mother's friends, " the oldgentleman rejoined while Mrs. Marvell smiled noncommittally. 

"But you have a great friend of your own--the lady who takes you intosociety, " Mr. Dagonet pursued; and Undine had the sense that theirrepressible Mabel was again "pushing in. "

"Oh, yes--Mabel Lipscomb. We were school-mates, " she said indifferently. 

"Lipscomb? Lipscomb? What is Mr. Lipscomb's occupation?"

"He's a broker, " said Undine, glad to be able to place her friend'shusband in so handsome a light. The subtleties of a professionalclassification unknown to Apex had already taught her that in New Yorkit is more distinguished to be a broker than a dentist; and she wassurprised at Mr. Dagonet's lack of enthusiasm. 

"Ah? A broker?" He said it almost as Popple might have said "ADENTIST?" and Undine found herself astray in a new labyrinth of socialdistinctions. She felt a sudden contempt for Harry Lipscomb, who hadalready struck her as too loud, and irrelevantly comic. "I guessMabel'll get a divorce pretty soon, " she added, desiring, for personalreasons, to present Mrs. Lipscomb as favourably as possible. 

Mr. Dagonet's handsome eye-brows drew together. "A divorce? H'm--that'sbad. Has he been misbehaving himself?"

Undine looked innocently surprised. "Oh, I guess not. They like eachother well enough. But he's been a disappointment to her. He isn'tin the right set, and I think Mabel realizes she'll never really getanywhere till she gets rid of him. "

These words, uttered in the high fluting tone that she rose to when sureof her subject, fell on a pause which prolonged and deepened itself toreceive them, while every face at the table, Ralph Marvell's excepted, reflected in varying degree Mr. Dagonet's pained astonishment. 

"But, my dear young lady--what would your friend's situation be if, asyou put it, she 'got rid' of her husband on so trivial a pretext?"

Undine, surprised at his dullness, tried to explain. "Oh that wouldn'tbe the reason GIVEN, of course. Any lawyer could fix it up for them. Don't they generally call it desertion?"

There was another, more palpitating, silence, broken by a laugh fromRalph. 

"RALPH!" his mother breathed; then, turning to Undine, she said witha constrained smile: "I believe in certain parts of the countrysuch--unfortunate arrangements--are beginning to be tolerated. But inNew York, in spite of our growing indifference, a divorced woman isstill--thank heaven!--at a decided disadvantage. "

Undine's eyes opened wide. Here at last was a topic that reallyinterested her, and one that gave another amazing glimpse into thecamera obscura of New York society. "Do you mean to say Mabel would beworse off, then? Couldn't she even go round as much as she does now?"

Mrs. Marvell met this gravely. "It would depend, I should say, on thekind of people she wished to see. "

"Oh, the very best, of course! That would be her only object. "

Ralph interposed with another laugh. "You see, Undine, you'd betterthink twice before you divorce me!"

"RALPH!" his mother again breathed; but the girl, flushed and sparkling, flung back: "Oh, it all depends on YOU! Out in Apex, if a girl marries aman who don't come up to what she expected, people consider it's to hercredit to want to change. YOU'D better think twice of that!"

"If I were only sure of knowing what you expect!" he caught up her joke, tossing it back at her across the fascinated silence of their listeners. 

"Why, EVERYTHING!" she announced--and Mr. Dagonet, turning, laid anintricately-veined old hand on, hers, and said, with a change of tonethat relaxed the tension of the listeners: "My child, if you look likethat you'll get it. "

VIII

It was doubtless owing to Mrs. Fairford's foresight that suchpossibilities of tension were curtailed, after dinner, by her carryingoff Ralph and his betrothed to the theatre. 

Mr. Dagonet, it was understood, always went to bed after an hour's whistwith his daughter; and the silent Mr. Fairford gave his evenings tobridge at his club. The party, therefore, consisted only of Undine andRalph, with Mrs. Fairford and her attendant friend. Undine vaguelywondered why the grave and grey-haired Mr. Bowen formed so invariable apart of that lady's train; but she concluded that it was the York customfor married ladies to have gentlemen "'round" (as girls had in Apex), and that Mr. Bowen was the sole survivor of Laura Fairford's earliertriumphs. 

She had, however, little time to give to such conjectures, for theperformance they were attending--the debut of a fashionable Londonactress--had attracted a large audience in which Undine immediatelyrecognized a number of familiar faces. Her engagement had been announcedonly the day before, and she had the delicious sense of being "inall the papers, " and of focussing countless glances of interest andcuriosity as she swept through the theatre in Mrs. Fairford's wake. Their stalls were near the stage, and progress thither was slow enoughto permit of prolonged enjoyment of this sensation. Before passing toher place she paused for Ralph to remove her cloak, and as he lifted itfrom her shoulders she heard a lady say behind her: "There she is--theone in white, with the lovely back--" and a man answer: "Gad! Where didhe find anything as good as that?"

Anonymous approval was sweet enough; but she was to taste a moment moreexquisite when, in the proscenium box across the house, she saw ClareVan Degen seated beside the prim figure of Miss Harriet Ray. "They'rehere to see me with him--they hate it, but they couldn't keep away!"She turned and lifted a smile of possessorship to Ralph. Mrs. Fairfordseemed also struck by the presence Of the two ladies, and Undine heardher whisper to Mr. Bowen: "Do you see Clare over there--and Harriet withher? Harriet WOULD COME--I call it Spartan! And so like Clare to askher!"

Her companion laughed. "It's one of the deepest instincts in humannature. The murdered are as much given as the murderer to haunting thescene of the crime. "

Doubtless guessing Ralph's desire to have Undine to himself, Mrs. Fairford had sent the girl in first; and Undine, as she seated herself, was aware that the occupant of the next stall half turned to her, aswith a vague gesture of recognition. But just then the curtain rose, andshe became absorbed in the development of the drama, especially as ittended to display the remarkable toilets which succeeded each other onthe person of its leading lady. Undine, seated at Ralph Marvell's side, and feeling the thrill of his proximity as a subtler element inthe general interest she was exciting, was at last repaid for thedisappointment of her evening at the opera. It was characteristic of herthat she remembered her failures as keenly as her triumphs, and that thepassionate desire to obliterate, to "get even" with them, was alwaysamong the latent incentives of her conduct. Now at last she was havingwhat she wanted--she was in conscious possession of the "real thing";and through her other, diffused, sensations Ralph's adoration gave hersuch a last refinement of pleasure as might have come to some warriorQueen borne in triumph by captive princes, and reading in the eyes ofone the passion he dared not speak. When the curtain fell this vagueenjoyment was heightened by various acts of recognition. All the peopleshe wanted to "go with, " as they said in Apex, seemed to be about herin the stalls and boxes; and her eyes continued to revert with specialsatisfaction to the incongruous group formed by Mrs. Peter Van Degen andMiss Ray. The sight made it irresistible to whisper to Ralph: "You oughtto go round and talk to your cousin. Have you told her we're engaged?"

"Clare? of course. She's going to call on you tomorrow. "

"Oh, she needn't put herself out--she's never been yet, " said Undineloftily. 

He made no rejoinder, but presently asked: "Who's that you're wavingto?"

"Mr. Popple. He's coming round to see us. You know he wants to paintme. " Undine fluttered and beamed as the brilliant Popple made his wayacross the stalls to the seat which her neighbour had momentarily left. 

"First-rate chap next to you--whoever he is--to give me this chance, "the artist declared. "Ha, Ralph, my boy, how did you pull it off? That'swhat we're all of us wondering. " He leaned over to give Marvell's handthe ironic grasp of celibacy. "Well, you've left us lamenting: he has, you know. Miss Spragg. But I've got one pull over the others--I canpaint you! He can't forbid that, can he? Not before marriage, anyhow!"

Undine divided her shining glances between the two. "I guess he isn'tgoing to treat me any different afterward, " she proclaimed with joyousdefiance. 

"Ah, well, there's no telling, you know. Hadn't we better begin at once?Seriously, I want awfully to get you into the spring show. "

"Oh, really? That would be too lovely!"

"YOU would be, certainly--the way I mean to do you. But I see Ralphgetting glum. Cheer up, my dear fellow; I daresay you'll be invited tosome of the sittings--that's for Miss Spragg to say. --Ah, here comesyour neighbour back, confound him--You'll let me know when we canbegin?"

As Popple moved away Undine turned eagerly to Marvell. "Do you supposethere's time? I'd love to have him to do me!"

Ralph smiled. "My poor child--he WOULD 'do' you, with a vengeance. Infernal cheek, his asking you to sit--"

She stared. "But why? He's painted your cousin, and all the smartwomen. "

"Oh, if a 'smart' portrait's all you want!"

"I want what the others want, " she answered, frowning and pouting alittle. She was already beginning to resent in Ralph the slightest signof resistance to her pleasure; and her resentment took the form--afamiliar one in Apex courtships--of turning on him, in the nextentr'acte, a deliberately averted shoulder. The result of this was tobring her, for the first time, in more direct relation to her otherneighbour. As she turned he turned too, showing her, above a shiningshirt-front fastened with a large imitation pearl, a ruddy plump snubface without an angle in it, which yet looked sharper than a razor. Undine's eyes met his with a startled look, and for a long moment theyremained suspended on each other's stare. 

Undine at length shrank back with an unrecognizing face; but hermovement made her opera-glass slip to the floor, and her neighbour bentdown and picked it up. 

"Well--don't you know me yet?" he said with a slight smile, as herestored the glass to her. 

She had grown white to the lips, and when she tried to speak the effortproduced only a faint click in her throat. She felt that the change inher appearance must be visible, and the dread of letting Marvell see itmade her continue to turn her ravaged face to her other neighbour. The round black eyes set prominently in the latter's round glossycountenance had expressed at first only an impersonal and slightlyironic interest; but a look of surprise grew in them as Undine's silencecontinued. 

"What's the matter? Don't you want me to speak to you?"

She became aware that Marvell, as if unconscious of her slight show ofdispleasure, had left his seat, and was making his way toward the aisle;and this assertion of independence, which a moment before she would sodeeply have resented, now gave her a feeling of intense relief. 

"No--don't speak to me, please. I'll tell you another time--I'llwrite. " Her neighbour continued to gaze at her, forming his lips into anoiseless whistle under his small dark moustache. 

"Well, I--That's about the stiffest, " he murmured; and as she made noanswer he added: "Afraid I'll ask to be introduced to your friend?"

She made a faint movement of entreaty. "I can't explain. I promise tosee you; but I ASK you not to talk to me now. "

He unfolded his programme, and went on speaking in a low tone while heaffected to study it. "Anything to oblige, of course. That's always beenmy motto. But is it a bargain--fair and square? You'll see me?"

She receded farther from him. "I promise. I--I WANT to, " she faltered. 

"All right, then. Call me up in the morning at the Driscoll Building. Seven-o-nine--got it?"

She nodded, and he added in a still lower tone: "I suppose I cancongratulate you, anyhow?" and then, without waiting for her reply, turned to study Mrs. Van Degen's box through his opera-glass. Clare, asif aware of the scrutiny fixed on her from below leaned back and threw aquestion over her shoulder to Ralph Marvell, who had just seated himselfbehind her. 

"Who's the funny man with the red face talking to Miss Spragg?"

Ralph bent forward. "The man next to her? Never saw him before. But Ithink you're mistaken: she's not speaking to him. "

"She WAS--Wasn't she, Harriet?"

Miss Ray pinched her lips together without speaking, and Mrs. Van Degenpaused for the fraction of a second. "Perhaps he's an Apex friend, " shethen suggested. 

"Very likely. Only I think she'd have introduced him if he had been. "

His cousin faintly shrugged. "Shall you encourage that?"

Peter Van Degen, who had strayed into his wife's box for a moment, caught the colloquy, and lifted his opera-glass. 

"The fellow next to Miss Spragg? (By George, Ralph, she's rippingto-night!) Wait a minute--I know his face. Saw him in old HarmonDriscoll's office the day of the Eubaw Mine meeting. This chap's hissecretary, or something. Driscoll called him in to give some facts tothe directors, and he seemed a mighty wide-awake customer. "

Clare Van Degen turned gaily to her cousin. "If he has anything todo with the Driscolls you'd better cultivate him! That's the kind ofacquaintance the Dagonets have always needed. I married to set them anexample!"

Ralph rose with a laugh. "You're right. I'll hurry back and makehis acquaintance. " He held out his hand to his cousin, avoiding herdisappointed eyes. 

Undine, on entering her bedroom late that evening, was startled by thepresence of a muffled figure which revealed itself, through the dimness, as the ungirded midnight outline of Mrs. Spragg. 

"MOTHER? What on earth--?" the girl exclaimed, as Mrs. Spragg pressedthe electric button and flooded the room with light. The idea of amother's sitting up for her daughter was so foreign to Apex customsthat it roused only mistrust and irritation in the object of thedemonstration. 

Mrs. Spragg came forward deprecatingly to lift the cloak from herdaughter's shoulders. 

"I just HAD to, Undie--I told father I HAD to. I wanted to hear allabout it. "

Undine shrugged away from her. "Mercy! At this hour? You'll be as whiteas a sheet to-morrow, sitting up all night like this. "

She moved toward the toilet-table, and began to demolish with feverishhands the structure which Mrs. Heeny, a few hours earlier, had solovingly raised. But the rose caught in a mesh of hair, and Mrs. Spragg, venturing timidly to release it, had a full view of her daughter's facein the glass. 

"Why, Undie, YOU'RE as white as a sheet now! You look fairly sick. What's the matter, daughter?"

The girl broke away from her. 

"Oh, can't you leave me alone, mother? There--do I look white NOW?" shecried, the blood flaming into her pale cheeks; and as Mrs. Spraggshrank back, she added more mildly, in the tone of a parent rebuking apersistent child: "It's enough to MAKE anybody sick to be stared at thatway!"

Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. "I'm so sorry, Undie. I guessit was just seeing you in this glare of light. "

"Yes--the light's awful; do turn some off, " ordered Undine, for whom, ordinarily, no radiance was too strong; and Mrs. Spragg, grateful tohave commands laid upon her, hastened to obey. 

Undine, after this, submitted in brooding silence to having her dressunlaced, and her slippers and dressing-gown brought to her. Mrs. Spraggvisibly yearned to say more, but she restrained the impulse lest itshould provoke her dismissal. 

"Won't you take just a sup of milk before you go to bed?" she suggestedat length, as Undine sank into an armchair. 

"I've got some for you right here in the parlour. "

Without looking up the girl answered: "No. I don't want anything. Do goto bed. "

Her mother seemed to be struggling between the life-long instinctof obedience and a swift unformulated fear. "I'm going, Undie. " Shewavered. "Didn't they receive you right, daughter?" she asked withsudden resolution. 

"What nonsense! How should they receive me? Everybody was lovely to me. "Undine rose to her feet and went on with her undressing, tossing herclothes on the floor and shaking her hair over her bare shoulders. 

Mrs. Spragg stooped to gather up the scattered garments as they fell, folding them with a wistful caressing touch, and laying them on thelounge, without daring to raise her eyes to her daughter. It was nottill she heard Undine throw herself on the bed that she went toward herand drew the coverlet up with deprecating hands. 

"Oh, do put the light out--I'm dead tired, " the girl grumbled, pressingher face into the pillow. 

Mrs. Spragg turned away obediently; then, gathering all her scatteredimpulses into a passionate act of courage, she moved back to thebedside. 

"Undie--you didn't see anybody--I mean at the theatre? ANYBODY YOUDIDN'T WANT TO SEE?"

Undine, at the question, raised her head and started right againstthe tossed pillows, her white exasperated face close to her mother'stwitching features. The two women examined each other a moment, fearand anger in their crossed glances; then Undine answered: "No, nobody. Good-night. "

IX

Undine, late the next day, waited alone under the leafless trellising ofa wistaria arbour on the west side of the Central Park. She had put onher plainest dress, and wound a closely, patterned veil over her leastvivid hat; but even thus toned down to the situation she was consciousof blazing out from it inconveniently. 

The habit of meeting young men in sequestered spots was not unknown toher: the novelty was in feeling any embarrassment about it. Even nowshe--was disturbed not so much by the unlikely chance of an accidentalencounter with Ralph Marvell as by the remembrance of similar meetings, far from accidental, with the romantic Aaronson. Could it be that thehand now adorned with Ralph's engagement ring had once, in this veryspot, surrendered itself to the riding-master's pressure? At the thoughta wave of physical disgust passed over her, blotting out another memoryas distasteful but more remote. 

It was revived by the appearance of a ruddy middle-sized young man, hisstoutish figure tightly buttoned into a square-shouldered over-coat, whopresently approached along the path that led to the arbour. Silhouettedagainst the slope of the asphalt, the newcomer revealed an outline thickyet compact, with a round head set on a neck in which, at the firstchance, prosperity would be likely to develop a red crease. His face, with its rounded surfaces, and the sanguine innocence of a complexionbelied by prematurely astute black eyes, had a look of jovial cunningwhich Undine had formerly thought "smart" but which now struck her asmerely vulgar. She felt that in the Marvell set Elmer Moffatt would havebeen stamped as "not a gentleman. " Nevertheless something in his lookseemed to promise the capacity to develop into any character he mightcare to assume; though it did not seem probable that, for the present, that of a gentleman would be among them. He had always had a briskswaggering step, and the faintly impudent tilt of the head that she hadonce thought "dashing"; but whereas this look had formerly denoteda somewhat desperate defiance of the world and its judgments it nowsuggested an almost assured relation to these powers; and Undine's heartsank at the thought of what the change implied. 

As he drew nearer, the young man's air of assurance was replaced by anexpression of mildly humorous surprise. 

"Well--this is white of you. Undine!" he said, taking her lifelessfingers into his dapperly gloved hand. 

Through her veil she formed the words: "I said I'd come. "

He laughed. "That's so. And you see I believed you. Though I might nothave--"

"I don't see the use of beginning like this, " she interrupted nervously. 

"That's so too. Suppose we walk along a little ways? It's rather chillystanding round. "

He turned down the path that descended toward the Ramble and the girlmoved on beside him with her long flowing steps. 

When they had reached the comparative shelter of the interlacing treesMoffatt paused again to say: "If we're going to talk I'd like to seeyou. Undine;" and after a first moment of reluctance she submissivelythrew back her veil. 

He let his eyes rest on her in silence; then he said judicially: "You'vefilled out some; but you're paler. " After another appreciative scrutinyhe added: "There's mighty few women as well worth looking at, and I'mobliged to you for letting me have the chance again. "

Undine's brows drew together, but she softened her frown to a quiveringsmile. 

"I'm glad to see you too, Elmer--I am, REALLY!"

He returned her smile while his glance continued to study herhumorously. "You didn't betray the fact last night. Miss Spragg. "

"I was so taken aback. I thought you were out in Alaska somewhere. "

The young man shaped his lips into the mute whistle by which hehabitually vented his surprise. "You DID? Didn't Abner E. Spragg tellyou he'd seen me down town?"

Undine gave him a startled glance. "Father? Why, have you seen him? Henever said a word about it!"

Her companion's whistle became audible. "He's running yet!" he saidgaily. "I wish I could scare some people as easy as I can your father. "

The girl hesitated. "I never felt toward you the way father did, " shehazarded at length; and he gave her another long look in return. 

"Well, if they'd left you alone I don't believe you'd ever have actedmean to me, " was the conclusion he drew from it. 

"I didn't mean to, Elmer ... I give you my word--but I was so young ... I didn't know anything.... "

His eyes had a twinkle of reminiscent pleasantry. "No--I don't supposeit WOULD teach a girl much to be engaged two years to a stiff likeMillard Binch; and that was about all that had happened to you before Icame along. "

Undine flushed to the forehead. "Oh, Elmer--I was only a child when Iwas engaged to Millard--"

"That's a fact. And you went on being one a good while afterward. TheApex Eagle always head-lined you 'The child-bride'--"

"I can't see what's the use--now--. "

"That ruled out of court too? See here. Undine--what CAN we talk about?I understood that was what we were here for. "

"Of course. " She made an effort at recovery. "I only meant tosay--what's the use of raking up things that are over?"

"Rake up? That's the idea, is it? Was that why you tried to cut me lastnight?"

"I--oh, Elmer! I didn't mean to; only, you see, I'm engaged. "

"Oh, I saw that fast enough. I'd have seen it even if I didn't read thepapers. " He gave a short laugh. "He was feeling pretty good, sittingthere alongside of you, wasn't he? I don't wonder he was. I remember. But I don't see that that was a reason for cold-shouldering me. I'ma respectable member of society now--I'm one of Harmon B. Driscoll'sprivate secretaries. " He brought out the fact with mock solemnity. 

But to Undine, though undoubtedly impressive, the statement did notimmediately present itself as a subject for pleasantry. 

"Elmer Moffatt--you ARE?"

He laughed again. "Guess you'd have remembered me last night if you'dknown it. "

She was following her own train of thought with a look of paleintensity. "You're LIVING in New York, then--you're going to live hereright along?"

"Well, it looks that way; as long as I can hang on to this job. Greatmen always gravitate to the metropolis. And I gravitated here just asUncle Harmon B. Was looking round for somebody who could give him aninside tip on the Eubaw mine deal--you know the Driscolls arepretty deep in Eubaw. I happened to go out there after our littleunpleasantness at Apex, and it was just the time the deal went through. So in one way your folks did me a good turn when they made Apex too hotfor me: funny to think of, ain't it?"

Undine, recovering herself, held out her hand impulsively. 

"I'm real glad of it--I mean I'm real glad you've had such a stroke ofluck!"

"Much obliged, " he returned. "By the way, you might mention the fact toAbner E. Spragg next time you run across him. "

"Father'll be real glad too, Elmer. " She hesitated, and then went on:"You must see now that it was natural father and mother should have feltthe way they did--"

"Oh, the only thing that struck me as unnatural was their making youfeel so too. But I'm free to admit I wasn't a promising case in thosedays. " His glance played over her for a moment. "Say, Undine--it wasgood while it lasted, though, wasn't it?"

She shrank back with a burning face and eyes of misery. 

"Why, what's the matter? That ruled out too? Oh, all right. Look athere, Undine, suppose you let me know what you ARE here to talk about, anyhow. "

She cast a helpless glance down the windings of the wooded glen in whichthey had halted. 

"Just to ask you--to beg you--not to say anything of this kindagain--EVER--"

"Anything about you and me?"

She nodded mutely. 

"Why, what's wrong? Anybody been saying anything against me?"

"Oh, no. It's not that!"

"What on earth is it, then--except that you're ashamed of me, one wayor another?" She made no answer, and he stood digging the tip of hiswalking-stick into a fissure of the asphalt. At length he went on in atone that showed a first faint trace of irritation: "I don't want tobreak into your gilt-edged crowd, if it's that you're scared of. "

His tone seemed to increase her distress. "No, no--you don't understand. All I want is that nothing shall be known. "

"Yes; but WHY? It was all straight enough, if you come to that. "

"It doesn't matter ... Whether it was straight ... Or ... Not ... " Heinterpolated a whistle which made her add: "What I mean is that out herein the East they don't even like it if a girl's been ENGAGED before. "

This last strain on his credulity wrung a laugh from Moffatt. "Gee!How'd they expect her fair young life to pass? Playing 'Holy City' onthe melodeon, and knitting tidies for church fairs?"

"Girls are looked after here. It's all different. Their mothers go roundwith them. "

This increased her companion's hilarity and he glanced about him with apretense of compunction. "Excuse ME! I ought to have remembered. Where'syour chaperon, Miss Spragg?" He crooked his arm with mock ceremony. "Allow me to escort you to the bew-fay. You see I'm onto the New Yorkstyle myself. "

A sigh of discouragement escaped her. "Elmer--if you really believe Inever wanted to act mean to you, don't you act mean to me now!"

"Act mean?" He grew serious again and moved nearer to her. "What is ityou want, Undine? Why can't you say it right out?"

"What I told you. I don't want Ralph Marvell--or any of them--to knowanything. If any of his folks found out, they'd never let him marryme--never! And he wouldn't want to: he'd be so horrified. And it wouldKILL me, Elmer--it would just kill me!"

She pressed close to him, forgetful of her new reserves and repugnances, and impelled by the passionate absorbing desire to wring from him somedefinite pledge of safety. 

"Oh, Elmer, if you ever liked me, help me now, and I'll help you if Iget the chance!"

He had recovered his coolness as hers forsook her, and stood his groundsteadily, though her entreating hands, her glowing face, were nearenough to have shaken less sturdy nerves. 

"That so, Puss? You just ask me to pass the sponge over Elmer Moffatt ofApex City? Cut the gentleman when we meet? That the size of it?"

"Oh, Elmer, it's my first chance--I can't lose it!" she broke out, sobbing. 

"Nonsense, child! Of course you shan't. Here, look up. Undine--why, Inever saw you cry before. Don't you be afraid of me--_I_ ain't going tointerrupt the wedding march. " He began to whistle a bar of Lohengrin. "Ionly just want one little promise in return. "

She threw a startled look at him and he added reassuringly: "Oh, don'tmistake me. I don't want to butt into your set--not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in abusiness way, would you fix it up for me--AFTER YOU'RE MARRIED?'"

Their eyes met, and she remained silent for a tremulous moment or two;then she held out her hand. "Afterward--yes. I promise. And YOU promise, Elmer?"

"Oh, to have and to hold!" he sang out, swinging about to follow her asshe hurriedly began to retrace her steps. 

The March twilight had fallen, and the Stentorian facade was all aglow, when Undine regained its monumental threshold. She slipped through themarble vestibule and soared skyward in the mirror-lined lift, hardlyconscious of the direction she was taking. What she wanted was solitude, and the time to put some order into her thoughts; and she hoped to stealinto her room without meeting her mother. Through her thick veil theclusters of lights in the Spragg drawing-room dilated and flowedtogether in a yellow blur, from which, as she entered, a figure detacheditself; and with a start of annoyance she saw Ralph Marvell rise fromthe perusal of the "fiction number" of a magazine which had replaced"The Hound of the Baskervilles" on the onyx table. 

"Yes; you told me not to come--and here I am. " He lifted her hand to hislips as his eyes tried to find hers through the veil. 

She drew back with a nervous gesture. "I told you I'd be awfully late. "

"I know--trying on! And you're horribly tired, and wishing with all yourmight I wasn't here. "

"I'm not so sure I'm not!" she rejoined, trying to hide her vexation ina smile. 

"What a tragic little voice! You really are done up. I couldn't helpdropping in for a minute; but of course if you say so I'll be off. " Shewas removing her long gloves and he took her hands and drew her close. "Only take off your veil, and let me see you. "

A quiver of resistance ran through her: he felt it and dropped herhands. 

"Please don't tease. I never could bear it, " she stammered, drawingaway. 

"Till to-morrow, then; that is, if the dress-makers permit. "

She forced a laugh. "If I showed myself now you might not come backto-morrow. I look perfectly hideous--it was so hot and they kept me solong. "

"All to make yourself more beautiful for a man who's blind with yourbeauty already?"

The words made her smile, and moving nearer she bent her head and stoodstill while he undid her veil. As he put it back their lips met, and hislook of passionate tenderness was incense to her. 

But the next moment his expression passed from worship to concern. "Dear! Why, what's the matter? You've been crying!"

She put both hands to her hat in the instinctive effort to hide herface. His persistence was as irritating as her mother's. 

"I told you it was frightfully hot--and all my things were horrid; andit made me so cross and nervous!" She turned to the looking-glass with afeint of smoothing her hair. 

Marvell laid his hand on her arm, "I can't bear to see you so done up. Why can't we be married to-morrow, and escape all these ridiculouspreparations? I shall hate your fine clothes if they're going to makeyou so miserable. "

She dropped her hands, and swept about on him, her face lit up by a newidea. He was extraordinarily handsome and appealing, and her heart beganto beat faster. 

"I hate it all too! I wish we COULD be married right away!"

Marvell caught her to him joyously. "Dearest--dearest! Don't, if youdon't mean it! The thought's too glorious!"

Undine lingered in his arms, not with any intent of tenderness, but asif too deeply lost in a new train of thought to be conscious of hishold. 

"I suppose most of the things COULD be got ready sooner--if I said theyMUST, " she brooded, with a fixed gaze that travelled past him. "And therest--why shouldn't the rest be sent over to Europe after us? I want togo straight off with you, away from everything--ever so far away, where there'll be nobody but you and me alone!" She had a flash ofillumination which made her turn her lips to his. 

"Oh, my darling--my darling!" Marvell whispered. 

X

Mr. And Mrs. Spragg were both given to such long periods of ruminatingapathy that the student of inheritance might have wondered whence Undinederived her overflowing activity. The answer would have been obtainedby observing her father's business life. From the moment he set footin Wall Street Mr. Spragg became another man. Physically the changerevealed itself only by the subtlest signs. As he steered his way to hisoffice through the jostling crowd of William Street his relaxed musclesdid not grow more taut or his lounging gait less desultory. Hisshoulders were hollowed by the usual droop, and his rusty blackwaistcoat showed the same creased concavity at the waist, the sameflabby prominence below. It was only in his face that the difference wasperceptible, though even here it rather lurked behind the features thanopenly modified them: showing itself now and then in the cautious glintof half-closed eyes, the forward thrust of black brows, or a tighteningof the lax lines of the mouth--as the gleam of a night-watchman's lightmight flash across the darkness of a shuttered house-front. The shutterswere more tightly barred than usual, when, on a morning some twoweeks later than the date of the incidents last recorded, Mr. Spraggapproached the steel and concrete tower in which his office occupied alofty pigeon-hole. Events had moved rapidly and somewhat surprisingly inthe interval, and Mr. Spragg had already accustomed himself to the factthat his daughter was to be married within the week, instead of awaitingthe traditional post-Lenten date. Conventionally the change meant littleto him; but on the practical side it presented unforeseen difficulties. Mr. Spragg had learned within the last weeks that a New York marriageinvolved material obligations unknown to Apex. Marvell, indeed, hadbeen loftily careless of such questions; but his grandfather, on theannouncement of the engagement, had called on Mr. Spragg and put beforehim, with polished precision, the young man's financial situation. 

Mr. Spragg, at the moment, had been inclined to deal with his visitor ina spirit of indulgent irony. As he leaned back in his revolving chair, with feet adroitly balanced against a tilted scrap basket, his air ofrelaxed power made Mr. Dagonet's venerable elegance seem as harmless asthat of an ivory jack-straw--and his first replies to his visitor weremade with the mildness of a kindly giant. 

"Ralph don't make a living out of the law, you say? No, it didn't strikeme he'd be likely to, from the talks I've had with him. Fact is, thelaw's a business that wants--" Mr. Spragg broke off, checked by aprotest from Mr. Dagonet. "Oh, a PROFESSION, you call it? It ain't abusiness?" His smile grew more indulgent as this novel distinctiondawned on him. "Why, I guess that's the whole trouble with Ralph. Nobodyexpects to make money in a PROFESSION; and if you've taught him toregard the law that way, he'd better go right into cooking-stoves anddone with it. "

Mr. Dagonet, within a narrower range, had his own play of humour; and itmet Mr. Spragg's with a leap. "It's because I knew he would manage tomake cooking-stoves as unremunerative as a profession that I saved himfrom so glaring a failure by putting him into the law. "

The retort drew a grunt of amusement from Mr. Spragg; and the eyes ofthe two men met in unexpected understanding. 

"That so? What can he do, then?" the future father-in-law enquired. 

"He can write poetry--at least he tells me he can. " Mr. Dagonethesitated, as if aware of the inadequacy of the alternative, and thenadded: "And he can count on three thousand a year from me. "

Mr. Spragg tilted himself farther back without disturbing hissubtly-calculated relation to the scrap basket. 

"Does it cost anything like that to print his poetry?"

Mr. Dagonet smiled again: he was clearly enjoying his visit. "Dear, no--he doesn't go in for 'luxe' editions. And now and then he gets tendollars from a magazine. "

Mr. Spragg mused. "Wasn't he ever TAUGHT to work?"

"No; I really couldn't have afforded that. "

"I see. Then they've got to live on two hundred and fifty dollars amonth. "

Mr. Dagonet remained pleasantly unmoved. "Does it cost anything likethat to buy your daughter's dresses?"

A subterranean chuckle agitated the lower folds of Mr. Spragg'swaistcoat. 

"I might put him in the way of something--I guess he's smart enough. "

Mr. Dagonet made a gesture of friendly warning. "It will pay us both inthe end to keep him out of business, " he said, rising as if to show thathis mission was accomplished. 

The results of this friendly conference had been more serious thanMr. Spragg could have foreseen--and the victory remained with hisantagonist. It had not entered into Mr. Spragg's calculations that hewould have to give his daughter any fixed income on her marriage. Hemeant that she should have the "handsomest" wedding the New York presshad ever celebrated, and her mother's fancy was already afloat on a seaof luxuries--a motor, a Fifth Avenue house, and a tiara that shouldout-blaze Mrs. Van Degen's; but these were movable benefits, to beconferred whenever Mr. Spragg happened to be "on the right side" of themarket. It was a different matter to be called on, at such short notice, to bridge the gap between young Marvell's allowance and Undine'srequirements; and her father's immediate conclusion was that theengagement had better be broken off. Such scissions were almost painlessin Apex, and he had fancied it would be easy, by an appeal to the girl'spride, to make her see that she owed it to herself to do better. 

"You'd better wait awhile and look round again, " was the way he had putit to her at the opening of the talk of which, even now, he could notrecall the close without a tremor. 

Undine, when she took his meaning, had been terrible. Everything hadgone down before her, as towns and villages went down before one of thetornadoes of her native state. Wait awhile? Look round? Did he supposeshe was marrying for MONEY? Didn't he see it was all a question, nowand here, of the kind of people she wanted to "go with"? Did he wantto throw her straight back into the Lipscomb set, to have her marry adentist and live in a West Side flat? Why hadn't they stayed in Apex, ifthat was all he thought she was fit for? She might as well have marriedMillard Binch, instead of handing him over to Indiana Frusk! Couldn'ther father understand that nice girls, in New York, didn't regardgetting married like going on a buggy-ride? It was enough to ruin agirl's chances if she broke her engagement to a man in Ralph Marvell'sset. All kinds of spiteful things would be said about her, and she wouldnever be able to go with the right people again. They had better go backto Apex right off--it was they and not SHE who had wanted to leave Apex, anyhow--she could call her mother to witness it. She had always, when itcame to that, done what her father and mother wanted, but she'd givenup trying to make out what they were after, unless it was to make hermiserable; and if that was it, hadn't they had enough of it by thistime? She had, anyhow. But after this she meant to lead her own life;and they needn't ask her where she was going, or what she meant to do, because this time she'd die before she told them--and they'd made lifeso hateful to her that she only wished she was dead already. 

Mr. Spragg heard her out in silence, pulling at his beard with onesallow wrinkled hand, while the other dragged down the armhole of hiswaistcoat. Suddenly he looked up and said: "Ain't you in love with thefellow, Undie?"

The girl glared back at him, her splendid brows beetling like anAmazon's. "Do you think I'd care a cent for all the rest of it if Iwasn't?"

"Well, if you are, you and he won't mind beginning in a small way. "

Her look poured contempt on his ignorance. "Do you s'pose I'd drag himdown?" With a magnificent gesture she tore Marvell's ring from herfinger. "I'll send this back this minute. I'll tell him I thought hewas a rich man, and now I see I'm mistaken--" She burst into shatteringsobs, rocking her beautiful body back and forward in all the abandonmentof young grief; and her father stood over her, stroking her shoulder andsaying helplessly: "I'll see what I can do, Undine--"

All his life, and at ever-diminishing intervals, Mr. Spragg had beencalled on by his womenkind to "see what he could do"; and the seeing hadalmost always resulted as they wished. Undine did not have to send backher ring, and in her state of trance-like happiness she hardly asked bywhat means her path had been smoothed, but merely accepted her mother'sassurance that "father had fixed everything all right. "

Mr. Spragg accepted the situation also. A son-in-law who expected tobe pensioned like a Grand Army veteran was a phenomenon new to hisexperience; but if that was what Undine wanted she should have it. Onlytwo days later, however, he was met by a new demand--the young peoplehad decided to be married "right off, " instead of waiting till June. This change of plan was made known to Mr. Spragg at a moment when he waspeculiarly unprepared for the financial readjustment it necessitated. Hehad always declared himself able to cope with any crisis if Undine andher mother would "go steady"; but he now warned them of his inability tokeep up with the new pace they had set. Undine, not deigning to returnto the charge, had commissioned her mother to speak for her; and Mr. Spragg was surprised to meet in his wife a firmness as inflexible as hisdaughter's. 

"I can't do it, Loot--can't put my hand on the cash, " he had protested;but Mrs. Spragg fought him inch by inch, her back to the wall--flingingout at last, as he pressed her closer: "Well, if you want to know, she'sseen Elmer. "

The bolt reached its mark, and her husband turned an agitated face onher. 

"Elmer? What on earth--he didn't come HERE?"

"No; but he sat next to her the other night at the theatre, and she'swild with us for not having warned her. "

Mr. Spragg's scowl drew his projecting brows together. "Warned her ofwhat? What's Elmer to her? Why's she afraid of Elmer Moffatt?"

"She's afraid of his talking. "

"Talking? What on earth can he say that'll hurt HER?"

"Oh, I don't know, " Mrs. Spragg wailed. "She's so nervous I can hardlyget a word out of her. "

Mr. Spragg's whitening face showed the touch of a new fear. "Is sheafraid he'll get round her again--make up to her? Is that what shemeans by 'talking'?" "I don't know, I don't know. I only know she isafraid--she's afraid as death of him. "

For a long interval they sat silently looking at each other while theirheavy eyes exchanged conjectures: then Mr. Spragg rose from his chair, saying, as he took up his hat: "Don't you fret, Leota; I'll see what Ican do. "

He had been "seeing" now for an arduous fortnight; and the strain on hisvision had resulted in a state of tension such as he had not undergonesince the epic days of the Pure Water Move at Apex. It was not his habitto impart his fears to Mrs. Spragg and Undine, and they continued thebridal preparations, secure in their invariable experience that, once"father" had been convinced of the impossibility of evading theirdemands, he might be trusted to satisfy them by means with which hiswomenkind need not concern themselves. Mr. Spragg, as he approached hisoffice on the morning in question, felt reasonably sure of fulfillingthese expectations; but he reflected that a few more such victorieswould mean disaster. 

He entered the vast marble vestibule of the Ararat Trust Building andwalked toward the express elevator that was to carry him up to hisoffice. At the door of the elevator a man turned to him, and herecognized Elmer Moffatt, who put out his hand with an easy gesture. 

Mr. Spragg did not ignore the gesture: he did not even withhold hishand. In his code the cut, as a conscious sign of disapproval, did notexist. In the south, if you had a grudge against a man you tried toshoot him; in the west, you tried to do him in a mean turn in business;but in neither region was the cut among the social weapons of offense. Mr. Spragg, therefore, seeing Moffatt in his path, extended a lifelesshand while he faced the young man scowlingly. Moffatt met the hand andthe scowl with equal coolness. 

"Going up to your office? I was on my way there. "

The elevator door rolled back, and Mr. Spragg, entering it, found hiscompanion at his side. They remained silent during the ascent to Mr. Spragg's threshold; but there the latter turned to enquire ironically ofMoffatt: "Anything left to say?"

Moffatt smiled. "Nothing LEFT--no; I'm carrying a whole new line ofgoods. "

Mr. Spragg pondered the reply; then he opened the door and sufferedMoffatt to follow him in. Behind an inner glazed enclosure, with its onewindow dimmed by a sooty perspective barred with chimneys, he seatedhimself at a dusty littered desk, and groped instinctively for thesupport of the scrap basket. Moffatt, uninvited, dropped into thenearest chair, and Mr. Spragg said, after another silence: "I'm prettybusy this morning. "

"I know you are: that's why I'm here, " Moffatt serenely answered. Heleaned back, crossing his legs, and twisting his small stiff moustachewith a plump hand adorned by a cameo. 

"Fact is, " he went on, "this is a coals-of-fire call. You think I oweyou a grudge, and I'm going to show you I'm not that kind. I'm goingto put you onto a good thing--oh, not because I'm so fond of you; justbecause it happens to hit my sense of a joke. "

While Moffatt talked Mr. Spragg took up the pile of letters on his deskand sat shuffling them like a pack of cards. He dealt them deliberatelyto two imaginary players; then he pushed them aside and drew out hiswatch. 

"All right--I carry one too, " said the young man easily. "But you'llfind it's time gained to hear what I've got to say. "

Mr. Spragg considered the vista of chimneys without speaking, andMoffatt continued: "I don't suppose you care to hear the story of mylife, so I won't refer you to the back numbers. You used to say out inApex that I spent too much time loafing round the bar of the MealeyHouse; that was one of the things you had against me. Well, maybe Idid--but it taught me to talk, and to listen to the other fellows too. Just at present I'm one of Harmon B. Driscoll's private secretaries, andsome of that Mealey House loafing has come in more useful than any job Iever put my hand to. The old man happened to hear I knew something aboutthe inside of the Eubaw deal, and took me on to have the informationwhere he could get at it. I've given him good talk for his money;but I've done some listening too. Eubaw ain't the only commodity theDriscolls deal in. "

Mr. Spragg restored his watch to his pocket and shifted his drowsy gazefrom the window to his visitor's face. 

"Yes, " said Moffatt, as if in reply to the movement, "the Driscolls aregetting busy out in Apex. Now they've got all the street railroads intheir pocket they want the water-supply too--but you know that as wellas I do. Fact is, they've got to have it; and there's where you and Icome in. "

Mr. Spragg thrust his hands in his waistcoat arm-holes and turned hiseyes back to the window. 

"I'm out of that long ago, " he said indifferently. 

"Sure, " Moffatt acquiesced; "but you know what went on when you were init. "

"Well?" said Mr. Spragg, shifting one hand to the Masonic emblem on hiswatch-chain. 

"Well, Representative James J. Rolliver, who was in it with you, ain'tout of it yet. He's the man the Driscolls are up against. What d'youknow about him?"

Mr. Spragg twirled the emblem thoughtfully. "Driscoll tell you to comehere?"

Moffatt laughed. "No, SIR--not by a good many miles. "

Mr. Spragg removed his feet from the scrap basket and straightenedhimself in his chair. 

"Well--I didn't either; good morning, Mr. Moffatt. "

The young man stared a moment, a humorous glint in his small black eyes;but he made no motion to leave his seat. "Undine's to be married nextweek, isn't she?" he asked in a conversational tone. 

Mr. Spragg's face blackened and he swung about in his revolving chair. 

"You go to--"

Moffatt raised a deprecating hand. "Oh, you needn't warn me off. Idon't want to be invited to the wedding. And I don't want to forbid thebanns. "

There was a derisive sound in Mr. Spragg's throat. 

"But I DO want to get out of Driscoll's office, " Moffatt imperturbablycontinued. "There's no future there for a fellow like me. I see thingsbig. That's the reason Apex was too tight a fit for me. It's onlythe little fellows that succeed in little places. New York's mysize--without a single alteration. I could prove it to you to-morrow ifI could put my hand on fifty thousand dollars. "

Mr. Spragg did not repeat his gesture of dismissal: he was once morelistening guardedly but intently. Moffatt saw it and continued. 

"And I could put my hand on double that sum--yes, sir, DOUBLE--if you'djust step round with me to old Driscoll's office before five P. M. Seethe connection, Mr. Spragg?"

The older man remained silent while his visitor hummed a bar or two of"In the Gloaming"; then he said: "You want me to tell Driscoll what Iknow about James J. Rolliver?"

"I want you to tell the truth--I want you to stand for political purityin your native state. A man of your prominence owes it to the community, sir, " cried Moffatt. Mr. Spragg was still tormenting his Masonic emblem. 

"Rolliver and I always stood together, " he said at last, with a tinge ofreluctance. 

"Well, how much have you made out of it? Ain't he always been ahead ofthe game?"

"I can't do it--I can't do it, " said Mr. Spragg, bringing his clenchedhand down on the desk, as if addressing an invisible throng ofassailants. 

Moffatt rose without any evidence of disappointment in his ruddycountenance. "Well, so long, " he said, moving toward the door. Nearthe threshold he paused to add carelessly: "Excuse my referring to apersonal matter--but I understand Miss Spragg's wedding takes place nextMonday. "

Mr. Spragg was silent. 

"How's that?" Moffatt continued unabashed. "I saw in the papers the datewas set for the end of June. "

Mr. Spragg rose heavily from his seat. "I presume my daughter has herreasons, " he said, moving toward the door in Moffatt's wake. 

"I guess she has--same as I have for wanting you to step round with meto old Driscoll's. If Undine's reasons are as good as mine--"

"Stop right here, Elmer Moffatt!" the older man broke out with liftedhand. Moffatt made a burlesque feint of evading a blow; then his facegrew serious, and he moved close to Mr. Spragg, whose arm had fallen tohis side. 

"See here, I know Undine's reasons. I've had a talk with her--didn'tshe tell you? SHE don't beat about the bush the way you do. She told mestraight out what was bothering her. She wants the Marvells to thinkshe's right out of Kindergarten. 'No goods sent out on approval fromthis counter. ' And I see her point--_I_ don't mean to publish mymeemo'rs. Only a deal's a deal. " He paused a moment, twisting hisfingers about the heavy gold watch-chain that crossed his waistcoat. "Tell you what, Mr. Spragg, I don't bear malice--not against Undine, anyway--and if I could have afforded it I'd have been glad enough tooblige her and forget old times. But you didn't hesitate to kick me whenI was down and it's taken me a day or two to get on my legs again afterthat kicking. I see my way now to get there and keep there; and there'sa kinder poetic justice in your being the man to help me up. If I canget hold of fifty thousand dollars within a day or so I don't care who'sgot the start of me. I've got a dead sure thing in sight, and you're theonly man that can get it for me. Now do you see where we're coming out?"

Mr. Spragg, during this discourse, had remained motionless, his handsin his pockets, his jaws moving mechanically, as though he mumbled atooth-pick under his beard. His sallow cheek had turned a shade paler, and his brows hung threateningly over his half-closed eyes. But therewas no threat--there was scarcely more than a note of dull curiosity--inthe voice with which he said: "You mean to talk?"

Moffatt's rosy face grew as hard as a steel safe. "I mean YOU totalk--to old Driscoll. " He paused, and then added: "It's a hundredthousand down, between us. "

Mr. Spragg once more consulted his watch. "I'll see you again, " he saidwith an effort. 

Moffatt struck one fist against the other. "No, SIR--you won't! You'llonly hear from me--through the Marvell family. Your news ain't worth adollar to Driscoll if he don't get it to-day. "

He was checked by the sound of steps in the outer office, and Mr. Spragg's stenographer appeared in the doorway. 

"It's Mr. Marvell, " she announced; and Ralph Marvell, glowing with hasteand happiness, stood between the two men, holding out his hand to Mr. Spragg. 

"Am I awfully in the way, sir? Turn me out if I am--but first let mejust say a word about this necklace I've ordered for Un--"

He broke off, made aware by Mr. Spragg's glance of the presence of ElmerMoffatt, who, with unwonted discretion, had dropped back into theshadow of the door. Marvell turned on Moffatt a bright gaze full of theinstinctive hospitality of youth; but Moffatt looked straight past himat Mr. Spragg. The latter, as if in response to an imperceptible signal, mechanically pronounced his visitor's name; and the two young men movedtoward each other. 

"I beg your pardon most awfully--am I breaking up an importantconference?" Ralph asked as he shook hands. 

"Why, no--I guess we're pretty nearly through. I'll step outside and woothe blonde while you're talking, " Moffatt rejoined in the same key. 

"Thanks so much--I shan't take two seconds. " Ralph broke off toscrutinize him. "But haven't we met before? It seems to me I've seenyou--just lately--"

Moffatt seemed about to answer, but his reply was checked by an abruptmovement on the part of Mr. Spragg. There was a perceptible pause, during which Moffatt's bright black glance rested questioningly onRalph; then he looked again at the older man, and their eyes held eachother for a silent moment. 

"Why, no--not as I'm aware of, Mr. Marvell, " Moffatt said, addressinghimself amicably to Ralph. "Better late than never, though--and I hopeto have the pleasure soon again. "

He divided a nod between the two men, and passed into the outer office, where they heard him addressing the stenographer in a strain ofexaggerated gallantry. 

XI

The July sun enclosed in a ring of fire the ilex grove of a villa in thehills near Siena. 

Below, by the roadside, the long yellow house seemed to waver andpalpitate in the glare; but steep by steep, behind it, the coolilex-dusk mounted to the ledge where Ralph Marvell, stretched on hisback in the grass, lay gazing up at a black reticulation of branchesbetween which bits of sky gleamed with the hardness and brilliancy ofblue enamel. 

Up there too the air was thick with heat; but compared with the whitefire below it was a dim and tempered warmth, like that of the churchesin which he and Undine sometimes took refuge at the height of the torriddays. 

Ralph loved the heavy Italian summer, as he had loved the light springdays leading up to it: the long line of dancing days that had drawn themon and on ever since they had left their ship at Naples four monthsearlier. Four months of beauty, changeful, inexhaustible, weaving itselfabout him in shapes of softness and strength; and beside him, hand inhand with him, embodying that spirit of shifting magic, the radiantcreature through whose eyes he saw it. This was what their hastenedmarriage had blessed them with, giving them leisure, before summer came, to penetrate to remote folds of the southern mountains, to linger in theshade of Sicilian orange-groves, and finally, travelling by slow stagesto the Adriatic, to reach the central hill-country where even in Julythey might hope for a breathable air. 

To Ralph the Sienese air was not only breathable but intoxicating. Thesun, treading the earth like a vintager, drew from it heady fragrances, crushed out of it new colours. All the values of the temperate landscapewere reversed: the noon high-lights were whiter but the shadows hadunimagined colour. On the blackness of cork and ilex and cypress lay thegreen and purple lustres, the coppery iridescences, of old bronze; andnight after night the skies were wine-blue and bubbling with stars. Ralph said to himself that no one who had not seen Italy thus prostratebeneath the sun knew what secret treasures she could yield. 

As he lay there, fragments of past states of emotion, fugitivefelicities of thought and sensation, rose and floated on the surfaceof his thoughts. It was one of those moments when the accumulatedimpressions of life converge on heart and brain, elucidating, enlacingeach other, in a mysterious confusion of beauty. He had had glimpses ofsuch a state before, of such mergings of the personal with the generallife that one felt one's self a mere wave on the wild stream of being, yet thrilled with a sharper sense of individuality than can be knownwithin the mere bounds of the actual. But now he knew the sensation inits fulness, and with it came the releasing power of language. Wordswere flashing like brilliant birds through the boughs overhead; he hadbut to wave his magic wand to have them flutter down to him. Only theywere so beautiful up there, weaving their fantastic flights against theblue, that it was pleasanter, for the moment, to watch them and let thewand lie. 

He stared up at the pattern they made till his eyes ached with excess oflight; then he changed his position and looked at his wife. 

Undine, near by, leaned against a gnarled tree with the slightlyconstrained air of a person unused to sylvan abandonments. Her beautifulback could not adapt itself to the irregularities of the tree-trunk, and she moved a little now and then in the effort to find an easierposition. But her expression was serene, and Ralph, looking up at herthrough drowsy lids, thought her face had never been more exquisite. 

"You look as cool as a wave, " he said, reaching out for the hand on herknee. She let him have it, and he drew it closer, scrutinizing it as ifit had been a bit of precious porcelain or ivory. It was small and soft, a mere featherweight, a puff-ball of a hand--not quick and thrilling, not a speaking hand, but one to be fondled and dressed in rings, and toleave a rosy blur in the brain. The fingers were short and tapering, dimpled at the base, with nails as smooth as rose-leaves. Ralph liftedthem one by one, like a child playing with piano-keys, but they wereinelastic and did not spring back far--only far enough to show thedimples. 

He turned the hand over and traced the course of its blue veins from thewrist to the rounding of the palm below the fingers; then he put a kissin the warm hollow between. The upper world had vanished: his universehad shrunk to the palm of a hand. But there was no sense of diminution. In the mystic depths whence his passion sprang, earthly dimensions wereignored and the curve of beauty was boundless enough to hold whateverthe imagination could pour into it. Ralph had never felt more convincedof his power to write a great poem; but now it was Undine's hand whichheld the magic wand of expression. 

She stirred again uneasily, answering his last words with a faint accentof reproach. 

"I don't FEEL cool. You said there'd be a breeze up here. ". 

He laughed. 

"You poor darling! Wasn't it ever as hot as this in Apex?"

She withdrew her hand with a slight grimace. 

"Yes--but I didn't marry you to go back to Apex!"

Ralph laughed again; then he lifted himself on his elbow and regainedthe hand. "I wonder what you DID marry me for?"

"Mercy! It's too hot for conundrums. " She spoke without impatience, butwith a lassitude less joyous than his. 

He roused himself. "Do you really mind the heat so much? We'll go, ifyou do. "

She sat up eagerly. "Go to Switzerland, you mean?"

"Well, I hadn't taken quite as long a leap. I only meant we might driveback to Siena. "

She relapsed listlessly against her tree-trunk. "Oh, Siena's hotter thanthis. "

"We could go and sit in the cathedral--it's always cool there atsunset. "

"We've sat in the cathedral at sunset every day for a week. "

"Well, what do you say to stopping at Lecceto on the way? I haven'tshown you Lecceto yet; and the drive back by moonlight would beglorious. "

This woke her to a slight show of interest. "It might be nice--but wherecould we get anything to eat?"

Ralph laughed again. "I don't believe we could. You're too practical. "

"Well, somebody's got to be. And the food in the hotel is too disgustingif we're not on time. "

"I admit that the best of it has usually been appropriated by theextremely good-looking cavalry-officer who's so keen to know you. "

Undine's face brightened. "You know he's not a Count; he's a Marquis. His name's Roviano; his palace in Rome is in the guide-books, andhe speaks English beautifully. Celeste found out about him from theheadwaiter, " she said, with the security of one who treats of recognizedvalues. 

Marvell, sitting upright, reached lazily across the grass for his hat. "Then there's all the more reason for rushing back to defend our share. "He spoke in the bantering tone which had become the habitual expressionof his tenderness; but his eyes softened as they absorbed in a lastglance the glimmering submarine light of the ancient grove, throughwhich Undine's figure wavered nereid-like above him. 

"You never looked your name more than you do now, " he said, kneelingat her side and putting his arm about her. She smiled back a littlevaguely, as if not seizing his allusion, and being content to let itdrop into the store of unexplained references which had once stimulatedher curiosity but now merely gave her leisure to think of other things. But her smile was no less lovely for its vagueness, and indeed, toRalph, the loveliness was enhanced by the latent doubt. He rememberedafterward that at that moment the cup of life seemed to brim over. 

"Come, dear--here or there--it's all divine!"

In the carriage, however, she remained insensible to the soft spell ofthe evening, noticing only the heat and dust, and saying, as they passedunder the wooded cliff of Lecceto, that they might as well have stoppedthere after all, since with such a headache as she felt coming on shedidn't care if she dined or not. Ralph looked up yearningly at the longwalls overhead; but Undine's mood was hardly favourable to communionwith such scenes, and he made no attempt to stop the carriage. Insteadhe presently said: "If you're tired of Italy, we've got the world tochoose from. "

She did not speak for a moment; then she said: "It's the heat I'm tiredof. Don't people generally come here earlier?"

"Yes. That's why I chose the summer: so that we could have it all toourselves. "

She tried to put a note of reasonableness into her voice. "If you'd toldme we were going everywhere at the wrong time, of course I could havearranged about my clothes. "

"You poor darling! Let us, by all means, go to the place where theclothes will be right: they're too beautiful to be left out of ourscheme of life. "

Her lips hardened. "I know you don't care how I look. But you didn'tgive me time to order anything before we were married, and I've gotnothing but my last winter's things to wear. "

Ralph smiled. Even his subjugated mind perceived the inconsistencyof Undine's taxing him with having hastened their marriage; but hervariations on the eternal feminine still enchanted him. 

"We'll go wherever you please--you make every place the one place, " hesaid, as if he were humouring an irresistible child. 

"To Switzerland, then? Celeste says St. Moritz is too heavenly, "exclaimed Undine, who gathered her ideas of Europe chiefly from theconversation of her experienced attendant. 

"One can be cool short of the Engadine. Why not go south again--say toCapri?"

"Capri? Is that the island we saw from Naples, where the artists go?"She drew her brows together. "It would be simply awful getting there inthis heat. "

"Well, then, I know a little place in Switzerland where one can stillget away from the crowd, and we can sit and look at a green water-fallwhile I lie in wait for adjectives. "

Mr. Spragg's astonishment on learning that his son-in-law contemplatedmaintaining a household on the earnings of his Muse was still matter forpleasantry between the pair; and one of the humours of their first weekstogether had consisted in picturing themselves as a primeval couplesetting forth across a virgin continent and subsisting on the adjectiveswhich Ralph was to trap for his epic. On this occasion, however, hiswife did not take up the joke, and he remained silent while theircarriage climbed the long dusty hill to the Fontebranda gate. He hadseen her face droop as he suggested the possibility of an escape fromthe crowds in Switzerland, and it came to him, with the sharpness of aknife-thrust, that a crowd was what she wanted--that she was sick todeath of being alone with him. 

He sat motionless, staring ahead at the red-brown walls and towerson the steep above them. After all there was nothing sudden in hisdiscovery. For weeks it had hung on the edge of consciousness, buthe had turned from it with the heart's instinctive clinging to theunrealities by which it lives. Even now a hundred qualifying reasonsrushed to his aid. They told him it was not of himself that Undine hadwearied, but only of their present way of life. He had said a momentbefore, without conscious exaggeration, that her presence made any placethe one place; yet how willingly would he have consented to share insuch a life as she was leading before their marriage? And he had toacknowledge their months of desultory wandering from one remote Italianhill-top to another must have seemed as purposeless to her as balls anddinners would have been to him. An imagination like his, peopled withsuch varied images and associations, fed by so many currents from thelong stream of human experience, could hardly picture the bareness ofthe small half-lit place in which his wife's spirit fluttered. Her mindwas as destitute of beauty and mystery as the prairie school-house inwhich she had been educated; and her ideals seemed to Ralph as patheticas the ornaments made of corks and cigar-bands with which her infanthands had been taught to adorn it. He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. The task of opening new windows in her mind was inspiring enough to givehim infinite patience; and he would not yet own to himself that herpliancy and variety were imitative rather than spontaneous. 

Meanwhile he had no desire to sacrifice her wishes to his, and itdistressed him that he dared not confess his real reason for avoidingthe Engadine. The truth was that their funds were shrinking faster thanhe had expected. Mr. Spragg, after bluntly opposing their hastenedmarriage on the ground that he was not prepared, at such short notice, to make the necessary provision for his daughter, had shortly afterward(probably, as Undine observed to Ralph, in consequence of a lucky "turn"in the Street) met their wishes with all possible liberality, bestowingon them a wedding in conformity with Mrs. Spragg's ideals and up to thehighest standard of Mrs. Heeny's clippings, and pledging himself toprovide Undine with an income adequate to so brilliant a beginning. Itwas understood that Ralph, on their return, should renounce the law forsome more paying business; but this seemed the smallest of sacrifices tomake for the privilege of calling Undine his wife; and besides, he stillsecretly hoped that, in the interval, his real vocation might declareitself in some work which would justify his adopting the life ofletters. 

He had assumed that Undine's allowance, with the addition of his ownsmall income, would be enough to satisfy their needs. His own were few, and had always been within his means; but his wife's daily requirements, combined with her intermittent outbreaks of extravagance, had thrown outall his calculations, and they were already seriously exceeding theirincome. 

If any one had prophesied before his marriage that he would find itdifficult to tell this to Undine he would have smiled at the suggestion;and during their first days together it had seemed as though pecuniaryquestions were the last likely to be raised between them. But hismarital education had since made strides, and he now knew that adisregard for money may imply not the willingness to get on withoutit but merely a blind confidence that it will somehow be provided. IfUndine, like the lilies of the field, took no care, it was not becauseher wants were as few but because she assumed that care would be takenfor her by those whose privilege it was to enable her to unite floralinsouciance with Sheban elegance. 

She had met Ralph's first note of warning with the assurance that she"didn't mean to worry"; and her tone implied that it was his business todo so for her. He certainly wanted to guard her from this as from allother cares; he wanted also, and still more passionately after the topichad once or twice recurred between them, to guard himself from the riskof judging where he still adored. These restraints to frankness kept himsilent during the remainder of the drive, and when, after dinner, Undineagain complained of her headache, he let her go up to her room andwandered out into the dimly lit streets to renewed communion with hisproblems. 

They hung on him insistently as darkness fell, and Siena grew vocal withthat shrill diversity of sounds that breaks, on summer nights, fromevery cleft of the masonry in old Italian towns. Then the moon rose, unfolding depth by depth the lines of the antique land; and Ralph, leaning against an old brick parapet, and watching each silver-blueremoteness disclose itself between the dark masses of the middledistance, felt his spirit enlarged and pacified. For the first time, ashis senses thrilled to the deep touch of beauty, he asked himself if outof these floating and fugitive vibrations he might not build somethingconcrete and stable, if even such dull common cares as now oppressed himmight not become the motive power of creation. If he could only, onthe spot, do something with all the accumulated spoils of the lastmonths--something that should both put money into his pocket and harmonyinto the rich confusion of his spirit! "I'll write--I'll write: thatmust be what the whole thing means, " he said to himself, with a vagueclutch at some solution which should keep him a little longer hanginghalf-way down the steep of disenchantment. 

He would have stayed on, heedless of time, to trace the ramificationsof his idea in the complex beauty of the scene, but for the longing toshare his mood with Undine. For the last few months every thought andsensation had been instantly transmuted into such emotional impulsesand, though the currents of communication between himself and Undinewere neither deep nor numerous, each fresh rush of feeling seemedstrong enough to clear a way to her heart. He hurried back, almostbreathlessly, to the inn; but even as he knocked at her door the subtleemanation of other influences seemed to arrest and chill him. 

She had put out the lamp, and sat by the window in the moonlight, herhead propped on a listless hand. As Marvell entered she turned; then, without speaking, she looked away again. 

He was used to this mute reception, and had learned that it had nopersonal motive, but was the result of an extremely simplified socialcode. Mr. And Mrs. Spragg seldom spoke to each other when they met, andwords of greeting seemed almost unknown to their domestic vocabulary. Marvell, at first, had fancied that his own warmth would call forth aresponse from his wife, who had been so quick to learn the forms ofworldly intercourse; but he soon saw that she regarded intimacy as apretext for escaping from such forms into a total absence of expression. 

To-night, however, he felt another meaning in her silence, and perceivedthat she intended him to feel it. He met it by silence, but of adifferent kind; letting his nearness speak for him as he knelt besideher and laid his cheek against hers. She seemed hardly aware ofthe gesture; but to that he was also used. She had never shown anyrepugnance to his tenderness, but such response as it evoked was remoteand Ariel-like, suggesting, from the first, not so much of the recoil ofignorance as the coolness of the element from which she took her name. 

As he pressed her to him she seemed to grow less impassive and he felther resign herself like a tired child. He held his breath, not daring tobreak the spell. 

At length he whispered: "I've just seen such a wonderful thing--I wishyou'd been with me!"

"What sort of a thing?" She turned her head with a faint show ofinterest. 

"A--I don't know--a vision.... It came to me out there just now with themoonrise. "

"A vision?" Her interest flagged. "I never cared much about spirits. Mother used to try to drag me to seances--but they always made mesleepy. "

Ralph laughed. "I don't mean a dead spirit but a living one! I saw thevision of a book I mean to do. It came to me suddenly, magnificently, swooped down on me as that big white moon swooped down on the blacklandscape, tore at me like a great white eagle-like the bird of Jove!After all, imagination WAS the eagle that devoured Prometheus!"

She drew away abruptly, and the bright moonlight showed him theapprehension in her face. "You're not going to write a book HERE?"

He stood up and wandered away a step or two; then he turned and cameback. "Of course not here. Wherever you want. The main point is thatit's come to me--no, that it's come BACK to me! For it's all thesemonths together, it's all our happiness--it's the meaning of life thatI've found, and it's you, dearest, you who've given it to me!"

He dropped down beside her again; but she disengaged herself and heheard a little sob in her throat. 

"Undine--what's the matter?"

"Nothing... I don't know... I suppose I'm homesick... "

"Homesick? You poor darling! You're tired of travelling? What is it?"

"I don't know... I don't like Europe... It's not what I expected, and Ithink it's all too dreadfully dreary!" The words broke from her in along wail of rebellion. 

Marvell gazed at her perplexedly. It seemed strange that such unguessedthoughts should have been stirring in the heart pressed to his. "It'sless interesting than you expected--or less amusing? Is that it?"

"It's dirty and ugly--all the towns we've been to are disgustinglydirty. I loathe the smells and the beggars. I'm sick and tired of thestuffy rooms in the hotels. I thought it would all be so splendid--butNew York's ever so much nicer!"

"Not New York in July?"

"I don't care--there are the roof-gardens, anyway; and there are alwayspeople round. All these places seem as if they were dead. It's all likesome awful cemetery. "

A sense of compunction checked Marvell's laughter. "Don't cry, dear--don't! I see, I understand. You're lonely and the heat has tiredyou out. It IS dull here; awfully dull; I've been stupid not to feel it. But we'll start at once--we'll get out of it. "

She brightened instantly. "We'll go up to Switzerland?"

"We'll go up to Switzerland. " He had a fleeting glimpse of the quietplace with the green water-fall, where he might have made tryst with hisvision; then he turned his mind from it and said: "We'll go just whereyou want. How soon can you be ready to start?"

"Oh, to-morrow--the first thing to-morrow! I'll make Celeste get outof bed now and pack. Can we go right through to St. Moritz? I'd rathersleep in the train than in another of these awful places. "

She was on her feet in a flash, her face alight, her hair waving andfloating about her as though it rose on her happy heart-beats. 

"Oh, Ralph, it's SWEET of you, and I love you!" she cried out, lettinghim take her to his breast. 

XII

In the quiet place with the green water-fall Ralph's vision mighthave kept faith with him; but how could he hope to surprise it in themidsummer crowds of St. Moritz? Undine, at any rate, had found therewhat she wanted; and when he was at her side, and her radiant smileincluded him, every other question was in abeyance. But there were hoursof solitary striding over bare grassy slopes, face to face with theironic interrogation of sky and mountains, when his anxieties came back, more persistent and importunate. Sometimes they took the form of merelymaterial difficulties. How, for instance, was he to meet the cost oftheir ruinous suite at the Engadine Palace while he awaited Mr. Spragg'snext remittance? And once the hotel bills were paid, what would be leftfor the journey back to Paris, the looming expenses there, the priceof the passage to America? These questions would fling him back on thethought of his projected book, which was, after all, to be what themasterpieces of literature had mostly been--a pot-boiler. Well! Why not?Did not the worshipper always heap the rarest essences on the altar ofhis divinity? Ralph still rejoiced in the thought of giving back toUndine something of the beauty of their first months together. But evenon his solitary walks the vision eluded him; and he could spare so fewhours to its pursuit!

Undine's days were crowded, and it was still a matter of course thatwhere she went he should follow. He had risen visibly in her opinionsince they had been absorbed into the life of the big hotels, and shehad seen that his command of foreign tongues put him at an advantageeven in circles where English was generally spoken if not understood. Undine herself, hampered by her lack of languages, was soon drawn intothe group of compatriots who struck the social pitch of their hotel. 

Their types were familiar enough to Ralph, who had taken their measurein former wanderings, and come across their duplicates in every sceneof continental idleness. Foremost among them was Mrs. Harvey Shallum, a showy Parisianized figure, with a small wax-featured husband whoseultra-fashionable clothes seemed a tribute to his wife's importancerather than the mark of his personal taste. Mr. Shallum, in fact, couldnot be said to have any personal bent. Though he conversed with acolourless fluency in the principal European tongues, he seldomexercised his gift except in intercourse with hotel-managers andhead-waiters; and his long silences were broken only by resignedallusions to the enormities he had suffered at the hands of this giftedbut unscrupulous class. 

Mrs. Shallum, though in command of but a few verbs, all of which, on herlips, became irregular, managed to express a polyglot personality asvivid as her husband's was effaced. Her only idea of intercourse withher kind was to organize it into bands and subject it to frequentdisplacements; and society smiled at her for these exertions like aninfant vigorously rocked. She saw at once Undine's value as a factor inher scheme, and the two formed an alliance on which Ralph refrained fromshedding the cold light of depreciation. It was a point of honourwith him not to seem to disdain any of Undine's amusements: the noisyinterminable picnics, the hot promiscuous balls, the concerts, bridge-parties and theatricals which helped to disguise the differencebetween the high Alps and Paris or New York. He told himself that thereis always a Narcissus-element in youth, and that what Undine reallyenjoyed was the image of her own charm mirrored in the generaladmiration. With her quick perceptions and adaptabilities she would soonlearn to care more about the quality of the reflecting surface; andmeanwhile no criticism of his should mar her pleasure. 

The appearance at their hotel of the cavalry-officer from Siena was anot wholly agreeable surprise; but even after the handsome Marquis hadbeen introduced to Undine, and had whirled her through an evening'sdances, Ralph was not seriously disturbed. Husband and wife had growncloser to each other since they had come to St. Moritz, and in the briefmoments she could give him Undine was now always gay and approachable. Her fitful humours had vanished, and she showed qualities of comradeshipthat seemed the promise of a deeper understanding. But this very hopemade him more subject to her moods, more fearful of disturbing theharmony between them. Least of all could he broach the subject of money:he had too keen a memory of the way her lips could narrow, and her eyesturn from him as if he were a stranger. 

It was a different matter that one day brought the look he feared to herface. She had announced her intention of going on an excursion with Mrs. Shallum and three or four of the young men who formed the nucleus oftheir shifting circle, and for the first time she did not ask Ralph ifhe were coming; but he felt no resentment at being left out. He wastired of these noisy assaults on the high solitudes, and the prospectof a quiet afternoon turned his thoughts to his book. Now if ever thereseemed a chance of recapturing the moonlight vision... 

From his balcony he looked down on the assembling party. Mrs. Shallumwas already screaming bilingually at various windows in the long facade;and Undine presently came out of the hotel with the Marchese Roviano andtwo young English diplomatists. Slim and tall in her trim mountaingarb, she made the ornate Mrs. Shallum look like a piece of ambulantupholstery. The high air brightened her cheeks and struck new lightsfrom her hair, and Ralph had never seen her so touched with morningfreshness. The party was not yet complete, and he felt a movement ofannoyance when he recognized, in the last person to join it, a Russianlady of cosmopolitan notoriety whom he had run across in his unmarrieddays, and as to whom he had already warned Undine. Knowing whatstrange specimens from the depths slip through the wide meshes of thewatering-place world, he had foreseen that a meeting with the BaronessAdelschein was inevitable; but he had not expected her to become one ofhis wife's intimate circle. 

When the excursionists had started he turned back to his writing-tableand tried to take up his work; but he could not fix his thoughts:they were far away, in pursuit of Undine. He had been but five monthsmarried, and it seemed, after all, rather soon for him to be dropped outof such excursions as unquestioningly as poor Harvey Shallum. He smiledaway this first twinge of jealousy, but the irritation it left founda pretext in his displeasure at Undine's choice of companions. Mrs. Shallum grated on his taste, but she was as open to inspection asa shop-window, and he was sure that time would teach his wife thecheapness of what she had to show. Roviano and the Englishmen were wellenough too: frankly bent on amusement, but pleasant and well-bred. Butthey would naturally take their tone from the women they were with;and Madame Adelschein's tone was notorious. He knew also that Undine'sfaculty of self-defense was weakened by the instinct of adapting herselfto whatever company she was in, of copying "the others" in speech andgesture as closely as she reflected them in dress; and he was disturbedby the thought of what her ignorance might expose her to. 

She came back late, flushed with her long walk, her face all sparkle andmystery, as he had seen it in the first days of their courtship; and thelook somehow revived his irritated sense of having been intentionallyleft out of the party. 

"You've been gone forever. Was it the Adelschein who made you go suchlengths?" he asked her, trying to keep to his usual joking tone. 

Undine, as she dropped down on the sofa and unpinned her hat, shed onhim the light of her guileless gaze. 

"I don't know: everybody was amusing. The Marquis is awfully bright. "

"I'd no idea you or Bertha Shallum knew Madame Adelschein well enough totake her off with you in that way. "

Undine sat absently smoothing the tuft of glossy cock's-feathers in herhat. 

"I don't see that you've got to know people particularly well to go fora walk with them. The Baroness is awfully bright too. "

She always gave her acquaintances their titles, seeming not, in thisrespect, to have noticed that a simpler form prevailed. 

"I don't dispute the interest of what she says; but I've told you whatdecent people think of what she does, " Ralph retorted, exasperated bywhat seemed a wilful pretense of ignorance. 

She continued to scrutinize him with her clear eyes, in which there wasno shadow of offense. 

"You mean they don't want to go round with her? You're mistaken: it'snot true. She goes round with everybody. She dined last night with theGrand Duchess; Roviano told me so. "

This was not calculated to make Ralph take a more tolerant view of thequestion. 

"Does he also tell you what's said of her?"

"What's said of her?" Undine's limpid glance rebuked him. "Do you meanthat disgusting scandal you told me about? Do you suppose I'd let himtalk to me about such things? I meant you're mistaken about her socialposition. He says she goes everywhere. "

Ralph laughed impatiently. "No doubt Roviano's an authority; but itdoesn't happen to be his business to choose your friends for you. "

Undine echoed his laugh. "Well, I guess I don't need anybody to do that:I can do it myself, " she said, with the good-humoured curtness that wasthe habitual note of intercourse with the Spraggs. 

Ralph sat down beside her and laid a caressing touch on her shoulder. "No, you can't, you foolish child. You know nothing of this societyyou're in; of its antecedents, its rules, its conventions; and it's myaffair to look after you, and warn you when you're on the wrong track. "

"Mercy, what a solemn speech!" She shrugged away his hand withoutill-temper. "I don't believe an American woman needs to know such a lotabout their old rules. They can see I mean to follow my own, and if theydon't like it they needn't go with me. "

"Oh, they'll go with you fast enough, as you call it. They'll be toocharmed to. The question is how far they'll make you go with THEM, andwhere they'll finally land you. "

She tossed her head back with the movement she had learned in "speaking"school-pieces about freedom and the British tyrant. 

"No one's ever yet gone any farther with me than I wanted!" shedeclared. She was really exquisitely simple. 

"I'm not sure Roviano hasn't, in vouching for Madame Adelschein. But heprobably thinks you know about her. To him this isn't 'society' any morethan the people in an omnibus are. Society, to everybody here, meansthe sanction of their own special group and of the corresponding groupselsewhere. The Adelschein goes about in a place like this because it'snobody's business to stop her; but the women who tolerate her here woulddrop her like a shot if she set foot on their own ground. "

The thoughtful air with which Undine heard him out made him fancy thisargument had carried; and as be ended she threw him a bright look. 

"Well, that's easy enough: I can drop her if she comes to New York. "

Ralph sat silent for a moment--then he turned away and began to gatherup his scattered pages. 

Undine, in the ensuing days, was no less often with Madame Adelschein, and Ralph suspected a challenge in her open frequentation of the lady. But if challenge there were, he let it lie. Whether his wife saw more orless of Madame Adelschein seemed no longer of much consequence: she hadso amply shown him her ability to protect herself. The pang lay in thecompleteness of the proof--in the perfect functioning of her instinctof self-preservation. For the first time he was face to face with hishovering dread: he was judging where he still adored. 

Before long more pressing cares absorbed him. He had already begun towatch the post for his father-in-law's monthly remittance, withoutprecisely knowing how, even with its aid, he was to bridge the gulf ofexpense between St. Moritz and New York. The non-arrival of Mr. Spragg'scheque was productive of graver tears, and these were abruptly confirmedwhen, coming in one afternoon, he found Undine crying over a letter fromher mother. 

Her distress made him fear that Mr. Spragg was ill, and he drew her tohim soothingly; but she broke away with an impatient movement. 

"Oh, they're all well enough--but father's lost a lot of money. He'sbeen speculating, and he can't send us anything for at least threemonths. "

Ralph murmured reassuringly: "As long as there's no one ill!"--but inreality he was following her despairing gaze down the long perspectiveof their barren quarter. 

"Three months! Three months!"

Undine dried her eyes, and sat with set lips and tapping foot while heread her mother's letter. 

"Your poor father! It's a hard knock for him. I'm sorry, " he said as hehanded it back. 

For a moment she did not seem to hear; then she said between her teeth:"It's hard for US. I suppose now we'll have to go straight home. "

He looked at her with wonder. "If that were all! In any case I shouldhave to be back in a few weeks. "

"But we needn't have left here in August! It's the first place in Europethat I've liked, and it's just my luck to be dragged away from it!"

"I'm so awfully sorry, dearest. It's my fault for persuading you tomarry a pauper. "

"It's father's fault. Why on earth did he go and speculate? There's nouse his saying he's sorry now!" She sat brooding for a moment and thensuddenly took Ralph's hand. "Couldn't your people do something--help usout just this once, I mean?"

He flushed to the forehead: it seemed inconceivable that she should makesuch a suggestion. 

"I couldn't ask them--it's not possible. My grandfather does as much ashe can for me, and my mother has nothing but what he gives her. "

Undine seemed unconscious of his embarrassment. "He doesn't give usnearly as much as father does, " she said; and, as Ralph remained silent, she went on:

"Couldn't you ask your sister, then? I must have some clothes to go homein. "

His heart contracted as he looked at her. What sinister change cameover her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible, implacable--her eyes were like the eyes of an enemy. 

"I don't know--I'll see, " he said, rising and moving away from her. At that moment the touch of her hand was repugnant. Yes--he might askLaura, no doubt: and whatever she had would be his. But the necessitywas bitter to him, and Undine's unconsciousness of the fact hurt himmore than her indifference to her father's misfortune. 

What hurt him most was the curious fact that, for all her lightirresponsibility, it was always she who made the practical suggestion, hit the nail of expediency on the head. No sentimental scruple made theblow waver or deflected her resolute aim. She had thought at once ofLaura, and Laura was his only, his inevitable, resource. His anxiousmind pictured his sister's wonder, and made him wince under the sting ofHenley Fairford's irony: Fairford, who at the time of the marriage hadsat silent and pulled his moustache while every one else argued andobjected, yet under whose silence Ralph had felt a deeper protest thanunder all the reasoning of the others. It was no comfort to reflect thatFairford would probably continue to say nothing! But necessity madelight of these twinges, and Ralph set his teeth and cabled. 

Undine's chief surprise seemed to be that Laura's response, thoughimmediate and generous, did not enable them to stay on at St. Moritz. But she apparently read in her husband's look the uselessness of such ahope, for, with one of the sudden changes of mood that still disarmedhim, she accepted the need of departure, and took leave philosophicallyof the Shallums and their band. After all, Paris was ahead, and inSeptember one would have a chance to see the new models and surprise thesecret councils of the dressmakers. 

Ralph was astonished at the tenacity with which she held to her purpose. He tried, when they reached Paris, to make her feel the necessity ofstarting at once for home; but she complained of fatigue and of feelingvaguely unwell, and he had to yield to her desire for rest. The word, however, was to strike him as strangely misapplied, for from the day oftheir arrival she was in state of perpetual activity. She seemed tohave mastered her Paris by divination, and between the hounds of theBoulevards and the Place Vendome she moved at once with supernaturalease. 

"Of course, " she explained to him, "I understand how little we've gotto spend; but I left New York without a rag, and it was you who made mecountermand my trousseau, instead of having it sent after us. I wish nowI hadn't listened to you--father'd have had to pay for THAT before helost his money. As it is, it will be cheaper in the end for me to pickup a few things here. The advantage of going to the French dress-makersis that they'll wait twice as long for their money as the people athome. And they're all crazy to dress me--Bertha Shallum will tell youso: she says no one ever had such a chance! That's why I was willing tocome to this stuffy little hotel--I wanted to save every scrap I couldto get a few decent things. And over here they're accustomed to beingbargained with--you ought to see how I've beaten them down! Have you anyidea what a dinner-dress costs in New York--?"

So it went on, obtusely and persistently, whenever he tried to soundthe note of prudence. But on other themes she was more than usuallyresponsive. Paris enchanted her, and they had delightful hours atthe theatres--the "little" ones--amusing dinners at fashionablerestaurants, and reckless evenings in haunts where she thrilled withsimple glee at the thought of what she must so obviously be "taken for. "All these familiar diversions regained, for Ralph, a fresh zest in hercompany. Her innocence, her high spirits, her astounding comments andcredulities, renovated the old Parisian adventure and flung a veil ofromance over its hackneyed scenes. Beheld through such a medium thefuture looked less near and implacable, and Ralph, when he had receiveda reassuring letter from his sister, let his conscience sleep andslipped forth on the high tide of pleasure. After all, in New Yorkamusements would be fewer, and their life, for a time, perhaps morequiet. Moreover, Ralph's dim glimpses of Mr. Spragg's past suggestedthat the latter was likely to be on his feet again at any moment, andatoning by redoubled prodigalities for his temporary straits; and beyondall these possibilities there was the book to be written--the book onwhich Ralph was sure he should get a real hold as soon as they settleddown in New York. 

Meanwhile the daily cost of living, and the bills that could not bedeferred, were eating deep into Laura's subsidy. Ralph's anxietiesreturned, and his plight was brought home to him with a shock when, ongoing one day to engage passages, he learned that the prices were thatof the "rush season, " and one of the conditions immediate payment. Atother times, he was told the rules were easier; but in September andOctober no exception could be made. 

As he walked away with this fresh weight on his mind he caught sight ofthe strolling figure of Peter Van Degen--Peter lounging and luxuriatingamong the seductions of the Boulevard with the disgusting ease of a manwhose wants are all measured by money, and who always has enough togratify them. 

His present sense of these advantages revealed itself in the affabilityof his greeting to Ralph, and in his off-hand request that the lattershould "look up Clare, " who had come over with him to get her winterfinery. 

"She's motoring to Italy next week with some of her long-hairedfriends--but I'm off for the other side; going back on the Sorceress. She's just been overhauled at Greenock, and we ought to have a good spinover. Better come along with me, old man. "

The Sorceress was Van Degen's steam-yacht, most huge and complicated ofher kind: it was his habit, after his semi-annual flights to Paris andLondon, to take a joyous company back on her and let Clare return bysteamer. The character of these parties made the invitation almostan offense to Ralph; but reflecting that it was probably a phrasedistributed to every acquaintance when Van Degen was in a rosy mood, hemerely answered: "Much obliged, my dear fellow; but Undine and I aresailing immediately. "

Peter's glassy eye grew livelier. "Ah, to be sure--you're not over thehoneymoon yet. How's the bride? Stunning as ever? My regards to her, please. I suppose she's too deep in dress-making to be called on?Don't you forget to look up Clare!" He hurried on in pursuit of aflitting petticoat and Ralph continued his walk home. 

He prolonged it a little in order to put off telling Undine of hisplight; for he could devise only one way of meeting the cost of thevoyage, and that was to take it at once, and thus curtail their Parisianexpenses. But he knew how unwelcome this plan would be, and he shrankthe more from seeing Undine's face harden; since, of late, he had sobasked in its brightness. 

When at last he entered the little salon she called "stuffy" he foundher in conference with a blond-bearded gentleman who wore the redribbon in his lapel, and who, on Ralph's appearance--and at a sign, asit appeared, from Mrs. Marvell--swept into his note-case some smallobjects that had lain on the table, and bowed himself out with a"Madame--Monsieur" worthy of the highest traditions. 

Ralph looked after him with amusement. "Who's your friend--an Ambassadoror a tailor?"

Undine was rapidly slipping on her rings, which, as he now saw, had alsobeen scattered over the table. 

"Oh, it was only that jeweller I told you about--the one Bertha Shallumgoes to. "

"A jeweller? Good heavens, my poor girl! You're buying jewels?" Theextravagance of the idea struck a laugh from him. 

Undine's face did not harden: it took on, instead, almost deprecatinglook. "Of course not--how silly you are! I only wanted a few old thingsreset. But I won't if you'd rather not. "

She came to him and sat down at his side, laying her hand on his arm. Hetook the hand up and looked at the deep gleam of the sapphires in theold family ring he had given her. 

"You won't have that reset?" he said, smiling and twisting the ringabout on her finger; then he went on with his thankless explanation. "It's not that I don't want you to do this or that; it's simply that, for the moment, we're rather strapped. I've just been to see the steamerpeople, and our passages will cost a good deal more than I thought. "

He mentioned the sum and the fact that he must give an answer the nextday. Would she consent to sail that very Saturday? Or should they go afortnight later, in a slow boat from Plymouth?

Undine frowned on both alternatives. She was an indifferent sailor andshrank from the possible "nastiness" of the cheaper boat. She wantedto get the voyage over as quickly and luxuriously as possible--BerthaShallum had told her that in a "deck-suite" no one need be sea-sick--butshe wanted still more to have another week or two of Paris; and it wasalways hard to make her see why circumstances could not be bent to herwishes. 

"This week? But how on earth can I be ready? Besides, we're dining atEnghien with the Shallums on Saturday, and motoring to Chantilly withthe Jim Driscolls on Sunday. I can't imagine how you thought we could gothis week!"

But she still opposed the cheap steamer, and after they had carried thequestion on to Voisin's, and there unprofitably discussed it through along luncheon, it seemed no nearer a solution. 

"Well, think it over--let me know this evening, " Ralph said, proportioning the waiter's fee to a bill burdened by Undine's recklesschoice of primeurs. 

His wife was to join the newly-arrived Mrs. Shallum in a round of therue de la Paix; and he had seized the opportunity of slipping off to aclassical performance at the Français. On their arrival in Paris he hadtaken Undine to one of these entertainments, but it left her too wearyand puzzled for him to renew the attempt, and he had not found timeto go back without her. He was glad now to shed his cares in such anatmosphere. The play was of the greatest, the interpretation that of thevanishing grand manner which lived in his first memories of the Parisianstage, and his surrender such influences as complete as in his earlydays. Caught up in the fiery chariot of art, he felt once more the tugof its coursers in his muscles, and the rush of their flight stillthrobbed in him when he walked back late to the hotel. 

XIII

He had expected to find Undine still out; but on the stairs he crossedMrs. Shallum, who threw at him from under an immense hat-brim: "Yes, she's in, but you'd better come and have tea with me at the Luxe. Idon't think husbands are wanted!"

Ralph laughingly rejoined that that was just the moment for them toappear; and Mrs. Shallum swept on, crying back: "All the same, I'll waitfor you!"

In the sitting-room Ralph found Undine seated behind a tea-table on theother side of which, in an attitude of easy intimacy, Peter Van Degenstretched his lounging length. 

He did not move on Ralph's appearance, no doubt thinking their kinshipclose enough to make his nod and "Hullo!" a sufficient greeting. Peterin intimacy was given to miscalculations of the sort, and Ralph's firstmovement was to glance at Undine and see how it affected her. But hereyes gave out the vivid rays that noise and banter always struck fromthem; her face, at such moments, was like a theatre with all the lustresblazing. That the illumination should have been kindled by his cousin'shusband was not precisely agreeable to Marvell, who thought Peter a borein society and an insufferable nuisance on closer terms. But he wasbecoming blunted to Undine's lack of discrimination; and his owntreatment of Van Degen was always tempered by his sympathy for Clare. 

He therefore listened with apparent good-humour to Peter's suggestion ofan evening at a petit theatre with the Harvey Shallums, and joined inthe laugh with which Undine declared: "Oh, Ralph won't go--he onlylikes the theatres where they walk around in bathtowels and talkpoetry. --Isn't that what you've just been seeing?" she added, with aturn of the neck that shed her brightness on him. 

"What? One of those five-barrelled shows at the Français? Great Scott, Ralph--no wonder your wife's pining for the Folies Bergère!"

"She needn't, my dear fellow. We never interfere with each other'svices. "

Peter, unsolicited, was comfortably lighting a cigarette. "Ah, there'sthe secret of domestic happiness. Marry somebody who likes all thethings you don't, and make love to somebody who likes all the things youdo. "

Undine laughed appreciatively. "Only it dooms poor Ralph to such awfulfrumps. Can't you see the sort of woman who'd love his sort of play?"

"Oh, I can see her fast enough--my wife loves 'em, " said their visitor, rising with a grin; while Ralph threw, out: "So don't waste your pity onme!" and Undine's laugh had the slight note of asperity that the mentionof Clare always elicited. 

"To-morrow night, then, at Paillard's, " Van Degen concluded. "And aboutthe other business--that's a go too? I leave it to you to settle thedate. "

The nod and laugh they exchanged seemed to hint at depths of collusionfrom which Ralph was pointedly excluded; and he wondered how largea programme of pleasure they had already had time to sketch out. Hedisliked the idea of Undine's being too frequently seen with Van Degen, whose Parisian reputation was not fortified by the connections thatpropped it up in New York; but he did not want to interfere with herpleasure, and he was still wondering what to say when, as the doorclosed, she turned to him gaily. 

"I'm so glad you've come! I've got some news for you. " She laid a lighttouch on his arm. 

Touch and tone were enough to disperse his anxieties, and he answeredthat he was in luck to find her already in when he had supposed herengaged, over a Nouveau Luxe tea-table, in repairing the afternoon'sravages. 

"Oh, I didn't shop much--I didn't stay out long. " She raised a kindlingface to him. "And what do you think I've been doing? While you weresitting in your stuffy old theatre, worrying about the money I wasspending (oh, you needn't fib--I know you were!) I was saving youhundreds and thousands. I've saved you the price of our passage!"

Ralph laughed in pure enjoyment of her beauty. When she shone on himlike that what did it matter what nonsense she talked?

"You wonderful woman--how did you do it? By countermanding a tiara?"

"You know I'm not such a fool as you pretend!" She held him at arm'slength with a nod of joyous mystery. "You'll simply never guess! I'vemade Peter Van Degen ask us to go home on the Sorceress. What. Do yousay to that?"

She flashed it out on a laugh of triumph, without appearing to have adoubt of the effect the announcement would produce. 

Ralph stared at her. "The Sorceress? You MADE him?"

"Well, I managed it, I worked him round to it! He's crazy about the ideanow--but I don't think he'd thought of it before he came. "

"I should say not!" Ralph ejaculated. "He never would have had the cheekto think of it. "

"Well, I've made him, anyhow! Did you ever know such luck?"

"Such luck?" He groaned at her obstinate innocence. "Do you suppose I'lllet you cross the ocean on the Sorceress?"

She shrugged impatiently. "You say that because your cousin doesn't goon her. "

"If she doesn't, it's because it's no place for decent women. "

"It's Clare's fault if it isn't. Everybody knows she's crazy about you, and she makes him feel it. That's why he takes up with other women. "

Her anger reddened her cheeks and dropped her brows like a black barabove her glowing eyes. Even in his recoil from what she said Ralph feltthe tempestuous heat of her beauty. But for the first time his latentresentments rose in him, and he gave her back wrath for wrath. 

"Is that the precious stuff he tells you?"

"Do you suppose I had to wait for him to tell me? Everybody knowsit--everybody in New York knew she was wild when you married. That'swhy she's always been so nasty to me. If you won't go on the Sorceressthey'll all say it's because she was jealous of me and wouldn't letyou. "

Ralph's indignation had already flickered down to disgust. Undine was nolonger beautiful--she seemed to have the face of her thoughts. He stoodup with an impatient laugh. 

"Is that another of his arguments? I don't wonder they're convincing--"But as quickly as it had come the sneer dropped, yielding to a wave ofpity, the vague impulse to silence and protect her. How could he havegiven way to the provocation of her weakness, when his business was todefend her from it and lift her above it? He recalled his old dreams ofsaving her from Van Degenism--it was not thus that he had imagined therescue. 

"Don't let's pay Peter the compliment of squabbling over him, " he said, turning away to pour himself a cup of tea. 

When he had filled his cup he sat down beside Undine, with a smile. "Nodoubt he was joking--and thought you were; but if you really made himbelieve we might go with him you'd better drop him a line. "

Undine's brow still gloomed. "You refuse, then?"

"Refuse? I don't need to! Do you want to succeed to half thechorus-world of New York?"

"They won't be on board with us, I suppose!"

"The echoes of their conversation will. It's the only language Peterknows. "

"He told me he longed for the influence of a good woman--" She checkedherself, reddening at Ralph's laugh. 

"Well, tell him to apply again when he's been under it a month or two. Meanwhile we'll stick to the liners. "

Ralph was beginning to learn that the only road to her reason laythrough her vanity, and he fancied that if she could be made to seeVan Degen as an object of ridicule she might give up the idea of theSorceress of her own accord. But her will hardened slowly under hisjoking opposition, and she became no less formidable as she grew morecalm. He was used to women who, in such cases, yielded as a matter ofcourse to masculine judgments: if one pronounced a man "not decent"the question was closed. But it was Undine's habit to ascribe allinterference with her plans to personal motives, and he could see thatshe attributed his opposition to the furtive machinations of poor Clare. It was odious to him to prolong the discussion, for the accent ofrecrimination was the one he most dreaded on her lips. But the momentcame when he had to take the brunt of it, averting his thoughts as besthe might from the glimpse it gave of a world of mean familiarities, ofreprisals drawn from the vulgarest of vocabularies. Certain retorts spedthrough the air like the flight of household utensils, certain chargesrang out like accusations of tampering with the groceries. He stiffenedhimself against such comparisons, but they stuck in his imagination andleft him thankful when Undine's anger yielded to a burst of tears. Hehad held his own and gained his point. The trip on the Sorceress wasgiven up, and a note of withdrawal despatched to Van Degen; but at thesame time Ralph cabled his sister to ask if she could increase her loan. For he had conquered only at the cost of a concession: Undine was tostay in Paris till October, and they were to sail on a fast steamer, ina deck-suite, like the Harvey Shallums. 

Undine's ill-humour was soon dispelled by any new distraction, and shegave herself to the untroubled enjoyment of Paris. The Shallums were thecentre of a like-minded group, and in the hours the ladies could sparefrom their dress-makers the restaurants shook with their hilarityand the suburbs with the shriek of their motors. Van Degen, who hadpostponed his sailing, was a frequent sharer in these amusements; butRalph counted on New York influences to detach him from Undine's train. He was learning to influence her through her social instincts where hehad once tried to appeal to other sensibilities. 

His worst moment came when he went to see Clare Van Degen, who, on theeve of departure, had begged him to come to her hotel. He found her lessrestless and rattling than usual, with a look in her eyes that remindedhim of the days when she had haunted his thoughts. The visit passed offwithout vain returns to the past; but as he was leaving she surprisedhim by saying: "Don't let Peter make a goose of your wife. "

Ralph reddened, but laughed. 

"Oh, Undine's wonderfully able to defend herself, even against suchseductions as Peter's. "

Mrs. Van Degen looked down with a smile at the bracelets on her thinbrown wrist. "His personal seductions--yes. But as an inventor ofamusements he's inexhaustible; and Undine likes to be amused. "

Ralph made no reply but showed no annoyance. He simply took her hand andkissed it as he said good-bye; and she turned from him without audiblefarewell. 

As the day of departure approached. Undine's absorption in her dressesalmost precluded the thought of amusement. Early and late she wascloseted with fitters and packers--even the competent Celeste not beingtrusted to handle the treasures now pouring in--and Ralph cursed hisweakness in not restraining her, and then fled for solace to museums andgalleries. 

He could not rouse in her any scruple about incurring fresh debts, yethe knew she was no longer unaware of the value of money. She hadlearned to bargain, pare down prices, evade fees, brow-beat the smalltradespeople and wheedle concessions from the great--not, as Ralphperceived, from any effort to restrain her expenses, but only to prolongand intensify the pleasure of spending. Pained by the trait, he triedto laugh her out of it. He told her once that she had a miserlyhand--showing her, in proof, that, for all their softness, the fingerswould not bend back, or the pink palm open. But she retorted a littlesharply that it was no wonder, since she'd heard nothing talked of sincetheir marriage but economy; and this left him without any answer. Sothe purveyors continued to mount to their apartment, and Ralph, in thecourse of his frequent nights from it, found himself always dodging thecorners of black glazed boxes and swaying pyramids of pasteboard; alwayslifting his hat to sidling milliners' girls, or effacing himself beforeslender vendeuses floating by in a mist of opopanax. He felt incompetentto pronounce on the needs to which these visitors ministered; but thereappearance among them of the blond-bearded jeweller gave him groundfor fresh fears. Undine had assured him that she had given up the ideaof having her ornaments reset, and there had been ample time for theirreturn; but on his questioning her she explained that there had beendelays and "bothers" and put him in the wrong by asking ironically if hesupposed she was buying things "for pleasure" when she knew as well ashe that there wasn't any money to pay for them. 

But his thoughts were not all dark. Undine's moods still infected him, and when she was happy he felt an answering lightness. Even whenher amusements were too primitive to be shared he could enjoy theirreflection in her face. Only, as he looked back, he was struck by theevanescence, the lack of substance, in their moments of sympathy, andby the permanent marks left by each breach between them. Yet he stillfancied that some day the balance might be reversed, and that as sheacquired a finer sense of values the depths in her would find a voice. 

Something of this was in his mind when, the afternoon before theirdeparture, he came home to help her with their last arrangements. Shehad begged him, for the day, to leave her alone in their cramped salon, into which belated bundles were still pouring; and it was nearly darkwhen he returned. The evening before she had seemed pale and nervous, and at the last moment had excused herself from dining with the Shallumsat a suburban restaurant. It was so unlike her to miss any opportunityof the kind that Ralph had felt a little anxious. But with the arrivalof the packers she was afoot and in command again, and he withdrewsubmissively, as Mr. Spragg, in the early Apex days, might have fledfrom the spring storm of "house-cleaning. "

When he entered the sitting-room, he found it still in disorder. Everychair was hidden under scattered dresses, tissue-paper surged from theyawning trunks and, prone among her heaped-up finery. Undine lay withclosed eyes on the sofa. 

She raised her head as he entered, and then turned listlessly away. 

"My poor girl, what's the matter? Haven't they finished yet?"

Instead of answering she pressed her face into the cushion and began tosob. The violence of her weeping shook her hair down on her shoulders, and her hands, clenching the arm of the sofa, pressed it away from heras if any contact were insufferable. 

Ralph bent over her in alarm. "Why, what's wrong, dear? What'shappened?"

Her fatigue of the previous evening came back to him--a puzzled huntedlook in her eyes; and with the memory a vague wonder revived. He hadfancied himself fairly disencumbered of the stock formulas about thehallowing effects of motherhood, and there were many reasons for notwelcoming the news he suspected she had to give; but the woman a manloves is always a special case, and everything was different that befellUndine. If this was what had befallen her it was wonderful and divine:for the moment that was all he felt. 

"Dear, tell me what's the matter, " he pleaded. 

She sobbed on unheedingly and he waited for her agitation to subside. Heshrank from the phrases considered appropriate to the situation, but hewanted to hold her close and give her the depth of his heart in longkiss. 

Suddenly she sat upright and turned a desperate face on him. "Why onearth are you staring at me like that? Anybody can see what's thematter!"

He winced at her tone, but managed to get one of her hands in his; andthey stayed thus in silence, eye to eye. 

"Are you as sorry as all that?" he began at length conscious of theflatness of his voice. 

"Sorry--sorry? I'm--I'm--" She snatched her hand away, and went onweeping. 

"But, Undine--dearest--bye and bye you'll feel differently--I know youwill!"

"Differently? Differently? When? In a year? It TAKES a year--a wholeyear out of life! What do I care how I shall feel in a year?"

The chill of her tone struck in. This was more than a revolt of thenerves: it was a settled, a reasoned resentment. Ralph found himselfgroping for extenuations, evasions--anything to put a little warmth intoher! "Who knows? Perhaps, after all, it's a mistake. "

There was no answering light in her face. She turned her head from himwearily. 

"Don't you think, dear, you may be mistaken?"

"Mistaken? How on earth can I be mistaken?"

Even in that moment of confusion he was struck by the cold competence ofher tone, and wondered how she could be so sure. 

"You mean you've asked--you've consulted--?" The irony of it took himby the throat. They were the very words he might have spoken in somemiserable secret colloquy--the words he was speaking to his wife!

She repeated dully: "I know I'm not mistaken. "

There was another long silence. Undine lay still, her eyes shut, drumming on the arm of the sofa with a restless hand. The other laycold in Ralph's clasp, and through it there gradually stole to him thebenumbing influence of the thoughts she was thinking: the sense ofthe approach of illness, anxiety, and expense, and of the generalunnecessary disorganization of their lives. 

"That's all you feel, then?" he asked at length a little bitterly, as ifto disguise from himself the hateful fact that he felt it too. He stoodup and moved away. "That's all?" he repeated. 

"Why, what else do you expect me to feel? I feel horribly ill, if that'swhat you want. " He saw the sobs trembling up through her again. 

"Poor dear--poor girl... I'm so sorry--so dreadfully sorry!"

The senseless reiteration seemed to exasperate her. He knew it by thequiver that ran through her like the premonitory ripple on smooth waterbefore the coming of the wind. She turned about on him and jumped to herfeet. 

"Sorry--you're sorry? YOU'RE sorry? Why, what earthly difference will itmake to YOU?" She drew back a few steps and lifted her slender arms fromher sides. "Look at me--see how I look--how I'm going to look! YOUwon't hate yourself more and more every morning when you get up and seeyourself in the glass! YOUR life's going on just as usual! But what'smine going to be for months and months? And just as I'd been to all thisbother--fagging myself to death about all these things--" her tragicgesture swept the disordered room--"just as I thought I was going hometo enjoy myself, and look nice, and see people again, and have a littlepleasure after all our worries--" She dropped back on the sofa withanother burst of tears. "For all the good this rubbish will do me now! Iloathe the very sight of it!" she sobbed with her face in her hands. 

XIV

It was one of the distinctions of Mr. Claud Walsingham Popple that hisstudio was never too much encumbered with the attributes of his artto permit the installing, in one of its cushioned corners, of anelaborately furnished tea-table flanked by the most varied seductionsin sandwiches and pastry. 

Mr. Popple, like all great men, had at first had his ups and downs; buthis reputation had been permanently established by the verdict of awealthy patron who, returning from an excursion into other fields ofportraiture, had given it as the final fruit of his experience thatPopple was the only man who could "do pearls. " To sitters for whom thiswas of the first consequence it was another of the artist's meritsthat he always subordinated art to elegance, in life as well as in hisportraits. The "messy" element of production was no more visible inhis expensively screened and tapestried studio than its results wereperceptible in his painting; and it was often said, in praise of hiswork, that he was the only artist who kept his studio tidy enough for alady to sit to him in a new dress. 

Mr. Popple, in fact, held that the personality of the artist should atall times be dissembled behind that of the man. It was his opinion thatthe essence of good-breeding lay in tossing off a picture as easily asyou lit a cigarette. Ralph Marvell had once said of him that when hebegan a portrait he always turned back his cuffs and said: "Ladiesand gentlemen, you can see there's absolutely nothing here, " and Mrs. Fairford supplemented the description by defining his painting as"chafing-dish" art. On a certain late afternoon of December, some fouryears after Mr. Popple's first meeting with Miss Undine Spragg of Apex, even the symbolic chafing-dish was nowhere visible in his studio; theonly evidence of its recent activity being the full-length portrait ofMrs. Ralph Marvell, who, from her lofty easel and her heavily garlandedframe, faced the doorway with the air of having been invited to"receive" for Mr. Popple. 

The artist himself, becomingly clad in mouse-coloured velveteen, hadjust turned away from the picture to hover above the tea-cups; but hisplace had been taken by the considerably broader bulk of Mr. Peter VanDegen, who, tightly moulded into a coat of the latest cut, stood beforethe portrait in the attitude of a first arrival. 

"Yes, it's good--it's damn good, Popp; you've hit the hair offripplingly; but the pearls ain't big enough, " he pronounced. 

A slight laugh sounded from the raised dais behind the easel. 

"Of course they're not! But it's not HIS fault, poor man; HE didn't givethem to me!" As she spoke Mrs. Ralph Marvell rose from a monumental giltarm-chair of pseudo-Venetian design and swept her long draperies to VanDegen's side. 

"He might, then--for the privilege of painting you!" the latterrejoined, transferring his bulging stare from the counterfeit to theoriginal. His eyes rested on Mrs. Marvell's in what seemed a quickexchange of understanding; then they passed on to a critical inspectionof her person. She was dressed for the sitting in something faint andshining, above which the long curves of her neck looked dead white inthe cold light of the studio; and her hair, all a shadowless rosy gold, was starred with a hard glitter of diamonds. 

"The privilege of painting me? Mercy, _I_ have to pay for being painted!He'll tell you he's giving me the picture--but what do you suppose thiscost?" She laid a finger-tip on her shimmering dress. 

Van Degen's eye rested on her with cold enjoyment. "Does the price comehigher than the dress?"

She ignored the allusion. "Of course what they charge for is the cut--"

"What they cut away? That's what they ought to charge for, ain't it, Popp?"

Undine took this with cool disdain, but Mr. Popple's sensibilities wereoffended. 

"My dear Peter--really--the artist, you understand, sees all this as apure question of colour, of pattern; and it's a point of honour with theMAN to steel himself against the personal seduction. "

Mr. Van Degen received this protest with a sound of almost vulgarderision, but Undine thrilled agreeably under the glance which herportrayer cast on her. She was flattered by Van Degen's notice, andthought his impertinence witty; but she glowed inwardly at Mr. Popple'seloquence. After more than three years of social experience she stillthought he "spoke beautifully, " like the hero of a novel, and sheascribed to jealousy the lack of seriousness with which her husband'sfriends regarded him. His conversation struck her as intellectual, andhis eagerness to have her share his thoughts was in flattering contrastto Ralph's growing tendency to keep his to himself. Popple's homageseemed the, subtlest proof of what Ralph could have made of her if hehad "really understood" her. It was but another step to ascribe all herpast mistakes to the lack of such understanding; and the satisfactionderived from this thought had once impelled her to tell the artist thathe alone knew how to rouse her 'higher self. ' He had assured her thatthe memory of her words would thereafter hallow his life; and as hehinted that it had been stained by the darkest errors she was moved atthe thought of the purifying influence she exerted. 

Thus it was that a man should talk to a true woman--but how few whomshe had known possessed the secret! Ralph, in the first months of theirmarriage, had been eloquent too, had even gone the length of quotingpoetry; but he disconcerted her by his baffling twists and strangeallusions (she always scented ridicule in the unknown), and the poets hequoted were esoteric and abstruse. Mr. Popple's rhetoric was drawn frommore familiar sources, and abounded in favourite phrases and in movingreminiscences of the Fifth Reader. He was moreover as literary as hewas artistic; possessing an unequalled acquaintance with contemporaryfiction, and dipping even into the lighter type of memoirs, in which theold acquaintances of history are served up in the disguise of "A RoyalSorceress" or "Passion in a Palace. " The mastery with which Mr. Popple discussed the novel of the day, especially in relation tothe sensibilities of its hero and heroine, gave Undine a sense ofintellectual activity which contrasted strikingly with Marvell'sflippant estimate of such works. "Passion, " the artist implied, wouldhave been the dominant note of his life, had it not been held in checkby a sentiment of exalted chivalry, and by the sense that a nature ofsuch emotional intensity as his must always be "ridden on the curb. "

Van Degen was helping himself from the tray of iced cocktails whichstood near the tea-table, and Popple, turning to Undine, took up thethread of his discourse. But why, he asked, why allude before others tofeelings so few could understand? The average man--lucky devil!--(with acompassionate glance at Van Degen's back) the average man knew nothingof the fierce conflict between the lower and higher natures; and eventhe woman whose eyes had kindled it--how much did SHE guess of itsviolence? Did she know--Popple recklessly asked--how often the artistwas forgotten in the man--how often the man would take the bit betweenhis teeth, were it not that the look in her eyes recalled some sacredmemory, some lesson learned perhaps beside his mother's knee? "I say, Popp--was that where you learned to mix this drink? Because it does theold lady credit, " Van Degen called out, smacking his lips; while theartist, dashing a nervous hand through his hair, muttered: "Hang it, Peter--is NOTHING sacred to you?"

It pleased Undine to feel herself capable of inspiring such emotions. She would have been fatigued by the necessity of maintaining her owntalk on Popple's level, but she liked to listen to him, and especiallyto have others overhear what he said to her. 

Her feeling for Van Degen was different. There was more similarity oftastes between them, though his manner flattered her vanity less thanPopple's. She felt the strength of Van Degen's contempt for everythinghe did not understand or could not buy: that was the only kind of"exclusiveness" that impressed her. And he was still to her, as in herinexperienced days, the master of the mundane science she had onceimagined that Ralph Marvell possessed. During the three years since hermarriage she had learned to make distinctions unknown to her girlishcategories. She had found out that she had given herself to theexclusive and the dowdy when the future belonged to the showy and thepromiscuous; that she was in the case of those who have cast intheir lot with a fallen cause, or--to use an analogy more within herrange--who have hired an opera box on the wrong night. It was allconfusing and exasperating. Apex ideals had been based on the myth of"old families" ruling New York from a throne of Revolutionary tradition, with the new millionaires paying them feudal allegiance. But experiencehad long since proved the delusiveness of the simile. Mrs. Marvell'sclassification of the world into the visited and the unvisited was asobsolete as a mediaeval cosmogony. Some of those whom Washington Squareleft unvisited were the centre of social systems far outside itsken, and as indifferent to its opinions as the constellations to thereckonings of the astronomers; and all these systems joyously revolvedabout their central sun of gold. 

There were moments after Undine's return to New York when she wastempted to class her marriage with the hateful early mistakes from thememories of which she had hoped it would free her. Since it was neverher habit to accuse herself of such mistakes it was inevitable that sheshould gradually come to lay the blame on Ralph. She found a poignantpleasure, at this stage of her career, in the question: "What does ayoung girl know of life?" And the poignancy was deepened by the factthat each of the friends to whom she put the question seemed convincedthat--had the privilege been his--he would have known how to spare herthe disenchantment it implied. 

The conviction of having blundered was never more present to her thanwhen, on this particular afternoon, the guests invited by Mr. Popple toview her portrait began to assemble before it. 

Some of the principal figures of Undine's group had rallied forthe occasion, and almost all were in exasperating enjoyment ofthe privileges for which she pined. There was young Jim Driscoll, heir-apparent of the house, with his short stout mistrustful wife, whohated society, but went everywhere lest it might be thought she had beenleft out; the "beautiful Mrs. Beringer, " a lovely aimless being, whokept (as Laura Fairford said) a home for stray opinions, and could neverquite tell them apart; little Dicky Bowles, whom every one invitedbecause he was understood to "say things" if one didn't; the HarveyShallums, fresh from Paris, and dragging in their wake a bewilderednobleman vaguely designated as "the Count, " who offered cautiousconversational openings, like an explorer trying beads on savages; and, behind these more salient types, the usual filling in of those who areseen everywhere because they have learned to catch the social eye. 

Such a company was one to flatter the artist as much his sitter, socompletely did it represent that unamity of opinion which constitutessocial strength. Not one the number was troubled by any personal theoryof art: all they asked of a portrait was that the costume should besufficiently "life-like, " and the face not too much so; and a longexperience in idealizing flesh and realizing dress-fabrics had enabledMr. Popple to meet both demands. 

"Hang it, " Peter Van Degen pronounced, standing before the easel inan attitude of inspired interpretation, "the great thing in a man'sportrait is to catch the likeness--we all know that; but with a woman'sit's different--a woman's picture has got to be pleasing. Who wantsit about if it isn't? Those big chaps who blow about what they callrealism--how do THEIR portraits look in a drawing-room? Do you supposethey ever ask themselves that? THEY don't care--they're not going tolive with the things! And what do they know of drawing-rooms, anyhow?Lots of them haven't even got a dress-suit. There's where old Popp hasthe pull over 'em--HE knows how we live and what we want. "

This was received by the artist with a deprecating murmur, and by hispublic with warm expressions of approval. 

"Happily in this case, " Popple began ("as in that of so many of mysitters, " he hastily put in), "there has been no need to idealize-natureherself has outdone the artist's dream. "

Undine, radiantly challenging comparison with her portrait, glancedup at it with a smile of conscious merit, which deepened as young JimDriscoll declared:

"By Jove, Mamie, you must be done exactly like that for the newmusic-room. "

His wife turned a cautious eye upon the picture. 

"How big is it? For our house it would have to be a good deal bigger, "she objected; and Popple, fired by the thought of such a dimensionalopportunity, rejoined that it would be the chance of all others to. "work in" a marble portico and a court-train: he had just done Mrs. Lycurgus Ambler in a court-train and feathers, and as THAT was forBuffalo of course the pictures needn't clash. 

"Well, it would have to be a good deal bigger than Mrs. Ambler's, " Mrs. Driscoll insisted; and on Popple's suggestion that in that case he might"work in" Driscoll, in court-dress also--("You've been presented? Well, you WILL be, --you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make alovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Purebluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's highand dry since the Ararat investigation. "

She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowdedexistence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as theyaffected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. 

"You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?"

Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chapElmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he'sgoing to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apexstreet-railways. "

Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume forthe Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement waseffaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosityto follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation, " but onceor twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had beensurprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erraticfinancial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Wasit possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the timehad come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even fora moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always saidhe "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined tocarry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apexdays, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling, " as her father calledit, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there hadbeen something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she hadalways felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to questionVan Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned backto the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presentingobjections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, ofcourse--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. Itlooks like a last year's dress. "

The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and theartist paled at the challenge. 

"It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes themall wild, " Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. Shehad already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she sharedleft a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured allother impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at thespring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeatingher name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone herpress-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. 

But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to theDriscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had takenso much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fittedand partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading thedress-maker to take it back. 

"Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as theyemerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. 

"I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot. "

"Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if theportraits might catch cold. " Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where areyou off to?"

"West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there. "

It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living inthe house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture inNew York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, thatthe young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts offashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenantedhouse in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in viewof Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the follyof refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted herexile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sightof Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where nofamiliar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her fatherwould give them a better house. 

But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, andmeanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, wasalready interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the freshrush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine toresign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years shewas still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by theincongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need ofhaving to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeperirritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--"

It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependenton "lifts, " openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetuallyplotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!)but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of herdestination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things. "

Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which thelamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. 

"Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mindthe open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the HighBridge and give you a breath of air before dinner. "

The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left hertired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be asfatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner thatevening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion sheneeded; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense ofa forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degenraising the fur collar about her chin. 

"Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Comealong, then. " He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with alaugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen withme, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on astrap in the elevated. "

The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept throughCentral Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along thedarkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drownsscruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious;but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her wayto get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, sheknew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter'ssort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding offand biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which herfather had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure WaterMove days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not alwaysresist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talkedabout" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nicewomen. " She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms:it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. 

Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her presentcares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the uselessfancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had notdared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. 

"What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?"

His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, andthough she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with theconscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary"niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right intrusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hintof material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while onelived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worryhad been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generallytaken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor toocautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); hehad just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thoughtof the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself ratherthan miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for thebill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showedwhat a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view oflife. 

The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a fewminutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly againnow?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said toherself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just whatRalph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise beforeher, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like apart of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment!She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it wasreplaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry ofcompunction she started up from her furs. 

"Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEWthere was something I'd forgotten!"

XV

In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains ofworn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She cameback to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the primcaryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. 

"No sign of her. She's simply forgotten. "

Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with thehigh-waisted Empire clock. 

"Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late. "

Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movementsso closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been outsince two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to comewithout orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come. "

She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected aflower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. 

"Put them out, please, " she said to some one in the background; then sheshut the doors and turned back to Bowen. 

"It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and motherbacking out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee downon her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! Heescaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boyhere at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's alwaysbreaking her engagements. "

"She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken. "

"All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, andis kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out everynight. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works. "

Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?"

"Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!"

"Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?"

"She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's herextravagance that's forced him into it. " Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowenreproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!"

"Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartiallyfrom the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view ofthe whole problem of American marriages. "

Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's whatyou want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to beclassified. "

"I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is sofrequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it. "

"What do you call the weak point?"

He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife. "

Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!"

Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much doeshe let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely onher judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph forinstance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard;but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for awoman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it. "

"To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!"

"Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against thecustom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don'tmean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simplybecause we don't take enough interest in THEM. "

Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at thevertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. 

"YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?"

"Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' noargument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the oldAmerican tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they'veceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for makingmoney has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American manlavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to dowith it. "

"Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend hismoney on his wife?"

"Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's allhe owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does theEuropean woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing?Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while!She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middleof the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in hiswife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has toconform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman'sdrawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? Theemotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. Inthe effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In Americathe real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement inwrecking railways than homes. "

Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in theold barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up asreadily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least forthem ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the womenavenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, whenI see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavingstossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and theclothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S whatreally constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's lessand less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and moresuccumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancythere's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money andmotors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping outof some man's way!"

Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade;but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of theexceptions?"

Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrouslyperfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It'sRalph who's the victim and the exception. "

"Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear himnow. I suppose, " she added in an undertone, "we can't give him yourexplanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?"

Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with hiscigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and RalphMarvell entered. 

"Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralphturned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and Idaren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to makeprovision for his future birthdays. " He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?"

As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain oflong fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxiouseyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ringthe bell. 

"Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea. "

He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--buthadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?"

He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up toit. "Why, it's never even been cut!"

Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first. "

"No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with mygrandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her armthrough his, and drew him back to the fire. 

"Undine didn't come. "

"Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?"

"He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut. "

Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?"

"Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. Shenever went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late tocome. "

She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew outhis cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward thefire. "Yes, please--some tea. "

He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if somestrong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but beforethe tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was onhis feet again. 

"But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap beforedinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word tothem--I must make Paul's excuses!"

"Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for apostponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn'tcoming. "

"Ah, I see. " He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've hada beastly fagging sort of day. "

He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother underlowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralphpresently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into hisformer attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staringapathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and startedup. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels atthe door. 

"There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her. " He jumped up andwalked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight ofhim she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!"

Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford andthen turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knewit was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgarexpensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to findthe right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When Ilook for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this orthat'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much. '"

She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity?Let me crush him under the weight of my gold. "

Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. 

"I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday'sover; you're too late. "

She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she toldme Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple'sgiving a tea to show the picture. "

"Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flightof time?"

He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. VanDegen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?"

Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said whatI did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's reallya battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our reveredgreat-grandmother. "

"What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralphdetained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!"

She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's likeyou?' But you don't remember what I'm like. " She turned away to glanceat the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinnerat the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'dbetter let me drive you home. "

In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawnover their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-toppedobjects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through thecrowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his sidegave him a vague sense of ease. 

For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, notthis relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small dailydeceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, markedby one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment thatformed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch ofbelated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had oncefound in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but twoof its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring. " The pearl and diamond pendant washis mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undineon their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchangedthrough several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: hefelt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paristhat she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after theirreturn to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but theothers were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she hadtold him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw shehad deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, billin hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed tocause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself inentreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... 

Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out thesehumiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were noteffaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, theincident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. Heno longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him wasthat she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroyingthe identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; andthe discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feelingon which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in theirrelation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare VanDegen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him morealive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. Afterall, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. Shewas light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose;but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have liedto him or traded on his tenderness. 

Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voicedmood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did notsound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things:of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of thecostume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurringrumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysteriouspersonality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street wasbeginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after hismarriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with afirm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first timewith the drama of "business, " and whenever he could turn his attentionfrom his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierceinterplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard thingsof Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd ofmoney-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, thehumorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests;and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the factthat no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired theinformation which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "Ishould like to see him, " Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of theone of the few picturesque types we've got. "

"Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesquetypes in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room. " Clareconsidered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing themtogether. "

"Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?"

"Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must havebeen some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just afteryou announced your engagement. " He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box, " she went on, "and I asked you the name of thered-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn'tknow, but some one told us it was Moffatt. "

Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "IfUndine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it, " he answeredindifferently. 

The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. 

"Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever, " she said. 

He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolledaway he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. 

When he entered the house the hall was still dark and the smallover-furnished drawing-room empty. The parlour-maid told him that Mrs. Marvell had not yet come in, and he went upstairs to the nursery. But onthe threshold the nurse met him with the whispered request not to makea noise, as it had been hard to quiet the boy after the afternoon'sdisappointment, and she had just succeeded in putting him to sleep. Ralph went down to his own room and threw himself in the old collegearm-chair in which, four years previously, he had sat the night out, dreaming of Undine. He had no study of his own, and he had crowded intohis narrow bed-room his prints and bookshelves, and the other relics ofhis youth. As he sat among them now the memory of that other night sweptover him--the night when he had heard the "call"! Fool as he had beennot to recognize its meaning then, he knew himself triply mocked inbeing, even now, at its mercy. The flame of love that had playedabout his passion for his wife had died down to its embers; all thetransfiguring hopes and illusions were gone, but they had left anunquenchable ache for her nearness, her smile, her touch. His lifehad come to be nothing but a long effort to win these mercies by oneconcession after another: the sacrifice of his literary projects, the exchange of his profession for an uncongenial business, and theincessant struggle to make enough money to satisfy her increasingexactions. That was where the "call" had led him... The clock struckeight, but it was useless to begin to dress till Undine came in, and hestretched himself out in his chair, reached for a pipe and took up theevening paper. His passing annoyance had died out; he was usually tootired after his day's work for such feelings to keep their edge long. But he was curious--disinterestedly curious--to know what pretext Undinewould invent for being so late, and what excuse she would have found forforgetting the little boy's birthday. 

He read on till half-past eight; then he stood up and sauntered to thewindow. The avenue below it was deserted; not a carriage or motor turnedthe corner around which he expected Undine to appear, and he looked idlyin the opposite direction. There too the perspective was nearly empty, so empty that he singled out, a dozen blocks away, the blazing lampsof a large touring-car that was bearing furiously down the avenue fromMorningside. As it drew nearer its speed slackened, and he saw it hugthe curb and stop at his door. By the light of the street lamp herecognized his wife as she sprang out and detected a familiar silhouettein her companion's fur-coated figure. Then the motor flew on and Undineran up the steps. Ralph went out on the landing. He saw her coming upquickly, as if to reach her room unperceived; but when she caught sightof him she stopped, her head thrown back and the light falling on herblown hair and glowing face. 

"Well?" she said, smiling up at him. 

"They waited for you all the afternoon in Washington Square--the boynever had his birthday, " he answered. 

Her colour deepened, but she instantly rejoined: "Why, what happened?Why didn't the nurse take him?"

"You said you were coming to fetch him, so she waited. "

"But I telephoned--"

He said to himself: "Is THAT the lie?" and answered: "Where from?"

"Why, the studio, of course--" She flung her cloak open, as if to attesther veracity. "The sitting lasted longer than usual--there was somethingabout the dress he couldn't get--"

"But I thought he was giving a tea. "

"He had tea afterward; he always does. And he asked some people in tosee my portrait. That detained me too. I didn't know they were coming, and when they turned up I couldn't rush away. It would have looked asif I didn't like the picture. " She paused and they gave each other asearching simultaneous glance. "Who told you it was a tea?" she asked. 

"Clare Van Degen. I saw her at my mother's. "

"So you weren't unconsoled after all--!"

"The nurse didn't get any message. My people were awfully disappointed;and the poor boy has cried his eyes out. "

"Dear me! What a fuss! But I might have known my message wouldn't bedelivered. Everything always happens to put me in the wrong with yourfamily. "

With a little air of injured pride she started to go to her room; but heput out a hand to detain her. 

"You've just come from the studio?"

"Yes. It is awfully late? I must go and dress. We're dining with theEllings, you know. "

"I know... How did you come? In a cab?"

She faced him limpidly. "No; I couldn't find one that would bring me--soPeter gave me a lift, like an angel. I'm blown to bits. He had his opencar. "

Her colour was still high, and Ralph noticed that her lower lip twitcheda little. He had led her to the point they had reached solely to be ableto say: "If you're straight from the studio, how was it that I saw youcoming down from Morningside?"

Unless he asked her that there would be no point in hiscross-questioning, and he would have sacrificed his pride withouta purpose. But suddenly, as they stood there face to face, almosttouching, she became something immeasurably alien and far off, and thequestion died on his lips. 

"Is that all?" she asked with a slight smile. 

"Yes; you'd better go and dress, " he said, and turned back to his room. 

XVI

The turnings of life seldom show a sign-post; or rather, though thesign is always there, it is usually placed some distance back, like thenotices that give warning of a bad hill or a level railway-crossing. 

Ralph Marvell, pondering upon this, reflected that for him the sign hadbeen set, more than three years earlier, in an Italian ilex-grove. Thatday his life had brimmed over--so he had put it at the time. He saw nowthat it had brimmed over indeed: brimmed to the extent of leaving thecup empty, or at least of uncovering the dregs beneath the nectar. Heknew now that he should never hereafter look at his wife's hand withoutremembering something he had read in it that day. Its surface-languagehad been sweet enough, but under the rosy lines he had seen the warningletters. 

Since then he had been walking with a ghost: the miserable ghost of hisillusion. Only he had somehow vivified, coloured, substantiated it, bythe force of his own great need--as a man might breathe a semblance oflife into a dear drowned body that he cannot give up for dead. All thiscame to him with aching distinctness the morning after his talk with hiswife on the stairs. He had accused himself, in midnight retrospect, ofhaving failed to press home his conclusion because he dared not facethe truth. But he knew this was not the case. It was not the truth hefeared, it was another lie. If he had foreseen a chance of her saying:"Yes, I was with Peter Van Degen, and for the reason you think, " hewould have put it to the touch, stood up to the blow like a man; but heknew she would never say that. She would go on eluding and doubling, watching him as he watched her; and at that game she was sure to beathim in the end. 

On their way home from the Elling dinner this certainty had become soinsufferable that it nearly escaped him in the cry: "You needn't watchme--I shall never again watch you!" But he had held his peace, knowingshe would not understand. How little, indeed, she ever understood, had been made clear to him when, the same night, he had followed herupstairs through the sleeping house. She had gone on ahead while hestayed below to lock doors and put out lights, and he had supposed herto be already in her room when he reached the upper landing; but shestood there waiting in the spot where he had waited for her a few hoursearlier. She had shone her vividest at dinner, with revolving brilliancythat collective approval always struck from her; and the glow of itstill hung on her as she paused there in the dimness, her shining cloakdropped from her white shoulders. 

"Ralphie--" she began, a soft hand on his arm. He stopped, and shepulled him about so that their faces were close, and he saw her lipscurving for a kiss. Every line of her face sought him, from the sweep ofthe narrowed eyelids to the dimples that played away from her smile. Hiseye received the picture with distinctness; but for the first time itdid not pass into his veins. It was as if he had been struck with asubtle blindness that permitted images to give their colour to the eyebut communicated nothing to the brain. 

"Good-night, " he said, as he passed on. 

When a man felt in that way about a woman he was surely in a position todeal with his case impartially. This came to Ralph as the joyless solaceof the morning. At last the bandage was off and he could see. And whatdid he see? Only the uselessness of driving his wife to subterfuges thatwere no longer necessary. Was Van Degen her lover? Probably not--thesuspicion died as it rose. She would not take more risks than she couldhelp, and it was admiration, not love, that she wanted. She wantedto enjoy herself, and her conception of enjoyment was publicity, promiscuity--the band, the banners, the crowd, the close contact ofcovetous impulses, and the sense of walking among them in cool security. Any personal entanglement might mean "bother, " and bother was the thingshe most abhorred. Probably, as the queer formula went, his "honour"was safe: he could count on the letter of her fidelity. At moment theconviction meant no more to him than if he had been assured of thehonesty of the first strangers he met in the street. A stranger--thatwas what she had always been to him. So malleable outwardly, she hadremained insensible to the touch of the heart. 

These thoughts accompanied him on his way to business the next morning. Then, as the routine took him back, the feeling of strangenessdiminished. There he was again at his daily task--nothing tangible wasaltered. He was there for the same purpose as yesterday: to make moneyfor his wife and child. The woman he had turned from on the stairs a fewhours earlier was still his wife and the mother of Paul Marvell. She wasan inherent part of his life; the inner disruption had not resulted inany outward upheaval. And with the sense of inevitableness there came asudden wave of pity. Poor Undine! She was what the gods had made her--acreature of skin-deep reactions, a mote in the beam of pleasure. Hehad no desire to "preach down" such heart as she had--he felt only astronger wish to reach it, teach it, move it to something of the pitythat filled his own. They were fellow-victims in the noyade of marriage, but if they ceased to struggle perhaps the drowning would be easier forboth... Meanwhile the first of the month was at hand, with its usualbatch of bills; and there was no time to think of any struggle lesspressing than that connected with paying them... 

Undine had been surprised, and a little disconcerted, at her husband'sacceptance of the birthday incident. Since the resetting of her bridalornaments the relations between Washington Square and West End Avenuehad been more and more strained; and the silent disapproval of theMarvell ladies was more irritating to her than open recrimination. Sheknew how keenly Ralph must feel her last slight to his family, and shehad been frightened when she guessed that he had seen her returning withVan Degen. He must have been watching from the window, since, credulousas he always was, he evidently had a reason for not believing her whenshe told him she had come from the studio. There was therefore somethingboth puzzling and disturbing in his silence; and she made up her mindthat it must be either explained or cajoled away. 

These thoughts were with her as she dressed; but at the Ellings' theyfled like ghosts before light and laughter. She had never been more opento the suggestions of immediate enjoyment. At last she had reached theenvied situation of the pretty woman with whom society must reckon, andif she had only had the means to live up to her opportunities she wouldhave been perfectly content with life, with herself and her husband. Shestill thought Ralph "sweet" when she was not bored by his good advice orexasperated by his inability to pay her bills. The question of moneywas what chiefly stood between them; and now that this was momentarilydisposed of by Van Degen's offer she looked at Ralph more kindly--sheeven felt a return of her first impersonal affection for him. Everybodycould see that Clare Van Degen was "gone" on him, and Undine alwaysliked to know that what belonged to her was coveted by others. Herreassurance had been fortified by the news she had heard at the Ellingdinner--the published fact of Harmon B. Driscoll's unexpected victory. The Ararat investigation had been mysteriously stopped--quashed, in thelanguage of the law--and Elmer Moffatt "turned down, " as Van Degen (whosat next to her) expressed it. 

"I don't believe we'll ever hear of that gentleman again, " he saidcontemptuously; and their eyes crossed gaily as she exclaimed: "Thenthey'll give the fancy ball after all?"

"I should have given you one anyhow--shouldn't you have liked that aswell?" "Oh, you can give me one too!" she returned; and he bent closerto say: "By Jove, I will--and anything else you want. "

But on the way home her fears revived. Ralph's indifference struckher as unnatural. He had not returned to the subject of Paul'sdisappointment, had not even asked her to write a word of excuse to hismother. Van Degen's way of looking at her at dinner--he was incapableof graduating his glances--had made it plain that the favour she hadaccepted would necessitate her being more conspicuously in his company(though she was still resolved that it should be on just such terms asshe chose); and it would be extremely troublesome if, at this juncture, Ralph should suddenly turn suspicious and secretive. 

Undine, hitherto, had found more benefits than drawbacks in hermarriage; but now the tie began to gall. It was hard to be criticizedfor every grasp at opportunity by a man so avowedly unable to do thereaching for her! Ralph had gone into business to make more money forher; but it was plain that the "more" would never be much, and that hewould not achieve the quick rise to affluence which was man's naturaltribute to woman's merits. Undine felt herself trapped, deceived; and itwas intolerable that the agent of her disillusionment should presume tobe the critic of her conduct. Her annoyance, however, died out withher fears. Ralph, the morning after the Elling dinner, went his way asusual, and after nerving herself for the explosion which did not comeshe set down his indifference to the dulling effect of "business. " Nowonder poor women whose husbands were always "down-town" had to lookelsewhere for sympathy! Van Degen's cheque helped to calm her, and theweeks whirled on toward the Driscoll ball. 

The ball was as brilliant as she had hoped, and her own part in it asthrilling as a page from one of the "society novels" with which she hadcheated the monotony of Apex days. She had no time for reading now:every hour was packed with what she would have called life, and theintensity of her sensations culminated on that triumphant evening. Whatcould be more delightful than to feel that, while all the women enviedher dress, the men did not so much as look at it? Their admiration wasall for herself, and her beauty deepened under it as flowers take awarmer colour in the rays of sunset. Only Van Degen's glance weighedon her a little too heavily. Was it possible that he might become a"bother" less negligible than those he had relieved her of? Undinewas not greatly alarmed--she still had full faith in her powers ofself-defense; but she disliked to feel the least crease in the smoothsurface of existence. She had always been what her parents called"sensitive. "

As the winter passed, material cares once more assailed her. Inthe thrill of liberation produced by Van Degen's gift she had beenimprudent--had launched into fresh expenses. Not that she accusedherself of extravagance: she had done nothing not really necessary. Thedrawing-room, for instance, cried out to be "done over, " and Popple, whowas an authority on decoration, had shown her, with a few strokes of hispencil how easily it might be transformed into a French "period" room, all curves and cupids: just the setting for a pretty woman and hisportrait of her. But Undine, still hopeful of leaving West End Avenue, had heroically resisted the suggestion, and contented herself with therenewal of the curtains and carpet, and the purchase of some fragilegilt chairs which, as she told Ralph, would be "so much to the good"when they moved--the explanation, as she made it, seemed an additionalevidence of her thrift. 

Partly as a result of these exertions she had a "nervous breakdown"toward the middle of the winter, and her physician having orderedmassage and a daily drive it became necessary to secure Mrs. Heeny'sattendance and to engage a motor by the month. Other unforeseenexpenses--the bills, that, at such times, seem to run up without visibleimpulsion--were added to by a severe illness of little Paul's: a longcostly illness, with three nurses and frequent consultations. Duringthese days Ralph's anxiety drove him to what seemed to Undine foolishexcesses of expenditure and when the boy began to get better the doctorsadvised country air. Ralph at once hired a small house at Tuxedo andUndine of course accompanied her son to the country; but she spent onlythe Sundays with him, running up to town during the week to be withher husband, as she explained. This necessitated the keeping up of twohouseholds, and even for so short a time the strain on Ralph's purse wassevere. So it came about that the bill for the fancy-dress was stillunpaid, and Undine left to wonder distractedly what had become ofVan Degen's money. That Van Degen seemed also to wonder was becomingunpleasantly apparent: his cheque had evidently not brought in thereturn he expected, and he put his grievance to her frankly one day whenhe motored down to lunch at Tuxedo. 

They were sitting, after luncheon, in the low-ceilinged drawing-room towhich Undine had adapted her usual background of cushions, bric-a-bracand flowers--since one must make one's setting "home-like, " howeverlittle one's habits happened to correspond with that particular effect. Undine, conscious of the intimate charm of her mise-en-scene, and ofthe recovered freshness and bloom which put her in harmony with it, hadnever been more sure of her power to keep her friend in the desiredstate of adoring submission. But Peter, as he grew more adoring, becameless submissive; and there came a moment when she needed all her wits tosave the situation. It was easy enough to rebuff him, the easier as hisphysical proximity always roused in her a vague instinct of resistance;but it was hard so to temper the rebuff with promise that the game ofsuspense should still delude him. He put it to her at last, standingsquarely before her, his batrachian sallowness unpleasantly flushed, and primitive man looking out of the eyes from which a frock-coatedgentleman usually pined at her. 

"Look here--the installment plan's all right; but ain't you a bit behindeven on that?" (She had brusquely eluded a nearer approach. ) "Anyhow, I think I'd rather let the interest accumulate for a while. This isgood-bye till I get back from Europe. "

The announcement took her by surprise. "Europe? Why, when are yousailing?"

"On the first of April: good day for a fool to acknowledge his folly. I'm beaten, and I'm running away. "

She sat looking down, her hand absently occupied with the twist ofpearls he had given her. In a flash she saw the peril of this departure. Once off on the Sorceress, he was lost to her--the power of oldassociations would prevail. Yet if she were as "nice" to him as heasked--"nice" enough to keep him--the end might not be much more to heradvantage. Hitherto she had let herself drift on the current of theiradventure, but she now saw what port she had half-unconsciously beentrying for. If she had striven so hard to hold him, had "played" himwith such patience and such skill, it was for something more than herpassing amusement and convenience: for a purpose the more tenaciouslycherished that she had not dared name it to herself. In the light ofthis discovery she saw the need of feigning complete indifference. 

"Ah, you happy man! It's good-bye indeed, then, " she threw back at him, lifting a plaintive smile to his frown. 

"Oh, you'll turn up in Paris later, I suppose--to get your things forNewport. "

"Paris? Newport? They're not on my map! When Ralph can get away we shallgo to the Adirondacks for the boy. I hope I shan't need Paris clothesthere! It doesn't matter, at any rate, " she ended, laughing, "becausenobody I care about will see me. "

Van Degen echoed her laugh. "Oh, come--that's rough on Ralph!"

She looked down with a slight increase of colour. "I oughtn't to havesaid it, ought I? But the fact is I'm unhappy--and a little hurt--"

"Unhappy? Hurt?" He was at her side again. "Why, what's wrong?"

She lifted her eyes with a grave look. "I thought you'd be sorrier toleave me. "

"Oh, it won't be for long--it needn't be, you know. " He was perceptiblysoftening. "It's damnable, the way you're tied down. Fancy rotting allsummer in the Adirondacks! Why do you stand it? You oughtn't to be boundfor life by a girl's mistake. "

The lashes trembled slightly on her cheek. "Aren't we all bound by ourmistakes--we women? Don't let us talk of such things! Ralph would neverlet me go abroad without him. " She paused, and then, with a quick upwardsweep of the lids: "After all, it's better it should be good-bye--sinceI'm paying for another mistake in being so unhappy at your going. "

"Another mistake? Why do you call it that?"

"Because I've misunderstood you--or you me. " She continued to smile athim wistfully. "And some things are best mended by a break. "

He met her smile with a loud sigh--she could feel him in the meshesagain. "IS it to be a break between us?"

"Haven't you just said so? Anyhow, it might as well be, since we shan'tbe in the same place again for months. "

The frock-coated gentleman once more languished from his eyes: shethought she trembled on the edge of victory. "Hang it, " he broke out, "you ought to have a change--you're looking awfully pulled down. Whycan't you coax your mother to run over to Paris with you? Ralph couldn'tobject to that. "

She shook her head. "I don't believe she could afford it, even if Icould persuade her to leave father. You know father hasn't done verywell lately: I shouldn't like to ask him for the money. "

"You're so confoundedly proud!" He was edging nearer. "It would all beso easy if you'd only be a little fond of me... "

She froze to her sofa-end. "We women can't repair our mistakes. Don'tmake me more miserable by reminding me of mine. "

"Oh, nonsense! There's nothing cash won't do. Why won't you let mestraighten things out for you?"

Her colour rose again, and she looked him quickly and consciously inthe eye. It was time to play her last card. "You seem to forget that Iam--married, " she said. 

Van Degen was silent--for a moment she thought he was swaying to her inthe flush of surrender. But he remained doggedly seated, meeting herlook with an odd clearing of his heated gaze, as if a shrewd businessmanhad suddenly replaced the pining gentleman at the window. 

"Hang it--so am I!" he rejoined; and Undine saw that in the last issuehe was still the stronger of the two. 

XVII

Nothing was bitterer to her than to confess to herself the failure ofher power; but her last talk with Van Degen had taught her a lessonalmost worth the abasement. She saw the mistake she had made in takingmoney from him, and understood that if she drifted into repeating thatmistake her future would be irretrievably compromised. What she wantedwas not a hand-to-mouth existence of precarious intrigue: to one withher gifts the privileges of life should come openly. Already in hershort experience she had seen enough of the women who sacrifice futuresecurity for immediate success, and she meant to lay solid foundationsbefore she began to build up the light super-structure of enjoyment. 

Nevertheless it was galling to see Van Degen leave, and to know that forthe time he had broken away from her. Over a nature so insensible to thespells of memory, the visible and tangible would always prevail. If shecould have been with him again in Paris, where, in the shining springdays, every sight and sound ministered to such influences, she was sureshe could have regained her hold. And the sense of frustration wasintensified by the fact that every one she knew was to be there: herpotential rivals were crowding the east-bound steamers. New York was adesert, and Ralph's seeming unconsciousness of the fact increased herresentment. She had had but one chance at Europe since her marriage, andthat had been wasted through her husband's unaccountable perversity. Sheknew now with what packed hours of Paris and London they had paid fortheir empty weeks in Italy. 

Meanwhile the long months of the New York spring stretched out beforeher in all their social vacancy to the measureless blank of a summer inthe Adirondacks. In her girlhood she had plumbed the dim depths of suchsummers; but then she had been sustained by the hope of bringing somecapture to the surface. Now she knew better: there were no "finds" forher in that direction. The people she wanted would be at Newport orin Europe, and she was too resolutely bent on a definite object, toosternly animated by her father's business instinct, to turn aside inquest of casual distractions. 

The chief difficulty in the way of her attaining any distant end hadalways been her reluctance to plod through the intervening stretchesof dulness and privation. She had begun to see this, but she could notalways master the weakness: never had she stood in greater need ofMrs. Heeny's "Go slow. Undine!" Her imagination was incapable of longflights. She could not cheat her impatience with the mirage of far-offsatisfactions, and for the moment present and future seemed equallyvoid. But her desire to go to Europe and to rejoin the little New Yorkworld that was reforming itself in London and Paris was fortified byreasons which seemed urgent enough to justify an appeal to her father. 

She went down to his office to plead her case, fearing Mrs. Spragg'sintervention. For some time past Mr. Spragg had been rather continuouslyoverworked, and the strain was beginning to tell on him. He had neverquite regained, in New York, the financial security of his Apex days. Since he had changed his base of operations his affairs had followedan uncertain course, and Undine suspected that his breach with his oldpolitical ally, the Representative Rolliver who had seen him through themuddiest reaches of the Pure Water Move, was not unconnected with hisfailure to get a footing in Wall Street. But all this was vague andshadowy to her Even had "business" been less of a mystery, she was toomuch absorbed in her own affairs to project herself into her father'scase; and she thought she was sacrificing enough to delicacy of feelingin sparing him the "bother" of Mrs. Spragg's opposition. When she cameto him with a grievance he always heard her out with the same mildpatience; but the long habit of "managing" him had made her, in his ownlanguage, "discount" this tolerance, and when she ceased to speak herheart throbbed with suspense as he leaned back, twirling an invisibletoothpick under his sallow moustache. Presently he raised a hand tostroke the limp beard in which the moustache was merged; then he gropedfor the Masonic emblem that had lost itself in one of the folds of hisdepleted waistcoat. 

He seemed to fish his answer from the same rusty depths, for as hisfingers closed about the trinket he said: "Yes, the heated term IStrying in New York. That's why the Fresh Air Fund pulled my last dollarout of me last week. "

Undine frowned: there was nothing more irritating, in these encounterswith her father, than his habit of opening the discussion with a joke. 

"I wish you'd understand that I'm serious, father. I've never beenstrong since the baby was born, and I need a change. But it's not onlythat: there are other reasons for my wanting to go. "

Mr. Spragg still held to his mild tone of banter. "I never knew youshort on reasons, Undie. Trouble is you don't always know other people'swhen you see 'em. "

His daughter's lips tightened. "I know your reasons when I see them, father: I've heard them often enough. But you can't know mine because Ihaven't told you--not the real ones. "

"Jehoshaphat! I thought they were all real as long as you had a use forthem. "

Experience had taught her that such protracted trifling usuallyconcealed an exceptional vigour of resistance, and the suspensestrengthened her determination. 

"My reasons are all real enough, " she answered; "but there's one moreserious than the others. "

Mr. Spragg's brows began to jut. "More bills?"

"No. " She stretched out her hand and began to finger the dusty objectson his desk. "I'm unhappy at home. "

"Unhappy--!" His start overturned the gorged waste-paper basket and shota shower of paper across the rug. He stooped to put the basket back;then he turned his slow fagged eyes on his daughter. "Why, he worshipsthe ground you walk on, Undie. "

"That's not always a reason, for a woman--" It was the answer she wouldhave given to Popple or Van Degen, but she saw in an instant themistake of thinking it would impress her father. In the atmosphereof sentimental casuistry to which she had become accustomed, she hadforgotten that Mr. Spragg's private rule of conduct was as simple as hisbusiness morality was complicated. 

He glowered at her under thrust-out brows. "It isn't a reason, isn't it?I can seem to remember the time when you used to think it was equal to awhole carload of whitewash. "

She blushed a bright red, and her own brows were levelled at his aboveher stormy steel-grey eyes. The sense of her blunder made her angrierwith him, and more ruthless. 

"I can't expect you to understand--you never HAVE, you or mother, whenit came to my feelings. I suppose some people are born sensitive--Ican't imagine anybody'd CHOOSE to be so. Because I've been too proud tocomplain you've taken it for granted that I was perfectly happy. But mymarriage was a mistake from the beginning; and Ralph feels just as I doabout it. His people hate me, they've always hated me; and he looks ateverything as they do. They've never forgiven me for his having had togo into business--with their aristocratic ideas they look down on a manwho works for his living. Of course it's all right for YOU to do it, because you're not a Marvell or a Dagonet; but they think Ralph ought tojust lie back and let you support the baby and me. "

This time she had found the right note: she knew it by the tightening ofher father's slack muscles and the sudden straightening of his back. 

"By George, he pretty near does!" he exclaimed bringing down his fiston the desk. "They haven't been taking it out of you about that, havethey?" "They don't fight fair enough to say so. They just egg him on toturn against me. They only consented to his marrying me because theythought you were so crazy about the match you'd give us everything, andhe'd have nothing to do but sit at home and write books. "

Mr. Spragg emitted a derisive groan. "From what I hear of the amount ofbusiness he's doing I guess he could keep the Poet's Corner going rightalong. I suppose the old man was right--he hasn't got it in him to makemoney. "

"Of course not; he wasn't brought up to it, and in his heart of heartshe's ashamed of having to do it. He told me it was killing a little moreof him every day. "

"Do they back him up in that kind of talk?"

"They back him up in everything. Their ideas are all different fromours. They look down on us--can't you see that? Can't you guess how theytreat me from the way they've acted to you and mother?"

He met this with a puzzled stare. "The way they've acted to me andmother? Why, we never so much as set eyes on them. "

"That's just what I mean! I don't believe they've even called on motherthis year, have they? Last year they just left their cards withoutasking. And why do you suppose they never invite you to dine? In theirset lots of people older than you and mother dine every night of thewinter--society's full of them. The Marvells are ashamed to have youmeet their friends: that's the reason. They're ashamed to have it knownthat Ralph married an Apex girl, and that you and mother haven't alwayshad your own servants and carriages; and Ralph's ashamed of it too, nowhe's got over being crazy about me. If he was free I believe he'd turnround to-morrow and marry that Ray girl his mother's saving up for him. "

Mr. Spragg listened with a heavy brow and pushed-out lip. His daughter'soutburst seemed at last to have roused him to a faint resentment. Aftershe had ceased to speak he remained silent, twisting an inky penhandlebetween his fingers; then he said: "I guess mother and I can worry alongwithout having Ralph's relatives drop in; but I'd like to make it clearto them that if you came from Apex your income came from there too. Ipresume they'd be sorry if Ralph was left to support you on HIS. "

She saw that she had scored in the first part of the argument, but everywatchful nerve reminded her that the hardest stage was still ahead. 

"Oh, they're willing enough he should take your money--that's onlynatural, they think. "

A chuckle sounded deep down under Mr. Spragg's loose collar. "Thereseems to be practical unanimity on that point, " he observed. "But Idon't see, " he continued, jerking round his bushy brows on her, "howgoing to Europe is going to help you out. "

Undine leaned close enough for her lowered voice to reach him. "Can'tyou understand that, knowing how they all feel about me--and how Ralphfeels--I'd give almost anything to get away?"

Her father looked at her compassionately. "I guess most of us feel thatonce in a way when we're youngy, Undine. Later on you'll see going awayain't much use when you've got to turn round and come back. "

She nodded at him with close-pressed lips, like a child in possession ofsome solemn secret. 

"That's just it--that's the reason I'm so wild to go; because it MIGHTmean I wouldn't ever have to come back. "

"Not come back? What on earth are you talking about?"

"It might mean that I could get free--begin over again... "

He had pushed his seat back with a sudden jerk and cut her short bystriking his palm on the arm of the chair. 

"For the Lord's sake. Undine--do you know what you're saying?"

"Oh, yes, I know. " She gave him back a confident smile. "If I can getaway soon--go straight over to Paris... There's some one there who'd doanything... Who COULD do anything... If I was free... "

Mr. Spragg's hands continued to grasp his chair-arms. "Good God, UndineMarvell--are you sitting there in your sane senses and talking to me ofwhat you could do if you were FREE?"

Their glances met in an interval of speechless communion; but Undine didnot shrink from her father's eyes and when she lowered her own it seemedto be only because there was nothing left for them to say. 

"I know just what I could do if I were free. I could marry the rightman, " she answered boldly. 

He met her with a murmur of helpless irony. "The right man? The rightman? Haven't you had enough of trying for him yet?"

As he spoke the door behind them opened, and Mr. Spragg looked upabruptly. 

The stenographer stood on the threshold, and above her shoulder Undineperceived the ingratiating grin of Elmer Moffatt. 

"'A little farther lend thy guiding hand'--but I guess I can go the restof the way alone, " he said, insinuating himself through the doorway withan airy gesture of dismissal; then he turned to Mr. Spragg and Undine. 

"I agree entirely with Mrs. Marvell--and I'm happy to have theopportunity of telling her so, " he proclaimed, holding his hand outgallantly. 

Undine stood up with a laugh. "It sounded like old times, I suppose--youthought father and I were quarrelling? But we never quarrel any more: healways agrees with me. " She smiled at Mr. Spragg and turned her shiningeyes on Moffatt. "I wish that treaty had been signed a few yearssooner!" the latter rejoined in his usual tone of humorous familiarity. 

Undine had not met him since her marriage, and of late the adverse turnof his fortunes had carried him quite beyond her thoughts. Buthis actual presence was always stimulating, and even through herself-absorption she was struck by his air of almost defiant prosperity. He did not look like a man who has been beaten; or rather he looked likea man who does not know when he is beaten; and his eye had the gleam ofmocking confidence that had carried him unabashed through his lowesthours at Apex. 

"I presume you're here to see me on business?" Mr. Spragg enquired, rising from his chair with a glance that seemed to ask his daughter'ssilence. 

"Why, yes. Senator, " rejoined Moffatt, who was given, in playfulmoments, to the bestowal of titles high-sounding. "At least I'm here toask you a little question that may lead to business. "

Mr. Spragg crossed the office and held open the door. "Step this way, please, " he said, guiding Moffatt out before him, though the latter hungback to exclaim: "No family secrets, Mrs. Marvell--anybody can turn thefierce white light on ME!"

With the closing of the door Undine's thoughts turned back to her ownpreoccupations. It had not struck her as incongruous that Moffatt shouldhave business dealings with her father: she was even a little surprisedthat Mr. Spragg should still treat him so coldly. But she had no time togive to such considerations. Her own difficulties were too importunatelypresent to her. She moved restlessly about the office, listening tothe rise and fall of the two voices on the other side of the partitionwithout once wondering what they were discussing. 

What should she say to her father when he came back--what argument wasmost likely to prevail with him? If he really had no money to give hershe was imprisoned fast--Van Degen was lost to her, and the old lifemust go on interminably... In her nervous pacings she paused before theblotched looking-glass that hung in a corner of the office under asteel engraving of Daniel Webster. Even that defective surface could notdisfigure her, and she drew fresh hope from the sight of her beauty. Her few weeks of ill-health had given her cheeks a subtler curve anddeepened the shadows beneath her eyes, and she was handsomer than beforeher marriage. No, Van Degen was not lost to her even! From narrowed lidsto parted lips her face was swept by a smile like retracted sunlight. Hewas not lost to her while she could smile like that! Besides, even ifher father had no money, there were always mysterious ways of "raising"it--in the old Apex days he had often boasted of such feats. As thehope rose her eyes widened trustfully, and this time the smile thatflowed up to them was as limpid as a child's. That was the was herfather liked her to look at him... 

The door opened, and she heard Mr. Spragg say behind her: "No, sir, Iwon't--that's final. "

He came in alone, with a brooding face, and lowered himself heavily intohis chair. It was plain that the talk between the two men had had anabrupt ending. Undine looked at her father with a passing flicker ofcuriosity. Certainly it was an odd coincidence that Moffatt should havecalled while she was there... 

"What did he want?" she asked, glancing back toward the door. 

Mr. Spragg mumbled his invisible toothpick. "Oh, just another of hiswild-cat schemes--some real-estate deal he's in. "

"Why did he come to YOU about it?"

He looked away from her, fumbling among the letters on the desk. "Guesshe'd tried everybody else first. He'd go and ring the devil's front-doorbell if he thought he could get anything out of him. "

"I suppose he did himself a lot of harm by testifying in the Araratinvestigation?"

"Yes, SIR--he's down and out this time. "

He uttered the words with a certain satisfaction. His daughter did notanswer, and they sat silent, facing each other across the littered desk. Under their brief about Elmer Moffatt currents of rapid intelligenceseemed to be flowing between them. Suddenly Undine leaned over the desk, her eyes widening trustfully, and the limpid smile flowing up to them. 

"Father, I did what you wanted that one time, anyhow--won't you listento me and help me out now?"

XVIII

Undine stood alone on the landing outside her father's office. 

Only once before had she failed to gain her end with him--and therewas a peculiar irony in the fact that Moffatt's intrusion should havebrought before her the providential result of her previous failure. Notthat she confessed to any real resemblance between the two situations. In the present case she knew well enough what she wanted, and how toget it. But the analogy had served her father's purpose, and Moffatt'sunlucky entrance had visibly strengthened his resistance. 

The worst of it was that the obstacles in the way were real enough. Mr. Spragg had not put her off with vague asseverations--somewhat againsther will he had forced his proofs on her, showing her how much above hispromised allowance he had contributed in the last three years tothe support of her household. Since she could not accuse herself ofextravagance--having still full faith in her gift of "managing"--shecould only conclude that it was impossible to live on what her fatherand Ralph could provide; and this seemed a practical reason for desiringher freedom. If she and Ralph parted he would of course return to hisfamily, and Mr. Spragg would no longer be burdened with a helplessson-in-law. But even this argument did not move him. Undine, as soon asshe had risked Van Degen's name, found herself face to face with a codeof domestic conduct as rigid as its exponent's business principles wereelastic. Mr. Spragg did not regard divorce as intrinsically wrong oreven inexpedient; and of its social disadvantages he had never evenheard. Lots of women did it, as Undine said, and if their reasons wereadequate they were justified. If Ralph Marvell had been a drunkard or"unfaithful" Mr. Spragg would have approved Undine's desire to divorcehim; but that it should be prompted by her inclination for anotherman--and a man with a wife of his own--was as shocking to him as itwould have been to the most uncompromising of the Dagonets and Marvells. Such things happened, as Mr. Spragg knew, but they should not happen toany woman of his name while he had the power to prevent it; and Undinerecognized that for the moment he had that power. 

As she emerged from the elevator she was surprised to see Moffatt in thevestibule. His presence was an irritating reminder of her failure, andshe walked past him with a rapid bow; but he overtook her. 

"Mrs. Marvell--I've been waiting to say a word to you. "

If it had been any one else she would have passed on; but Moffatt'svoice had always a detaining power. Even now that she knew him to bedefeated and negligible, the power asserted itself, and she paused tosay: "I'm afraid I can't stop--I'm late for an engagement. "

"I shan't make you much later; but if you'd rather have me call round atyour house--"

"Oh, I'm so seldom in. " She turned a wondering look on him. "What is ityou wanted to say?"

"Just two words. I've got an office in this building and the shortestway would be to come up there for a minute. " As her look grew distant headded: "I think what I've got to say is worth the trip. "

His face was serious, without underlying irony: the face he wore when hewanted to be trusted. 

"Very well, " she said, turning back. 

Undine, glancing at her watch as she came out of Moffatt's office, sawthat he had been true to his promise of not keeping her more than tenminutes. The fact was characteristic. Under all his incalculablenessthere had always been a hard foundation of reliability: it seemed to bea matter of choice with him whether he let one feel that solid bottomor not. And in specific matters the same quality showed itself in anaccuracy of statement, a precision of conduct, that contrasted curiouslywith his usual hyperbolic banter and his loose lounging manner. No onecould be more elusive yet no one could be firmer to the touch. Herface had cleared and she moved more lightly as she left the building. Moffatt's communication had not been completely clear to her, but sheunderstood the outline of the plan he had laid before her, and wassatisfied with the bargain they had struck. He had begun by remindingher of her promise to introduce him to any friend of hers who might beuseful in the way of business. Over three years had passed since theyhad made the pact, and Moffatt had kept loyally to his side of it. Withthe lapse of time the whole matter had become less important to her, but she wanted to prove her good faith, and when he reminded her of herpromise she at once admitted it. 

"Well, then--I want you to introduce me to your husband. "

Undine was surprised; but beneath her surprise she felt a quick sense ofrelief. Ralph was easier to manage than so many of her friends--and itwas a mark of his present indifference to acquiesce in anything shesuggested. 

"My husband? Why, what can he do for you?"

Moffatt explained at once, in the fewest words, as his way was when itcame to business. He was interested in a big "deal" which involved thepurchase of a piece of real estate held by a number of wranglingheirs. The real-estate broker with whom Ralph Marvell was associatedrepresented these heirs, but Moffatt had his reasons for not approachinghim directly. And he didn't want to go to Marvell with a "businessproposition"--it would be better to be thrown with him socially as if byaccident. It was with that object that Moffatt had just appealed to Mr. Spragg, but Mr. Spragg, as usual, had "turned him down, " without evenconsenting to look into the case. 

"He'd rather have you miss a good thing than have it come to you throughme. I don't know what on earth he thinks it's in my power to do toyou--or ever was, for that matter, " he added. "Anyhow, " he went on toexplain, "the power's all on your side now; and I'll show you how littlethe doing will hurt you as soon as I can have a quiet chat withyour husband. " He branched off again into technicalities, nebulousprojections of capital and interest, taxes and rents, from which shefinally extracted, and clung to, the central fact that if the "dealwent through" it would mean a commission of forty thousand dollars toMarvell's firm, of which something over a fourth would come to Ralph. 

"By Jove, that's an amazing fellow!" Ralph Marvell exclaimed, turningback into the drawing-room, a few evenings later, at the conclusion ofone of their little dinners. Undine looked up from her seat by the fire. She had had the inspired thought of inviting Moffatt to meet Clare VanDegen, Mrs. Fairford and Charles Bowen. It had occurred to her thatthe simplest way of explaining Moffatt was to tell Ralph that she hadunexpectedly discovered an old Apex acquaintance in the protagonist ofthe great Ararat Trust fight. Moffatt's defeat had not wholly divestedhim of interest. As a factor in affairs he no longer inspiredapprehension, but as the man who had dared to defy Harmon B. Driscoll hewas a conspicuous and, to some minds, almost an heroic figure. 

Undine remembered that Clare and Mrs. Fairford had once expressed a wishto see this braver of the Olympians, and her suggestion that he shouldbe asked meet them gave Ralph evident pleasure. It was long since shehad made any conciliatory sign to his family. 

Moffatt's social gifts were hardly of a kind to please the two ladies:he would have shone more brightly in Peter Van Degen's set than inhis wife's. But neither Clare nor Mrs. Fairford had expected a manof conventional cut, and Moffatt's loud easiness was obviously lessdisturbing to them than to their hostess. Undine felt only hiscrudeness, and the tacit criticism passed on it by the mere presence ofsuch men as her husband and Bowen; but Mrs. Fairford' seemed to enjoyprovoking him to fresh excesses of slang and hyperbole. Gradually shedrew him into talking of the Driscoll campaign, and he became recklesslyexplicit. He seemed to have nothing to hold back: all the details of theprodigious exploit poured from him with Homeric volume. Then he brokeoff abruptly, thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets and shapinghis red lips to a whistle which he checked as his glance met Undine's. To conceal his embarrassment he leaned back in his chair, looked aboutthe table with complacency, and said "I don't mind if I do" to theservant who approached to re-fill his champagne glass. 

The men sat long over their cigars; but after an interval Undine calledCharles Bowen into the drawing-room to settle some question in disputebetween Clare and Mrs. Fairford, and thus gave Moffatt a chance to bealone with her husband. Now that their guests had gone she was throbbingwith anxiety to know what had passed between the two; but when Ralphrejoined her in the drawing-room she continued to keep her eyes on thefire and twirl her fan listlessly. 

"That's an amazing chap, " Ralph repeated, looking down at her. "Wherewas it you ran across him--out at Apex?"

As he leaned against the chimney-piece, lighting his cigarette, itstruck Undine that he looked less fagged and lifeless than usual, andshe felt more and more sure that something important had happened duringthe moment of isolation she had contrived. 

She opened and shut her fan reflectively. "Yes--years ago; father hadsome business with him and brought him home to dinner one day. "

"And you've never seen him since?"

She waited, as if trying to piece her recollections together. "I supposeI must have; but all that seems so long ago, " she said sighing. She hadbeen given, of late, to such plaintive glances toward her happy girlhoodbut Ralph seemed not to notice the allusion. 

"Do you know, " he exclaimed after a moment, "I don't believe thefellow's beaten yet. "

She looked up quickly. "Don't you?"

"No; and I could see that Bowen didn't either. He strikes me as the kindof man who develops slowly, needs a big field, and perhaps makes somebig mistakes, but gets where he wants to in the end. Jove, I wish Icould put him in a book! There's something epic about him--a kind ofepic effrontery. "

Undine's pulses beat faster as she listened. Was it not what Moffatt hadalways said of himself--that all he needed was time and elbow-room? Howodd that Ralph, who seemed so dreamy and unobservant, should instantlyhave reached the same conclusion! But what she wanted to know was thepractical result of their meeting. 

"What did you and he talk about when you were smoking?"

"Oh, he got on the Driscoll fight again--gave us some extraordinarydetails. The man's a thundering brute, but he's full of observation andhumour. Then, after Bowen joined you, he told me about a new deal he'sgone into--rather a promising scheme, but on the same Titanic scale. It's just possible, by the way, that we may be able to do something forhim: part of the property he's after is held in our office. " He paused, knowing Undine's indifference to business matters; but the face sheturned to him was alive with interest. 

"You mean you might sell the property to him?"

"Well, if the thing comes off. There would be a big commission if wedid. " He glanced down on her half ironically. "You'd like that, wouldn'tyou?"

She answered with a shade of reproach: "Why do you say that? I haven'tcomplained. "

"Oh, no; but I know I've been a disappointment as a money-maker. "

She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes as if in utter wearinessand indifference, and in a moment she felt him bending over her. "What'sthe matter? Don't you feel well?"

"I'm a little tired. It's nothing. " She pulled her hand away and burstinto tears. 

Ralph knelt down by her chair and put his arm about her. It was thefirst time he had touched her since the night of the boy's birthday, andthe sense of her softness woke a momentary warmth in his veins. 

"What is it, dear? What is it?"

Without turning her head she sobbed out: "You seem to think I'm tooselfish and odious--that I'm just pretending to be ill. "

"No, no, " he assured her, smoothing back her hair. But she continuedto sob on in a gradual crescendo of despair, till the vehemence of herweeping began to frighten him, and he drew her to her feet and tried topersuade her to let herself be led upstairs. She yielded to his arm, sobbing in short exhausted gasps, and leaning her whole weight on him ashe guided her along the passage to her bedroom. On the lounge to whichhe lowered her she lay white and still, tears trickling through herlashes and her handkerchief pressed against her lips. He recognized thesymptoms with a sinking heart: she was on the verge of a nervous attacksuch as she had had in the winter, and he foresaw with dismay thedisastrous train of consequences, the doctors' and nurses' bills, andall the attendant confusion and expense. If only Moffatt's project mightbe realized--if for once he could feel a round sum in his pocket, and befreed from the perpetual daily strain!

The next morning Undine, though calmer, was too weak to leave her bed, and her doctor prescribed rest and absence of worry--later, perhaps, achange of scene. He explained to Ralph that nothing was so wearing toa high-strung nature as monotony, and that if Mrs. Marvell werecontemplating a Newport season it was necessary that she should befortified to meet it. In such cases he often recommended a dash to Parisor London, just to tone up the nervous system. 

Undine regained her strength slowly, and as the days dragged on thesuggestion of the European trip recurred with increasing frequency. Butit came always from her medical adviser: she herself had grown strangelypassive and indifferent. She continued to remain upstairs on her lounge, seeing no one but Mrs. Heeny, whose daily ministrations had once morebeen prescribed, and asking only that the noise of Paul's play should bekept from her. His scamperings overhead disturbed her sleep, and his bedwas moved into the day nursery, above his father's room. The child'searly romping did not trouble Ralph, since he himself was always awakebefore daylight. The days were not long enough to hold his cares, andthey came and stood by him through the silent hours, when there was noother sound to drown their voices. 

Ralph had not made a success of his business. The real-estate brokerswho had taken him into partnership had done so only with the hope ofprofiting by his social connections; and in this respect the alliancehad been a failure. It was in such directions that he most lackedfacility, and so far he had been of use to his partners only as anoffice-drudge. He was resigned to the continuance of such drudgery, though all his powers cried out against it; but even for the routine ofbusiness his aptitude was small, and he began to feel that he was notconsidered an addition to the firm. The difficulty of finding anotheropening made him fear a break; and his thoughts turned hopefully toElmer Moffatt's hint of a "deal. " The success of the negotiation mightbring advantages beyond the immediate pecuniary profit; and that, at thepresent juncture, was important enough in itself. 

Moffatt reappeared two days after the dinner, presenting himself in WestEnd Avenue in the late afternoon with the explanation that the businessin hand necessitated discretion, and that he preferred not to be seen inRalph's office. It was a question of negotiating with the utmost privacyfor the purchase of a small strip of land between two large plotsalready acquired by purchasers cautiously designated by Moffatt as his"parties. " How far he "stood in" with the parties he left it to Ralphto conjecture; but it was plain that he had a large stake in thetransaction, and that it offered him his first chance of recoveringhimself since Driscoll had "thrown" him. The owners of the covetedplot did not seem anxious to sell, and there were personal reasons forMoffatt's not approaching them through Ralph's partners, who were theregular agents of the estate: so that Ralph's acquaintance with theconditions, combined with his detachments from the case, marked him outas a useful intermediary. 

Their first talk left Ralph with a dazzled sense of Moffatt's strengthand keenness, but with a vague doubt as to the "straightness" of theproposed transaction. Ralph had never seen his way clearly in that dimunderworld of affairs where men of the Moffatt and Driscoll type movedlike shadowy destructive monsters beneath the darting small fry of thesurface. He knew that "business" has created its own special morality;and his musings on man's relation to his self imposed laws had shown himhow little human conduct is generally troubled about its own sanctions. He had a vivid sense of the things a man of his kind didn't do; but hisinability to get a mental grasp on large financial problems made it hardto apply to them so simple a measure as this inherited standard. He onlyknew, as Moffatt's plan developed, that it seemed all right while hetalked of it with its originator, but vaguely wrong when he thought itover afterward. It occurred to him to consult his grandfather; and if herenounced the idea for the obvious reason that Mr. Dagonet's ignoranceof business was as fathomless as his own, this was not his sole motive. Finally it occurred to him to put the case hypothetically to Mr. Spragg. As far as Ralph knew, his father-in-law's business record wasunblemished; yet one felt in him an elasticity of adjustment not allowedfor in the Dagonet code. 

Mr. Spragg listened thoughtfully to Ralph's statement of the case, growling out here and there a tentative correction, and turning hiscigar between his lips as he seemed to turn the problem over in theloose grasp of his mind. 

"Well, what's the trouble with it?" he asked at length, stretching hisbig square-toed shoes against the grate of his son-in-law's dining-room, where, in the after-dinner privacy of a family evening, Ralph had seizedthe occasion to consult him. 

"The trouble?" Ralph considered. "Why, that's just what I should likeyou to explain to me. "

Mr. Spragg threw back his head and stared at the garlanded French clockon the chimney-piece. Mrs. Spragg was sitting upstairs in her daughter'sbedroom, and the silence of the house seemed to hang about the two menlike a listening presence. 

"Well, I dunno but what I agree with the doctor who said there warn'tany diseases, but only sick people. Every case is different, I guess. "Mr. Spragg, munching his cigar, turned a ruminating glance on Ralph. "Seems to me it all boils down to one thing. Was this fellow we'resupposing about under any obligation to the other party--the one he wastrying to buy the property from?"

Ralph hesitated. "Only the obligation recognized between decent men todeal with each other decently. " Mr. Spragg listened to this with thesuffering air of a teacher compelled to simplify upon his simplestquestions. 

"Any personal obligation, I meant. Had the other fellow done him a goodturn any time?"

"No--I don't imagine them to have had any previous relations at all. "

His father-in-law stared. "Where's your trouble, then?" He sat for amoment frowning at the embers. "Even when it's the other way round itain't always so easy to decide how far that kind of thing's binding... And they say shipwrecked fellows'll make a meal of friend as quick asthey would of a total stranger. " He drew himself together with a shakeof his shoulders and pulled back his feet from the grate. "But I don'tsee the conundrum in your case, I guess it's up to both parties to takecare of their own skins. "

He rose from his chair and wandered upstairs to Undine. 

That was the Wall Street code: it all "boiled down" to the personalobligation, to the salt eaten in the enemy's tent. Ralph's fancywandered off on a long trail of speculation from which he was pulledback with a jerk by the need of immediate action. Moffatt's "deal"could not wait: quick decisions were essential to effective action, andbrooding over ethical shades of difference might work more ill thangood in a world committed to swift adjustments. The arrival of severalunforeseen bills confirmed this view, and once Ralph had adopted it hebegan to take a detached interest in the affair. 

In Paris, in his younger days, he had once attended a lesson in actinggiven at the Conservatoire by one of the great lights of the theatre, and had seen an apparently uncomplicated role of the classic repertory, familiar to him through repeated performances, taken to pieces beforehis eyes, dissolved into its component elements, and built up again witha minuteness of elucidation and a range of reference that made him feelas though he had been let into the secret of some age-long naturalprocess. As he listened to Moffatt the remembrance of that lesson cameback to him. At the outset the "deal, " and his own share in it, hadseemed simple enough: he would have put on his hat and gone out on thespot in the full assurance of being able to transact the affair. But asMoffatt talked he began to feel as blank and blundering as the class ofdramatic students before whom the great actor had analyzed his part. Theaffair was in fact difficult and complex, and Moffatt saw at once justwhere the difficulties lay and how the personal idiosyncrasies of "theparties" affected them. Such insight fascinated Ralph, and he strayedoff into wondering why it did not qualify every financier to be anovelist, and what intrinsic barrier divided the two arts. 

Both men had strong incentives for hastening the affair; and within afortnight after Moffatt's first advance Ralph was able to tell him thathis offer was accepted. Over and above his personal satisfaction he feltthe thrill of the agent whom some powerful negotiator has charged witha delicate mission: he might have been an eager young Jesuit carryingcompromising papers to his superior. It had been stimulating to workwith Moffatt, and to study at close range the large powerful instrumentof his intelligence. 

As he came out of Moffatt's office at the conclusion of this visitRalph met Mr. Spragg descending from his eyrie. He stopped short with abackward glance at Moffatt's door. 

"Hallo--what were you doing in there with those cut-throats?"

Ralph judged discretion to be essential. "Oh, just a little business forthe firm. "

Mr. Spragg said no more, but resorted to the soothing labial motion ofrevolving his phantom toothpick. 

"How's Undie getting along?" he merely asked, as he and his son-in-lawdescended together in the elevator. 

"She doesn't seem to feel much stronger. The doctor wants her to runover to Europe for a few weeks. She thinks of joining her friends theShallums in Paris. "

Mr. Spragg was again silent, but he left the building at Ralph's side, and the two walked along together toward Wall Street. 

Presently the older man asked: "How did you get acquainted withMoffatt?"

"Why, by chance--Undine ran across him somewhere and asked him to dinethe other night. "

"Undine asked him to dine?"

"Yes: she told me you used to know him out at Apex. "

Mr. Spragg appeared to search his memory for confirmation of the fact. "I believe he used to be round there at one time. I've never heard anygood of him yet. " He paused at a crossing and looked probingly at hisson-in-law. "Is she terribly set on this trip to Europe?"

Ralph smiled. "You know how it is when she takes a fancy to doanything--"

Mr. Spragg, by a slight lift of his brooding brows, seemed to convey adeep if unspoken response. 

"Well, I'd let her do it this time--I'd let her do it, " he said as heturned down the steps of the Subway. 

Ralph was surprised, for he had gathered from some frightened referencesof Mrs. Spragg's that Undine's parents had wind of her European plan andwere strongly opposed to it. He concluded that Mr. Spragg had long sincemeasured the extent of profitable resistance, and knew just when itbecame vain to hold out against his daughter or advise others to do so. 

Ralph, for his own part, had no inclination to resist. As he leftMoffatt's office his inmost feeling was one of relief. He had reachedthe point of recognizing that it was best for both that his wife shouldgo. When she returned perhaps their lives would readjust themselves--butfor the moment he longed for some kind of benumbing influence, somethingthat should give relief to the dull daily ache of feeling her so nearand yet so inaccessible. Certainly there were more urgent uses for theirbrilliant wind-fall: heavy arrears of household debts had to be met, andthe summer would bring its own burden. But perhaps another stroke ofluck might befall him: he was getting to have the drifting dependenceon "luck" of the man conscious of his inability to direct his life. Andmeanwhile it seemed easier to let Undine have what she wanted. 

Undine, on the whole, behaved with discretion. She received the goodnews languidly and showed no unseemly haste to profit by it. But it wasas hard to hide the light in her eyes as to dissemble the fact that shehad not only thought out every detail of the trip in advance, but haddecided exactly how her husband and son were to be disposed of in herabsence. Her suggestion that Ralph should take Paul to his grandparents, and that the West End Avenue house should be let for the summer, was toopractical not to be acted on; and Ralph found she had already put herhand on the Harry Lipscombs, who, after three years of neglect, were tobe dragged back to favour and made to feel, as the first step in theirreinstatement, the necessity of hiring for the summer months a cool airyhouse on the West Side. On her return from Europe, Undine explained, shewould of course go straight to Ralph and the boy in the Adirondacks; andit seemed a foolish extravagance to let the house stand empty when theLipscombs were so eager to take it. 

As the day of departure approached it became harder for her to temperher beams; but her pleasure showed itself so amiably that Ralph beganto think she might, after all, miss the boy and himself more than sheimagined. She was tenderly preoccupied with Paul's welfare, and, toprepare for his translation to his grandparents' she gave the householdin Washington Square more of her time than she had accorded it since hermarriage. She explained that she wanted Paul to grow used to his newsurroundings; and with that object she took him frequently to hisgrandmother's, and won her way into old Mr. Dagonet's sympathies by herdevotion to the child and her pretty way of joining in his games. 

Undine was not consciously acting a part: this new phase was as naturalto her as the other. In the joy of her gratified desires she wanted tomake everybody about her happy. If only everyone would do as she wishedshe would never be unreasonable. She much preferred to see smiling facesabout her, and her dread of the reproachful and dissatisfied countenancegave the measure of what she would do to avoid it. 

These thoughts were in her mind when, a day or two before sailing, shecame out of the Washington Square house with her boy. It was a latespring afternoon, and she and Paul had lingered on till long past thehour sacred to his grandfather's nap. Now, as she came out into thesquare she saw that, however well Mr. Dagonet had borne their protractedromp, it had left his playmate flushed and sleepy; and she lifted Paulin her arms to carry him to the nearest cab-stand. 

As she raised herself she saw a thick-set figure approaching her acrossthe square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; andshe noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His smallblack eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undinereflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushedface against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image of youngmotherhood. 

"That the heir apparent?" Moffatt asked; adding "Happy to make youracquaintance, sir, " as the boy, at Undine's bidding, held out a fiststicky with sugarplums. 

"He's been spending the afternoon with his grandfather, and they playedso hard that he's sleepy, " she explained. Little Paul, at that stage inhis career, had a peculiar grace of wide-gazing deep-lashed eyes andarched cherubic lips, and Undine saw that Moffatt was not insensibleto the picture she and her son composed. She did not dislike hisadmiration, for she no longer felt any shrinking from him--she wouldeven have been glad to thank him for the service he had done her husbandif she had known how to allude to it without awkwardness. Moffatt seemedequally pleased at the meeting, and they looked at each other almostintimately over Paul's tumbled curls. 

"He's a mighty fine fellow and no mistake--but isn't he rather an armfulfor you?" Moffatt asked, his eyes lingering with real kindliness on thechild's face. 

"Oh, we haven't far to go. I'll pick up a cab at the corner. "

"Well, let me carry him that far anyhow, " said Moffatt. 

Undine was glad to be relieved of her burden, for she was unused to thechild's weight, and disliked to feel that her skirt was dragging onthe pavement. "Go to the gentleman, Pauly--he'll carry you better thanmother, " she said. 

The little boy's first movement was one of recoil from the ruddysharp-eyed countenance that was so unlike his father's delicate face;but he was an obedient child, and after a moment's hesitation he woundhis arms trustfully about the red gentleman's neck. 

"That's a good fellow--sit tight and I'll give you a ride, " Moffattcried, hoisting the boy to his shoulder. 

Paul was not used to being perched at such a height, and his nature washospitable to new impressions. "Oh, I like it up here--you're higherthan father!" he exclaimed; and Moffatt hugged him with a laugh. 

"It must feel mighty good to come uptown to a fellow like you in theevenings, " he said, addressing the child but looking at Undine, who alsolaughed a little. 

"Oh, they're a dreadful nuisance, you know; but Paul's a very good boy. "

"I wonder if he knows what a friend I've been to him lately, " Moffattwent on, as they turned into Fifth Avenue. 

Undine smiled: she was glad he should have given her an opening. "Heshall be told as soon as he's old enough to thank you. I'm so glad youcame to Ralph about that business. "

"Oh I gave him a leg up, and I guess he's given me one too. Queer theway things come round--he's fairly put me in the way of a fresh start. "

Their eyes met in a silence which Undine was the first to break. "It'sbeen awfully nice of you to do what you've done--right along. And thislast thing has made a lot of difference to us. "

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way. I never wanted to be anything but'nice, ' as you call it. " Moffatt paused a moment and then added: "Ifyou're less scared of me than your father is I'd be glad to call roundand see you once in a while. "

The quick blood rushed to her cheeks. There was nothing challenging, demanding in his tone--she guessed at once that if he made the requestit was simply for the pleasure of being with her, and she liked themagnanimity implied. Nevertheless she was not sorry to have to answer:"Of course I'll always be glad to see you--only, as it happens, I'm justsailing for Europe. "

"For Europe?" The word brought Moffatt to a stand so abruptly thatlittle Paul lurched on his shoulder. 

"For Europe?" he repeated. "Why, I thought you said the other eveningyou expected to stay on in town till July. Didn't you think of going tothe Adirondacks?"

Flattered by his evident disappointment, she became high and careless inher triumph. "Oh, yes, --but that's all changed. Ralph and the boy aregoing, but I sail on Saturday to join some friends in Paris--and later Imay do some motoring in Switzerland an Italy. "

She laughed a little in the mere enjoyment of putting her plans intowords and Moffatt laughed too, but with an edge of sarcasm. 

"I see--I see: everything's changed, as you say, and your husband canblow you off to the trip. Well, I hope you'll have a first-class time. "

Their glances crossed again, and something in his cool scrutiny impelledUndine to say, with a burst of candour: "If I do, you know, I shall oweit all to you!"

"Well, I always told you I meant to act white by you, " he answered. 

They walked on in silence, and presently he began again in his usualjoking strain: "See what one of the Apex girls has been up to?"

Apex was too remote for her to understand the reference, and he went on:"Why, Millard Binch's wife--Indiana Frusk that was. Didn't you see inthe papers that Indiana'd fixed it up with James J. Rolliver to marryher? They say it was easy enough squaring Millard Binch--you'd know itWOULD be--but it cost Roliver near a million to mislay Mrs. R. And thechildren. Well, Indiana's pulled it off, anyhow; she always WAS a brightgirl. But she never came up to you. "

"Oh--" she stammered with a laugh, astonished and agitated by his news. Indiana Frusk and Rolliver! It showed how easily the thing could bedone. If only her father had listened to her! If a girl like IndianaFrusk could gain her end so easily, what might not Undine haveaccomplished? She knew Moffatt was right in saying that Indiana hadnever come up to her... She wondered how the marriage would strike VanDegen... 

She signalled to a cab and they walked toward it without speaking. Undine was recalling with intensity that one of Indiana's shoulders washigher than the other, and that people in Apex had thought her lucky tocatch Millard Binch, the druggist's clerk, when Undine herself had casthim off after a lingering engagement. And now Indiana Frusk was to beMrs. James J. Rolliver!

Undine got into the cab and bent forward to take little Paul. 

Moffatt lowered his charge with exaggerated care, and a "Steady there, steady, " that made the child laugh; then, stooping over, he put a kisson Paul's lips before handing him over to his mother. 

XIX

"The Parisian Diamond Company--Anglo-American branch. "

Charles Bowen, seated, one rainy evening of the Paris season, in acorner of the great Nouveau Luxe restaurant, was lazily trying toresolve his impressions of the scene into the phrases of a letter to hisold friend Mrs. Henley Fairford. 

The long habit of unwritten communion with this lady--in no wayconditioned by the short rare letters they actually exchanged--usuallycaused his notations, in absence, to fall into such terms when thesubject was of a kind to strike an answering flash from her. And whobut Mrs. Fairford would see, from his own precise angle, the fantasticimprobability, the layers on layers of unsubstantialness, on which theseemingly solid scene before him rested?

The dining-room of the Nouveau Luxe was at its fullest, and, havingcontracted on the garden side through stress of weather, had evenoverflowed to the farther end of the long hall beyond; so that Bowen, from his corner, surveyed a seemingly endless perspective of plumedand jewelled heads, of shoulders bare or black-coated, encircling theclose-packed tables. He had come half an hour before the time he hadnamed to his expected guest, so that he might have the undisturbedamusement of watching the picture compose itself again before his eyes. During some forty years' perpetual exercise of his perceptions he hadnever come across anything that gave them the special titillationproduced by the sight of the dinner-hour at the Nouveau Luxe: the samesense of putting his hand on human nature's passion for the factitious, its incorrigible habit of imitating the imitation. 

As he sat watching the familiar faces swept toward him on the risingtide of arrival--for it was one of the joys of the scene that the typewas always the same even when the individual was not--he hailed withrenewed appreciation this costly expression of a social ideal. Thedining-room at the Nouveau Luxe represented, on such a spring evening, what unbounded material power had devised for the delusion of itsleisure: a phantom "society, " with all the rules, smirks, gestures ofits model, but evoked out of promiscuity and incoherence while the otherhad been the product of continuity and choice. And the instinct whichhad driven a new class of world-compellers to bind themselves to slavishimitation of the superseded, and their prompt and reverent faith inthe reality of the sham they had created, seemed to Bowen the mostsatisfying proof of human permanence. 

With this thought in his mind he looked up to greet his guest. The ComteRaymond de Chelles, straight, slim and gravely smiling, came toward himwith frequent pauses of salutation at the crowded tables; saying, as heseated himself and turned his pleasant eyes on the scene: "Il n'y a pasà dire, my dear Bowen, it's charming and sympathetic and original--weowe America a debt of gratitude for inventing it!"

Bowen felt a last touch of satisfaction: they were the very words tocomplete his thought. 

"My dear fellow, it's really you and your kind who are responsible. It'sthe direct creation of feudalism, like all the great social upheavals!"

Raymond de Chelles stroked his handsome brown moustache. "I should havesaid, on the contrary, that one enjoyed it for the contrast. It's sucha refreshing change from our institutions--which are, nevertheless, thenecessary foundations of society. But just as one may have an infiniteadmiration for one's wife, and yet occasionally--" he waved a light handtoward the spectacle. "This, in the social order, is the diversion, thepermitted diversion, that your original race has devised: a kind ofsuperior Bohemia, where one may be respectable without being bored. "

Bowen laughed. "You've put it in a nutshell: the ideal of the Americanwoman is to be respectable without being bored; and from that point ofview this world they've invented has more originality than I gave itcredit for. "

Chelles thoughtfully unfolded his napkin. "My impression's a superficialone, of course--for as to what goes on underneath--!" He looked acrossthe room. "If I married I shouldn't care to have my wife come here toooften. "

Bowen laughed again. "She'd be as safe as in a bank! Nothing ever goeson! Nothing that ever happens here is real. "

"Ah, quant à cela--" the Frenchman murmured, inserting a fork intohis melon. Bowen looked at him with enjoyment--he was such a preciousfoot-note to the page! The two men, accidentally thrown together someyears previously during a trip up the Nile, always met again withpleasure when Bowen returned to France. Raymond de Chelles, who came ofa family of moderate fortune, lived for the greater part of the year onhis father's estates in Burgundy; but he came up every spring to theentresol of the old Marquis's hotel for a two months' study of humannature, applying to the pursuit the discriminating taste and transientardour that give the finest bloom to pleasure. Bowen liked him as acompanion and admired him as a charming specimen of the Frenchman of hisclass, embodying in his lean, fatigued and finished person that happymean of simplicity and intelligence of which no other race has found thesecret. If Raymond de Chelles had been English he would have been amere fox-hunting animal, with appetites but without tastes; but in hislighter Gallic clay the wholesome territorial savour, the inheritedpassion for sport and agriculture, were blent with an openness to finersensations, a sense of the come-and-go of ideas, under which one feltthe tight hold of two or three inherited notions, religious, political, and domestic, in total contradiction to his surface attitude. That theinherited notions would in the end prevail, everything in his appearancedeclared from the distinguished slant of his nose to the narrow foreheadunder his thinning hair; he was the kind of man who would inevitably"revert" when he married. But meanwhile the surface he presented to theplay of life was broad enough to take in the fantastic spectacle of theNouveau Luxe; and to see its gestures reflected in a Latin consciousnesswas an endless entertainment to Bowen. 

The tone of his guest's last words made him take them up. "But is thelady you allude to more than a hypothesis? Surely you're not thinking ofgetting married?"

Chelles raised his eye-brows ironically. "When hasn't one to think ofit, in my situation? One hears of nothing else at home--one knows that, like death, it has to come. " His glance, which was still mustering theroom, came to a sudden pause and kindled. 

"Who's the lady over there--fair-haired, in white--the one who's justcome in with the red-faced man? They seem to be with a party of yourcompatriots. "

Bowen followed his glance to a neighbouring table, where, at the moment, Undine Marvell was seating herself at Peter Van Degen's side, in thecompany of the Harvey Shallums, the beautiful Mrs. Beringer and a dozenother New York figures. 

She was so placed that as she took her seat she recognized Bowen andsent him a smile across the tables. She was more simply dressed thanusual, and the pink lights, warming her cheeks and striking gleams fromher hair, gave her face a dewy freshness that was new to Bowen. Hehad always thought her beauty too obvious, too bathed in the brightpublicity of the American air; but to-night she seemed to have beenbrushed by the wing of poetry, and its shadow lingered in her eyes. 

Chelles' gaze made it evident that he had received the same impression. 

"One is sometimes inclined to deny your compatriots actual beauty--tocharge them with producing the effect without having the features; butin this case--you say you know the lady?"

"Yes: she's the wife of an old friend. "

"The wife? She's married? There, again, it's so puzzling! Youryoung girls look so experienced, and your married women sometimesso--unmarried. "

"Well, they often are--in these days of divorce!"

The other's interest quickened. "Your friend's divorced?"

"Oh, no; heaven forbid! Mrs. Marvell hasn't been long married; and itwas a love-match of the good old kind. "

"Ah--and the husband? Which is he?"

"He's not here--he's in New York. "

"Feverishly adding to a fortune already monstrous?"

"No; not precisely monstrous. The Marvells are not well off, " saidBowen, amused by his friend's interrogations. 

"And he allows an exquisite being like that to come to Paris withouthim--and in company with the red-faced gentleman who seems so alive tohis advantages?"

"We don't 'allow' our women this or that; I don't think we set muchstore by the compulsory virtues. "

His companion received this with amusement. "If: you're as detached asthat, why does the obsolete institution of marriage survive with you?"

"Oh, it still has its uses. One couldn't be divorced without it. "

Chelles laughed again; but his straying eye still followed the samedirection, and Bowen noticed that the fact was not unremarked by theobject of his contemplation. Undine's party was one of the liveliest inthe room: the American laugh rose above the din of the orchestra as theAmerican toilets dominated the less daring effects at the othertables. Undine, on entering, had seemed to be in the same mood as hercompanions; but Bowen saw that, as she became conscious of his friend'sobservation, she isolated herself in a kind of soft abstraction; andhe admired the adaptability which enabled her to draw from suchsurroundings the contrasting graces of reserve. 

They had greeted each other with all the outer signs of cordiality, but Bowen fancied she would not care to have him speak to her. She wasevidently dining with Van Degen, and Van Degen's proximity was the lastfact she would wish to have transmitted to the critics in WashingtonSquare. Bowen was therefore surprised when, as he rose to leave therestaurant, he heard himself hailed by Peter. 

"Hallo--hold on! When did you come over? Mrs. Marvell's dying for thelast news about the old homestead. "

Undine's smile confirmed the appeal. She wanted to know how lately Bowenhad left New York, and pressed him to tell her when he had last seen herboy, how he was looking, and whether Ralph had been persuaded to go downto Clare's on Saturdays and get a little riding and tennis? And dearLaura--was she well too, and was Paul with her, or still with hisgrandmother? They were all dreadfully bad correspondents, and so wasshe. Undine laughingly admitted; and when Ralph had last written herthese questions had still been undecided. 

As she smiled up at Bowen he saw her glance stray to the spot where hiscompanion hovered; and when the diners rose to move toward the gardenfor coffee she said, with a sweet note and a detaining smile: "Do comewith us--I haven't half finished. "

Van Degen echoed the request, and Bowen, amused by Undine's arts, waspresently introducing Chelles, and joining with him in the party'stransit to the terrace. The rain had ceased, and under the clear eveningsky the restaurant garden opened green depths that skilfully hid itsnarrow boundaries. Van Degen's company was large enough to surroundtwo of the tables on the terrace, and Bowen noted the skill with whichUndine, leaving him to Mrs. Shallum's care, contrived to draw Raymond deChelles to the other table. Still more noticeable was the effect ofthis stratagem on Van Degen, who also found himself relegated to Mrs. Shallum's group. Poor Peter's state was betrayed by the irascibilitywhich wreaked itself on a jostling waiter, and found cause for loudremonstrance in the coldness of the coffee and the badness of thecigars; and Bowen, with something more than the curiosity of thelooker-on, wondered whether this were the real clue to Undine's conduct. He had always smiled at Mrs. Fairford's fears for Ralph's domesticpeace. He thought Undine too clear-headed to forfeit the advantages ofher marriage; but it now struck him that she might have had a glimpseof larger opportunities. Bowen, at the thought, felt the pang ofthe sociologist over the individual havoc wrought by every socialreadjustment: it had so long been clear to him that poor Ralph was asurvival, and destined, as such, to go down in any conflict with therising forces. 

XX

Some six weeks later. Undine Marvell stood at the window smiling down onher recovered Paris. 

Her hotel sitting-room had, as usual, been flowered, cushioned andlamp-shaded into a delusive semblance of stability; and she had reallyfelt, for the last few weeks, that the life she was leading there mustbe going to last--it seemed so perfect an answer to all her wants!

As she looked out at the thronged street, on which the summer light laylike a blush of pleasure, she felt herself naturally akin to all thebright and careless freedom of the scene. She had been away fromParis for two days, and the spectacle before her seemed more rich andsuggestive after her brief absence from it. Her senses luxuriated in allits material details: the thronging motors, the brilliant shops, thenovelty and daring of the women's dresses, the piled-up colours ofthe ambulant flower-carts, the appetizing expanse of the fruiterers'windows, even the chromatic effects of the petits fours behind theplate-glass of the pastry-cooks: all the surface-sparkle and variety ofthe inexhaustible streets of Paris. 

The scene before her typified to Undine her first real taste of life. How meagre and starved the past appeared in comparison with thisabundant present! The noise, the crowd, the promiscuity beneath her eyessymbolized the glare and movement of her life. Every moment of her dayswas packed with excitement and exhilaration. Everything amused her: thelong hours of bargaining and debate with dress-makers and jewellers, thecrowded lunches at fashionable restaurants, the perfunctory dash througha picture-show or the lingering visit to the last new milliner; theafternoon motor-rush to some leafy suburb, where tea and musics andsunset were hastily absorbed on a crowded terrace above the Seine; thewhirl home through the Bois to dress for dinner and start again on theround of evening diversions; the dinner at the Nouveau Luxe or theCafé de Paris, and the little play at the Capucines or the Variétés, followed, because the night was "too lovely, " and it was a shame towaste it, by a breathless flight back to the Bois, with supper in oneof its lamp-hung restaurants, or, if the weather forbade, a tumultuousprogress through the midnight haunts where "ladies" were not supposedto show themselves, and might consequently taste the thrill of beingoccasionally taken for their opposites. 

As the varied vision unrolled itself, Undine contrasted it with the palemonotony of her previous summers. The one she most resented was thefirst after her marriage, the European summer out of whose joys she hadbeen cheated by her own ignorance and Ralph's perversity. They had beenfree then, there had been no child to hamper their movements, theirmoney anxieties had hardly begun, the face of life had been fresh andradiant, and she had been doomed to waste such opportunities on asuccession of ill-smelling Italian towns. She still felt it to be herdeepest grievance against her husband; and now that, after four years ofpetty household worries, another chance of escape had come, he alreadywanted to drag her back to bondage!

This fit of retrospection had been provoked by two letters which hadcome that morning. One was from Ralph, who began by reminding her thathe had not heard from her for weeks, and went on to point out, in hisusual tone of good-humoured remonstrance, that since her departure thedrain on her letter of credit had been deep and constant. "I wantedyou, " he wrote, "to get all the fun you could out of the money I madelast spring; but I didn't think you'd get through it quite so fast. Tryto come home without leaving too many bills behind you. Your illness andPaul's cost more than I expected, and Lipscomb has had a bad knock inWall Street, and hasn't yet paid his first quarter... "

Always the same monotonous refrain! Was it her fault that she and theboy had been ill? Or that Harry Lipscomb had been "on the wrong side" ofWall Street? Ralph seemed to have money on the brain: his business lifehad certainly deteriorated him. And, since he hadn't made a success ofit after all, why shouldn't he turn back to literature and try to writehis novel? Undine, the previous winter, had been dazzled by the figureswhich a well-known magazine editor, whom she had met at dinner had namedas within reach of the successful novelist. She perceived for the firsttime that literature was becoming fashionable, and instantly decidedthat it would be amusing and original if she and Ralph should owe theirprosperity to his talent. She already saw herself, as the wife of acelebrated author, wearing "artistic" dresses and doing the drawing-roomover with Gothic tapestries and dim lights in altar candle-sticks. Butwhen she suggested Ralph's taking up his novel he answered with a laughthat his brains were sold to the firm--that when he came back at nightthe tank was empty... And now he wanted her to sail for home in a week!

The other letter excited a deeper resentment. It was an appeal fromLaura Fairford to return and look after Ralph. He was overworked and outof spirits, she wrote, and his mother and sister, reluctant as theywere to interfere, felt they ought to urge Undine to come back to him. Details followed, unwelcome and officious. What right had Laura Fairfordto preach to her of wifely obligations? No doubt Charles Bowen had senthome a highly-coloured report--and there was really a certain irony inMrs. Fairford's criticizing her sister-in-law's conduct on informationobtained from such a source! Undine turned from the window and threwherself down on her deeply cushioned sofa. She was feeling the pleasantfatigue consequent on her trip to the country, whither she and Mrs. Shallum had gone with Raymond de Chelles to spend a night at the oldMarquis's chateau. When her travelling companions, an hour earlier, hadleft her at her door, she had half-promised to rejoin them for a latedinner in the Bois; and as she leaned back among the cushions disturbingthoughts were banished by the urgent necessity of deciding what dressshe should wear. 

These bright weeks of the Parisian spring had given her a first realglimpse into the art of living. From the experts who had taught her tosubdue the curves of her figure and soften her bright free stare withdusky pencillings, to the skilled purveyors of countless forms ofpleasure--the theatres and restaurants, the green and blossomingsuburbs, the whole shining shifting spectacle of nights and days--everysight and sound and word had combined to charm her perceptions andrefine her taste. And her growing friendship with Raymond de Chelles hadbeen the most potent of these influences. 

Chelles, at once immensely "taken, " had not only shown his eagerness toshare in the helter-skelter motions of Undine's party, but had given herglimpses of another, still more brilliant existence, that life of theinaccessible "Faubourg" of which the first tantalizing hints had butlately reached her. Hitherto she had assumed that Paris existed for thestranger, that its native life was merely an obscure foundation forthe dazzling superstructure of hotels and restaurants in which hercompatriots disported themselves. But lately she had begun to hearabout other American women, the women who had married into the Frencharistocracy, and who led, in the high-walled houses beyond the Seinewhich she had once thought so dull and dingy, a life that made her ownseem as undistinguished as the social existence of the MealeyHouse. Perhaps what most exasperated her was the discovery, in thisimpenetrable group, of the Miss Wincher who had poisoned her far-offsummer at Potash Springs. To recognize her old enemy in the Marquise deTrezac who so frequently figured in the Parisian chronicle was the moreirritating to Undine because her intervening social experiences hadcaused her to look back on Nettie Wincher as a frumpy girl who wouldn'thave "had a show" in New York. 

Once more all the accepted values were reversed, and it turned out thatMiss Wincher had been in possession of some key to success on whichUndine had not yet put her hand. To know that others were indifferent towhat she had thought important was to cheapen all present pleasure andturn the whole force of her desires in a new direction. What she wantedfor the moment was to linger on in Paris, prolonging her flirtation withChelles, and profiting by it to detach herself from her compatriots andenter doors closed to their approach. And Chelles himself attractedher: she thought him as "sweet" as she had once thought Ralph, whosefastidiousness and refinement were blent in him with a delightfulforeign vivacity. His chief value, however, lay in his power of excitingVan Degen's jealousy. She knew enough of French customs to be aware thatsuch devotion as Chelles' was not likely to have much practical bearingon her future; but Peter had an alarming way of lapsing into security, and as a spur to his ardour she knew the value of other men'sattentions. 

It had become Undine's fixed purpose to bring Van Degen to a definiteexpression of his intentions. The case of Indiana Frusk, whose brilliantmarriage the journals of two continents had recently chronicled withunprecedented richness of detail, had made less impression on him thanshe hoped. He treated it as a comic episode without special bearing ontheir case, and once, when Undine cited Rolliver's expensive fight forfreedom as an instance of the power of love over the most invulnerablenatures, had answered carelessly: "Oh, his first wife was a laundress, Ibelieve. "

But all about them couples were unpairing and pairing again with an easeand rapidity that encouraged Undine to bide her time. It was simply aquestion of making Van Degen want her enough, and of not being obligedto abandon the game before he wanted her as much as she meant he should. This was precisely what would happen if she were compelled to leaveParis now. Already the event had shown how right she had been to comeabroad: the attention she attracted in Paris had reawakened Van Degen'sfancy, and her hold over him was stronger than when they had partedin America. But the next step must be taken with coolness andcircumspection; and she must not throw away what she had gained by goingaway at a stage when he was surer of her than she of him. She was stillintensely considering these questions when the door behind her openedand he came in. 

She looked up with a frown and he gave a deprecating laugh. "Didn't Iknock? Don't look so savage! They told me downstairs you'd got back, andI just bolted in without thinking. "

He had widened and purpled since their first encounter, five yearsearlier, but his features had not matured. His face was still theface of a covetous bullying boy, with a large appetite for primitivesatisfactions and a sturdy belief in his intrinsic right to them. It wasall the more satisfying to Undine's vanity to see his look change at hertone from command to conciliation, and from conciliation to the entreatyof a capriciously-treated animal. 

"What a ridiculous hour for a visit!" she exclaimed, ignoring hisexcuse. "Well, if you disappear like that, without a word--"

"I told my maid to telephone you I was going away. "

"You couldn't make time to do it yourself, I suppose?"

"We rushed off suddenly; I'd hardly time to get to the station. "

"You rushed off where, may I ask?" Van Degen still lowered down on her. 

"Oh didn't I tell you? I've been down staying at Chelles' chateau inBurgundy. " Her face lit up and she raised herself eagerly on her elbow. 

"It's the most wonderful old house you ever saw: a real castle, withtowers, and water all round it, and a funny kind of bridge they pull up. Chelles said he wanted me to see just how they lived at home, and I did;I saw everything: the tapestries that Louis Quinze gave them, and thefamily portraits, and the chapel, where their own priest says mass, andthey sit by themselves in a balcony with crowns all over it. The priestwas a lovely old man--he said he'd give anything to convert me. Do youknow, I think there's something very beautiful about the Roman Catholicreligion? I've often felt I might have been happier if I'd had somereligious influence in my life. "

She sighed a little, and turned her head away. She flattered herselfthat she had learned to strike the right note with Van Degen. At thiscrucial stage he needed a taste of his own methods, a glimpse of thefact that there were women in the world who could get on without him. 

He continued to gaze down at her sulkily. "Were the old people there?You never told me you knew his mother. "

"I don't. They weren't there. But it didn't make a bit of difference, because Raymond sent down a cook from the Luxe. "

"Oh, Lord, " Van Degen groaned, dropping down on the end of the sofa. "Was the cook got down to chaperon you?"

Undine laughed. "You talk like Ralph! I had Bertha with me. "

"BERTHA!" His tone of contempt surprised her. She had supposed that Mrs. Shallum's presence had made the visit perfectly correct. 

"You went without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you?Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did itto brag about you at his club. He wants to compromise you--that's hisgame!"

"Do you suppose he does?" A flicker of a smile crossed her lips. "I'mso unconventional: when I like a man I never stop to think about suchthings. But I ought to, of course--you're quite right. " She looked atVan Degen thoughtfully. "At any rate, he's not a married man. "

Van Degen had got to his feet again and was standing accusingly beforeher; but as she spoke the blood rose to his neck and ears. "Whatdifference does that make?"

"It might make a good deal. I see, " she added, "how careful I ought tobe about going round with you. "

"With ME?" His face fell at the retort; then he broke into a laugh. Headored Undine's "smartness, " which was of precisely the same qualityas his own. "Oh, that's another thing: you can always trust me to lookafter you!"

"With your reputation? Much obliged!"

Van Degen smiled. She knew he liked such allusions, and was pleased thatshe thought him compromising. 

"Oh, I'm as good as gold. You've made a new man of me!"

"Have I?" She considered him in silence for a moment. "I wonder whatyou've done to me but make a discontented woman of me--discontented witheverything I had before I knew you?"

The change of tone was thrilling to him. He forgot her mockery, forgothis rival, and sat down at her side, almost in possession of her waist. "Look here, " he asked, "where are we going to dine to-night?"

His nearness was not agreeable to Undine, but she liked his free way, his contempt for verbal preliminaries. Ralph's reserves and delicacies, his perpetual desire that he and she should be attuned to the same key, had always vaguely bored her; whereas in Van Degen's manner she felt ahint of the masterful way that had once subdued her in Elmer Moffatt. But she drew back, releasing herself. 

"To-night? I can't--I'm engaged. "

"I know you are: engaged to ME! You promised last Sunday you'd dine withme out of town to-night. "

"How can I remember what I promised last Sunday? Besides, after whatyou've said, I see I oughtn't to. "

"What do you mean by what I've said?"

"Why, that I'm imprudent; that people are talking--"

He stood up with an angry laugh. "I suppose you're dining with Chelles. Is that it?"

"Is that the way you cross-examine Clare?"

"I don't care a hang what Clare does--I never have. "

"That must--in some ways--be rather convenient for her!"

"Glad you think so. ARE you dining with him?"

She slowly turned the wedding-ring upon her finger. "You know I'm NOTmarried to you--yet!"

He took a random turn through the room; then he came back and plantedhimself wrathfully before her. "Can't you see the man's doing his bestto make a fool of you?"

She kept her amused gaze on him. "Does it strike you that it's such anawfully easy thing to do?"

The edges of his ears were purple. "I sometimes think it's easier forthese damned little dancing-masters than for one of us. "

Undine was still smiling up at him; but suddenly her grew grave. "Whatdoes it matter what I do or don't do, when Ralph has ordered me homenext week?"

"Ordered you home?" His face changed. "Well, you're not going, are you?"

"What's the use of saying such things?" She gave a disenchanted laugh. "I'm a poor man's wife, and can't do the things my friends do. It's notbecause Ralph loves me that he wants me back--it's simply because hecan't afford to let me stay!"

Van Degen's perturbation was increasing. "But you mustn't go--it'spreposterous! Why should a woman like you be sacrificed when a lot ofdreary frumps have everything they want? Besides, you can't chuck melike this! Why, we're all to motor down to Aix next week, and perhapstake a dip into Italy--"

"OH, ITALY--" she murmured on a note of yearning. 

He was closer now, and had her hands. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?As far as Venice, anyhow; and then in August there's Trouville--you'venever tried Trouville? There's an awfully jolly crowd there--and themotoring's ripping in Normandy. If you say so I'll take a villa thereinstead of going back to Newport. And I'll put the Sorceress incommission, and you can make up parties and run off whenever you like, to Scotland or Norway--" He hung above her. "Don't dine with Chellesto-night! Come with me, and we'll talk things over; and next week we'llrun down to Trouville to choose the villa. "

Undine's heart was beating fast, but she felt within her a strange lucidforce of resistance. Because of that sense of security she left herhands in Van Degen's. So Mr. Spragg might have felt at the tensest hourof the Pure Water move. She leaned forward, holding her suitor off bythe pressure of her bent-back palms. 

"Kiss me good-bye, Peter; I sail on Wednesday, " she said. 

It was the first time she had permitted him a kiss, and as his facedarkened down on her she felt a moment's recoil. But her physicalreactions were never very acute: she always vaguely wondered whypeople made "such a fuss, " were so violently for or against suchdemonstrations. A cool spirit within her seemed to watch over andregulate her sensations, and leave her capable of measuring theintensity of those she provoked. 

She turned to look at the clock. "You must go now--I shall be hours latefor dinner. "

"Go--after that?" He held her fast. "Kiss me again, " he commanded. 

It was wonderful how cool she felt--how easily she could slip out of hisgrasp! Any man could be managed like a child if he were really in lovewith one.... 

"Don't be a goose, Peter; do you suppose I'd have kissed you if--"

"If what--what--what?" he mimicked her ecstatically, not listening. 

She saw that if she wished to make him hear her she must put moredistance between them, and she rose and moved across the room. From thefireplace she turned to add--"if we hadn't been saying good-bye?"

"Good-bye--now? What's the use of talking like that?" He jumped up andfollowed her. "Look here, Undine--I'll do anything on earth you want;only don't talk of going! If you'll only stay I'll make it all asstraight and square as you please. I'll get Bertha Shallum to stop overwith you for the summer; I'll take a house at Trouville and make my wifecome out there. Hang it, she SHALL, if you say so! Only be a little goodto me!"

Still she stood before him without speaking, aware that her implacablebrows and narrowed lips would hold him off as long as she chose. 

"What's the matter. Undine? Why don't you answer? You know you can't goback to that deadly dry-rot!"

She swept about on him with indignant eyes. "I can't go on with mypresent life either. It's hateful--as hateful as the other. If I don'tgo home I've got to decide on something different. "

"What do you mean by 'something different'?" She was silent, and heinsisted: "Are you really thinking of marrying Chelles?"

She started as if he had surprised a secret. "I'll never forgive you ifyou speak of it--"

"Good Lord! Good Lord!" he groaned. 

She remained motionless, with lowered lids, and he went up to her andpulled her about so that she faced him. "Undine, honour bright--do youthink he'll marry you?"

She looked at him with a sudden hardness in her eyes. "I really can'tdiscuss such things with you. "

"Oh, for the Lord's sake don't take that tone! I don't half know whatI'm saying... But you mustn't throw yourself away a second time. I'll doanything you want--I swear I will!"

A knock on the door sent them apart, and a servant entered with atelegram. 

Undine turned away to the window with the narrow blue slip. She was gladof the interruption: the sense of what she had at stake made her want topause a moment and to draw breath. 

The message was a long cable signed with Laura Fairford's name. It toldher that Ralph had been taken suddenly ill with pneumonia, that hiscondition was serious and that the doctors advised his wife's immediatereturn. 

Undine had to read the words over two or three times to get them intoher crowded mind; and even after she had done so she needed more time tosee their bearing on her own situation. If the message had concernedher boy her brain would have acted more quickly. She had never troubledherself over the possibility of Paul's falling ill in her absence, butshe understood now that if the cable had been about him she would haverushed to the earliest steamer. With Ralph it was different. Ralph wasalways perfectly well--she could not picture him as being suddenly atdeath's door and in need of her. Probably his mother and sister had hada panic: they were always full of sentimental terrors. The next momentan angry suspicion flashed across her: what if the cable were a deviceof the Marvell women to bring her back? Perhaps it had been sentwith Ralph's connivance! No doubt Bowen had written home abouther--Washington Square had received some monstrous report of herdoings!... Yes, the cable was clearly an echo of Laura's letter--motherand daughter had cooked it up to spoil her pleasure. Once the thoughthad occurred to her it struck root in her mind and began to throw outgiant branches. Van Degen followed her to the window, his face stillflushed and working. "What's the matter?" he asked, as she continued tostare silently at the telegram. 

She crumpled the strip of paper in her hand. If only she had been alone, had had a chance to think out her answers!

"What on earth's the matter?" he repeated. 

"Oh, nothing--nothing. "

"Nothing? When you're as white as a sheet?"

"Am I?" She gave a slight laugh. "It's only a cable from home. "

"Ralph?"

She hesitated. "No. Laura. "

"What the devil is SHE cabling you about?"

"She says Ralph wants me. "

"Now--at once?"

"At once. "

Van Degen laughed impatiently. "Why don't he tell you so himself? Whatbusiness is it of Laura Fairford's?"

Undine's gesture implied a "What indeed?"

"Is that all she says?"

She hesitated again. "Yes--that's all. " As she spoke she tossed thetelegram into the basket beneath the writing-table. "As if I didn't HAVEto go anyhow?" she exclaimed. 

With an aching clearness of vision she saw what lay before her--thehurried preparations, the long tedious voyage on a steamer chosen athaphazard, the arrival in the deadly July heat, and the relapse into allthe insufferable daily fag of nursery and kitchen--she saw it and herimagination recoiled. 

Van Degen's eyes still hung on her: she guessed that he was intenselyengaged in trying to follow what was passing through her mind. Presentlyhe came up to her again, no longer perilous and importunate, butawkwardly tender, ridiculously moved by her distress. 

"Undine, listen: won't you let me make it all right for you to stay?"

Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close, meeting his eyes coldly but without anger. 

"What do you call 'making it all right'? Paying my bills? Don't you seethat's what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?"She laid her hand on his arm. "The time has come when I must besensible, Peter; that's why we must say good-bye. "

"Do you mean to tell me you're going back to Ralph?"

She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: "I shall nevergo back to him. "

"Then you DO mean to marry Chelles?"

"I've told you we must say good-bye. I've got to look out for myfuture. "

He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatientsenses labouring with a problem beyond their power. "Ain't I here tolook out for your future?" he said at last. 

"No one shall look out for it in the way you mean. I'd rather never seeyou again--"

He gave her a baffled stare. "Oh, damn it--if that's the way you feel!"He turned and flung away toward the door. 

She stood motionless where he left her, every nerve strung to thehighest pitch of watchfulness. As she stood there, the scene about herstamped itself on her brain with the sharpest precision. She was awareof the fading of the summer light outside, of the movements of her maid, who was laying out her dinner-dress in the room beyond, and of the factthat the tea-roses on her writing-table, shaken by Van Degen's tread, were dropping their petals over Ralph's letter, and down on the crumpledtelegram which she could see through the trellised sides of thescrap-basket. 

In another moment Van Degen would be gone. Worse yet, while he waveredin the doorway the Shallums and Chelles, after vainly awaiting her, might dash back from the Bois and break in on them. These and otherchances rose before her, urging her to action; but she held fast, immovable, unwavering, a proud yet plaintive image of renunciation. 

Van Degen's hand was on the door. He half-opened it and then turnedback. 

"That's all you've got to say, then?"

"That's all. "

He jerked the door open and passed out. She saw him stop in theante-room to pick up his hat and stick, his heavy figure silhouettedagainst the glare of the wall-lights. A ray of the same light fellon her where she stood in the unlit sitting-room, and her reflectionbloomed out like a flower from the mirror that faced her. She lookedat the image and waited. Van Degen put his hat on his head and slowlyopened the door into the outer hall. Then he turned abruptly, his bulkeclipsing her reflection as he plunged back into the room and came up toher. 

"I'll do anything you say. Undine; I'll do anything in God's world tokeep you!"

She turned her eyes from the mirror and let them rest on his face, whichlooked as small and withered as an old man's, with a lower lip thattrembled queerly.... 

XXI

The spring in New York proceeded through more than its usual extremes oftemperature to the threshold of a sultry June. 

Ralph Marvell, wearily bent to his task, felt the fantastic humours ofthe weather as only one more incoherence in the general chaos of hiscase. It was strange enough, after four years of marriage, to findhimself again in his old brown room in Washington Square. It washardly there that he had expected Pegasus to land him; and, like a manreturning to the scenes of his childhood, he found everything on a muchsmaller scale than he had imagined. Had the Dagonet boundaries reallynarrowed, or had the breach in the walls of his own life let in a widervision?

Certainly there had come to be other differences between his present andhis former self than that embodied in the presence of his little boy inthe next room. Paul, in fact, was now the chief link between Ralph andhis past. Concerning his son he still felt and thought, in a generalway, in the terms of the Dagonet tradition; he still wanted to implantin Paul some of the reserves and discriminations which divided thattradition from the new spirit of limitless concession. But for himselfit was different. Since his transaction with Moffatt he had had thesense of living under a new dispensation. He was not sure that it wasany worse than the other; but then he was no longer very sure aboutanything. Perhaps this growing indifference was merely the reaction froma long nervous strain: that his mother and sister thought it so wasshown by the way in which they mutely watched and hovered. Theirdiscretion was like the hushed tread about a sick-bed. They permittedthemselves no criticism of Undine; he was asked no awkward questions, subjected to no ill-timed sympathy. They simply took him back, on hisown terms, into the life he had left them to; and their silence had noneof those subtle implications of disapproval which may be so much morewounding than speech. 

For a while he received a weekly letter from Undine. Vague anddisappointing though they were, these missives helped him through thedays; but he looked forward to them rather as a pretext for replies thanfor their actual contents. Undine was never at a loss for the spokenword: Ralph had often wondered at her verbal range and her fluent use ofterms outside the current vocabulary. She had certainly not picked theseup in books, since she never opened one: they seemed rather like someodd transmission of her preaching grandparent's oratory. But in herbrief and colourless letters she repeated the same bald statements inthe same few terms. She was well, she had been "round" with BerthaShallum, she had dined with the Jim Driscolls or May Beringer or DickyBowles, the weather was too lovely or too awful; such was the gist ofher news. On the last page she hoped Paul was well and sent him a kiss;but she never made a suggestion concerning his care or asked a questionabout his pursuits. One could only infer that, knowing in what goodhands he was, she judged such solicitude superfluous; and it was thusthat Ralph put the matter to his mother. 

"Of course she's not worrying about the boy--why should she? She knowsthat with you and Laura he's as happy as a king. "

To which Mrs. Marvell would answer gravely: "When you write, be sureto say I shan't put on his thinner flannels as long as this east windlasts. "

As for her husband's welfare. Undine's sole allusion to it consistedin the invariable expression of the hope that he was getting along allright: the phrase was always the same, and Ralph learned to knowjust how far down the third page to look for it. In a postscript shesometimes asked him to tell her mother about a new way of doing hair orcutting a skirt; and this was usually the most eloquent passage of theletter. What satisfaction he extracted from these communications hewould have found it hard to say; yet when they did not come he missedthem hardly less than if they had given him all he craved. Sometimes themere act of holding the blue or mauve sheet and breathing its scent waslike holding his wife's hand and being enveloped in her fresh youngfragrance: the sentimental disappointment vanished in the penetratingphysical sensation. In other moods it was enough to trace the lettersof the first line and the last for the desert of perfunctory phrasesbetween the two to vanish, leaving him only the vision of theirinterlaced names, as of a mystic bond which her own hand had tied. Or else he saw her, closely, palpably before him, as she sat at herwriting-table, frowning and a little flushed, her bent nape showing thelight on her hair, her short lip pulled up by the effort of composition;and this picture had the violent reality of dream-images on the verge ofwaking. At other times, as he read her letter, he felt simply that atleast in the moment of writing it she had been with him. But in one ofthe last she had said (to excuse a bad blot and an incoherent sentence):"Everybody's talking to me at once, and I don't know what I'm writing. "That letter he had thrown into the fire.... 

After the first few weeks, the letters came less and less regularly:at the end of two months they ceased. Ralph had got into the habit ofwatching for them on the days when a foreign post was due, and as theweeks went by without a sign he began to invent excuses for leaving theoffice earlier and hurrying back to Washington Square to searchthe letter-box for a big tinted envelope with a straggling blottedsuperscription. 

Undine's departure had given him a momentary sense of liberation: atthat stage in their relations any change would have brought relief. Butnow that she was gone he knew she could never really go. Though hisfeeling for her had changed, it still ruled his life. If he saw her inher weakness he felt her in her power: the power of youth and physicalradiance that clung to his disenchanted memories as the scent she usedclung to her letters. Looking back at their four years of marriage hebegan to ask himself if he had done all he could to draw herhalf-formed spirit from its sleep. Had he not expected too much atfirst, and grown too indifferent in the sequel? After all, she was stillin the toy age; and perhaps the very extravagance of his love hadretarded her growth, helped to imprison her in a little circle offrivolous illusions. But the last months had made a man of him, and whenshe came back he would know how to lift her to the height of hisexperience. 

So he would reason, day by day, as he hastened back to WashingtonSquare; but when he opened the door, and his first glance at the halltable showed him there was no letter there, his illusions shrivelleddown to their weak roots. She had not written: she did not mean towrite. He and the boy were no longer a part of her life. When shecame back everything would be as it had been before, with the drearydifference that she had tasted new pleasures and that their absencewould take the savour from all he had to give her. Then the coming ofanother foreign mail would lift his hopes, and as he hurried home hewould imagine new reasons for expecting a letter.... 

Week after week he swung between the extremes of hope and dejection, and at last, when the strain had become unbearable, he cabled her. Theanswer ran: "Very well best love writing"; but the promised letter nevercame.... 

He went on steadily with his work: he even passed through a phase ofexaggerated energy. But his baffled youth fought in him for air. Wasthis to be the end? Was he to wear his life out in useless drudgery? Theplain prose of it, of course, was that the economic situation remainedunchanged by the sentimental catastrophe and that he must go on workingfor his wife and child. But at any rate, as it was mainly for Paul thathe would henceforth work, it should be on his own terms and according tohis inherited notions of "straightness. " He would never again engage inany transaction resembling his compact with Moffatt. Even now he was notsure there had been anything crooked in that; but the fact of his havinginstinctively referred the point to Mr. Spragg rather than to hisgrandfather implied a presumption against it. 

His partners were quick to profit by his sudden spurt of energy, andhis work grew no lighter. He was not only the youngest and most recentmember of the firm, but the one who had so far added least to the volumeof its business. His hours were the longest, his absences, as summerapproached, the least frequent and the most grudgingly accorded. Nodoubt his associates knew that he was pressed for money and could notrisk a break. They "worked" him, and he was aware of it, and submittedbecause he dared not lose his job. But the long hours of mechanicaldrudgery were telling on his active body and undisciplined nerves. Hehad begun too late to subject himself to the persistent mortification ofspirit and flesh which is a condition of the average business life; andafter the long dull days in the office the evenings at his grandfather'swhist-table did not give him the counter-stimulus he needed. 

Almost every one had gone out of town; but now and then Miss Ray came todine, and Ralph, seated beneath the family portraits and opposite thedesiccated Harriet, who had already faded to the semblance of one ofher own great-aunts, listened languidly to the kind of talk that theoriginals might have exchanged about the same table when New Yorkgentility centred in the Battery and the Bowling Green. Mr. Dagonet wasalways pleasant to see and hear, but his sarcasms were growing faintand recondite: they had as little bearing on life as the humours of aRestoration comedy. As for Mrs. Marvell and Miss Ray, they seemed to theyoung man even more spectrally remote: hardly anything that mattered tohim existed for them, and their prejudices reminded him of sign-postswarning off trespassers who have long since ceased to intrude. 

Now and then he dined at his club and went on to the theatre with someyoung men of his own age; but he left them afterward, half vexed withhimself for not being in the humour to prolong the adventure. Therewere moments when he would have liked to affirm his freedom in howevercommonplace a way: moments when the vulgarest way would have seemedthe most satisfying. But he always ended by walking home alone andtip-toeing upstairs through the sleeping house lest he should wake hisboy.... 

On Saturday afternoons, when the business world was hurrying to thecountry for golf and tennis, he stayed in town and took Paul to see theSpraggs. Several times since his wife's departure he had tried to bringabout closer relations between his own family and Undine's; and theladies of Washington Square, in their eagerness to meet his wishes, hadmade various friendly advances to Mrs. Spragg. But they were met by amute resistance which made Ralph suspect that Undine's strictures on hisfamily had taken root in her mother's brooding mind; and he gave up thestruggle to bring together what had been so effectually put asunder. 

If he regretted his lack of success it was chiefly because he was sosorry for the Spraggs. Soon after Undine's marriage they had abandonedtheir polychrome suite at the Stentorian, and since then theirperegrinations had carried them through half the hotels of themetropolis. Undine, who had early discovered her mistake in thinkinghotel life fashionable, had tried to persuade her parents to take ahouse of their own; but though they refrained from taxing her withinconsistency they did not act on her suggestion. Mrs. Spragg seemedto shrink from the thought of "going back to house-keeping, " and Ralphsuspected that she depended on the transit from hotel to hotel as theone element of variety in her life. As for Mr. Spragg, it was impossibleto imagine any one in whom the domestic sentiments were more completelyunlocalized and disconnected from any fixed habits; and he was probablyaware of his changes of abode chiefly as they obliged him to ascend fromthe Subway, or descend from the "Elevated, " a few blocks higher up orlower down. 

Neither husband nor wife complained to Ralph of their frequentdisplacements, or assigned to them any cause save the vague one of"guessing they could do better"; but Ralph noticed that the decreasingluxury of their life synchronized with Undine's growing demands formoney. During the last few months they had transferred themselves to the"Malibran, " a tall narrow structure resembling a grain-elevator dividedinto cells, where linoleum and lincrusta simulated the stucco and marbleof the Stentorian, and fagged business men and their families consumedthe watery stews dispensed by "coloured help" in the grey twilight of abasement dining-room. 

Mrs. Spragg had no sitting-room, and Paul and his father had to bereceived in one of the long public parlours, between ladies seated atrickety desks in the throes of correspondence and groups of listlesslyconversing residents and callers. 

The Spraggs were intensely proud of their grandson, and Ralph perceivedthat they would have liked to see Paul charging uproariously from groupto group, and thrusting his bright curls and cherubic smile upon thegeneral attention. The fact that the boy preferred to stand between hisgrandfather's knees and play with Mr. Spragg's Masonic emblem, or danglehis legs from the arm of Mrs. Spragg's chair, seemed to his grandparentsevidence of ill-health or undue repression, and he was subjected by Mrs. Spragg to searching enquiries as to how his food set, and whether hedidn't think his Popper was too strict with him. A more embarrassingproblem was raised by the "surprise" (in the shape of peanut candy orchocolate creams) which he was invited to hunt for in Gran'ma's pockets, and which Ralph had to confiscate on the way home lest the dietary rulesof Washington Square should be too visibly infringed. 

Sometimes Ralph found Mrs. Heeny, ruddy and jovial, seated in thearm-chair opposite Mrs. Spragg, and regaling her with selections from anew batch of clippings. During Undine's illness of the previous winterMrs. Heeny had become a familiar figure to Paul, who had learned toexpect almost as much from her bag as from his grandmother's pockets; sothat the intemperate Saturdays at the Malibran were usually followed bylanguid and abstemious Sundays in Washington Square. Mrs. Heeny, beingunaware of this sequel to her bounties, formed the habit of appearingregularly on Saturdays, and while she chatted with his grandmother thelittle boy was encouraged to scatter the grimy carpet with face-creamsand bunches of clippings in his thrilling quest for the sweets at thebottom of her bag. 

"I declare, if he ain't in just as much of a hurry f'r everything as hismother!" she exclaimed one day in her rich rolling voice; and stoopingto pick up a long strip of newspaper which Paul had flung aside sheadded, as she smoothed it out: "I guess 'f he was a little mite olderhe'd be better pleased with this 'n with the candy. It's the very thingI was trying to find for you the other day, Mrs. Spragg, " she went on, holding the bit of paper at arm's length; and she began to read out, with a loudness proportioned to the distance between her eyes and thetext:

"With two such sprinters as 'Pete' Van Degen and Dicky Bowles to set thepace, it's no wonder the New York set in Paris has struck a liveliergait than ever this spring. It's a high-pressure season and no mistake, and no one lags behind less than the fascinating Mrs. Ralph Marvell, who is to be seen daily and nightly in all the smartest restaurants andnaughtiest theatres, with so many devoted swains in attendance that therival beauties of both worlds are said to be making catty comments. Butthen Mrs. Marvell's gowns are almost as good as her looks--and how canyou expect the other women to stand for such a monopoly?"

To escape the strain of these visits, Ralph once or twice tried theexperiment of leaving Paul with his grand-parents and calling for him inthe late afternoon; but one day, on re-entering the Malibran, he was metby a small abashed figure clad in a kaleidoscopic tartan and a greenvelvet cap with a silver thistle. After this experience of the"surprises" of which Gran'ma was capable when she had a chance to takePaul shopping Ralph did not again venture to leave his son, and theirsubsequent Saturdays were passed together in the sultry gloom of theMalibran. Conversation with the Spraggs was almost impossible. Ralphcould talk with his father-in-law in his office, but in the hotelparlour Mr. Spragg sat in a ruminating silence broken only by theemission of an occasional "Well--well" addressed to his grandson. As forMrs. Spragg, her son-in-law could not remember having had a sustainedconversation with her since the distant day when he had first called atthe Stentorian, and had been "entertained, " in Undine's absence, by herastonished mother. The shock of that encounter had moved Mrs. Spragg toeloquence; but Ralph's entrance into the family, without making him seemless of a stranger, appeared once for all to have relieved her of theobligation of finding something to say to him. 

The one question she invariably asked: "You heard from Undie?" had beenrelatively easy to answer while his wife's infrequent letters continuedto arrive; but a Saturday came when he felt the blood rise to histemples as, for the fourth consecutive week, he stammered out, under thesnapping eyes of Mrs. Heeny: "No, not by this post either--I begin tothink I must have lost a letter"; and it was then that Mr. Spragg, who had sat silently looking up at the ceiling, cut short his wife'sexclamation by an enquiry about real estate in the Bronx. After that, Ralph noticed, Mrs. Spragg never again renewed her question; and heunderstood that his father-in-law had guessed his embarrassment andwished to spare it. 

Ralph had never thought of looking for any delicacy of feeling underMr. Spragg's large lazy irony, and the incident drew the two men nearertogether. Mrs. Spragg, for her part, was certainly not delicate; butshe was simple and without malice, and Ralph liked her for her silentacceptance of her diminished state. Sometimes, as he sat between thelonely primitive old couple, he wondered from what source Undine'svoracious ambitions had been drawn: all she cared for, and attachedimportance to, was as remote from her parents' conception of life as herimpatient greed from their passive stoicism. 

One hot afternoon toward the end of June Ralph suddenly wondered ifClare Van Degen were still in town. She had dined in Washington Squaresome ten days earlier, and he remembered her saying that she had sentthe children down to Long Island, but that she herself meant to stay onin town till the heat grew unbearable. She hated her big showy place onLong Island, she was tired of the spring trip to London and Paris, whereone met at every turn the faces one had grown sick of seeing all winter, and she declared that in the early summer New York was the only place inwhich one could escape from New Yorkers... She put the case amusingly, and it was like her to take up any attitude that went against the habitsof her set; but she lived at the mercy of her moods, and one could nevertell how long any one of them would rule her. 

As he sat in his office, with the noise and glare of the endlessafternoon rising up in hot waves from the street, there wandered intoRalph's mind a vision of her shady drawing-room. All day it hung beforehim like the mirage of a spring before a dusty traveller: he felt apositive thirst for her presence, for the sound of her voice, the widespaces and luxurious silences surrounding her. 

It was perhaps because, on that particular day, a spiral pain wastwisting around in the back of his head, and digging in a little deeperwith each twist, and because the figures on the balance sheet before himwere hopping about like black imps in an infernal forward-and-back, that the picture hung there so persistently. It was a long time since hehad wanted anything as much as, at that particular moment, he wanted tobe with Clare and hear her voice; and as soon as he had ground out theday's measure of work he rang up the Van Degen palace and learned thatshe was still in town. 

The lowered awnings of her inner drawing-room cast a luminous shadow onold cabinets and consoles, and on the pale flowers scattered here andthere in vases of bronze and porcelain. Clare's taste was as capriciousas her moods, and the rest of the house was not in harmony with thisroom. There was, in particular, another drawing-room, which she nowdescribed as Peter's creation, but which Ralph knew to be partly hers: aheavily decorated apartment, where Popple's portrait of her throned overa waste of gilt furniture. It was characteristic that to-day she hadhad Ralph shown in by another way; and that, as she had spared him thepolyphonic drawing-room, so she had skilfully adapted her own appearanceto her soberer background. She sat near the window, reading, in a clearcool dress: and at his entrance she merely slipped a finger between thepages and looked up at him. 

Her way of receiving him made him feel that restlessness and stridencywere as unlike her genuine self as the gilded drawing-room, and thatthis quiet creature was the only real Clare, the Clare who had once beenso nearly his, and who seemed to want him to know that she had neverwholly been any one else's. 

"Why didn't you let me know you were still in town?" he asked, as he satdown in the sofa-corner near her chair. 

Her dark smile deepened. "I hoped you'd come and see. "

"One never knows, with you. "

He was looking about the room with a kind of confused pleasure in itspale shadows and spots of dark rich colour. The old lacquer screenbehind Clare's head looked like a lustreless black pool with gold leavesfloating on it; and another piece, a little table at her elbow, had thebrown bloom and the pear-like curves of an old violin. 

"I like to be here, " Ralph said. 

She did not make the mistake of asking: "Then why do you never come?"Instead, she turned away and drew an inner curtain across the window toshut out the sunlight which was beginning to slant in under the awning. 

The mere fact of her not answering, and the final touch of well-beingwhich her gesture gave, reminded him of other summer days they had spenttogether long rambling boy-and-girl days in the hot woods and fields, when they had never thought of talking to each other unless there wassomething they particularly wanted to say. His tired fancy strayed offfor a second to the thought of what it would have been like come back, at the end of the day, to such a sweet community of silence; but hismind was too crowded with importunate facts for any lasting view ofvisionary distances. The thought faded, and he merely felt how restfulit was to have her near... 

"I'm glad you stayed in town: you must let me come again, " he said. 

"I suppose you can't always get away, " she answered; and she began tolisten, with grave intelligent eyes, to his description of his tediousdays. 

With her eyes on him he felt the exquisite relief of talking abouthimself as he had not dared to talk to any one since his marriage. He would not for the world have confessed his discouragement, hisconsciousness of incapacity; to Undine and in Washington Square anyhint of failure would have been taken as a criticism of what his wifedemanded of him. Only to Clare Van Degen could he cry out his presentdespondency and his loathing of the interminable task ahead. 

"A man doesn't know till he tries it how killing uncongenial work is, and how it destroys the power of doing what one's fit for, even ifthere's time for both. But there's Paul to be looked out for, and Idaren't chuck my job--I'm in mortal terror of its chucking me... "

Little by little he slipped into a detailed recital of all his lesserworries, the most recent of which was his experience with the Lipscombs, who, after a two months' tenancy of the West End Avenue house, haddecamped without paying their rent. 

Clare laughed contemptuously. "Yes--I heard he'd come to grief and beensuspended from the Stock Exchange, and I see in the papers that hiswife's retort has been to sue for a divorce. "

Ralph knew that, like all their clan, his cousin regarded a divorce-suitas a vulgar and unnecessary way of taking the public into one'sconfidence. His mind flashed back to the family feast in WashingtonSquare in celebration of his engagement. He recalled his grandfather'schance allusion to Mrs. Lipscomb, and Undine's answer, fluted out on herhighest note: "Oh, I guess she'll get a divorce pretty soon. He's been adisappointment to her. "

Ralph could still hear the horrified murmur with which his mother hadrebuked his laugh. For he had laughed--had thought Undine's speech freshand natural! Now he felt the ironic rebound of her words. Heaven knew hehad been a disappointment to her; and what was there in her own feeling, or in her inherited prejudices, to prevent her seeking the same redressas Mabel Lipscomb? He wondered if the same thought were in his cousin'smind... 

They began to talk of other things: books, pictures, plays; and oneby one the closed doors opened and light was let into dusty shutteredplaces. Clare's mind was neither keen nor deep: Ralph, in the past, hadsmiled at her rash ardours and vague intensities. But she had his ownrange of allusions, and a great gift of momentary understanding; andhe had so long beaten his thoughts out against a blank wall ofincomprehension that her sympathy seemed full of insight. 

She began by a question about his writing, but the subject wasdistasteful to him, and he turned the talk to a new book in which he hadbeen interested. She knew enough of it to slip in the right word hereand there; and thence they wandered on to kindred topics. Under thewarmth of her attention his torpid ideas awoke again, and his eyes tooktheir fill of pleasure as she leaned forward, her thin brown handsclasped on her knees and her eager face reflecting all his feelings. 

There was a moment when the two currents of sensation were merged inone, and he began to feel confusedly that he was young and she was kind, and that there was nothing he would like better than to go on sittingthere, not much caring what she said or how he answered, if only shewould let him look at her and give him one of her thin brown hands tohold. Then the corkscrew in the back of his head dug into him again witha deeper thrust, and she seemed suddenly to recede to a great distanceand be divided from him by a fog of pain. The fog lifted after a minute, but it left him queerly remote from her, from the cool room with itsscents and shadows, and from all the objects which, a moment before, hadso sharply impinged upon his senses. It was as though he looked at itall through a rain-blurred pane, against which his hand would strike ifhe held it out to her... 

That impression passed also, and he found himself thinking how tired hewas and how little anything mattered. He recalled the unfinished pieceof work on his desk, and for a moment had the odd illusion that it wasthere before him... 

She exclaimed: "But are you going?" and her exclamation made him awarethat he had left his seat and was standing in front of her... He fanciedthere was some kind of appeal in her brown eyes; but she was so dim andfar off that he couldn't be sure of what she wanted, and the next momenthe found himself shaking hands with her, and heard her saying somethingkind and cold about its having been so nice to see him... 

Half way up the stairs little Paul, shining and rosy from supper, lurkedin ambush for his evening game. Ralph was fond of stooping down to letthe boy climb up his outstretched arms to his shoulders, but to-day, ashe did so, Paul's hug seemed to crush him in a vice, and the shoutof welcome that accompanied it racked his ears like an explosion ofsteam-whistles. The queer distance between himself and the rest of theworld was annihilated again: everything stared and glared and clutchedhim. He tried to turn away his face from the child's hot kisses; and ashe did so he caught sight of a mauve envelope among the hats and stickson the hall table. 

Instantly he passed Paul over to his nurse, stammered out a word aboutbeing tired, and sprang up the long flights to his study. The painin his head had stopped, but his hands trembled as he tore open theenvelope. Within it was a second letter bearing a French stamp andaddressed to himself. It looked like a business communication and hadapparently been sent to Undine's hotel in Paris and forwarded to him byher hand. "Another bill!" he reflected grimly, as he threw it aside andfelt in the outer envelope for her letter. There was nothing there, andafter a first sharp pang of disappointment he picked up the enclosureand opened it. 

Inside was a lithographed circular, headed "Confidential" and bearingthe Paris address of a firm of private detectives who undertook, inconditions of attested and inviolable discretion, to investigate"delicate" situations, look up doubtful antecedents, and furnishreliable evidence of misconduct--all on the most reasonable terms. 

For a long time Ralph sat and stared at this document; then he began tolaugh and tossed it into the scrap-basket. After that, with a groan, hedropped his head against the edge of his writing table. 

XXII

When he woke, the first thing he remembered was the fact of havingcried. 

He could not think how he had come to be such a fool. He hoped to heavenno one had seen him. He supposed he must have been worrying about theunfinished piece of work at the office: where was it, by the way, hewondered? Why--where he had left it the day before, of course! What aridiculous thing to worry about--but it seemed to follow him about likea dog... 

He said to himself that he must get up presently and go down to theoffice. Presently--when he could open his eyes. Just now there was adead weight on them; he tried one after another in vain. The effort sethim weakly trembling, and he wanted to cry again. Nonsense! He must getout of bed. 

He stretched his arms out, trying to reach something to pull himself upby; but everything slipped away and evaded him. It was like tryingto catch at bright short waves. Then suddenly his fingers claspedthemselves about something firm and warm. A hand: a hand that gave backhis pressure! The relief was inexpressible. He lay still and let thehand hold him, while mentally he went through the motions of gettingup and beginning to dress. So indistinct were the boundaries betweenthought and action that he really felt himself moving about the room, ina queer disembodied way, as one treads the air in sleep. Then he feltthe bedclothes over him and the pillows under his head. 

"I MUST get up, " he said, and pulled at the hand. 

It pressed him down again: down into a dim deep pool of sleep. He laythere for a long time, in a silent blackness far below light and sound;then he gradually floated to the surface with the buoyancy of a deadbody. But his body had never been more alive. Jagged strokes of paintore through it, hands dragged at it with nails that bit like teeth. They wound thongs about him, bound him, tied weights to him, tried topull him down with them; but still he floated, floated, danced on thefiery waves of pain, with barbed light pouring down on him from anarrowy sky. 

Charmed intervals of rest, blue sailings on melodious seas, alternatedwith the anguish. He became a leaf on the air, a feather on a current, astraw on the tide, the spray of the wave spinning itself to sunshine asthe wave toppled over into gulfs of blue... 

He woke on a stony beach, his legs and arms still lashed to his sidesand the thongs cutting into him; but the fierce sky was hidden, andhidden by his own languid lids. He felt the ecstasy of decreasing pain, and courage came to him to open his eyes and look about him... 

The beach was his own bed; the tempered light lay on familiar things, and some one was moving about in a shadowy way between bed and window. He was thirsty and some one gave him a drink. His pillow burned, andsome one turned the cool side out. His brain was clear enough now forhim to understand that he was ill, and to want to talk about it; but histongue hung in his throat like a clapper in a bell. He must wait tillthe rope was pulled... 

So time and life stole back on him, and his thoughts laboured weaklywith dim fears. Slowly he cleared a way through them, adjusted himselfto his strange state, and found out that he was in his own room, in hisgrandfather's house, that alternating with the white-capped faces abouthim were those of his mother and sister, and that in a few days--if hetook his beef-tea and didn't fret--Paul would be brought up from LongIsland, whither, on account of the great heat, he had been carried offby Clare Van Degen. 

No one named Undine to him, and he did not speak of her. But one day, as he lay in bed in the summer twilight, he had a vision of a moment, a long way behind him--at the beginning of his illness, it must havebeen--when he had called out for her in his anguish, and some one hadsaid: "She's coming: she'll be here next week. "

Could it be that next week was not yet here? He supposed that illnessrobbed one of all sense of time, and he lay still, as if in ambush, watching his scattered memories come out one by one and join themselvestogether. If he watched long enough he was sure he should recognize onethat fitted into his picture of the day when he had asked for Undine. And at length a face came out of the twilight: a freckled face, benevolently bent over him under a starched cap. He had not seen theface for a long time, but suddenly it took shape and fitted itself intothe picture... 

Laura Fairford sat near by, a book on her knee. At the sound of hisvoice she looked up. 

"What was the name of the first nurse?"

"The first--?"

"The one that went away. "

"Oh--Miss Hicks, you mean?"

"How long is it since she went?"

"It must be three weeks. She had another case. "

He thought this over carefully; then he spoke again. "Call Undine. "

She made no answer, and he repeated irritably: "Why don't you call her?I want to speak to her. "

Mrs. Fairford laid down her book and came to him. 

"She's not here--just now. "

He dealt with this also, laboriously. "You mean she's out--she's not inthe house?"

"I mean she hasn't come yet. "

As she spoke Ralph felt a sudden strength and hardness in his brain andbody. Everything in him became as clear as noon. 

"But it was before Miss Hicks left that you told me you'd sent for her, and that she'd be here the following week. And you say Miss Hicks hasbeen gone three weeks. "

This was what he had worked out in his head, and what he meant to sayto his sister; but something seemed to snap shut in his throat, and heclosed his eyes without speaking. 

Even when Mr. Spragg came to see him he said nothing. They talked abouthis illness, about the hot weather, about the rumours that Harmon B. Driscoll was again threatened with indictment; and then Mr. Spraggpulled himself out of his chair and said: "I presume you'll call roundat the office before you leave the city. "

"Oh, yes: as soon as I'm up, " Ralph answered. They understood eachother. 

Clare had urged him to come down to Long Island and complete hisconvalescence there, but he preferred to stay in Washington Square tillhe should be strong enough for the journey to the Adirondacks, whitherLaura had already preceded him with Paul. He did not want to see anyone but his mother and grandfather till his legs could carry him to Mr. Spragg's office. It was an oppressive day in mid-August, with ayellow mist of heat in the sky, when at last he entered the bigoffice-building. Swirls of dust lay on the mosaic floor, and a stalesmell of decayed fruit and salt air and steaming asphalt filled theplace like a fog. As he shot up in the elevator some one slapped himon the back, and turning he saw Elmer Moffatt at his side, smooth andrubicund under a new straw hat. 

Moffatt was loudly glad to see him. "I haven't laid eyes on you formonths. At the old stand still?"

"So am I, " he added, as Ralph assented. "Hope to see you there againsome day. Don't forget it's MY turn this time: glad if I can be any useto you. So long. " Ralph's weak bones ached under his handshake. 

"How's Mrs. Marvell?" he turned back from his landing to call out; andRalph answered: "Thanks; she's very well. "

Mr. Spragg sat alone in his murky inner office, the fly-blown engravingof Daniel Webster above his head and the congested scrap-basket beneathhis feet. He looked fagged and sallow, like the day. 

Ralph sat down on the other side of the desk. For a moment his throatcontracted as it had when he had tried to question his sister; then heasked: "Where's Undine?"

Mr. Spragg glanced at the calendar that hung from a hat-peg on the door. Then he released the Masonic emblem from his grasp, drew out his watchand consulted it critically. 

"If the train's on time I presume she's somewhere between Chicago andOmaha round about now. "

Ralph stared at him, wondering if the heat had gone to his head. "Idon't understand. "

"The Twentieth Century's generally considered the best route to Dakota, "explained Mr. Spragg, who pronounced the word ROWT. 

"Do you mean to say Undine's in the United States?"

Mr. Spragg's lower lip groped for the phantom tooth-pick. "Why, let mesee: hasn't Dakota been a state a year or two now?"

"Oh, God--" Ralph cried, pushing his chair back violently and stridingacross the narrow room. 

As he turned, Mr. Spragg stood up and advanced a few steps. He had givenup the quest for the tooth-pick, and his drawn-in lips were no morethan a narrow depression in his beard. He stood before Ralph, absentlyshaking the loose change in his trouser-pockets. 

Ralph felt the same hardness and lucidity that had come to him when hehad heard his sister's answer. 

"She's gone, you mean? Left me? With another man?"

Mr. Spragg drew himself up with a kind of slouching majesty. "Mydaughter is not that style. I understand Undine thinks there have beenmistakes on both sides. She considers the tie was formed too hastily. Ibelieve desertion is the usual plea in such cases. "

Ralph stared about him, hardly listening. He did not resent hisfather-in-law's tone. In a dim way he guessed that Mr. Spragg wassuffering hardly less than himself. But nothing was clear to him savethe monstrous fact suddenly upheaved in his path. His wife had left him, and the plan for her evasion had been made and executed while he layhelpless: she had seized the opportunity of his illness to keep him inignorance of her design. The humour of it suddenly struck him and helaughed. 

"Do you mean to tell me that Undine's divorcing ME?"

"I presume that's her plan, " Mr. Spragg admitted. 

"For desertion?" Ralph pursued, still laughing. 

His father-in-law hesitated a moment; then he answered: "You've alwaysdone all you could for my daughter. There wasn't any other plea shecould think of. She presumed this would be the most agreeable to yourfamily. "

"It was good of her to think of that!"

Mr. Spragg's only comment was a sigh. 

"Does she imagine I won't fight it?" Ralph broke out with suddenpassion. 

His father-in-law looked at him thoughtfully. "I presume you realize itain't easy to change Undine, once she's set on a thing. "

"Perhaps not. But if she really means to apply for a divorce I can makeit a little less easy for her to get. "

"That's so, " Mr. Spragg conceded. He turned back to his revolving chair, and seating himself in it began to drum on the desk with cigar-stainedfingers. 

"And by God, I will!" Ralph thundered. Anger was the only emotion in himnow. He had been fooled, cheated, made a mock of; but the score was notsettled yet. He turned back and stood before Mr. Spragg. 

"I suppose she's gone with Van Degen?"

"My daughter's gone alone, sir. I saw her off at the station. Iunderstood she was to join a lady friend. "

At every point Ralph felt his hold slip off the surface of hisfather-in-law's impervious fatalism. 

"Does she suppose Van Degen's going to marry her?"

"Undine didn't mention her future plans to me. " After a moment Mr. Spragg appended: "If she had, I should have declined to discuss themwith her. " Ralph looked at him curiously, perceiving that he intended inthis negative way to imply his disapproval of his daughter's course. 

"I shall fight it--I shall fight it!" the young man cried again. "Youmay tell her I shall fight it to the end!"

Mr. Spragg pressed the nib of his pen against the dust-coated inkstand. "I suppose you would have to engage a lawyer. She'll know it that way, "he remarked. 

"She'll know it--you may count on that!"

Ralph had begun to laugh again. Suddenly he heard his own laugh and itpulled him up. What was he laughing about? What was he talking about?The thing was to act--to hold his tongue and act. There was no useuttering windy threats to this broken-spirited old man. 

A fury of action burned in Ralph, pouring light into his mind andstrength into his muscles. He caught up his hat and turned to the door. 

As he opened it Mr. Spragg rose again and came forward with his slowshambling step. He laid his hand on Ralph's arm. 

"I'd 'a' given anything--anything short of my girl herself--not to havethis happen to you, Ralph Marvell. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Ralph. 

They looked at each other for a moment; then Mr. Spragg added: "Butit HAS happened, you know. Bear that in mind. Nothing you can do willchange it. Time and again, I've found that a good thing to remember. "

XXIII

In the Adirondacks Ralph Marvell sat day after day on the balcony ofhis little house above the lake, staring at the great whitecloud-reflections in the water and at the dark line of trees that closedthem in. Now and then he got into the canoe and paddled himself througha winding chain of ponds to some lonely clearing in the forest; andthere he lay on his back in the pine-needles and watched the greatclouds form and dissolve themselves above his head. 

All his past life seemed to be symbolized by the building-up andbreaking-down of those fluctuating shapes, which incalculablewind-currents perpetually shifted and remodelled or swept from thezenith like a pinch of dust. His sister told him that he lookedwell--better than he had in years; and there were moments when hislistlessness, his stony insensibility to the small pricks and frictionsof daily life, might have passed for the serenity of recovered health. 

There was no one with whom he could speak of Undine. His family hadthrown over the whole subject a pall of silence which even LauraFairford shrank from raising. As for his mother, Ralph had seen at oncethat the idea of talking over the situation was positively frighteningto her. There was no provision for such emergencies in the moral orderof Washington Square. The affair was a "scandal, " and it was not inthe Dagonet tradition to acknowledge the existence of scandals. Ralphrecalled a dim memory of his childhood, the tale of a misguided friendof his mother's who had left her husband for a more congenial companion, and who, years later, returning ill and friendless to New York, hadappealed for sympathy to Mrs. Marvell. The latter had not refused togive it; but she had put on her black cashmere and two veils when shewent to see her unhappy friend, and had never mentioned these errands ofmercy to her husband. 

Ralph suspected that the constraint shown by his mother and sister waspartly due to their having but a dim and confused view of what hadhappened. In their vocabulary the word "divorce" was wrapped in such adark veil of innuendo as no ladylike hand would care to lift. They hadnot reached the point of differentiating divorces, but classed themindistinctively as disgraceful incidents, in which the woman was alwaysto blame, but the man, though her innocent victim, was yet inevitablycontaminated. The time involved in the "proceedings" was viewed as apenitential season during which it behoved the family of the personsconcerned to behave as if they were dead; yet any open allusion to thereason for adopting such an attitude would have been regarded as theheight of indelicacy. 

Mr. Dagonet's notion of the case was almost as remote from reality. Allhe asked was that his grandson should "thrash" somebody, and he couldnot be made to understand that the modern drama of divorce is sometimescast without a Lovelace. 

"You might as well tell me there was nobody but Adam in the garden whenEve picked the apple. You say your wife was discontented? No woman everknows she's discontented till some man tells her so. My God! I've seensmash-ups before now; but I never yet saw a marriage dissolved likea business partnership. Divorce without a lover? Why, it's--it's asunnatural as getting drunk on lemonade. "

After this first explosion Mr. Dagonet also became silent; and Ralphperceived that what annoyed him most was the fact of the "scandal's" notbeing one in any gentlemanly sense of the word. It was like some nastybusiness mess, about which Mr. Dagonet couldn't pretend to have anopinion, since such things didn't happen to men of his kind. That sucha thing should have happened to his only grandson was probably thebitterest experience of his pleasantly uneventful life; and it added atouch of irony to Ralph's unhappiness to know how little, in the wholeaffair, he was cutting the figure Mr. Dagonet expected him to cut. 

At first he had chafed under the taciturnity surrounding him: hadpassionately longed to cry out his humiliation, his rebellion, hisdespair. Then he began to feel the tonic effect of silence; and the nextstage was reached when it became clear to him that there was nothing tosay. There were thoughts and thoughts: they bubbled up perpetuallyfrom the black springs of his hidden misery, they stole on him in thedarkness of night, they blotted out the light of day; but when it cameto putting them into words and applying them to the external factsof the case, they seemed totally unrelated to it. One more white andsun-touched glory had gone from his sky; but there seemed no way ofconnecting that with such practical issues as his being called on todecide whether Paul was to be put in knickerbockers or trousers, andwhether he should go back to Washington Square for the winter or hire asmall house for himself and his son. 

The latter question was ultimately decided by his remaining under hisgrandfather's roof. November found him back in the office again, infairly good health, with an outer skin of indifference slowly formingover his lacerated soul. There had been a hard minute to live throughwhen he came back to his old brown room in Washington Square. The wallsand tables were covered with photographs of Undine: effigies of allshapes and sizes, expressing every possible sentiment dear to thephotographic tradition. Ralph had gathered them all up when he had movedfrom West End Avenue after Undine's departure for Europe, and theythroned over his other possessions as her image had throned over hisfuture the night he had sat in that very room and dreamed of soaring upwith her into the blue... 

It was impossible to go on living with her photographs about him; andone evening, going up to his room after dinner, he began to unhang themfrom the walls, and to gather them up from book-shelves and mantel-pieceand tables. Then he looked about for some place in which to hide them. There were drawers under his book-cases; but they were full of olddiscarded things, and even if he emptied the drawers, the photographs, in their heavy frames, were almost all too large to fit into them. Heturned next to the top shelf of his cupboard; but here the nurse hadstored Paul's old toys, his sand-pails, shovels and croquet-box. Everycorner was packed with the vain impedimenta of living, and the merethought of clearing a space in the chaos was too great an effort. 

He began to replace the pictures one by one; and the last was still inhis hand when he heard his sister's voice outside. He hurriedly putthe portrait back in its usual place on his writing-table, and Mrs. Fairford, who had been dining in Washington Square, and had come up tobid him good night, flung her arms about him in a quick embrace and wentdown to her carriage. 

The next afternoon, when he came home from the office, he did not atfirst see any change in his room; but when he had lit his pipe andthrown himself into his arm-chair he noticed that the photograph of hiswife's picture by Popple no longer faced him from the mantel-piece. Heturned to his writing-table, but her image had vanished from there too;then his eye, making the circuit of the walls, perceived that they alsohad been stripped. Not a single photograph of Undine was left; yet soadroitly had the work of elimination been done, so ingeniously theremaining objects readjusted, that the change attracted no attention. 

Ralph was angry, sore, ashamed. He felt as if Laura, whose hand heinstantly detected, had taken a cruel pleasure in her work, and for aninstant he hated her for it. Then a sense of relief stole over him. Hewas glad he could look about him without meeting Undine's eyes, and heunderstood that what had been done to his room he must do to his memoryand his imagination: he must so readjust his mind that, whichever way heturned his thoughts, her face should no longer confront him. Butthat was a task that Laura could not perform for him, a task to beaccomplished only by the hard continuous tension of his will. 

With the setting in of the mood of silence all desire to fight hiswife's suit died out. The idea of touching publicly on anything that hadpassed between himself and Undine had become unthinkable. Insensibly hehad been subdued to the point of view about him, and the idea of callingon the law to repair his shattered happiness struck him as even moregrotesque than it was degrading. Nevertheless, some contradictoryimpulse of his divided spirit made him resent, on the part of his motherand sister, a too-ready acceptance of his attitude. There were momentswhen their tacit assumption that his wife was banished and forgottenirritated him like the hushed tread of sympathizers about the bed of aninvalid who will not admit that he suffers. 

His irritation was aggravated by the discovery that Mrs. Marvell andLaura had already begun to treat Paul as if he were an orphan. One day, coming unnoticed into the nursery, Ralph heard the boy ask when hismother was coming back; and Mrs. Fairford, who was with him, answered:"She's not coming back, dearest; and you're not to speak of her tofather. "

Ralph, when the boy was out of hearing, rebuked his sister for heranswer. "I don't want you to talk of his mother as if she were dead. Idon't want you to forbid Paul to speak of her. "

Laura, though usually so yielding, defended herself. "What's the use ofencouraging him to speak of her when he's never to see her? The soonerhe forgets her the better. "

Ralph pondered. "Later--if she asks to see him--I shan't refuse. "

Mrs. Fairford pressed her lips together to check the answer: "She neverwill!"

Ralph heard it, nevertheless, and let it pass. Nothing gave him soprofound a sense of estrangement from his former life as the convictionthat his sister was probably right. He did not really believe thatUndine would ever ask to see her boy; but if she did he was determinednot to refuse her request. 

Time wore on, the Christmas holidays came and went, and the wintercontinued to grind out the weary measure of its days. Toward the endof January Ralph received a registered letter, addressed to him at hisoffice, and bearing in the corner of the envelope the names of a firm ofSioux Falls attorneys. He instantly divined that it contained the legalnotification of his wife's application for divorce, and as he wrote hisname in the postman's book he smiled grimly at the thought that thestroke of his pen was doubtless signing her release. He opened theletter, found it to be what he had expected, and locked it away in hisdesk without mentioning the matter to any one. 

He supposed that with the putting away of this document he was thrustingthe whole subject out of sight; but not more than a fortnight later, ashe sat in the Subway on his way down-town, his eye was caught by hisown name on the first page of the heavily head-lined paper which theunshaved occupant of the next seat held between grimy fists. The bloodrushed to Ralph's forehead as he looked over the man's arm and read:"Society Leader Gets Decree, " and beneath it the subordinate clause:"Says Husband Too Absorbed In Business To Make Home Happy. " For weeksafterward, wherever he went, he felt that blush upon his forehead. Forthe first time in his life the coarse fingering of public curiosity hadtouched the secret places of his soul, and nothing that had gone beforeseemed as humiliating as this trivial comment on his tragedy. Theparagraph continued on its way through the press, and whenever he tookup a newspaper he seemed to come upon it, slightly modified, variouslydeveloped, but always reverting with a kind of unctuous irony to hisfinancial preoccupations and his wife's consequent loneliness. Thephrase was even taken up by the paragraph writer, called forth excitedletters from similarly situated victims, was commented on in humorouseditorials and served as a text for pulpit denunciations of the growingcraze for wealth; and finally, at his dentist's, Ralph came across itin a Family Weekly, as one of the "Heart problems" propounded tosubscribers, with a Gramophone, a Straight-front Corset and aVanity-box among the prizes offered for its solution. 

XXIV

"If you'd only had the sense to come straight to me, Undine Spragg!There isn't a tip I couldn't have given you--not one!"

This speech, in which a faintly contemptuous compassion for her friend'scase was blent with the frankest pride in her own, probably representedthe nearest approach to "tact" that Mrs. James J. Rolliver had yetacquired. Undine was impartial enough to note in it a distinct advanceon the youthful methods of Indiana Frusk; yet it required a good dealof self-control to take the words to herself with a smile, while theyseemed to be laying a visible scarlet welt across the pale face she keptvaliantly turned to her friend. The fact that she must permit herself tobe pitied by Indiana Frusk gave her the uttermost measure of the depthto which her fortunes had fallen. This abasement was inflicted on herin the staring gold apartment of the Hotel Nouveau Luxe in which theRollivers had established themselves on their recent arrival in Paris. The vast drawing-room, adorned only by two high-shouldered gilt basketsof orchids drooping on their wires, reminded Undine of the "Looey suite"in which the opening scenes of her own history had been enacted; andthe resemblance and the difference were emphasized by the fact that theimage of her past self was not inaccurately repeated in the triumphantpresence of Indiana Rolliver. 

"There isn't a tip I couldn't have given you--not one!" Mrs. Rolliver reproachfully repeated; and all Undine's superiorities anddiscriminations seemed to shrivel up in the crude blaze of the other'ssolid achievement. 

There was little comfort in noting, for one's private delectation, thatIndiana spoke of her husband as "Mr. Rolliver, " that she twanged apiercing R, that one of her shoulders was still higher than the other, and that her striking dress was totally unsuited to the hour, theplace and the occasion. She still did and was all that Undine had sosedulously learned not to be and to do; but to dwell on these obstaclesto her success was but to be more deeply impressed by the fact that shehad nevertheless succeeded. 

Not much more than a year had elapsed since Undine Marvell, sittingin the drawing-room of another Parisian hotel, had heard the immenseorchestral murmur of Paris rise through the open windows like theascending movement of her own hopes. The immense murmur still soundedon, deafening and implacable as some elemental force; and the discord inher fate no more disturbed it than the motor wheels rolling by underthe windows were disturbed by the particles of dust that they ground tofiner powder as they passed. 

"I could have told you one thing right off, " Mrs. Rolliver went on withher ringing energy. "And that is, to get your divorce first thing. Adivorce is always a good thing to have: you never can tell when you maywant it. You ought to have attended to that before you even BEGAN withPeter Van Degen. "

Undine listened, irresistibly impressed. "Did YOU?" she asked; but Mrs. Rolliver, at this, grew suddenly veiled and sibylline. She wound herbig bejewelled hand through her pearls--there were ropes and ropes ofthem--and leaned back, modestly sinking her lids. 

"I'm here, anyhow, " she rejoined, with "CIRCUMSPICE!" in look and tone. 

Undine, obedient to the challenge, continued to gaze at the pearls. They were real; there was no doubt about that. And so was Indiana'smarriage--if she kept out of certain states. 

"Don't you see, " Mrs. Rolliver continued, "that having to leave him whenyou did, and rush off to Dakota for six months, was--was giving him toomuch time to think; and giving it at the wrong time, too?" "Oh, I see. But what could I do? I'm not an immoral woman. "

"Of course not, dearest. You were merely thoughtless that's what I meantby saying you ought to have had your divorce ready. "

A flicker of self-esteem caused Undine to protest. "It wouldn't havemade any difference. His wife would never have given him up. "

"She's so crazy about him?"

"No: she hates him so. And she hates me too, because she's in love withmy husband. "

Indiana bounced out of her lounging attitude and struck her handstogether with a rattle of rings. 

"In love with your husband? What's the matter, then? Why on earth didn'tthe four of you fix it up together?"

"You don't understand. " (It was an undoubted relief to be able, at last, to say that to Indiana!) "Clare Van Degen thinks divorce wrong--orrather awfully vulgar. "

"VULGAR?" Indiana flamed. "If that isn't just too much! A woman who's inlove with another woman's husband? What does she think refined, I'd liketo know? Having a lover, I suppose--like the women in these nasty Frenchplays? I've told Mr. Rolliver I won't go to the theatre with him againin Paris--it's too utterly low. And the swell society's just as bad:it's simply rotten. Thank goodness I was brought up in a place wherethere's some sense of decency left!" She looked compassionately atUndine. "It was New York that demoralized you--and I don't blame you forit. Out at Apex you'd have acted different. You never NEVER would havegiven way to your feelings before you'd got your divorce. "

A slow blush rose to Undine's forehead. 

"He seemed so unhappy--" she murmured. 

"Oh, I KNOW!" said Indiana in a tone of cold competence. She gave Undinean impatient glance. "What was the understanding between you, when youleft Europe last August to go out to Dakota?"

"Peter was to go to Reno in the autumn--so that it wouldn't look toomuch as if we were acting together. I was to come to Chicago to see himon his way out there. "

"And he never came?"

"No. "

"And he stopped writing?"

"Oh, he never writes. "

Indiana heaved a deep sigh of intelligence. "There's one perfectly clearrule: never let out of your sight a man who doesn't write. "

"I know. That's why I stayed with him--those few weeks last summer.... "

Indiana sat thinking, her fine shallow eyes fixed unblinkingly on herfriend's embarrassed face. 

"I suppose there isn't anybody else--?"

"Anybody--?"

"Well--now you've got your divorce: anybody else it would come in handyfor?"

This was harder to bear than anything that had gone before: Undine couldnot have borne it if she had not had a purpose. "Mr. Van Degen owes itto me--" she began with an air of wounded dignity. 

"Yes, yes: I know. But that's just talk. If there IS anybody else--"

"I can't imagine what you think of me, Indiana!"

Indiana, without appearing to resent this challenge, again lost herselfin meditation. 

"Well, I'll tell him he's just GOT to see you, " she finally emerged fromit to say. 

Undine gave a quick upward look: this was what she had been waitingfor ever since she had read, a few days earlier, in the columns of hermorning journal, that Mr. Peter Van Degen and Mr. And Mrs. James J. Rolliver had been fellow-passengers on board the Semantic. But she didnot betray her expectations by as much as the tremor of an eye-lash. Sheknew her friend well enough to pour out to her the expected tribute ofsurprise. 

"Why, do you mean to say you know him, Indiana?"

"Mercy, yes! He's round here all the time. He crossed on the steamerwith us, and Mr. Rolliver's taken a fancy to him, " Indiana explained, inthe tone of the absorbed bride to whom her husband's preferences are thesole criterion. 

Undine turned a tear-suffused gaze on her. "Oh, Indiana, if I could onlysee him again I know it would be all right! He's awfully, awfully fondof me; but his family have influenced him against me--"

"I know what THAT is!" Mrs. Rolliver interjected. 

"But perhaps, " Undine continued, "it would be better if I could meet himfirst without his knowing beforehand--without your telling him ... Ilove him too much to reproach him!" she added nobly. 

Indiana pondered: it was clear that, though the nobility of thesentiment impressed her, she was disinclined to renounce the idea oftaking a more active part in her friend's rehabilitation. But Undinewent on: "Of course you've found out by this time that he's just a bigspoiled baby. Afterward--when I've seen him--if you'd talk to him; or ityou'd only just let him BE with you, and see how perfectly happy you andMr. Rolliver are!"

Indiana seized on this at once. "You mean that what he wants is theinfluence of a home like ours? Yes, yes, I understand. I tell you whatI'll do: I'll just ask him round to dine, and let you know the day, without telling him beforehand that you're coming. "

"Oh, Indiana!" Undine held her in a close embrace, and then drew awayto say: "I'm so glad I found you. You must go round with me everywhere. There are lots of people here I want you to know. "

Mrs. Rolliver's expression changed from vague sympathy to concentratedinterest. "I suppose it's awfully gay here? Do you go round a great dealwith the American set?"

Undine hesitated for a fraction of a moment. "There are a few of themwho are rather jolly. But I particularly want you to meet my friend theMarquis Roviano--he's from Rome; and a lovely Austrian woman, BaronessAdelschein. "

Her friend's face was brushed by a shade of distrust. "I don't know as Icare much about meeting foreigners, " she said indifferently. 

Undine smiled: it was agreeable at last to be able to give Indiana a"point" as valuable as any of hers on divorce. 

"Oh, some of them are awfully attractive; and THEY'LL make you meet theAmericans. "

Indiana caught this on the bound: one began to see why she had got on inspite of everything. 

"Of course I'd love to know your friends, " she said, kissing Undine; whoanswered, giving back the kiss:

"You know there's nothing on earth I wouldn't do for you. "

Indiana drew back to look at her with a comic grimace under which ashade of anxiety was visible. "Well, that's a pretty large order. Butthere's just one thing you CAN do, dearest: please to let Mr. Rolliveralone!"

"Mr. Rolliver, my dear?" Undine's laugh showed that she took this forunmixed comedy. "That's a nice way to remind me that you're heaps andheaps better-looking than I am!"

Indiana gave her an acute glance. "Millard Binch didn't think so--noteven at the very end. "

"Oh, poor Millard!" The women's smiles mingled easily over the commonreminiscence, and once again, on the threshold. Undine enfolded herfriend. In the light of the autumn afternoon she paused a moment atthe door of the Nouveau Luxe, and looked aimlessly forth at the bravespectacle in which she seemed no longer to have a stake. 

Many of her old friends had already returned to Paris: the HarveyShallums, May Beringer, Dicky Bowles and other westward-bound nomadslingering on for a glimpse of the autumn theatres and fashions beforehurrying back to inaugurate the New York season. A year ago Undine wouldhave had no difficulty in introducing Indiana Rolliver to this group--agroup above which her own aspirations already beat an impatient wing. Now her place in it had become too precarious for her to force anentrance for her protectress. Her New York friends were at no pains toconceal from her that in their opinion her divorce had been a blunder. Their logic was that of Apex reversed. Since she had not been "sure" ofVan Degen, why in the world, they asked, had she thrown away a positionshe WAS sure of? Mrs. Harvey Shallum, in particular, had not scrupledto put the question squarely. "Chelles was awfully taken--he would haveintroduced you everywhere. I thought you were wild to know smart Frenchpeople; I thought Harvey and I weren't good enough for you any longer. And now you've done your best to spoil everything! Of course I feel foryou tremendously--that's the reason why I'm talking so frankly. Youmust be horribly depressed. Come and dine to-night--or no, if you don'tmind I'd rather you chose another evening. I'd forgotten that I'd askedthe Jim Driscolls, and it might be uncomfortable--for YOU.... "

In another world she was still welcome, at first perhaps even more sothan before: the world, namely, to which she had proposed to presentIndiana Rolliver. Roviano, Madame Adelschein, and a few of the freerspirits of her old St. Moritz band, reappearing in Paris with the closeof the watering-place season, had quickly discovered her and shown akeen interest in her liberation. It appeared in some mysterious way tomake her more available for their purpose, and she found that, in thecharacter of the last American divorcee, she was even regarded aseligible to the small and intimate inner circle of their loosely-knitassociation. At first she could not make out what had entitled her tothis privilege, and increasing enlightenment produced a revolt of theApex puritanism which, despite some odd accommodations and compliances, still carried its head so high in her. 

Undine had been perfectly sincere in telling Indiana Rolliver that shewas not "an Immoral woman. " The pleasures for which her sex took suchrisks had never attracted her, and she did not even crave the excitementof having it thought that they did. She wanted, passionately andpersistently, two things which she believed should subsist together inany well-ordered life: amusement and respectability; and despite hersurface-sophistication her notion of amusement was hardly less innocentthan when she had hung on the plumber's fence with Indiana Frusk. Itgave her, therefore, no satisfaction to find herself included amongMadame Adelschein's intimates. It embarrassed her to feel that she wasexpected to be "queer" and "different, " to respond to pass-words andtalk in innuendo, to associate with the equivocal and the subterraneanand affect to despise the ingenuous daylight joys which really satisfiedher soul. But the business shrewdness which was never quite dormant inher suggested that this was not the moment for such scruples. She mustmake the best of what she could get and wait her chance of gettingsomething better; and meanwhile the most practical use to which shecould put her shady friends was to flash their authentic nobility in thedazzled eyes of Mrs. Rolliver. 

With this object in view she made haste, in a fashionable tea-room ofthe rue de Rivoli, to group about Indiana the most titled members of theband; and the felicity of the occasion would have been unmarred had shenot suddenly caught sight of Raymond de Chelles sitting on the otherside of the room. 

She had not seen Chelles since her return to Paris. It had seemedpreferable to leave their meeting to chance and the present chancemight have served as well as another but for the fact that among hiscompanions were two or three of the most eminent ladies of theproud quarter beyond the Seine. It was what Undine, in moments ofdiscouragement, characterized as "her luck" that one of these shouldbe the hated Miss Wincher of Potash Springs, who had now become theMarquise de Trezac. Undine knew that Chelles and his compatriots, however scandalized at her European companions, would be completelyindifferent to Mrs. Rolliver's appearance; but one gesture of Madame deTrezac's eye-glass would wave Indiana to her place and thus brand thewhole party as "wrong. "

All this passed through Undine's mind in the very moment of hernoting the change of expression with which Chelles had signalledhis recognition. If their encounter could have occurred in happierconditions it might have had far-reaching results. As it was, thecrowded state of the tea-room, and the distance between their tables, sufficiently excused his restricting his greeting to an eager bow; andUndine went home heavy-hearted from this first attempt to reconstructher past. 

Her spirits were not lightened by the developments of the next fewdays. She kept herself well in the foreground of Indiana's life, and cultivated toward the rarely-visible Rolliver a manner in whichimpersonal admiration for the statesman was tempered with the politestindifference to the man. Indiana seemed to do justice to her efforts andto be reassured by the result; but still there came no hint of areward. For a time Undine restrained the question on her lips; but oneafternoon, when she had inducted Indiana into the deepest mysteriesof Parisian complexion-making, the importance of the service and theconfidential mood it engendered seemed to warrant a discreet allusion totheir bargain. 

Indiana leaned back among her cushions with an embarrassed laugh. 

"Oh, my dear, I've been meaning to tell you--it's off, I'm afraid. Thedinner is, I mean. You see, Mr. Van Degen has seen you 'round with me, and the very minute I asked him to come and dine he guessed--"

"He guessed--and he wouldn't?"

"Well, no. He wouldn't. I hate to tell you. "

"Oh--" Undine threw off a vague laugh. "Since you're intimate enough forhim to tell you THAT he must, have told you more--told you something tojustify his behaviour. He couldn't--even Peter Van Degen couldn't--justsimply have said to you: 'I wont see her. '"

Mrs. Rolliver hesitated, visibly troubled to the point of regretting herintervention. 

"He DID say more?" Undine insisted. "He gave you a reason?

"He said you'd know. "

"Oh how base--how base!" Undine was trembling with one of herlittle-girl rages, the storms of destructive fury before which Mr. AndMrs. Spragg had cowered when she was a charming golden-curled cherub. But life had administered some of the discipline which her parents hadspared her, and she pulled herself together with a gasp of pain. "Ofcourse he's been turned against me. His wife has the whole of New Yorkbehind her, and I've no one; but I know it would be all right if I couldonly see him. "

Her friend made no answer, and Undine pursued, with an irrepressibleoutbreak of her old vehemence: "Indiana Rolliver, if you won't do it forme I'll go straight off to his hotel this very minute. I'll wait therein the hall till he sees me!"

Indiana lifted a protesting hand. "Don't, Undine--not that!"

"Why not?"

"Well--I wouldn't, that's all. "

"You wouldn't? Why wouldn't you? You must have a reason. " Undine facedher with levelled brows. "Without a reason you can't have changed soutterly since our last talk. You were positive enough then that I had aright to make him see me. "

Somewhat to her surprise, Indiana made no effort to elude the challenge. "Yes, I did think so then. But I know now that it wouldn't do you theleast bit of good. "

"Have they turned him so completely against me? I don't care if theyhave! I know him--I can get him back. "

"That's the trouble. " Indiana shed on her a gaze of cold compassion. "It's not that any one has turned him against you. It's worse thanthat--"

"What can be?"

"You'll hate me if I tell you. "

"Then you'd better make him tell me himself!"

"I can't. I tried to. The trouble is that it was YOU--something you did, I mean. Something he found out about you--"

Undine, to restrain a spring of anger, had to clutch both arms of herchair. "About me? How fearfully false! Why, I've never even LOOKED atanybody--!"

"It's nothing of that kind. " Indiana's mournful head-shake seemed todeplore, in Undine, an unsuspected moral obtuseness. "It's the way youacted to your own husband. "

"I--my--to Ralph? HE reproaches me for that? Peter Van Degen does?""Well, for one particular thing. He says that the very day you went offwith him last year you got a cable from New York telling you to comeback at once to Mr. Marvell, who was desperately ill. "

"How on earth did he know?" The cry escaped Undine before she couldrepress it. 

"It's true, then?" Indiana exclaimed. "Oh, Undine--"

Undine sat speechless and motionless, the anger frozen to terror on herlips. 

Mrs. Rolliver turned on her the reproachful gaze of the deceivedbenefactress. "I didn't believe it when he told me; I'd never havethought it of you. Before you'd even applied for your divorce!"

Undine made no attempt to deny the charge or to defend herself. Fora moment she was lost in the pursuit of an unseizable clue--theexplanation of this monstrous last perversity of fate. Suddenly she roseto her feet with a set face. 

"The Marvells must have told him--the beasts!" It relieved her to beable to cry it out. 

"It was your husband's sister--what did you say her name was? When youdidn't answer her cable, she cabled Mr. Van Degen to find out where youwere and tell you to come straight back. "

Undine stared. "He never did!"

"No. "

"Doesn't that show you the story's all trumped up?"

Indiana shook her head. "He said nothing to you about it because he waswith you when you received the first cable, and you told him it was fromyour sister-in-law, just worrying you as usual to go home; and when heasked if there was anything else in it you said there wasn't anotherthing. "

Undine, intently following her, caught at this with a spring. "Then heknew it all along--he admits that? And it made no earthly difference tohim at the time?" She turned almost victoriously on her friend. "Did hehappen to explain THAT, I wonder?"

"Yes. " Indiana's longanimity grew almost solemn. "It came over himgradually, he said. One day when he wasn't feeling very well he thoughtto himself: 'Would she act like that to ME if I was dying?' And afterthat he never felt the same to you. " Indiana lowered her empurpledlids. "Men have their feelings too--even when they're carried away bypassion. " After a pause she added: "I don't know as I can blame him. Undine. You see, you were his ideal. "

XXV

Undine Marvell, for the next few months, tasted all the accumulatedbitterness of failure. After January the drifting hordes of hercompatriots had scattered to the four quarters of the globe, leavingParis to resume, under its low grey sky, its compacter winterpersonality. Noting, from her more and more deserted corner, each leastsign of the social revival, Undine felt herself as stranded and baffledas after the ineffectual summers of her girlhood. She was not withoutpossible alternatives; but the sense of what she had lost took thesavour from all that was left. She might have attached herself to somemigratory group winged for Italy or Egypt; but the prospect of traveldid not in itself appeal to her, and she was doubtful of its socialbenefit. She lacked the adventurous curiosity which seeks its occasionin the unknown; and though she could work doggedly for a given objectthe obstacles to be overcome had to be as distinct as the prize. Her onedesire was to get back an equivalent of the precise value she had lostin ceasing to be Ralph Marvell's wife. Her new visiting-card, bearingher Christian name in place of her husband's, was like the coin of adebased currency testifying to her diminished trading capacity. Herrestricted means, her vacant days, all the minor irritations of herlife, were as nothing compared to this sense of a lost advantage. Evenin the narrowed field of a Parisian winter she might have made herselfa place in some more or less extra-social world; but her experiments inthis line gave her no pleasure proportioned to the possible derogation. She feared to be associated with "the wrong people, " and scented a shadeof disrespect in every amicable advance. The more pressing attentions ofone or two men she had formerly known filled her with a glow of outragedpride, and for the first time in her life she felt that even solitudemight be preferable to certain kinds of society. Since ill health wasthe most plausible pretext for seclusion, it was almost a relief to findthat she was really growing "nervous" and sleeping badly. The doctor shesummoned advised her trying a small quiet place on the Riviera, not toonear the sea; and thither in the early days of December, she transportedherself with her maid and an omnibus-load of luggage. 

The place disconcerted her by being really small and quiet, and for afew days she struggled against the desire for flight. She had neverbefore known a world as colourless and negative as that of the largewhite hotel where everybody went to bed at nine, and donkey-rides overstony hills were the only alternative to slow drives along dusty roads. Many of the dwellers in this temple of repose found even these exercisestoo stimulating, and preferred to sit for hours under the palms inthe garden, playing Patience, embroidering, or reading odd volumes ofTauchnitz. Undine, driven by despair to an inspection of the hotelbook-shelves, discovered that scarcely any work they contained wascomplete; but this did not seem to trouble the readers, who continued tofeed their leisure with mutilated fiction, from which they occasionallyraised their eyes to glance mistrustfully at the new arrival sweepingthe garden gravel with her frivolous draperies. The inmates of the hotelwere of different nationalities, but their racial differences werelevelled by the stamp of a common mediocrity. All differences of tongue, of custom, of physiognomy, disappeared in this deep community ofinsignificance, which was like some secret bond, with the manifold signsand pass-words of its ignorances and its imperceptions. It was not theheterogeneous mediocrity of the American summer hotel where the lack ofany standard is the nearest approach to a tie, but an organized codifieddulness, in conscious possession of its rights, and strong in thevoluntary ignorance of any others. 

It took Undine a long time to accustom herself to such an atmosphere, and meanwhile she fretted, fumed and flaunted, or abandoned herself tolong periods of fruitless brooding. Sometimes a flame of anger shot upin her, dismally illuminating the path she had travelled and the blankwall to which it led. At other moments past and present were envelopedin a dull fog of rancour which distorted and faded even the image shepresented to her morning mirror. There were days when every young faceshe saw left in her a taste of poison. But when she compared herselfwith the specimens of her sex who plied their languid industries underthe palms, or looked away as she passed them in hall or staircase, herspirits rose, and she rang for her maid and dressed herself in hernewest and vividest. These were unprofitable triumphs, however. Shenever made one of her attacks on the organized disapproval of thecommunity without feeling she had lost ground by it; and the next dayshe would lie in bed and send down capricious orders for food, which hermaid would presently remove untouched, with instructions to transmit hercomplaints to the landlord. 

Sometimes the events of the past year, ceaselessly revolving through herbrain, became no longer a subject for criticism or justification butsimply a series of pictures monotonously unrolled. Hour by hour, in suchmoods, she re-lived the incidents of her flight with Peter Van Degen:the part of her career that, since it had proved a failure, seemed leastlike herself and most difficult to justify. She had gone away with him, and had lived with him for two months: she, Undine Marvell, to whomrespectability was the breath of life, to whom such follies had alwaysbeen unintelligible and therefore inexcusable. --She had done thisincredible thing, and she had done it from a motive that seemed, atthe time, as clear, as logical, as free from the distorting mists ofsentimentality, as any of her father's financial enterprises. It hadbeen a bold move, but it had been as carefully calculated as thehappiest Wall Street "stroke. " She had gone away with Peter because, after the decisive scene in which she had put her power to the test, toyield to him seemed the surest means of victory. Even to her practicalintelligence it was clear that an immediate dash to Dakota might looktoo calculated; and she had preserved her self-respect by tellingherself that she was really his wife, and in no way to blame if the lawdelayed to ratify the bond. She was still persuaded of the justness ofher reasoning; but she now saw that it had left certain risks out ofaccount. Her life with Van Degen had taught her many things. The two hadwandered from place to place, spending a great deal of money, alwaysmore and more money; for the first time in her life she had been ableto buy everything she wanted. For a while this had kept her amused andbusy; but presently she began to perceive that her companion's view oftheir relation was not the same as hers. She saw that he had alwaysmeant it to be an unavowed tie, screened by Mrs. Shallum's companionshipand Clare's careless tolerance; and that on those terms he would havebeen ready to shed on their adventure the brightest blaze of notoriety. But since Undine had insisted on being carried off like a sentimentalschool-girl he meant to shroud the affair in mystery, and was as zealousin concealing their relation as she was bent on proclaiming it. In the"powerful" novels which Popple was fond of lending her she had metwith increasing frequency the type of heroine who scorns to loveclandestinely, and proclaims the sanctity of passion and the moralduty of obeying its call. Undine had been struck by these arguments asjustifying and even ennobling her course, and had let Peter understandthat she had been actuated by the highest motives in openly associatingher life with his; but he had opposed a placid insensibility to theseallusions, and had persisted in treating her as though their journeywere the kind of escapade that a man of the world is bound to hide. Shehad expected him to take her to all the showy places where couples likethemselves are relieved from a too sustained contemplation of nature bythe distractions of the restaurant and the gaming-table; but he hadcarried her from one obscure corner of Europe to another, shunningfashionable hotels and crowded watering-places, and displaying aningenuity in the discovery of the unvisited and the out-of-season thatgave their journey an odd resemblance to her melancholy wedding-tour. 

She had never for a moment ceased to remember that the Dakotadivorce-court was the objective point of this later honeymoon, and herallusions to the fact were as frequent as prudence permitted. Peterseemed in no way disturbed by them. He responded with expressions ofincreasing tenderness, or the purchase of another piece of jewelry;and though Undine could not remember his ever voluntarily bringing thesubject of their marriage he did not shrink from her recurring mentionof it. He seemed merely too steeped in present well-being to thinkof the future, and she ascribed this to the fact that his faculty ofenjoyment could not project itself beyond the moment. Her business wasto make each of their days so agreeable that when the last came heshould be conscious of a void to be bridged over as rapidly as possibleand when she thought this point had been reached she packed her trunksand started for Dakota. 

The next picture to follow was that of the dull months in the westerndivorce-town, where, to escape loneliness and avoid comment, she hadcast in her lot with Mabel Lipscomb, who had lately arrived there on thesame errand. 

Undine, at the outset, had been sorry for the friend whose new ventureseemed likely to result so much less brilliantly than her own; butcompassion had been replaced by irritation as Mabel's unprunedvulgarities, her enormous encroaching satisfaction with herself andher surroundings, began to pervade every corner of their provisionalhousehold. Undine, during the first months of her exile, had beensustained by the fullest confidence in her future. When she had partedfrom Van Degen she had felt sure he meant to marry her, and the factthat Mrs. Lipscomb was fortified by no similar hope made her easier tobear with. Undine was almost ashamed that the unwooed Mabel should bethe witness of her own felicity, and planned to send her off on a tripto Denver when Peter should announce his arrival; but the weeks passed, and Peter did not come. Mabel, on the whole, behaved well in thiscontingency. Undine, in her first exultation, had confided all herhopes and plans to her friend, but Mabel took no undue advantage of theconfidence. She was even tactful in her loud fond clumsy way, with atact that insistently boomed and buzzed about its victim's head. But oneday she mentioned that she had asked to dinner a gentleman from LittleRock who had come to Dakota with the same object as themselves, andwhose acquaintance she had made through her lawyer. 

The gentleman from Little Rock came to dine, and within a week Undineunderstood that Mabel's future was assured. If Van Degen had been athand Undine would have smiled with him at poor Mabel's infatuation andher suitor's crudeness. But Van Degen was not there. He made no sign, hesent no excuse; he simply continued to absent himself; and it was Undinewho, in due course, had to make way for Mrs. Lipscomb's caller, and situpstairs with a novel while the drawing-room below was given up to theenacting of an actual love-story. 

Even then, even to the end, Undine had to admit that Mabel had behaved"beautifully. " But it is comparatively easy to behave beautifully whenone is getting what one wants, and when some one else, who has notalways been altogether kind, is not. The net result of Mrs. Lipscomb'smagnanimity was that when, on the day of parting, she drew Undine toher bosom with the hand on which her new engagement-ring blazed, Undinehated her as she hated everything else connected with her vain exile inthe wilderness. 

XXVI

The next phase in the unrolling vision was the episode of her return toNew York. She had gone to the Malibran, to her parents--for it was amoment in her career when she clung passionately to the conformities, and when the fact of being able to say: "I'm here with my father andmother" was worth paying for even in the discomfort of that grim abode. Nevertheless, it was another thorn in her pride that her parents couldnot--for the meanest of material reasons--transfer themselves at hercoming to one of the big Fifth Avenue hotels. When she had suggested itMr. Spragg had briefly replied that, owing to the heavy expenses of herdivorce suit, he couldn't for the moment afford anything better; andthis announcement cast a deeper gloom over the future. 

It was not an occasion for being "nervous, " however; she had learned toomany hard facts in the last few months to think of having recourseto her youthful methods. And something told her that if she made theattempt it would be useless. Her father and mother seemed much older, seemed tired and defeated, like herself. 

Parents and daughter bore their common failure in a common silence, broken only by Mrs. Spragg's occasional tentative allusions to hergrandson. But her anecdotes of Paul left a deeper silence behind them. Undine did not want to talk of her boy. She could forget him when, as she put it, things were "going her way, " but in moments ofdiscouragement the thought of him was an added bitterness, subtlydifferent from her other bitter thoughts, and harder to quiet. It hadnot occurred to her to try to gain possession of the child. She wasvaguely aware that the courts had given her his custody; but she hadnever seriously thought of asserting this claim. Her parents' diminishedmeans and her own uncertain future made her regard the care of Paul asan additional burden, and she quieted her scruples by thinking of him as"better off" with Ralph's family, and of herself as rather touchinglydisinterested in putting his welfare before her own. Poor Mrs. Spraggwas pining for him, but Undine rejected her artless suggestion that Mrs. Heeny should be sent to "bring him round. " "I wouldn't ask them a favourfor the world--they're just waiting for a chance to be hateful to me, "she scornfully declared; but it pained her that her boy, should beso near, yet inaccessible, and for the first time she was visited byunwonted questionings as to her share in the misfortunes that hadbefallen her. She had voluntarily stepped out of her social frame, andthe only person on whom she could with any satisfaction have laidthe blame was the person to whom her mind now turned with a belatedtenderness. It was thus, in fact, that she thought of Ralph. His pride, his reserve, all the secret expressions of his devotion, the tones ofhis voice, his quiet manner, even his disconcerting irony: these seemed, in contrast to what she had since known, the qualities essential to herhappiness. She could console herself only by regarding it as part of hersad lot that poverty and the relentless animosity of his family, shouldhave put an end to so perfect a union: she gradually began to look onherself and Ralph as the victims of dark machinations, and when shementioned him she spoke forgivingly, and implied that "everything mighthave been different" if "people" had not "come between" them. She hadarrived in New York in midseason, and the dread of seeing familiarfaces kept her shut up in her room at the Malibran, reading novels andbrooding over possibilities of escape. She tried to avoid the dailypapers, but they formed the staple diet of her parents, and now and thenshe could not help taking one up and turning to the "Society Column. "Its perusal produced the impression that the season must be the gayestNew York had ever known. The Harmon B. Driscolls, young Jim and hiswife, the Thurber Van Degens, the Chauncey Ellings, and all the otherFifth Avenue potentates, seemed to have their doors perpetually opento a stream of feasters among whom the familiar presences of GraceBeringer, Bertha Shallum, Dicky Bowles and Claud Walsingham Popplecame and went with the irritating sameness of the figures in astage-procession. 

Among them also Peter Van Degen presently appeared. He had been on atour around the world, and Undine could not look at a newspaper withoutseeing some allusion to his progress. After his return she noticed thathis name was usually coupled with his wife's: he and Clare seemed tobe celebrating his home-coming in a series of festivities, and Undineguessed that he had reasons for wishing to keep before the world theevidences of his conjugal accord. 

Mrs. Heeny's clippings supplied her with such items as her own readingmissed; and one day the masseuse appeared with a long article from theleading journal of Little Rock, describing the brilliant nuptials ofMabel Lipscomb--now Mrs. Homer Branney--and her departure for "theCoast" in the bridegroom's private car. This put the last touch toUndine's irritation, and the next morning she got up earlier than usual, put on her most effective dress, went for a quick walk around the Park, and told her father when she came in that she wanted him to take her tothe opera that evening. 

Mr. Spragg stared and frowned. "You mean you want me to go round andhire a box for you?"

"Oh, no. " Undine coloured at the infelicitous allusion: besides, sheknew now that the smart people who were "musical" went in stalls. 

"I only want two good seats. I don't see why I should stay shut up. Iwant you to go with me, " she added. 

Her father received the latter part of the request without comment: heseemed to have gone beyond surprise. But he appeared that evening atdinner in a creased and loosely fitting dress-suit which he had probablynot put on since the last time he had dined with his son-in-law, and heand Undine drove off together, leaving Mrs. Spragg to gaze after themwith the pale stare of Hecuba. 

Their stalls were in the middle of the house, and around them sweptthe great curve of boxes at which Undine had so often looked up in theremote Stentorian days. Then all had been one indistinguishable glitter, now the scene was full of familiar details: the house was thronged withpeople she knew, and every box seemed to contain a parcel of herpast. At first she had shrunk from recognition; but gradually, as sheperceived that no one noticed her, that she was merely part of theinvisible crowd out of range of the exploring opera glasses, she felt adefiant desire to make herself seen. When the performance was over herfather wanted to leave the house by the door at which they had entered, but she guided him toward the stockholders' entrance, and pressed herway among the furred and jewelled ladies waiting for their motors. "Oh, it's the wrong door--never mind, we'll walk to the corner and get acab, " she exclaimed, speaking loudly enough to be overheard. Two orthree heads turned, and she met Dicky Bowles's glance, and returned hislaughing bow. The woman talking to him looked around, coloured slightly, and made a barely perceptible motion of her head. Just beyond her, Mrs. Chauncey Elling, plumed and purple, stared, parted her lips, andturned to say something important to young Jim Driscoll, who looked upinvoluntarily and then squared his shoulders and gazed fixedly at adistant point, as people do at a funeral. Behind them Undine caughtsight of Clare Van Degen; she stood alone, and her face was pale andlistless. "Shall I go up and speak to her?" Undine wondered. Someintuition told her that, alone of all the women present, Clare mighthave greeted her kindly; but she hung back, and Mrs. Harmon Driscollsurged by on Popple's arm. Popple crimsoned, coughed, and signalleddespotically to Mrs. Driscoll's footman. Over his shoulder Undinereceived a bow from Charles Bowen, and behind Bowen she saw two or threeother men she knew, and read in their faces surprise, curiosity, and thewish to show their pleasure at seeing her. But she grasped her father'sarm and drew him out among the entangled motors and vociferatingpolicemen. 

Neither she nor Mr. Spragg spoke a word on the way home; but when theyreached the Malibran her father followed her up to her room. She haddropped her cloak and stood before the wardrobe mirror studying herreflection when he came up behind her and she saw that he was looking atit too. 

"Where did that necklace come from?"

Undine's neck grew pink under the shining circlet. It was the first timesince her return to New York that she had put on a low dress and thusuncovered the string of pearls she always wore. She made no answer, andMr. Spragg continued: "Did your husband give them to you?"

"RALPH!" She could not restrain a laugh. 

"Who did, then?"

Undine remained silent. She really had not thought about the pearls, except in so far as she consciously enjoyed the pleasure of possessingthem; and her father, habitually so unobservant, had seemed the lastperson likely to raise the awkward question of their origin. 

"Why--" she began, without knowing what she meant to say. 

"I guess you better send 'em back to the party they belong to, " Mr. Spragg continued, in a voice she did not know. 

"They belong to me!" she flamed up. He looked at her as if she had grownsuddenly small and insignificant. "You better send 'em back to Peter VanDegen the first thing to-morrow morning, " he said as he went out of theroom. As far as Undine could remember, it was the first time in her lifethat he had ever ordered her to do anything; and when the door closed onhim she had the distinct sense that the question had closed with it, andthat she would have to obey. She took the pearls off and threw them fromher angrily. The humiliation her father had inflicted on her was mergedwith the humiliation to which she had subjected herself in going to theopera, and she had never before hated her life as she hated it then. 

All night she lay sleepless, wondering miserably what to do; and outof her hatred of her life, and her hatred of Peter Van Degen, theregradually grew a loathing of Van Degen's pearls. How could she havekept them; how have continued to wear them about her neck! Onlyher absorption in other cares could have kept her from feeling thehumiliation of carrying about with her the price of her shame. Hernovel-reading had filled her mind with the vocabulary of outragedvirtue, and with pathetic allusions to woman's frailty, and while shepitied herself she thought her father heroic. She was proud to thinkthat she had such a man to defend her, and rejoiced that it was in herpower to express her scorn of Van Degen by sending back his jewels. 

But her righteous ardour gradually cooled, and she was left once moreto face the dreary problem of the future. Her evening at the opera hadshown her the impossibility of remaining in New York. She had neitherthe skill nor the power to fight the forces of indifference leaguedagainst her: she must get away at once, and try to make a fresh start. But, as usual, the lack of money hampered her. Mr. Spragg could nolonger afford to make her the allowance she had intermittently receivedfrom him during the first years of her marriage, and since she was nowwithout child or household she could hardly make it a grievance that hehad reduced her income. But what he allowed her, even with the additionof her alimony, was absurdly insufficient. Not that she looked farahead; she had always felt herself predestined to ease and luxury, andthe possibility of a future adapted to her present budget did not occurto her. But she desperately wanted enough money to carry her withoutanxiety through the coming year. 

When her breakfast tray was brought in she sent it away untouched andcontinued to lie in her darkened room. She knew that when she got up shemust send back the pearls; but there was no longer any satisfactionin the thought, and she lay listlessly wondering how she could besttransmit them to Van Degen. 

As she lay there she heard Mrs. Heeny's voice in the passage. Hithertoshe had avoided the masseuse, as she did every one else associated withher past. Mrs. Heeny had behaved with extreme discretion, refrainingfrom all direct allusions to Undine's misadventure; but her silencewas obviously the criticism of a superior mind. Once again Undine haddisregarded her injunction to "go slow, " with results that justified thewarning. Mrs. Heeny's very reserve, however, now marked her as a safeadviser; and Undine sprang up and called her in. "My sakes. Undine! Youlook's if you'd been setting up all night with a remains!" the masseuseexclaimed in her round rich tones. 

Undine, without answering, caught up the pearls and thrust them intoMrs. Heeny's hands. 

"Good land alive!" The masseuse dropped into a chair and let the twistslip through her fat flexible fingers. "Well, you got a fortune rightround your neck whenever you wear them, Undine Spragg. "

Undine murmured something indistinguishable. "I want you to take them--"she began. 

"Take 'em? Where to?"

"Why, to--" She was checked by the wondering simplicity of Mrs. Heeny'sstare. The masseuse must know where the pearls had come from, yet it hadevidently not occurred to her that Mrs. Marvell was about to ask her toreturn them to their donor. In the light of Mrs. Heeny's unclouded gazethe whole episode took on a different aspect, and Undine began to bevaguely astonished at her immediate submission to her father's will. Thepearls were hers, after all!

"To be re-strung?" Mrs. Heeny placidly suggested. "Why, you'd oughterto have it done right here before your eyes, with pearls that are worthwhat these are. "

As Undine listened, a new thought shaped itself. She could not continueto wear the pearls: the idea had become intolerable. But for the firsttime she saw what they might be converted into, and what they mightrescue her from; and suddenly she brought out: "Do you suppose I couldget anything for them?"

"Get anything? Why, what--"

"Anything like what they're worth, I mean. They cost a lot of money:they came from the biggest place in Paris. " Under Mrs. Heeny'ssimplifying eye it was comparatively easy to make these explanations. "Iwant you to try and sell them for me--I want you to do the best you canwith them. I can't do it myself--but you must swear you'll never tell asoul, " she pressed on breathlessly. 

"Why, you poor child--it ain't the first time, " said Mrs. Heeny, coilingthe pearls in her big palm. "It's a pity too: they're such beauties. Butyou'll get others, " she added, as the necklace vanished into her bag. 

A few days later there appeared from the same receptacle a bundle ofbanknotes considerable enough to quiet Undine's last scruples. She nolonger understood why she had hesitated. Why should she have thought itnecessary to give back the pearls to Van Degen? His obligation to herrepresented far more than the relatively small sum she had been able torealize on the necklace. She hid the money in her dress, and when Mrs. Heeny had gone on to Mrs. Spragg's room she drew the packet out, andcounting the bills over, murmured to herself: "Now I can get away!"

Her one thought was to return to Europe; but she did not want to goalone. The vision of her solitary figure adrift in the spring mob oftrans-Atlantic pleasure-seekers depressed and mortified her. She wouldbe sure to run across acquaintances, and they would infer that she wasin quest of a new opportunity, a fresh start, and would suspect her oftrying to use them for the purpose. The thought was repugnant to hernewly awakened pride, and she decided that if she went to Europe herfather and mother must go with her. The project was a bold one, and whenshe broached it she had to run the whole gamut of Mr. Spragg's irony. Hewanted to know what she expected to do with him when she got him there;whether she meant to introduce him to "all those old Kings, " how shethought he and her mother would look in court dress, and how shesupposed he was going to get on without his New York paper. But Undinehad been aware of having what he himself would have called "a pull" overher father since, the day after their visit to the opera, he had takenher aside to ask: "You sent back those pearls?" and she had answeredcoldly: "Mrs. Heeny's taken them. "

After a moment of half-bewildered resistance her parents, perhapssecretly flattered by this first expression of her need for them, hadyielded to her entreaty, packed their trunks, and stoically set out forthe unknown. Neither Mr. Spragg nor his wife had ever before been out oftheir country; and Undine had not understood, till they stood besideher tongue-tied and helpless on the dock at Cherbourg, the task shehad undertaken in uprooting them. Mr. Spragg had never been physicallyactive, but on foreign shores he was seized by a strange restlessness, and a helpless dependence on his daughter. Mrs. Spragg's long habit ofapathy was overcome by her dread of being left alone when her husbandand Undine went out, and she delayed and impeded their expeditionsby insisting on accompanying them; so that, much as Undine dislikedsightseeing, there seemed no alternative between "going round" with herparents and shutting herself up with them in the crowded hotels to whichshe successively transported them. 

The hotels were the only European institutions that really interestedMr. Spragg. He considered them manifestly inferior to those at home;but he was haunted by a statistical curiosity as to their size, theirnumber, their cost and their capacity for housing and feeding theincalculable hordes of his countrymen. He went through galleries, churches and museums in a stolid silence like his daughter's; but in thehotels he never ceased to enquire and investigate, questioning every onewho could speak English, comparing bills, collecting prospectuses andcomputing the cost of construction and the probable return on theinvestment. He regarded the non-existence of the cold-storage system asone more proof of European inferiority, and no longer wondered, inthe absence of the room-to-room telephone, that foreigners hadn't yetmastered the first principles of time-saving. 

After a few weeks it became evident to both parents and daughter thattheir unnatural association could not continue much longer. Mrs. Spragg's shrinking from everything new and unfamiliar had developed intoa kind of settled terror, and Mr. Spragg had begun to be depressedby the incredible number of the hotels and their simply incalculablehousing capacity. 

"It ain't that they're any great shakes in themselves, any one of 'em;but there's such a darned lot of 'em: they're as thick as mosquitoes, every place you go. " And he began to reckon up, on slips of paper, onthe backs of bills and the margins of old newspapers, the number oftravellers who could be simultaneously lodged, bathed and boarded onthe continent of Europe. "Five hundred bedrooms--three hundredbathrooms--no; three hundred and fifty bathrooms, that one has: thatmakes, supposing two-thirds of 'em double up--do you s'pose as many asthat do, Undie? That porter at Lucerne told me the Germans slept threein a room--well, call it eight hundred people; and three meals a day perhead; no, four meals, with that afternoon tea they take; and the lastplace we were at--'way up on that mountain there--why, there wereseventy-five hotels in that one spot alone, and all jam full--well, itbeats me to know where all the people come from... "

He had gone on in this fashion for what seemed to his daughter anendless length of days; and then suddenly he had roused himself to say:"See here, Undie, I got to go back and make the money to pay for allthis. "

There had been no question on the part of any of the three of Undine'sreturning with them; and after she had conveyed them to their steamer, and seen their vaguely relieved faces merged in the handkerchief-wavingthrong along the taffrail, she had returned alone to Paris and made herunsuccessful attempt to enlist the aid of Indiana Rolliver. 

XXVII

She was still brooding over this last failure when one afternoon, as sheloitered on the hotel terrace, she was approached by a young woman whomshe had seen sitting near the wheeled chair of an old lady wearing acrumpled black bonnet under a funny fringed parasol with a jointedhandle. 

The young woman, who was small, slight and brown, was dressed with adisregard of the fashion which contrasted oddly with the mauve powder onher face and the traces of artificial colour in her dark untidy hair. She looked as if she might have several different personalities, and asif the one of the moment had been hanging up a long time in her wardrobeand been hurriedly taken down as probably good enough for the presentoccasion. 

With her hands in her jacket pockets, and an agreeable smile on herboyish face, she strolled up to Undine and asked, in a pretty variety ofParisian English, if she had the pleasure of speaking to Mrs. Marvell. 

On Undine's assenting, the smile grew more alert and the lady continued:"I think you know my friend Sacha Adelschein?"

No question could have been less welcome to Undine. If there was onepoint on which she was doggedly and puritanically resolved, it was thatno extremes of social adversity should ever again draw her into thegroup of people among whom Madame Adelschein too conspicuously figured. Since her unsuccessful attempt to win over Indiana by introducing her tothat group, Undine had been righteously resolved to remain aloof fromit; and she was drawing herself up to her loftiest height of disapprovalwhen the stranger, as if unconscious of it, went on: "Sacha speaks ofyou so often--she admires you so much. --I think you know also my cousinChelles, " she added, looking into Undine's eyes. "I am the PrincessEstradina. I've come here with my mother for the air. "

The murmur of negation died on Undine's lips. She found herselfgrappling with a new social riddle, and such surprises were alwaysstimulating. The name of the untidy-looking young woman she had beenabout to repel was one of the most eminent in the impregnable quarterbeyond the Seine. No one figured more largely in the Parisian chroniclethan the Princess Estradina, and no name more impressively headed thelist at every marriage, funeral and philanthropic entertainment ofthe Faubourg Saint Germain than that of her mother, the Duchesse deDordogne, who must be no other than the old woman sitting in theBath-chair with the crumpled bonnet and the ridiculous sunshade. 

But it was not the appearance of the two ladies that surprised Undine. She knew that social gold does not always glitter, and that the lady shehad heard spoken of as Lili Estradina was notoriously careless of theconventions; but that she should boast of her intimacy with MadameAdelschein, and use it as a pretext for naming herself, overthrew allUndine's hierarchies. 

"Yes--it's hideously dull here, and I'm dying of it. Do come over andspeak to my mother. She's dying of it too; but don't tell her so, because she hasn't found it out. There were so many things our mothersnever found out, " the Princess rambled on, with her half-mockinghalf-intimate smile; and in another moment Undine, thrilled at havingMrs. Spragg thus coupled with a Duchess, found herself seated betweenmother and daughter, and responding by a radiant blush to the elderlady's amiable opening: "You know my nephew Raymond--he's your greatadmirer. "

How had it happened, whither would it lead, how long could it last? Thequestions raced through Undine's brain as she sat listening to hernew friends--they seemed already too friendly to be calledacquaintances!--replying to their enquiries, and trying to think farenough ahead to guess what they would expect her to say, and what toneit would be well to take. She was used to such feats of mental agility, and it was instinctive with her to become, for the moment, the personshe thought her interlocutors expected her to be; but she had never hadquite so new a part to play at such short notice. She took her cue, however, from the fact that the Princess Estradina, in her mother'spresence, made no farther allusion to her dear friend Sacha, and seemedsomehow, though she continued to chat on in the same easy strain, tolook differently and throw out different implications. All these shadesof demeanour were immediately perceptible to Undine, who tried to adaptherself to them by combining in her manner a mixture of Apex dash andNew York dignity; and the result was so successful that when she rose togo the Princess, with a hand on her arm, said almost wistfully: "You'restaying on too? Then do take pity on us! We might go on some tripstogether; and in the evenings we could make a bridge. "

A new life began for Undine. The Princess, chained her mother's side, and frankly restive under her filial duty, clung to her new acquaintancewith a persistence too flattering to be analyzed. "My dear, I was onthe brink of suicide when I saw your name in the visitors' list, " sheexplained; and Undine felt like answering that she had nearly reachedthe same pass when the Princess's thin little hand had been held outto her. For the moment she was dizzy with the effect of that randomgesture. Here she was, at the lowest ebb of her fortunes, miraculouslyrehabilitated, reinstated, and restored to the old victorious sense ofher youth and her power! Her sole graces, her unaided personality, hadworked the miracle; how should she not trust in them hereafter?

Aside from her feeling of concrete attainment. Undine was deeplyinterested in her new friends. The Princess and her mother, in theirdifferent ways, were different from any one else she had known. ThePrincess, who might have been of any age between twenty and forty, hada small triangular face with caressing impudent eyes, a smile like asilent whistle and the gait of a baker's boy balancing his basket. Shewore either baggy shabby clothes like a man's, or rich draperies thatlooked as if they had been rained on; and she seemed equally at easein either style of dress, and carelessly unconscious of both. She wasextremely familiar and unblushingly inquisitive, but she never gaveUndine the time to ask her any questions or the opportunity to ventureon any freedom with her. Nevertheless she did not scruple to talk of hersentimental experiences, and seemed surprised, and rather disappointed, that Undine had so few to relate in return. She playfully accused herbeautiful new friend of being cachottiere, and at the sight of Undine'sblush cried out: "Ah, you funny Americans! Why do you all behave as iflove were a secret infirmity?"

The old Duchess was even more impressive, because she fitted better intoUndine's preconceived picture of the Faubourg Saint Germain, and wasmore like the people with whom she pictured the former Nettie Wincher asliving in privileged intimacy. The Duchess was, indeed, more amiableand accessible than Undine's conception of a Duchess, and displayed acuriosity as great as her daughter's, and much more puerile, concerningher new friend's history and habits. But through her mild prattle, andin spite of her limited perceptions. Undine felt in her the same clearimpenetrable barrier that she ran against occasionally in the Princess;and she was beginning to understand that this barrier represented anumber of things about which she herself had yet to learn. She wouldnot have known this a few years earlier, nor would she have seen in theDuchess anything but the ruin of an ugly woman, dressed in clothes thatMrs. Spragg wouldn't have touched. The Duchess certainly looked like aruin; but Undine now saw that she looked like the ruin of a castle. 

The Princess, who was unofficially separated from her husband, had withher her two little girls. She seemed extremely attached to both--thoughavowing for the younger a preference she frankly ascribed to theinteresting accident of its parentage--and she could not understand thatUndine, as to whose domestic difficulties she minutely informed herself, should have consented to leave her child to strangers. "For, to one'schild every one but one's self is a stranger; and whatever youregarements--" she began, breaking off with a stare when Undineinterrupted her to explain that the courts had ascribed all the wrongsin the case to her husband. "But then--but then--" murmured thePrincess, turning away from the subject as if checked by too deep anabyss of difference. 

The incident had embarrassed Undine, and though she tried to justifyherself by allusions to her boy's dependence on his father's family, and to the duty of not standing in his way, she saw that she made noimpression. "Whatever one's errors, one's child belongs to one, " herhearer continued to repeat; and Undine, who was frequently scandalizedby the Princess's conversation, now found herself in the odd positionof having to set a watch upon her own in order not to scandalize thePrincess. 

Each day, nevertheless, strengthened her hold on her new friends. Afterher first flush of triumph she began indeed to suspect that she had beena slight disappointment to the Princess, had not completely justifiedthe hopes raised by the doubtful honour of being one of SachaAdelschein's intimates. Undine guessed that the Princess had expected tofind her more amusing, "queerer, " more startling in speech and conduct. Though by instinct she was none of these things, she was eager to go asfar as was expected; but she felt that her audacities were on linestoo normal to be interesting, and that the Princess thought her ratherschool-girlish and old-fashioned. Still, they had in common their youth, their boredom, their high spirits and their hunger for amusement; andUndine was making the most of these ties when one day, coming back froma trip to Monte-Carlo with the Princess, she was brought up short by thesight of a lady--evidently a new arrival--who was seated in an attitudeof respectful intimacy beside the old Duchess's chair. Undine, advancingunheard over the fine gravel of the garden path, recognized at a glancethe Marquise de Trezac's drooping nose and disdainful back, and at thesame moment heard her say: "--And her husband?"

"Her husband? But she's an American--she's divorced, " the Duchessreplied, as if she were merely stating the same fact in two differentways; and Undine stopped short with a pang of apprehension. 

The Princess came up behind her. "Who's the solemn person with Mamma?Ah, that old bore of a Trezac!" She dropped her long eye-glass with alaugh. "Well, she'll be useful--she'll stick to Mamma like a leech andwe shall get away oftener. Come, let's go and be charming to her. "

She approached Madame de Trezac effusively, and after an interchange ofexclamations Undine heard her say "You know my friend Mrs. Marvell? No?How odd! Where do you manage to hide yourself, chere Madame? Undine, here's a compatriot who hasn't the pleasure--"

"I'm such a hermit, dear Mrs. Marvell--the Princess shows me what Imiss, " the Marquise de Trezac murmured, rising to give her handto Undine, and speaking in a voice so different from that of thesupercilious Miss Wincher that only her facial angle and the droop ofher nose linked her to the hated vision of Potash Springs. 

Undine felt herself dancing on a flood-tide of security. For the firsttime the memory of Potash Springs became a thing to smile at, and withthe Princess's arm through hers she shone back triumphantly on Madame deTrezac, who seemed to have grown suddenly obsequious and insignificant, as though the waving of the Princess's wand had stripped her of all herfalse advantages. 

But upstairs, in her own room. Undine's courage fell. Madame de Trezachad been civil, effusive even, because for the moment she had been takenoff her guard by finding Mrs. Marvell on terms of intimacy with thePrincess Estradina and her mother. But the force of facts would reassertitself. Far from continuing to see Undine through her French friends'eyes she would probably invite them to view her compatriot through thesearching lens of her own ampler information. "The old hypocrite--she'lltell them everything, " Undine murmured, wincing at the recollectionof the dentist's assistant from Deposit, and staring miserably at herreflection in the dressing-table mirror. Of what use were youth andgrace and good looks, if one drop of poison distilled from the envy ofa narrow-minded woman was enough to paralyze them? Of course Madame deTrezac knew and remembered, and, secure in her own impregnable position, would never rest till she had driven out the intruder. 

XXVIII

"What do you say to Nice to-morrow, dearest?" the Princess suggesteda few evenings later as she followed Undine upstairs after a languidevening at bridge with the Duchess and Madame de Trezac. 

Half-way down the passage she stopped to open a door and, putting herfinger to her lip, signed to Undine to enter. In the taper-lit dimnessstood two small white beds, each surmounted by a crucifix and a palmbranch, and each containing a small brown sleeping child with a mop ofhair and a curiously finished little face. As the Princess stood gazingon their innocent slumbers she seemed for a moment like a third littlegirl scarcely bigger and browner than the others; and the smile withwhich she watched them was as clear as theirs. "Ah, si seulement jepouvais choisir leurs amants!" she sighed as she turned away. 

"--Nice to-morrow, " she repeated, as she and Undine walked on to theirrooms with linked arms. "We may as well make hay while the Trezacshines. She bores Mamma frightfully, but Mamma won't admit it becausethey belong to the same oeuvres. Shall it be the eleven train, dear?We can lunch at the Royal and look in the shops--we may meet somebodyamusing. Anyhow, it's better than staying here!"

Undine was sure the trip to Nice would be delightful. Their previousexpeditions had shown her the Princess's faculty for organizing suchadventures. At Monte-Carlo, a few days before, they had run across twoor three amusing but unassorted people, and the Princess, having fusedthem in a jolly lunch, had followed it up by a bout at baccarat, and, finally hunting down an eminent composer who had just arrived torehearse a new production, had insisted on his asking the party to tea, and treating them to fragments of his opera. 

A few days earlier, Undine's hope of renewing such pleasures would havebeen clouded by the dread of leaving Madame de Trezac alone with theDuchess. But she had no longer any fear of Madame de Trezac. She haddiscovered that her old rival of Potash Springs was in actual dreadof her disfavour, and nervously anxious to conciliate her, and thediscovery gave her such a sense of the heights she had scaled, and thesecurity of her footing, that all her troubled past began to seem likethe result of some providential "design, " and vague impulses of pietystirred in her as she and the Princess whirled toward Nice through theblue and gold glitter of the morning. 

They wandered about the lively streets, they gazed into the beguilingshops, the Princess tried on hats and Undine bought them, and theylunched at the Royal on all sorts of succulent dishes prepared underthe head-waiter's special supervision. But as they were savouringtheir "double" coffee and liqueurs, and Undine was wondering what hercompanion would devise for the afternoon, the Princess clapped her handstogether and cried out: "Dearest, I'd forgotten! I must desert you. "

She explained that she'd promised the Duchess to look up a friend whowas ill--a poor wretch who'd been sent to Cimiez for her lungs--and thatshe must rush off at once, and would be back as soon as possible--well, if not in an hour, then in two at latest. She was full of compunction, but she knew Undine would forgive her, and find something amusing tofill up the time: she advised her to go back and buy the black hat withthe osprey, and try on the crepe de Chine they'd thought so smart: forany one as good-looking as herself the woman would probably alter it fornothing; and they could meet again at the Palace Tea-Rooms at four. Shewhirled away in a cloud of explanations, and Undine, left alone, satdown on the Promenade des Anglais. She did not believe a word thePrincess had said. She had seen in a flash why she was being left, andwhy the plan had not been divulged to her before-hand; and shequivered with resentment and humiliation. "That's what she's wanted mefor... That's why she made up to me. She's trying it to-day, and afterthis it'll happen regularly... She'll drag me over here every day ortwo... At least she thinks she will!"

A sincere disgust was Undine's uppermost sensation. She was as muchashamed as Mrs. Spragg might have been at finding herself used to screena clandestine adventure. 

"I'll let her see... I'll make her understand, " she repeated angrily;and for a moment she was half-disposed to drive to the station and takethe first train back. But the sense of her precarious situation withheldher; and presently, with bitterness in her heart, she got up and beganto stroll toward the shops. 

To show that she was not a dupe, she arrived at the designatedmeeting-place nearly an hour later than the time appointed; but when sheentered the Tea-Rooms the Princess was nowhere to be seen. The roomswere crowded, and Undine was guided toward a small inner apartmentwhere isolated couples were absorbing refreshments in an atmosphere ofintimacy that made it seem incongruous to be alone. She glanced aboutfor a face she knew, but none was visible, and she was just giving upthe search when she beheld Elmer Moffatt shouldering his way through thecrowd. 

The sight was so surprising that she sat gazing with unconscious fixityat the round black head and glossy reddish face which kept appearing anddisappearing through the intervening jungle of aigrettes. It was longsince she had either heard of Moffatt or thought about him, and now, inher loneliness and exasperation, she took comfort in the sight of hisconfident capable face, and felt a longing to hear his voice and unbosomher woes to him. She had half risen to attract his attention when shesaw him turn back and make way for a companion, who was cautiouslysteering her huge feathered hat between the tea-tables. The woman wasof the vulgarest type; everything about her was cheap and gaudy. ButMoffatt was obviously elated: he stood aside with a flourish to usherher in, and as he followed he shot out a pink shirt-cuff with jewelledlinks, and gave his moustache a gallant twist. Undine felt anunreasoning irritation: she was vexed with him both for not being aloneand for being so vulgarly accompanied. As the couple seated themselvesshe caught Moffatt's glance and saw him redden to the edge of his whiteforehead; but he elaborately avoided her eye--he evidently wanted her tosee him do it--and proceeded to minister to his companion's wants withan air of experienced gallantry. 

The incident, trifling as it was, filled up the measure of Undine'sbitterness. She thought Moffatt pitiably ridiculous, and she hated himfor showing himself in such a light at that particular moment. Her mindturned back to her own grievance, and she was just saying to herselfthat nothing on earth should prevent her letting the Princess know whatshe thought of her, when the lady in question at last appeared. She camehurriedly forward and behind her Undine perceived the figure of a slightquietly dressed man, as to whom her immediate impression was that hemade every one else in the room look as common as Moffatt. An instantlater the colour had flown to her face and her hand was in Raymond deChelles, while the Princess, murmuring: "Cimiez's such a long way off;but you WILL forgive me?" looked into her eyes with a smile that added:"See how I pay for what I get!"

Her first glance showed Undine how glad Raymond de Chelles was to seeher. Since their last meeting his admiration for her seemed not only tohave increased but to have acquired a different character. Undine, atan earlier stage in her career, might not have known exactly what thedifference signified; but it was as clear to her now as if the Princesshad said--what her beaming eyes seemed, in fact, to convey--"I'm onlytoo glad to do my cousin the same kind of turn you're doing me. "

But Undine's increased experience, if it had made her more vigilant, had also given her a clearer measure of her power. She saw at oncethat Chelles, in seeking to meet her again, was not in quest of a merepassing adventure. He was evidently deeply drawn to her, and her presentsituation, if it made it natural to regard her as more accessible, hadnot altered the nature of his feeling. She saw and weighed all this inthe first five minutes during which, over tea and muffins, the Princessdescanted on her luck in happening to run across her cousin, andChelles, his enchanted eyes on Undine, expressed his sense of his goodfortune. He was staying, it appeared, with friends at Beaulieu, and hadrun over to Nice that afternoon by the merest chance: he added that, having just learned of his aunt's presence in the neighbourhood, he hadalready planned to present his homage to her. 

"Oh, don't come to us--we're too dull!" the Princess exclaimed. "Let usrun over occasionally and call on you: we're dying for a pretext, aren'twe?" she added, smiling at Undine. 

The latter smiled back vaguely, and looked across the room. Moffatt, looking flushed and foolish, was just pushing back his chair. To carryoff his embarrassment he put an additional touch of importance; and ashe swaggered out behind his companion, Undine said to herself, with ashiver: "If he'd been alone they would have found me taking tea withhim. "

Undine, during the ensuing weeks, returned several times to Nice withthe Princess; but, to the latter's surprise, she absolutely refused tohave Raymond de Chelles included in their luncheon-parties, or evenapprised in advance of their expeditions. 

The Princess, always impatient of unnecessary dissimulation, had notattempted to keep up the feint of the interesting invalid at Cimiez. Sheconfessed to Undine that she was drawn to Nice by the presence there ofthe person without whom, for the moment, she found life intolerable, and whom she could not well receive under the same roof with her littlegirls and her mother. She appealed to Undine's sisterly heart to feelfor her in her difficulty, and implied that--as her conduct had alreadyproved--she would always be ready to render her friend a like service. It was at this point that Undine checked her by a decided word. "Iunderstand your position, and I'm very sorry for you, of course, " shebegan (the Princess stared at the "sorry"). "Your secret's perfectlysafe with me, and I'll do anything I can for you... But if I go to Nicewith you again you must promise not to ask your cousin to meet us. "

The Princess's face expressed the most genuine astonishment. "Oh, mydear, do forgive me if I've been stupid! He admires you so tremendously;and I thought--"

"You'll do as I ask, please--won't you?" Undine went on, ignoring theinterruption and looking straight at her under level brows; and thePrincess, with a shrug, merely murmured: "What a pity! I fancied youliked him. "

XXIX

The early spring found Undine once more in Paris. 

She had every reason to be satisfied with the result of the course shehad pursued since she had pronounced her ultimatum on the subject ofRaymond de Chelles. She had continued to remain on the best of termswith the Princess, to rise in the estimation of the old Duchess, andto measure the rapidity of her ascent in the upward gaze of Madame deTrezac; and she had given Chelles to understand that, if he wished torenew their acquaintance, he must do so in the shelter of his venerableaunt's protection. 

To the Princess she was careful to make her attitude equally clear. "Ilike your cousin very much--he's delightful, and if I'm in Paris thisspring I hope I shall see a great deal of him. But I know how easy it isfor a woman in my position to get talked about--and I have my little boyto consider. "

Nevertheless, whenever Chelles came over from Beaulieu to spend aday with his aunt and cousin--an excursion he not infrequentlyrepeated--Undine was at no pains to conceal her pleasure. Nor was thereanything calculated in her attitude. Chelles seemed to her more charmingthan ever, and the warmth of his wooing was in flattering contrast tothe cool reserve of his manners. At last she felt herself alive andyoung again, and it became a joy to look in her glass and to try on hernew hats and dresses... 

The only menace ahead was the usual one of the want of money. While shehad travelled with her parents she had been at relatively small expense, and since their return to America Mr. Spragg had sent her allowanceregularly; yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls wasalready gone, and she knew her Paris season would be far more expensivethan the quiet weeks on the Riviera. 

Meanwhile the sense of reviving popularity, and the charm of Chelles'devotion, had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, andrefurbished that image of herself in other minds which was her onlynotion of self-seeing. Under the guidance of Madame de Trezac she hadfound a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter, and in its light bright drawing-room she sat one June afternoonlistening, with all the forbearance of which she was capable, to thecounsels of her newly-acquired guide. 

"Everything but marriage--" Madame de Trezac was repeating, her longhead slightly tilted, her features wearing the rapt look of an adeptreciting a hallowed formula. 

Raymond de Chelles had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, andthe former Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one ofthe fundamental dogmas of her social creed; but Undine was consciousthat the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name. She made noimmediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trezac's dullcountenance, sought her own reflection in the mirror behind hervisitor's chair. A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses ofher hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl's. Undine smiledfaintly at the promise her own eyes gave her, and then turned them backto her friend. "What can such women know about anything?" she thoughtcompassionately. 

"There's everything against it, " Madame de Trezac continued in a tone ofpatient exposition. She seemed to be doing her best to make the matterclear. "In the first place, between people in society a religiousmarriage is necessary; and, since the Church doesn't recognize divorce, that's obviously out of the question. In France, a man of position whogoes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simplyruining himself and her. They might much better--from her point ofview as well as his--be 'friends, ' as it's called over here: sucharrangements are understood and allowed for. But when a Frenchmanmarries he wants to marry as his people always have. He knows there aretraditions he can't fight against--and in his heart he's glad thereare. "

"Oh, I know: they've so much religious feeling. I admire that in them:their religion's so beautiful. " Undine looked thoughtfully at hervisitor. "I suppose even money--a great deal of money--wouldn't make theleast bit of difference?"

"None whatever, except to make matters worse, " Madame de Trezacdecisively rejoined. She returned Undine's look with something of MissWincher's contemptuous authority. "But, " she added, softening to asmile, "between ourselves--I can say it, since we're neither of uschildren--a woman with tact, who's not in a position to remarry, willfind society extremely indulgent... Provided, of course, she keeps upappearances... "

Undine turned to her with the frown of a startled Diana. "We don't lookat things that way out at Apex, " she said coldly; and the blood rose inMadame de Trezac's sallow cheek. 

"Oh, my dear, it's so refreshing to hear you talk like that! Personally, of course, I've never quite got used to the French view--"

"I hope no American woman ever does, " said Undine. 

She had been in Paris for about two months when this conversation tookplace, and in spite of her reviving self-confidence she was beginning torecognize the strength of the forces opposed to her. It had taken a longtime to convince her that even money could not prevail against them;and, in the intervals of expressing her admiration for the Catholiccreed, she now had violent reactions of militant Protestantism, duringwhich she talked of the tyranny of Rome and recalled school stories ofimmoral Popes and persecuting Jesuits. 

Meanwhile her demeanour to Chelles was that of the incorruptible butfearless American woman, who cannot even conceive of love outside ofmarriage, but is ready to give her devoted friendship to the man onwhom, in happier circumstances, she might have bestowed her hand. Thisattitude was provocative of many scenes, during which her suitor'sunfailing powers of expression--his gift of looking and saying allthe desperate and devoted things a pretty woman likes to think sheinspires--gave Undine the thrilling sense of breathing the very air ofFrench fiction. But she was aware that too prolonged tension of thesecords usually ends in their snapping, and that Chelles' patience wasprobably in inverse ratio to his ardour. 

When Madame de Trezac had left her these thoughts remained in her mind. She understood exactly what each of her new friends wanted of her. ThePrincess, who was fond of her cousin, and had the French sense of familysolidarity, would have liked to see Chelles happy in what seemed to herthe only imaginable way. Madame de Trezac would have liked to do whatshe could to second the Princess's efforts in this or any other line;and even the old Duchess--though piously desirous of seeing herfavourite nephew married--would have thought it not only natural butinevitable that, while awaiting that happy event, he should try toinduce an amiable young woman to mitigate the drawbacks of celibacy. Meanwhile, they might one and all weary of her if Chelles did; anda persistent rejection of his suit would probably imperil herscarcely-gained footing among his friends. All this was clear to her, yet it did not shake her resolve. She was determined to give up Chellesunless he was willing to marry her; and the thought of her renunciationmoved her to a kind of wistful melancholy. 

In this mood her mind reverted to a letter she had just received fromher mother. Mrs. Spragg wrote more fully than usual, and the unwontedflow of her pen had been occasioned by an event for which she had longyearned. For months she had pined for a sight of her grandson, had triedto screw up her courage to write and ask permission to visit him, and, finally breaking through her sedentary habits, had begun to haunt theneighbourhood of Washington Square, with the result that one afternoonshe had had the luck to meet the little boy coming out of the house withhis nurse. She had spoken to him, and he had remembered her and calledher "Granny"; and the next day she had received a note from Mrs. Fairford saying that Ralph would be glad to send Paul to see her. Mrs. Spragg enlarged on the delights of the visit and the growing beauty andcleverness of her grandson. She described to Undine exactly how Paulwas dressed, how he looked and what he said, and told her how he hadexamined everything in the room, and, finally coming upon his mother'sphotograph, had asked who the lady was; and, on being told, had wantedto know if she was a very long way off, and when Granny thought shewould come back. 

As Undine re-read her mother's pages, she felt an unusual tightness inher throat and two tears rose to her eyes. It was dreadful that herlittle boy should be growing up far away from her, perhaps dressed inclothes she would have hated; and wicked and unnatural that when he sawher picture he should have to be told who she was. "If I could only meetsome good man who would give me a home and be a father to him, " shethought--and the tears overflowed and ran down. 

Even as they fell, the door was thrown open to admit Raymond de Chelles, and the consciousness of the moisture still glistening on her cheeksperhaps strengthened her resolve to resist him, and thus made her moreimperiously to be desired. Certain it is that on that day her suitorfirst alluded to a possibility which Madame de Trezac had prudentlyrefrained from suggesting, there fell upon Undine's attentive ears themagic phrase "annulment of marriage. "

Her alert intelligence immediately set to work in this new direction;but almost at the same moment she became aware of a subtle changeof tone in the Princess and her mother, a change reflected in thecorresponding decline of Madame de Trezac's cordiality. Undine, sinceher arrival in Paris, had necessarily been less in the Princess'scompany, but when they met she had found her as friendly as ever. It wasmanifestly not a failing of the Princess's to forget past favours, andthough increasingly absorbed by the demands of town life she treated hernew friend with the same affectionate frankness, and Undine was givenfrequent opportunities to enlarge her Parisian acquaintance, not only inthe Princess's intimate circle but in the majestic drawing-rooms of theHotel de Dordogne. Now, however, there was a perceptible decline inthese signs of hospitality, and Undine, on calling one day on theDuchess, noticed that her appearance sent a visible flutter ofdiscomfort through the circle about her hostess's chair. Two or three ofthe ladies present looked away from the new-comer and at each other, and several of them seemed spontaneously to encircle without approachingher, while another--grey-haired, elderly and slightly frightened--withan "Adieu, ma bonne tante" to the Duchess, was hastily aided in herretreat down the long line of old gilded rooms. 

The incident was too mute and rapid to have been noticeable had it notbeen followed by the Duchess's resuming her conversation with the ladiesnearest her as though Undine had just gone out of the room instead ofentering it. The sense of having been thus rendered invisible filledUndine with a vehement desire to make herself seen, and an equallystrong sense that all attempts to do so would be vain; and when, a fewminutes later, she issued from the portals of the Hotel de Dordogne itwas with the fixed resolve not to enter them again till she had had anexplanation with the Princess. 

She was spared the trouble of seeking one by the arrival, early the nextmorning, of Madame de Trezac, who, entering almost with the breakfasttray, mysteriously asked to be allowed to communicate something ofimportance. 

"You'll understand, I know, the Princess's not coming herself--" Madamede Trezac began, sitting up very straight on the edge of the arm-chairover which Undine's lace dressing-gown hung. 

"If there's anything she wants to say to me, I don't, " Undine answered, leaning back among her rosy pillows, and reflecting compassionately thatthe face opposite her was just the colour of the café au lait she waspouring out. 

"There are things that are... That might seem too pointed... If one saidthem one's self, " Madame de Trezac continued. "Our dear Lili's sogood-natured... She so hates to do anything unfriendly; but shenaturally thinks first of her mother... "

"Her mother? What's the matter with her mother?"

"I told her I knew you didn't understand. I was sure you'd take it ingood part... "

Undine raised herself on her elbow. "What did Lili tell you to tell me?"

"Oh, not to TELL you... Simply to ask if, just for the present, you'dmind avoiding the Duchess's Thursdays ... Calling on any other day, thatis. "

"Any other day? She's not at home on any other. Do you mean she doesn'twant me to call?"

"Well--not while the Marquise de Chelles is in Paris. She's theDuchess's favourite niece--and of course they all hang together. Thatkind of family feeling is something you naturally don't--"

Undine had a sudden glimpse of hidden intricacies. 

"That was Raymond de Chelles' mother I saw there yesterday? The one theyhurried out when I came in?"

"It seems she was very much upset. She somehow heard your name. "

"Why shouldn't she have heard my name? And why in the world should itupset her?"

Madame de Trezac heaved a hesitating sigh. "Isn't it better to be frank?She thinks she has reason to feel badly--they all do. "

"To feel badly? Because her son wants to marry me?"

"Of course they know that's impossible. " Madame de Trezac smiledcompassionately. "But they're afraid of your spoiling his otherchances. "

Undine paused a moment before answering, "It won't be impossible when mymarriage is annulled, " she said. 

The effect of this statement was less electrifying than she had hoped. Her visitor simply broke into a laugh. "My dear child! Your marriageannulled? Who can have put such a mad idea into your head?"

Undine's gaze followed the pattern she was tracing with a lustrous nailon her embroidered bedspread. "Raymond himself, " she let fall. 

This time there was no mistaking the effect she produced. Madame deTrezac, with a murmured "Oh, " sat gazing before her as if she hadlost the thread of her argument; and it was only after a considerableinterval that she recovered it sufficiently to exclaim: "They'll neverhear of it--absolutely never!"

"But they can't prevent it, can they?"

"They can prevent its being of any use to you. "

"I see, " Undine pensively assented. 

She knew the tone she had taken was virtually a declaration of war; butshe was in a mood when the act of defiance, apart from its strategicvalue, was a satisfaction in itself. Moreover, if she could not gainher end without a fight it was better that the battle should beengaged while Raymond's ardour was at its height. To provoke immediatehostilities she sent for him the same afternoon, and related, quietlyand without comment, the incident of her visit to the Duchess, andthe mission with which Madame de Trezac had been charged. In thecircumstances, she went on to explain, it was manifestly impossible thatshe should continue to receive his visits; and she met his wrathfulcomments on his relatives by the gently but firmly expressed resolve notto be the cause of any disagreement between himself and his family. 

XXX

A few days after her decisive conversation with Raymond de Chelles, Undine, emerging from the doors of the Nouveau Luxe, where she had beento call on the newly-arrived Mrs. Homer Branney, once more found herselfface to face with Elmer Moffatt. 

This time there was no mistaking his eagerness to be recognized. Hestopped short as they met, and she read such pleasure in his eyes thatshe too stopped, holding out her hand. 

"I'm glad you're going to speak to me, " she said, and Moffatt reddened atthe allusion. 

"Well, I very nearly didn't. I didn't know you. You look about as old asyou did when I first landed at Apex--remember?"

He turned back and began to walk at her side in the direction of theChamps Elysees. 

"Say--this is all right!" he exclaimed; and she saw that his glance hadleft her and was ranging across the wide silvery square ahead of them tothe congregated domes and spires beyond the river. 

"Do you like Paris?" she asked, wondering what theatres he had been to. 

"It beats everything. " He seemed to be breathing in deeply theimpression of fountains, sculpture, leafy' avenues and long-drawnarchitectural distances fading into the afternoon haze. 

"I suppose you've been to that old church over there?" he went on, hisgold-topped stick pointing toward the towers of Notre Dame. 

"Oh, of course; when I used to sightsee. Have you never been to Parisbefore?"

"No, this is my first look-round. I came across in March. "

"In March?" she echoed inattentively. It never occurred to her thatother people's lives went on when they were out of her range of vision, and she tried in vain to remember what she had last heard of Moffatt. "Wasn't that a bad time to leave Wall Street?"

"Well, so-so. Fact is, I was played out: needed a change. " Nothing inhis robust mien confirmed the statement, and he did not seem inclined todevelop it. "I presume you're settled here now?" he went on. "I saw bythe papers--"

"Yes, " she interrupted; adding, after a moment: "It was all a mistakefrom the first. "

"Well, I never thought he was your form, " said Moffatt. 

His eyes had come back to her, and the look in them struck her assomething she might use to her advantage; but the next moment he hadglanced away with a furrowed brow, and she felt she had not wholly fixedhis attention. 

"I live at the other end of Paris. Why not come back and have tea withme?" she suggested, half moved by a desire to know more of his affairs, and half by the thought that a talk with him might help to shed somelight on hers. 

In the open taxi-cab he seemed to recover his sense of well-being, andleaned back, his hands on the knob of his stick, with the air of a manpleasantly aware of his privileges. "This Paris is a thundering goodplace, " he repeated once or twice as they rolled on through the crushand glitter of the afternoon; and when they had descended at Undine'sdoor, and he stood in her drawing-room, and looked out on thehorse-chestnut trees rounding their green domes under the balcony, hissatisfaction culminated in the comment: "I guess this lays out West EndAvenue!"

His eyes met Undine's with their old twinkle, and their expressionencouraged her to murmur: "Of course there are times when I'm verylonely. "

She sat down behind the tea-table, and he stood at a little distance, watching her pull off her gloves with a queer comic twitch of hiselastic mouth. "Well, I guess it's only when you want to be, " he said, grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords, and sitting down astrideof it, his light grey trousers stretching too tightly over his plumpthighs. Undine was perfectly aware that he was a vulgar over-dressedman, with a red crease of fat above his collar and an impudentswaggering eye; yet she liked to see him there, and was conscious thathe stirred the fibres of a self she had forgotten but had not ceased tounderstand. 

She had fancied her avowal of loneliness might call forth somesentimental phrase; but though Moffatt was clearly pleased to be withher she saw that she was not the centre of his thoughts, and thediscovery irritated her. 

"I don't suppose YOU'VE known what it is to be lonely since you've beenin Europe?" she continued as she held out his tea-cup. 

"Oh, " he said jocosely, "I don't always go round with a guide"; and sherejoined on the same note: "Then perhaps I shall see something of you. "

"Why, there's nothing would suit me better; but the fact is, I'mprobably sailing next week. "

"Oh, are you? I'm sorry. " There was nothing feigned in her regret. 

"Anything I can do for you across the pond?"

She hesitated. "There's something you can do for me right off. "

He looked at her more attentively, as if his practised eve had passedthrough the surface of her beauty to what might be going on behind it. "Do you want my blessing again?" he asked with sudden irony. 

Undine opened her eyes with a trustful look. "Yes--I do. "

"Well--I'll be damned!" said Moffatt gaily. 

"You've always been so awfully nice, " she began; and he leaned back, grasping both sides of the chair-back, and shaking it a little with hislaugh. 

He kept the same attitude while she proceeded to unfold her case, listening to her with the air of sober concentration that his frivolousface took on at any serious demand on his attention. When she had endedhe kept the same look during an interval of silent pondering. "Is it thefellow who was over at Nice with you that day?"

She looked at him with surprise. "How did you know?"

"Why, I liked his looks, " said Moffatt simply. He got up and strolledtoward the window. On the way he stopped before a table covered withshowy trifles, and after looking at them for a moment singled out a dimold brown and golden book which Chelles had given her. He examinedit lingeringly, as though it touched the spring of some choked-upsensibility for which he had no language. "Say--" he began: it was theusual prelude to his enthusiasms; but he laid the book down and turnedback. 

"Then you think if you had the cash you could fix it up all right withthe Pope?"

Her heart began to beat. She remembered that he had once put a job inRalph's way, and had let her understand that he had done it partly forher sake. 

"Well, " he continued, relapsing into hyperbole, "I wish I could send theold gentleman my cheque to-morrow morning: but the fact is I'm high anddry. " He looked at her with a sudden odd intensity. "If I WASN'T, Idunno but what--" The phrase was lost in his familiar whistle. "That's an awfully fetching way you do your hair, " he said. It was adisappointment to Undine to hear that his affairs were not prospering, for she knew that in his world "pull" and solvency were closely related, and that such support as she had hoped he might give her would becontingent on his own situation. But she had again a fleeting sense ofhis mysterious power of accomplishing things in the teeth of adversity;and she answered: "What I want is your advice. "

He turned away and wandered across the room, his hands in his pockets. On her ornate writing desk he saw a photograph of Paul, bright-curledand sturdy-legged, in a manly reefer, and bent over it with a murmur ofapproval. "Say--what a fellow! Got him with you?"

Undine coloured. "No--" she began; and seeing his look of surprise, sheembarked on her usual explanation. "I can't tell you how I miss him, "she ended, with a ring of truth that carried conviction to her own earsif not to Moffatt's. 

"Why don't you get him back, then?"

"Why, I--"

Moffatt had picked up the frame and was looking at the photograph moreclosely. "Pants!" he chuckled. "I declare!"

He turned back to Undine. "Who DOES he belong to, anyhow?"

"Belong to?"

"Who got him when you were divorced? Did you?"

"Oh, I got everything, " she said, her instinct of self-defense on thealert. 

"So I thought. " He stood before her, stoutly planted on his short legs, and speaking with an aggressive energy. "Well, I know what I'd do if hewas mine. "

"If he was yours?"

"And you tried to get him away from me. Fight you to a finish! If itcost me down to my last dollar I would. "

The conversation seemed to be wandering from the point, and sheanswered, with a touch of impatience: "It wouldn't cost you anythinglike that. I haven't got a dollar to fight back with. "

"Well, you ain't got to fight. Your decree gave him to you, didn't it?Why don't you send right over and get him? That's what I'd do if I wasyou. "

Undine looked up. "But I'm awfully poor; I can't afford to have himhere. "

"You couldn't, up to now; but now you're going to get married. You'regoing to be able to give him a home and a father's care--and theforeign languages. That's what I'd say if I was you... His father takesconsiderable stock in him, don't he?"

She coloured, a denial on her lips; but she could not shape it. "We'reboth awfully fond of him, of course... His father'd never give him up!"

"Just so. " Moffatt's face had grown as sharp as glass. "You've got theMarvells running. All you've got to do's to sit tight and wait for theircheque. " He dropped back to his equestrian seat on the lyre-backedchair. 

Undine stood up and moved uneasily toward the window. She seemed tosee her little boy as though he were in the room with her; she did notunderstand how she could have lived so long without him... She stood fora long time without speaking, feeling behind her the concentrated ironyof Moffatt's gaze. 

"You couldn't lend me the money--manage to borrow it for me, I mean?"she finally turned back to ask. He laughed. "If I could manage to borrowany money at this particular minute--well, I'd have to lend everydollar of it to Elmer Moffatt, Esquire. I'm stone-broke, if you wantto know. And wanted for an Investigation too. That's why I'm over hereimproving my mind. "

"Why, I thought you were going home next week?"

He grinned. "I am, because I've found out there's a party wants me tostay away worse than the courts want me back. Making the trip just formy private satisfaction--there won't be any money in it, I'm afraid. "

Leaden disappointment descended on Undine. She had felt almost sureof Moffatt's helping her, and for an instant she wondered if somelong-smouldering jealousy had flamed up under its cold cinders. Butanother look at his face denied her this solace; and his evidentindifference was the last blow to her pride. The twinge it gave herprompted her to ask: "Don't you ever mean to get married?"

Moffatt gave her a quick look. "Why, I shouldn't wonder--one of thesedays. Millionaires always collect something; but I've got to collect mymillions first. "

He spoke coolly and half-humorously, and before he had ended she hadlost all interest in his reply. He seemed aware of the fact, for hestood up and held out his hand. "Well, so long, Mrs. Marvell. It's beenuncommonly pleasant to see you; and you'd better think over what I'vesaid. "

She laid her hand sadly in his. "You've never had a child, " she replied. 

XXXI

Nearly two years had passed since Ralph Marvell, waking from his longsleep in the hot summer light of Washington Square, had found that theface of life was changed for him. 

In the interval he had gradually adapted himself to the new order ofthings; but the months of adaptation had been a time of such darknessand confusion that, from the vantage-ground of his recovered lucidity, he could not yet distinguish the stages by which he had worked his wayout; and even now his footing was not secure. 

His first effort had been to readjust his values--to take an inventoryof them, and reclassify them, so that one at least might be made toappear as important as those he had lost; otherwise there could be noreason why he should go on living. He applied himself doggedly to thisattempt; but whenever he thought he had found a reason that his mindcould rest in, it gave way under him, and the old struggle for afoothold began again. His two objects in life were his boy and his book. The boy was incomparably the stronger argument, yet the less serviceablein filling the void. Ralph felt his son all the while, and all throughhis other feelings; but he could not think about him actively andcontinuously, could not forever exercise his eager empty dissatisfiedmind on the relatively simple problem of clothing, educating and amusinga little boy of six. Yet Paul's existence was the all-sufficient reasonfor his own; and he turned again, with a kind of cold fervour, to hisabandoned literary dream. Material needs obliged him to go on withhis regular business; but, the day's work over, he was possessed of aleisure as bare and as blank as an unfurnished house, yet that was atleast his own to furnish as he pleased. 

Meanwhile he was beginning to show a presentable face to the world, andto be once more treated like a man in whose case no one is particularlyinterested. His men friends ceased to say: "Hallo, old chap, I never sawyou looking fitter!" and elderly ladies no longer told him they weresure he kept too much to himself, and urged him to drop in any afternoonfor a quiet talk. People left him to his sorrow as a man is left to anincurable habit, an unfortunate tie: they ignored it, or looked over itshead if they happened to catch a glimpse of it at his elbow. 

These glimpses were given to them more and more rarely. The smotheredsprings of life were bubbling up in Ralph, and there were days when hewas glad to wake and see the sun in his window, and when he began toplan his book, and to fancy that the planning really interested him. Hecould even maintain the delusion for several days--for intervals eachtime appreciably longer--before it shrivelled up again in a scorchingblast of disenchantment. The worst of it was that he could never tellwhen these hot gusts of anguish would overtake him. They came sometimesjust when he felt most secure, when he was saying to himself: "Afterall, things are really worth while--" sometimes even when he was sittingwith Clare Van Degen, listening to her voice, watching her hands, andturning over in his mind the opening chapters of his book. 

"You ought to write"; they had one and all said it to him from thefirst; and he fancied he might have begun sooner if he had notbeen urged on by their watchful fondness. Everybody wanted him towrite--everybody had decided that he ought to, that he would, thathe must be persuaded to; and the incessant imperceptible pressure ofencouragement--the assumption of those about him that because it wouldbe good for him to write he must naturally be able to--acted on hisrestive nerves as a stronger deterrent than disapproval. 

Even Clare had fallen into the same mistake; and one day, as he sattalking with her on the verandah of Laura Fairford's house on theSound--where they now most frequently met--Ralph had half-impatientlyrejoined: "Oh, if you think it's literature I need--!"

Instantly he had seen her face change, and the speaking hands tremble onher knee. But she achieved the feat of not answering him, or turning hersteady eyes from the dancing mid-summer water at the foot of Laura'slawn. Ralph leaned a little nearer, and for an instant his hand imaginedthe flutter of hers. But instead of clasping it he drew back, and risingfrom his chair wandered away to the other end of the verandah... No, hedidn't feel as Clare felt. If he loved her--as he sometimes thought hedid--it was not in the same way. He had a great tenderness for her, hewas more nearly happy with her than with any one else; he liked to sitand talk with her, and watch her face and her hands, and he wished therewere some way--some different way--of letting her know it; but he couldnot conceive that tenderness and desire could ever again be one for him:such a notion as that seemed part of the monstrous sentimental muddle onwhich his life had gone aground. 

"I shall write--of course I shall write some day, " he said, turning backto his seat. "I've had a novel in the back of my head for years; andnow's the time to pull it out. "

He hardly knew what he was saying; but before the end of the sentence hesaw that Clare had understood what he meant to convey, and henceforth hefelt committed to letting her talk to him as much as she pleased abouthis book. He himself, in consequence, took to thinking about it moreconsecutively; and just as his friends ceased to urge him to write, hesat down in earnest to begin. 

The vision that had come to him had no likeness to any of his earlierimaginings. Two or three subjects had haunted him, pleading forexpression, during the first years of his marriage; but these now seemedeither too lyrical or too tragic. He no longer saw life on the heroicscale: he wanted to do something in which men should look no bigger thanthe insects they were. He contrived in the course of time to reduce oneof his old subjects to these dimensions, and after nights of brooding hemade a dash at it, and wrote an opening chapter that struck him asnot too bad. In the exhilaration of this first attempt he spent somepleasant evenings revising and polishing his work; and gradually afeeling of authority and importance developed in him. In the morning, when he woke, instead of his habitual sense of lassitude, he felt aneagerness to be up and doing, and a conviction that his individual taskwas a necessary part of the world's machinery. He kept his secret withthe beginner's deadly fear of losing his hold on his half-real creationsif he let in any outer light on them; but he went about with a moreassured step, shrank less from meeting his friends, and even began todine out again, and to laugh at some of the jokes he heard. 

Laura Fairford, to get Paul away from town, had gone early to thecountry; and Ralph, who went down to her every Saturday, usually foundClare Van Degen there. Since his divorce he had never entered hiscousin's pinnacled palace; and Clare had never asked him why he stayedaway. This mutual silence had been their sole allusion to Van Degen'sshare in the catastrophe, though Ralph had spoken frankly of its otheraspects. They talked, however, most often of impersonal subjects--books, pictures, plays, or whatever the world that interested them wasdoing--and she showed no desire to draw him back to his own affairs. Shewas again staying late in town--to have a pretext, as he guessed, forcoming down on Sundays to the Fairfords'--and they often made the triptogether in her motor; but he had not yet spoken to her of having begunhis book. One May evening, however, as they sat alone in the verandah, he suddenly told her that he was writing. As he spoke his heart beatlike a boy's; but once the words were out they gave him a feeling ofself-confidence, and he began to sketch his plan, and then to go intoits details. Clare listened devoutly, her eyes burning on him throughthe dusk like the stars deepening above the garden; and when she got upto go in he followed her with a new sense of reassurance. 

The dinner that evening was unusually pleasant. Charles Bowen, just backfrom his usual spring travels, had come straight down to his friendsfrom the steamer; and the fund of impressions he brought with him gaveRalph a desire to be up and wandering. And why not--when the book wasdone? He smiled across the table at Clare. 

"Next summer you'll have to charter a yacht, and take us all off tothe Aegean. We can't have Charles condescending to us about theout-of-the-way places he's been seeing. "

Was it really he who was speaking, and his cousin who was sendinghim back her dusky smile? Well--why not, again? The seasons renewedthemselves, and he too was putting out a new growth. "My book--mybook--my book, " kept repeating itself under all his thoughts, asUndine's name had once perpetually murmured there. That night as he wentup to bed he said to himself that he was actually ceasing to think abouthis wife... 

As he passed Laura's door she called him in, and put her arms about him. 

"You look so well, dear!"

"But why shouldn't I?" he answered gaily, as if ridiculing the fancythat he had ever looked otherwise. Paul was sleeping behind the nextdoor, and the sense of the boy's nearness gave him a warmer glow. Hislittle world was rounding itself out again, and once more he felt safeand at peace in its circle. 

His sister looked as if she had something more to say; but she merelykissed him good night, and he went up whistling to his room. The nextmorning he was to take a walk with Clare, and while he lounged about thedrawing-room, waiting for her to come down, a servant came in with theSunday papers. Ralph picked one up, and was absently unfolding it whenhis eye fell on his own name: a sight he had been spared since the lastechoes of his divorce had subsided. His impulse was to fling the paperdown, to hurl it as far from him as he could; but a grim fascinationtightened his hold and drew his eyes back to the hated head-line. 

NEW YORK BEAUTY WEDS FRENCH NOBLEMAN MRS. UNDINE MARVELL CONFIDENT POPEWILL ANNUL PREVIOUS MARRIAGE MRS. MARVELL TALKS ABOUT HER CASE

There it was before him in all its long-drawn horror--an "interview"--an"interview" of Undine's about her coming marriage! Ah, she talked abouther case indeed! Her confidences filled the greater part of a column, and the only detail she seemed to have omitted was the name of herfuture husband, who was referred to by herself as "my fiancé" and bythe interviewer as "the Count" or "a prominent scion of the Frenchnobility. "

Ralph heard Laura's step behind him. He threw the paper aside and theireyes met. 

"Is this what you wanted to tell me last night?"

"Last night?--Is it in the papers?"

"Who told you? Bowen? What else has he heard?"

"Oh, Ralph, what does it matter--what can it matter?"

"Who's the man? Did he tell you that?" Ralph insisted. He saw hergrowing agitation. "Why can't you answer? Is it any one I know?"

"He was told in Paris it was his friend Raymond de Chelles. "

Ralph laughed, and his laugh sounded in his own ears like an echo of thedreary mirth with which he had filled Mr. Spragg's office the day hehad learned that Undine intended to divorce him. But now his wrath wasseasoned with a wholesome irony. The fact of his wife's having reachedanother stage in her ascent fell into its place as a part of the hugehuman buffoonery. 

"Besides, " Laura went on, "it's all perfect nonsense, of course. How inthe world can she have her marriage annulled?"

Ralph pondered: this put the matter in another light. "With a great dealof money I suppose she might. "

"Well, she certainly won't get that from Chelles. He's far from rich, Charles tells me. " Laura waited, watching him, before she risked:"That's what convinces me she wouldn't have him if she could. "

Ralph shrugged. "There may be other inducements. But she won't be ableto manage it. " He heard himself speaking quite collectedly. Had Undineat last lost her power of wounding him?

Clare came in, dressed for their walk, and under Laura's anxious eyes hepicked up the newspaper and held it out with a careless: "Look at this!"

His cousin's glance flew down the column, and he saw the tremor of herlashes as she read. Then she lifted her head. "But you'll be free!" Herface was as vivid as a flower. 

"Free? I'm free now, as far as that goes!"

"Oh, but it will go so much farther when she has another name--whenshe's a different person altogether! Then you'll really have Paul toyourself. "

"Paul?" Laura intervened with a nervous laugh. "But there's never beenthe least doubt about his having Paul!"

They heard the boy's laughter on the lawn, and she went out to join him. Ralph was still looking at his cousin. 

"You're glad, then?" came from him involuntarily; and she startled himby bursting into tears. He bent over and kissed her on the cheek. 

XXXII

Ralph, as the days passed, felt that Clare was right: if Undine marriedagain he would possess himself more completely, be more definitely ridof his past. And he did not doubt that she would gain her end: he knewher violent desires and her cold tenacity. If she had failed to captureVan Degen it was probably because she lacked experience of thatparticular type of man, of his huge immediate wants and feeblevacillating purposes; most of all, because she had not yet measured thestrength of the social considerations that restrained him. It was amistake she was not likely to repeat, and her failure had probably beena useful preliminary to success. It was a long time since Ralph hadallowed himself to think of her, and as he did so the overwhelming factof her beauty became present to him again, no longer as an element ofhis being but as a power dispassionately estimated. He said to himself:"Any man who can feel at all will feel it as I did"; and the convictiongrew in him that Raymond de Chelles, of whom he had formed an ideathrough Bowen's talk, was not the man to give her up, even if she failedto obtain the release his religion exacted. 

Meanwhile Ralph was gradually beginning to feel himself freer andlighter. Undine's act, by cutting the last link between them, seemed tohave given him back to himself; and the mere fact that he could considerhis case in all its bearings, impartially and ironically, showed him thedistance he had travelled, the extent to which he had renewed himself. He had been moved, too, by Clare's cry of joy at his release. Thoughthe nature of his feeling for her had not changed he was aware of a newquality in their friendship. When he went back to his book again hissense of power had lost its asperity, and the spectacle of life seemedless like a witless dangling of limp dolls. He was well on in his secondchapter now. 

This lightness of mood was still on him when, returning one afternoon toWashington Square, full of projects for a long evening's work, he foundhis mother awaiting him with a strange face. He followed her into thedrawing-room, and she explained that there had been a telephone messageshe didn't understand--something perfectly crazy about Paul--of courseit was all a mistake... 

Ralph's first thought was of an accident, and his heart contracted. "DidLaura telephone?"

"No, no; not Laura. It seemed to be a message from Mrs. Spragg:something about sending some one here to fetch him--a queer name likeHeeny--to fetch him to a steamer on Saturday. I was to be sure to havehis things packed... But of course it's a misunderstanding... " She gavean uncertain laugh, and looked up at Ralph as though entreating him toreturn the reassurance she had given him. 

"Of course, of course, " he echoed. 

He made his mother repeat her statement; but the unforeseen alwaysflurried her, and she was confused and inaccurate. She didn't actuallyknow who had telephoned: the voice hadn't sounded like Mrs. Spragg's... A woman's voice; yes--oh, not a lady's! And there was certainlysomething about a steamer... But he knew how the telephone bewilderedher... And she was sure she was getting a little deaf. Hadn't he bettercall up the Malibran? Of course it was all a mistake--but... Well, perhaps he HAD better go there himself... 

As he reached the front door a letter clinked in the box, and he sawhis name on an ordinary looking business envelope. He turned thedoor-handle, paused again, and stooped to take out the letter. It borethe address of the firm of lawyers who had represented Undine in thedivorce proceedings and as he tore open the envelope Paul's name startedout at him. 

Mrs. Marvell had followed him into the hall, and her cry broke thesilence. "Ralph--Ralph--is it anything she's done?"

"Nothing--it's nothing. " He stared at her. "What's the day of the week?"

"Wednesday. Why, what--?" She suddenly seemed to understand. "She's notgoing to take him away from us?"

Ralph dropped into a chair, crumpling the letter in his hand. He hadbeen in a dream, poor fool that he was--a dream about his child! He satgazing at the type-written phrases that spun themselves out beforehim. "My client's circumstances now happily permitting... At last ina position to offer her son a home... Long separation... A mother'sfeelings... Every social and educational advantage"... And then, at theend, the poisoned dart that struck him speechless: "The courts havingawarded her the sole custody... "

The sole custody! But that meant that Paul was hers, hers only, hersfor always: that his father had no more claim on him than any casualstranger in the street! And he, Ralph Marvell, a sane man, young, able-bodied, in full possession of his wits, had assisted at theperpetration of this abominable wrong, had passively forfeited his rightto the flesh of his body, the blood of his being! But it couldn't be--ofcourse it couldn't be. The preposterousness of it proved that it wasn'ttrue. There was a mistake somewhere; a mistake his own lawyer wouldinstantly rectify. If a hammer hadn't been drumming in his head hecould have recalled the terms of the decree--but for the moment all thedetails of the agonizing episode were lost in a blur of uncertainty. 

To escape his mother's silent anguish of interrogation he stood up andsaid: "I'll see Mr. Spragg--of course it's a mistake. " But as he spokehe retravelled the hateful months during the divorce proceedings, remembering his incomprehensible lassitude, his acquiescence in hisfamily's determination to ignore the whole episode, and his graduallapse into the same state of apathy. He recalled all the old familycatchwords, the full and elaborate vocabulary of evasion: "delicacy, ""pride, " "personal dignity, " "preferring not to know about such things";Mrs. Marvell's: "All I ask is that you won't mention the subject toyour grandfather, " Mr. Dagonet's: "Spare your mother, Ralph, whateverhappens, " and even Laura's terrified: "Of course, for Paul's sake, theremust be no scandal. "

For Paul's sake! And it was because, for Paul's sake, there must be noscandal, that he, Paul's father, had tamely abstained from defending hisrights and contesting his wife's charges, and had thus handed the childover to her keeping!

As his cab whirled him up Fifth Avenue, Ralph's whole body throbbed withrage against the influences that had reduced him to such weakness. Then, gradually, he saw that the weakness was innate in him. He had beeneloquent enough, in his free youth, against the conventions of hisclass; yet when the moment came to show his contempt for them theyhad mysteriously mastered him, deflecting his course like some hiddenhereditary failing. As he looked back it seemed as though even his greatdisaster had been conventionalized and sentimentalized by this inheritedattitude: that the thoughts he had thought about it were only those ofgenerations of Dagonets, and that there had been nothing real and hisown in his life but the foolish passion he had been trying so hard tothink out of existence. 

Halfway to the Malibran he changed his direction, and drove to the houseof the lawyer he had consulted at the time of his divorce. The lawyerhad not yet come up town, and Ralph had a half hour of bitter meditationbefore the sound of a latch-key brought him to his feet. The visit didnot last long. His host, after an affable greeting, listened withoutsurprise to what he had to say, and when he had ended reminded him withsomewhat ironic precision that, at the time of the divorce, he had askedfor neither advice nor information--had simply declared that he wantedto "turn his back on the whole business" (Ralph recognized the phrase asone of his grandfather's), and, on hearing that in that case he had onlyto abstain from action, and was in no need of legal services, had goneaway without farther enquiries. 

"You led me to infer you had your reasons--" the slighted counsellorconcluded; and, in reply to Ralph's breathless question, he subjoined, "Why, you see, the case is closed, and I don't exactly know on whatground you can re-open it--unless, of course, you can bring evidenceshowing that the irregularity of the mother's life is such... "

"She's going to marry again, " Ralph threw in. 

"Indeed? Well, that in itself can hardly be described as irregular. Infact, in certain circumstances it might be construed as an advantage tothe child. "

"Then I'm powerless?"

"Why--unless there's an ulterior motive--through which pressure might bebrought to bear. "

"You mean that the first thing to do is to find out what she's up to?"

"Precisely. Of course, if it should prove to be a genuine case ofmaternal feeling, I won't conceal from you that the outlook's bad. Atmost, you could probably arrange to see your boy at stated intervals. "

To see his boy at stated intervals! Ralph wondered how a sane man couldsit there, looking responsible and efficient, and talk such rubbish... Ashe got up to go the lawyer detained him to add: "Of course there's noimmediate cause for alarm. It will take time to enforce the provisionof the Dakota decree in New York, and till it's done your son can'tbe taken from you. But there's sure to be a lot of nasty talk in thepapers; and you're bound to lose in the end. "

Ralph thanked him and left. 

He sped northward to the Malibran, where he learned that Mr. And Mrs. Spragg were at dinner. He sent his name down to the subterraneanrestaurant, and Mr. Spragg presently appeared between the limp portieresof the "Adam" writing-room. He had grown older and heavier, as ifillness instead of health had put more flesh on his bones, and therewere greyish tints in the hollows of his face. 

"What's this about Paul?" Ralph exclaimed. "My mother's had a message wecan't make out. "

Mr. Spragg sat down, with the effect of immersing his spinal column inthe depths of the arm-chair he selected. He crossed his legs, and swungone foot to and fro in its high wrinkled boot with elastic sides. 

"Didn't you get a letter?" he asked. 

"From my--from Undine's lawyers? Yes. " Ralph held it out. "It's queerreading. She hasn't hitherto been very keen to have Paul with her. "

Mr. Spragg, adjusting his glasses, read the letter slowly, restored itto the envelope and gave it back. "My daughter has intimated that shewishes these gentlemen to act for her. I haven't received any additionalinstructions from her, " he said, with none of the curtness of tone thathis stiff legal vocabulary implied. 

"But the first communication I received was from you--at least from Mrs. Spragg. "

Mr. Spragg drew his beard through his hand. "The ladies are apt to be atrifle hasty. I believe Mrs. Spragg had a letter yesterday instructingher to select a reliable escort for Paul; and I suppose she thought--"

"Oh, this is all too preposterous!" Ralph burst out, springing from hisseat. "You don't for a moment imagine, do you--any of you--that I'mgoing to deliver up my son like a bale of goods in answer to anyinstructions in God's world?--Oh, yes, I know--I let him go--Iabandoned my right to him... But I didn't know what I was doing... I wassick with grief and misery. My people were awfully broken up over thewhole business, and I wanted to spare them. I wanted, above all, tospare my boy when he grew up. If I'd contested the case you know whatthe result would have been. I let it go by default--I made no conditionsall I wanted was to keep Paul, and never to let him hear a word againsthis mother!"

Mr. Spragg received this passionate appeal in a silence that implied notso much disdain or indifference, as the total inability to deal verballywith emotional crises. At length, he said, a slight unsteadiness in hisusually calm tones: "I presume at the time it was optional with you todemand Paul's custody. "

"Oh, yes--it was optional, " Ralph sneered. 

Mr. Spragg looked at him compassionately. "I'm sorry you didn't do it, "he said. 

XXXIII

The upshot of Ralph's visit was that Mr. Spragg, after considerabledeliberation, agreed, pending farther negotiations between the opposinglawyers, to undertake that no attempt should be made to remove Paul fromhis father's custody. Nevertheless, he seemed to think it quite naturalthat Undine, on the point of making a marriage which would put it in herpower to give her child a suitable home, should assert her claim on him. It was more disconcerting to Ralph to learn that Mrs. Spragg, for oncedeparting from her attitude of passive impartiality, had eagerly abettedher daughter's move; he had somehow felt that Undine's desertion of thechild had established a kind of mute understanding between himself andhis mother-in-law. 

"I thought Mrs. Spragg would know there's no earthly use trying to takePaul from me, " he said with a desperate awkwardness of entreaty, and Mr. Spragg startled him by replying: "I presume his grandma thinks he'llbelong to her more if we keep him in the family. "

Ralph, abruptly awakened from his dream of recovered peace, foundhimself confronted on every side by. Indifference or hostility: it wasas though the June fields in which his boy was playing had suddenlyopened to engulph him. Mrs. Marvell's fears and tremors were almostharder to bear than the Spraggs' antagonism; and for the next few daysRalph wandered about miserably, dreading some fresh communication fromUndine's lawyers, yet racked by the strain of hearing nothing more fromthem. Mr. Spragg had agreed to cable his daughter asking her to await aletter before enforcing her demands; but on the fourth day afterRalph's visit to the Malibran a telephone message summoned him to hisfather-in-law's office. 

Half an hour later their talk was over and he stood once more on thelanding outside Mr. Spragg's door. Undine's answer had come and Paul'sfate was sealed. His mother refused to give him up, refused to awaitthe arrival of her lawyer's letter, and reiterated, in more peremptorylanguage, her demand that the child should be sent immediately to Parisin Mrs. Heeny's care. 

Mr. Spragg, in face of Ralph's entreaties, remained pacific but remote. It was evident that, though he had no wish to quarrel with Ralph, he sawno reason for resisting Undine. "I guess she's got the law on her side, "he said; and in response to Ralph's passionate remonstrances he addedfatalistically: "I presume you'll have to leave the matter to mydaughter. "

Ralph had gone to the office resolved to control his temper and keepon the watch for any shred of information he might glean; but it soonbecame clear that Mr. Spragg knew as little as himself of Undine'sprojects, or of the stage her plans had reached. All she had apparentlyvouchsafed her parent was the statement that she intended to re-marry, and the command to send Paul over; and Ralph reflected that his ownbetrothal to her had probably been announced to Mr. Spragg in the samecurt fashion. 

The thought brought back an overwhelming sense of the past. One by onethe details of that incredible moment revived, and he felt in hisveins the glow of rapture with which he had first approached the dingythreshold he was now leaving. There came back to him with peculiarvividness the memory of his rushing up to Mr. Spragg's office to consulthim about a necklace for Undine. Ralph recalled the incident because hiseager appeal for advice had been received by Mr. Spragg with the veryphrase he had just used: "I presume you'll have to leave the matter tomy daughter. "

Ralph saw him slouching in his chair, swung sideways from the untidydesk, his legs stretched out, his hands in his pockets, his jaws engagedon the phantom tooth-pick; and, in a corner of the office, thefigure of a middle-sized red-faced young man who seemed to have beeninterrupted in the act of saying something disagreeable. 

"Why, it must have been then that I first saw Moffatt, " Ralph reflected;and the thought suggested the memory of other, subsequent meetings inthe same building, and of frequent ascents to Moffatt's office duringthe ardent weeks of their mysterious and remunerative "deal. "

Ralph wondered if Moffatt's office were still in the Ararat; and on theway out he paused before the black tablet affixed to the wall of thevestibule and sought and found the name in its familiar place. 

The next moment he was again absorbed in his own cares. Now that he hadlearned the imminence of Paul's danger, and the futility of pleading fordelay, a thousand fantastic projects were contending in his head. Toget the boy away--that seemed the first thing to do: to put him out ofreach, and then invoke the law, get the case re-opened, and carry thefight from court to court till his rights should be recognized. It wouldcost a lot of money--well, the money would have to be found. The firststep was to secure the boy's temporary safety; after that, the questionof ways and means would have to be considered... Had there ever been atime, Ralph wondered, when that question hadn't been at the root of allthe others?

He had promised to let Clare Van Degen know the result of his visit, andhalf an hour later he was in her drawing-room. It was the first time hehad entered it since his divorce; but Van Degen was tarpon-fishing inCalifornia--and besides, he had to see Clare. His one relief was intalking to her, in feverishly turning over with her every possibility ofdelay and obstruction; and he marvelled at the intelligence and energyshe brought to the discussion of these questions. It was as if she hadnever before felt strongly enough about anything to put her heart or herbrains into it; but now everything in her was at work for him. 

She listened intently to what he told her; then she said: "You tell meit will cost a great deal; but why take it to the courts at all? Why notgive the money to Undine instead of to your lawyers?"

Ralph looked at her in surprise, and she continued: "Why do you supposeshe's suddenly made up her mind she must have Paul?"

"That's comprehensible enough to any one who knows her. She wants himbecause he'll give her the appearance of respectability. Having him withher will prove, as no mere assertions can, that all the rights are onher side and the 'wrongs' on mine. "

Clare considered. "Yes; that's the obvious answer. But shall I tell youwhat I think, my dear? You and I are both completely out-of-date. I don't believe Undine cares a straw for 'the appearance ofrespectability. ' What she wants is the money for her annulment. "

Ralph uttered an incredulous exclamation. "But don't you see?" shehurried on. "It's her only hope--her last chance. She's much too cleverto burden herself with the child merely to annoy you. What she wants isto make you buy him back from her. " She stood up and came to him withoutstretched hands. "Perhaps I can be of use to you at last!"

"You?" He summoned up a haggard smile. "As if you weren'talways--letting me load you with all my bothers!"

"Oh, if only I've hit on the way out of this one! Then there wouldn't beany others left!" Her eyes followed him intently as he turned awayto the window and stood staring down at the sultry prospect of FifthAvenue. As he turned over her conjecture its probability became more andmore apparent. It put into logical relation all the incoherencies ofUndine's recent conduct, completed and defined her anew as if a sharpline had been drawn about her fading image. 

"If it's that, I shall soon know, " he said, turning back into the room. His course had instantly become plain. He had only to resist and Undinewould have to show her hand. Simultaneously with this thought theresprang up in his mind the remembrance of the autumn afternoon in Pariswhen he had come home and found her, among her half-packed finery, desperately bewailing her coming motherhood. Clare's touch was on hisarm. "If I'm right--you WILL let me help?"

He laid his hand on hers without speaking, and she went on:

"It will take a lot of money: all these law-suits do. Besides, she'd beashamed to sell him cheap. You must be ready to give her anything shewants. And I've got a lot saved up--money of my own, I mean... "

"Your own?" As he looked at her the rare blush rose under her brownskin. 

"My very own. Why shouldn't you believe me? I've been hoarding up myscrap of an income for years, thinking that some day I'd find I couldn'tstand this any longer... " Her gesture embraced their sumptuous setting. "But now I know I shall never budge. There are the children; andbesides, things are easier for me since--" she paused, embarrassed. 

"Yes, yes; I know. " He felt like completing her phrase: "Since my wifehas furnished you with the means of putting pressure on your husband--"but he simply repeated: "I know. "

"And you WILL let me help?"

"Oh, we must get at the facts first. " He caught her hands in his withsudden energy. "As you say, when Paul's safe there won't be anotherbother left!"

XXXIV

The means of raising the requisite amount of money became, during thenext few weeks, the anxious theme of all Ralph's thoughts. His lawyers'enquiries soon brought the confirmation of Clare's surmise, and itbecame clear that--for reasons swathed in all the ingenuities of legalverbiage--Undine might, in return for a substantial consideration, beprevailed on to admit that it was for her son's advantage to remain withhis father. 

The day this admission was communicated to Ralph his first impulse wasto carry the news to his cousin. His mood was one of pure exaltation; heseemed to be hugging his boy to him as he walked. Paul and he were tobelong to each other forever: no mysterious threat of separation couldever menace them again! He had the blissful sense of relief that thechild himself might have had on waking out of a frightened dream andfinding the jolly daylight in his room. 

Clare at once renewed her entreaty to be allowed to aid in ransomingher little cousin, but Ralph tried to put her off by explaining that hemeant to "look about. "

"Look where? In the Dagonet coffers? Oh, Ralph, what's the use ofpretending? Tell me what you've got to give her. " It was amazing howhis cousin suddenly dominated him. But as yet he couldn't go into thedetails of the bargain. That the reckoning between himself and Undineshould be settled in dollars and cents seemed the last bitterest satireon his dreams: he felt himself miserably diminished by the smallness ofwhat had filled his world. 

Nevertheless, the looking about had to be done; and a day came whenhe found himself once more at the door of Elmer Moffatt's office. Histhoughts had been drawn back to Moffatt by the insistence with which thelatter's name had lately been put forward by the press in connectionwith a revival of the Ararat investigation. Moffatt, it appeared, hadbeen regarded as one of the most valuable witnesses for the State;his return from Europe had been anxiously awaited, his unreadiness totestify caustically criticized; then at last he had arrived, had gone onto Washington--and had apparently had nothing to tell. 

Ralph was too deep in his own troubles to waste any wonder over thisanticlimax; but the frequent appearance of Moffatt's name in the morningpapers acted as an unconscious suggestion. Besides, to whom else couldhe look for help? The sum his wife demanded could be acquired only by "aquick turn, " and the fact that Ralph had once rendered the same kind ofservice to Moffatt made it natural to appeal to him now. The market, moreover, happened to be booming, and it seemed not unlikely that soexperienced a speculator might have a "good thing" up his sleeve. 

Moffatt's office had been transformed since Ralph's last visit. Paint, varnish and brass railings gave an air of opulence to the outerprecincts, and the inner room, with its mahogany bookcases containingmorocco-bound "sets" and its wide blue leather arm-chairs, lacked onlya palm or two to resemble the lounge of a fashionable hotel. Moffatthimself, as he came forward, gave Ralph the impression of having beendone over by the same hand: he was smoother, broader, more supremelytailored, and his whole person exhaled the faintest whiff of anexpensive scent. He installed his visitor in one of the blue arm-chairs, and sitting opposite, an elbow on his impressive "Washington" desk, listened attentively while Ralph made his request. 

"You want to be put onto something good in a damned hurry?" Moffatttwisted his moustache between two plump square-tipped fingers witha little black growth on their lower joints. "I don't suppose, " heremarked, "there's a sane man between here and San Francisco who isn'tconsumed by that yearning. "

Having permitted himself this pleasantry he passed on to business. "Yes--it's a first-rate time to buy: no doubt of that. But you say youwant to make a quick turn-over? Heard of a soft thing that won't wait, I presume? That's apt to be the way with soft things--all kinds of 'em. There's always other fellows after them. " Moffatt's smile was playful. "Well, I'd go considerably out of my way to do you a good turn, becauseyou did me one when I needed it mighty bad. 'In youth you sheltered me. 'Yes, sir, that's the kind I am. " He stood up, sauntered to the otherside of the room, and took a small object from the top of the bookcase. 

"Fond of these pink crystals?" He held the oriental toy against thelight. "Oh, I ain't a judge--but now and then I like to pick up a prettything. " Ralph noticed that his eyes caressed it. 

"Well--now let's talk. You say you've got to have the funds foryour--your investment within three weeks. That's quick work. And youwant a hundred thousand. Can you put up fifty?"

Ralph had been prepared for the question, but when it came he felt amoment's tremor. He knew he could count on half the amount from hisgrandfather; could possibly ask Fairford for a small additionalloan--but what of the rest? Well, there was Clare. He had always knownthere would be no other way. And after all, the money was Clare's--itwas Dagonet money. At least she said it was. All the misery of hispredicament was distilled into the short silence that preceded hisanswer: "Yes--I think so. "

"Well, I guess I can double it for you. " Moffatt spoke with an air ofOlympian modesty. "Anyhow, I'll try. Only don't tell the other girls!"

He proceeded to develop his plan to ears which Ralph tried to make alertand attentive, but in which perpetually, through the intricate concertof facts and figures, there broke the shout of a small boy racing acrossa suburban lawn. "When I pick him up to-night he'll be mine for good!"Ralph thought as Moffatt summed up: "There's the whole scheme in anut-shell; but you'd better think it over. I don't want to let you infor anything you ain't quite sure about. " "Oh, if you're sure--" Ralphwas already calculating the time it would take to dash up to Clare VanDegen's on his way to catch the train for the Fairfords'. 

His impatience made it hard to pay due regard to Moffatt's partingcivilities. "Glad to have seen you, " he heard the latter assuring himwith a final hand-grasp. "Wish you'd dine with me some evening at myclub"; and, as Ralph murmured a vague acceptance: "How's that boy ofyours, by the way?" Moffatt continued. "He was a stunning chap last timeI saw him. --Excuse me if I've put my foot in it; but I understood youkept him with you... ? Yes: that's what I thought.... Well, so long. "

Clare's inner sitting-room was empty; but the servant, presentlyreturning, led Ralph into the gilded and tapestried wilderness where sheoccasionally chose to receive her visitors. There, under Popple's effigyof herself, she sat, small and alone, on a monumental sofa behind atea-table laden with gold plate; while from his lofty frame, on theopposite wall Van Degen, portrayed by a "powerful" artist, cast on herthe satisfied eye of proprietorship. 

Ralph, swept forward on the blast of his excitement, felt as in a dreamthe frivolous perversity of her receiving him in such a setting insteadof in their usual quiet corner; but there was no room in his mind foranything but the cry that broke from him: "I believe I've done it!"

He sat down and explained to her by what means, trying, as best hecould, to restate the particulars of Moffatt's deal; and her manifestignorance of business methods had the effect of making his vaguenessappear less vague. 

"Anyhow, he seems to be sure it's a safe thing. I understand he's inwith Rolliver now, and Rolliver practically controls Apex. This is somekind of a scheme to buy up all the works of public utility at Apex. They're practically sure of their charter, and Moffatt tells me I cancount on doubling my investment within a few weeks. Of course I'll gointo the details if you like--"

"Oh, no; you've made it all so clear to me!" She really made him feel hehad. "And besides, what on earth does it matter? The great thing isthat it's done. " She lifted her sparkling eyes. "And now--my share--youhaven't told me... "

He explained that Mr. Dagonet, to whom he had already named the amountdemanded, had at once promised him twenty-five thousand dollars, tobe eventually deducted from his share of the estate. His mother hadsomething put by that she insisted on contributing; and Henley Fairford, of his own accord, had come forward with ten thousand: it was awfullydecent of Henley... 

"Even Henley!" Clare sighed. "Then I'm the only one left out?"

Ralph felt the colour in his face. "Well, you see, I shall need as muchas fifty--"

Her hands flew together joyfully. "But then you've got to let me help!Oh, I'm so glad--so glad! I've twenty thousand waiting. "

He looked about the room, checked anew by all its oppressiveimplications. "You're a darling... But I couldn't take it. "

"I've told you it's mine, every penny of it!"

"Yes; but supposing things went wrong?"

"Nothing CAN--if you'll only take it... "

"I may lose it--"

"_I_ sha'n't, if I've given it to you!" Her look followed his about theroom and then came back to him. "Can't you imagine all it will make upfor?"

The rapture of the cry caught him up with it. Ah, yes, he could imagineit all! He stooped his head above her hands. "I accept, " he said; andthey stood and looked at each other like radiant children. 

She followed him to the door, and as he turned to leave he broke into alaugh. "It's queer, though, its happening in this room!"

She was close beside him, her hand on the heavy tapestry curtaining thedoor; and her glance shot past him to her husband's portrait. Ralphcaught the look, and a flood of old tendernesses and hates welled up inhim. He drew her under the portrait and kissed her vehemently. 

XXXV

Within forty-eight hours Ralph's money was in Moffatt's hands, and theinterval of suspense had begun. 

The transaction over, he felt the deceptive buoyancy that follows onperiods of painful indecision. It seemed to him that now at last lifehad freed him from all trammelling delusions, leaving him only the bestthing in its gift--his boy. 

The things he meant Paul to do and to be filled his fancy with happypictures. The child was growing more and more interesting--throwing outcountless tendrils of feeling and perception that delighted Ralph butpreoccupied the watchful Laura. 

"He's going to be exactly like you, Ralph--" she paused and then riskedit: "For his own sake, I wish there were just a drop or two of Spragg inhim. "

Ralph laughed, understanding her. "Oh, the plodding citizen I've becomewill keep him from taking after the lyric idiot who begot him. Paul andI, between us, are going to turn out something first-rate. "

His book too was spreading and throwing out tendrils, and he workedat it in the white heat of energy which his factitious exhilarationproduced. For a few weeks everything he did and said seemed as easy andunconditioned as the actions in a dream. 

Clare Van Degen, in the light of this mood, became again the comradeof his boyhood. He did not see her often, for she had gone down to thecountry with her children, but they communicated daily by letter ortelephone, and now and then she came over to the Fairfords' for a night. There they renewed the long rambles of their youth, and once more thesummer fields and woods seemed full of magic presences. Clare was nomore intelligent, she followed him no farther in his flights; but someof the qualities that had become most precious to him were as native toher as its perfume to a flower. So, through the long June afternoons, they ranged together over many themes; and if her answers sometimesmissed the mark it did not matter, because her silences never did. 

Meanwhile Ralph, from various sources, continued to pick up a good dealof more or less contradictory information about Elmer Moffatt. It seemedto be generally understood that Moffatt had come back from Europe withthe intention of testifying in the Ararat investigation, and that hisformer patron, the great Harmon B. Driscoll, had managed to silence him;and it was implied that the price of this silence, which was set ata considerable figure, had been turned to account in a series ofspeculations likely to lift Moffatt to permanent eminence among therulers of Wall Street. The stories as to his latest achievement, and thetheories as to the man himself, varied with the visual angle of eachreporter: and whenever any attempt was made to focus his hard sharppersonality some guardian divinity seemed to throw a veil of mysteryover him. His detractors, however, were the first to own that therewas "something about him"; it was felt that he had passed beyond themeteoric stage, and the business world was unanimous in recognizingthat he had "come to stay. " A dawning sense of his stability was evenbeginning to make itself felt in Fifth Avenue. It was said that he hadbought a house in Seventy-second Street, then that he meant to buildnear the Park; one or two people (always "taken by a friend") had beento his flat in the Pactolus, to see his Chinese porcelains and Persianrugs; now and then he had a few important men to dine at a Fifth Avenuerestaurant; his name began to appear in philanthropic reports and onmunicipal committees (there were even rumours of its having been putup at a well-known club); and the rector of a wealthy parish, who wasraising funds for a chantry, was known to have met him at dinner and tohave stated afterward that "the man was not wholly a materialist. "

All these converging proofs of Moffatt's solidity strengthened Ralph'sfaith in his venture. He remembered with what astuteness and authorityMoffatt had conducted their real estate transaction--how far off andunreal it all seemed!--and awaited events with the passive faith of asufferer in the hands of a skilful surgeon. 

The days moved on toward the end of June, and each morning Ralph openedhis newspaper with a keener thrill of expectation. Any day now he mightread of the granting of the Apex charter: Moffatt had assured him itwould "go through" before the close of the month. But the announcementdid not appear, and after what seemed to Ralph a decent lapse of time hetelephoned to ask for news. Moffatt was away, and when he came back afew days later he answered Ralph's enquiries evasively, with an edge ofirritation in his voice. The same day Ralph received a letter from hislawyer, who had been reminded by Mrs. Marvell's representatives that thelatest date agreed on for the execution of the financial agreement wasthe end of the following week. 

Ralph, alarmed, betook himself at once to the Ararat, and his firstglimpse of Moffatt's round common face and fastidiously dressed persongave him an immediate sense of reassurance. He felt that under thecircle of baldness on top of that carefully brushed head lay thesolution of every monetary problem that could beset the soul of man. Moffatt's voice had recovered its usual cordial note, and the warmth ofhis welcome dispelled Ralph's last apprehension. 

"Why, yes, everything's going along first-rate. They thought they'd hungus up last week--but they haven't. There may be another week's delay;but we ought to be opening a bottle of wine on it by the Fourth. "

An office-boy came in with a name on a slip of paper, and Moffatt lookedat his watch and held out a hearty hand. "Glad you came. Of course I'llkeep you posted... No, this way... Look in again... " and he steered Ralphout by another door. 

July came, and passed into its second week. Ralph's lawyer had obtaineda postponement from the other side, but Undine's representatives hadgiven him to understand that the transaction must be closed before thefirst of August. Ralph telephoned once or twice to Moffatt, receivinggenially-worded assurances that everything was "going their way"; but hefelt a certain embarrassment in returning again to the office, andlet himself drift through the days in a state of hungry apprehension. Finally one afternoon Henley Fairford, coming back from town (whichRalph had left in the morning to join his boy over Sunday), brought wordthat the Apex consolidation scheme had failed to get its charter. It wasuseless to attempt to reach Moffatt on Sunday, and Ralph wore on as hecould through the succeeding twenty-four hours. Clare Van Degen had comedown to stay with her youngest boy, and in the afternoon she and Ralphtook the two children for a sail. A light breeze brightened the watersof the Sound, and they ran down the shore before it and then tacked outtoward the sunset, coming back at last, under a failing breeze, as thesummer sky passed from blue to a translucid green and then into theaccumulating greys of twilight. 

As they left the landing and walked up behind the children across thedarkening lawn, a sense of security descended again on Ralph. He couldnot believe that such a scene and such a mood could be the disguise ofany impending evil, and all his doubts and anxieties fell away from him. 

The next morning, he and Clare travelled up to town together, and at thestation he put her in the motor which was to take her to Long Island, and hastened down to Moffatt's office. When he arrived he was told thatMoffatt was "engaged, " and he had to wait for nearly half an hour inthe outer office, where, to the steady click of the type-writer andthe spasmodic buzzing of the telephone, his thoughts again began theirrestless circlings. Finally the inner door opened, and he found himselfin the sanctuary. Moffatt was seated behind his desk, examining anotherlittle crystal vase somewhat like the one he had shown Ralph a fewweeks earlier. As his visitor entered, he held it up against the light, revealing on its dewy sides an incised design as frail as the shadow ofgrass-blades on water. 

"Ain't she a peach?" He put the toy down and reached across the desk toshake hands. "Well, well, " he went on, leaning back in his chair, andpushing out his lower lip in a half-comic pout, "they've got us in theneck this time and no mistake. Seen this morning's Radiator? I don'tknow how the thing leaked out--but the reformers somehow got a smell ofthe scheme, and whenever they get swishing round something's bound toget spilt. "

He talked gaily, genially, in his roundest tones and with his easiestgestures; never had he conveyed a completer sense of unhurried power;but Ralph noticed for the first time the crow's-feet about his eyes, andthe sharpness of the contrast between the white of his forehead and theredness of the fold of neck above his collar. 

"Do you mean to say it's not going through?"

"Not this time, anyhow. We're high and dry. "

Something seemed to snap in Ralph's head, and he sat down in the nearestchair. "Has the common stock dropped a lot?"

"Well, you've got to lean over to see it. " Moffatt pressed hisfinger-tips together and added thoughtfully: "But it's THERE all right. We're bound to get our charter in the end. "

"What do you call the end?"

"Oh, before the Day of Judgment, sure: next year, I guess. "

"Next year?" Ralph flushed. "What earthly good will that do me?"

"I don't say it's as pleasant as driving your best girl home bymoonlight. But that's how it is. And the stuff's safe enough anyway--I've told you that right along. "

"But you've told me all along I could count on a rise before August. Youknew I had to have the money now. "

"I knew you WANTED to have the money now; and so did I, and several ofmy friends. I put you onto it because it was the only thing in sightlikely to give you the return you wanted. "

"You ought at least to have warned me of the risk!"

"Risk? I don't call it much of a risk to lie back in your chair and waitanother few months for fifty thousand to drop into your lap. I tell youthe thing's as safe as a bank. "

"How do I know it is? You've misled me about it from the first. "

Moffatt's face grew dark red to the forehead: for the first time intheir acquaintance Ralph saw him on the verge of anger. "Well, if youget stuck so do I. I'm in it a good deal deeper than you. That's aboutthe best guarantee I can give; unless you won't take my word for thateither. " To control himself Moffatt spoke with extreme deliberation, separating his syllables like a machine cutting something into evenlengths. 

Ralph listened through a cloud of confusion; but he saw the madnessof offending Moffatt, and tried to take a more conciliatory tone. "Ofcourse I take your word for it. But I can't--I simply can't afford tolose... "

"You ain't going to lose: I don't believe you'll even have to put up anymargin. It's THERE safe enough, I tell you... "

"Yes, yes; I understand. I'm sure you wouldn't have advised me--"Ralph's tongue seemed swollen, and he had difficulty in bringing out thewords. "Only, you see--I can't wait; it's not possible; and I want toknow if there isn't a way--"

Moffatt looked at him with a sort of resigned compassion, as a doctorlooks at a despairing mother who will not understand what he has triedto imply without uttering the word she dreads. Ralph understood thelook, but hurried on. 

"You'll think I'm mad, or an ass, to talk like this; but the fact is, Imust have the money. " He waited and drew a hard breath. "I must have it:that's all. Perhaps I'd better tell you--"

Moffatt, who had risen, as if assuming that the interview was over, satdown again and turned an attentive look on him. "Go ahead, " he said, more humanly than he had hitherto spoken. 

"My boy... You spoke of him the other day... I'm awfully fond of him--"Ralph broke off, deterred by the impossibility of confiding his feelingfor Paul to this coarse-grained man with whom he hadn't a sentiment incommon. 

Moffatt was still looking at him. "I should say you would be! He's assmart a little chap as I ever saw; and I guess he's the kind that getsbetter every day. "

Ralph had collected himself, and went on with sudden resolution: "Well, you see--when my wife and I separated, I never dreamed she'd want theboy: the question never came up. If it had, of course--but she'd lefthim with me when she went away two years before, and at the time of thedivorce I was a fool... I didn't take the proper steps... "

"You mean she's got sole custody?"

Ralph made a sign of assent, and Moffatt pondered. "That's bad--bad. "

"And now I understand she's going to marry again--and of course I can'tgive up my son. "

"She wants you to, eh?"

Ralph again assented. 

Moffatt swung his chair about and leaned back in it, stretching out hisplump legs and contemplating the tips of his varnished boots. He hummeda low tune behind inscrutable lips. 

"That's what you want the money for?" he finally raised his head to ask. 

The word came out of the depths of Ralph's anguish: "Yes. "

"And why you want it in such a hurry. I see. " Moffatt reverted to thestudy of his boots. "It's a lot of money. "

"Yes. That's the difficulty. And I... She... "

Ralph's tongue was again too thick for his mouth. "I'm afraid she won'twait... Or take less... "

Moffatt, abandoning the boots, was scrutinizing him through half-shutlids. "No, " he said slowly, "I don't believe Undine Spragg'll take asingle cent less. "

Ralph felt himself whiten. Was it insolence or ignorance that hadprompted Moffatt's speech? Nothing in his voice or face showed thesense of any shades of expression or of feeling: he seemed to applyto everything the measure of the same crude flippancy. But suchconsiderations could not curb Ralph now. He said to himself "Keep yourtemper--keep your temper--" and his anger suddenly boiled over. 

"Look here, Moffatt, " he said, getting to his feet, "the fact that I'vebeen divorced from Mrs. Marvell doesn't authorize any one to take thattone to me in speaking of her. "

Moffatt met the challenge with a calm stare under which there weredawning signs of surprise and interest. "That so? Well, if that's thecase I presume I ought to feel the same way: I've been divorced from hermyself. "

For an instant the words conveyed no meaning to Ralph; then they surgedup into his brain and flung him forward with half-raised arm. But hefelt the grotesqueness of the gesture and his arm dropped back to hisside. A series of unimportant and irrelevant things raced through hismind; then obscurity settled down on it. "THIS man... THIS man... " wasthe one fiery point in his darkened consciousness.... "What on earthare you talking about?" he brought out. 

"Why, facts, " said Moffatt, in a cool half-humorous voice. "You didn'tknow? I understood from Mrs. Marvell your folks had a prejudice againstdivorce, so I suppose she kept quiet about that early episode. The truthis, " he continued amicably, "I wouldn't have alluded to it now if youhadn't taken rather a high tone with me about our little venture; butnow it's out I guess you may as well hear the whole story. It's mightywholesome for a man to have a round now and then with a few facts. ShallI go on?"

Ralph had stood listening without a sign, but as Moffatt ended he made aslight motion of acquiescence. He did not otherwise change his attitude, except to grasp with one hand the back of the chair that Moffatt pushedtoward him. 

"Rather stand?... " Moffatt himself dropped back into his seat and tookthe pose of easy narrative. "Well, it was this way. Undine Spragg and Iwere made one at Opake, Nebraska, just nine years ago last month. My!She was a beauty then. Nothing much had happened to her before but beingengaged for a year or two to a soft called Millard Binch; the same shepassed on to Indiana Rolliver; and--well, I guess she liked the change. We didn't have what you'd called a society wedding: no best man orbridesmaids or Voice that Breathed o'er Eden. Fact is, Pa and Ma didn'tknow about it till it was over. But it was a marriage fast enough, asthey found out when they tried to undo it. Trouble was, they caught ontoo soon; we only had a fortnight. Then they hauled Undine back to Apex, and--well, I hadn't the cash or the pull to fight 'em. Uncle Abner wasa pretty big man out there then; and he had James J. Rolliver behindhim. I always know when I'm licked; and I was licked that time. So weunlooped the loop, and they fixed it up for me to make a trip to Alaska. Let me see--that was the year before they moved over to New York. Nexttime I saw Undine I sat alongside of her at the theatre the day yourengagement was announced. "

He still kept to his half-humorous minor key, as though he were in thefirst stages of an after-dinner speech; but as he went on his bodilypresence, which hitherto had seemed to Ralph the mere average garment ofvulgarity, began to loom, huge and portentous as some monster releasedfrom a magician's bottle. His redness, his glossiness, his baldness, andthe carefully brushed ring of hair encircling it; the square line of hisshoulders, the too careful fit of his clothes, the prominent lustre ofhis scarf-pin, the growth of short black hair on his manicured hands, even the tiny cracks and crows'-feet beginning to show in the hard closesurface of his complexion: all these solid witnesses to his realityand his proximity pressed on Ralph with the mounting pang of physicalnausea. 

"THIS man... THIS man... " he couldn't get beyond the thought: whicheverway he turned his haggard thought, there was Moffatt bodily blocking theperspective... Ralph's eyes roamed toward the crystal toy that stood onthe desk beside Moffatt's hand. Faugh! That such a hand should havetouched it!

Suddenly he heard himself speaking. "Before my marriage--did you knowthey hadn't told me?"

"Why, I understood as much... "

Ralph pushed on: "You knew it the day I met you in Mr. Spragg's office?"

Moffatt considered a moment, as if the incident had escaped him. "Did wemeet there?" He seemed benevolently ready for enlightenment. But Ralphhad been assailed by another memory; he recalled that Moffatt had dinedone night in his house, that he and the man who now faced him had sat atthe same table, their wife between them... He was seized with anotherdumb gust of fury; but it died out and left him face to face with theuselessness, the irrelevance of all the old attitudes of appropriationand defiance. He seemed to be stumbling about in his inheritedprejudices like a modern man in mediaeval armour... Moffatt still sat athis desk, unmoved and apparently uncomprehending. "He doesn't evenknow what I'm feeling, " flashed through Ralph; and the whole archaicstructure of his rites and sanctions tumbled down about him. 

Through the noise of the crash he heard Moffatt's voice going on withoutperceptible change of tone: "About that other matter now... You can'tfeel any meaner about it than I do, I can tell you that... But all we'vegot to do is to sit tight... "

Ralph turned from the voice, and found himself outside on the landing, and then in the street below. 

XXXVI

He stood at the corner of Wall Street, looking up and down its hotsummer perspective. He noticed the swirls of dust in the cracks of thepavement, the rubbish in the gutters, the ceaseless stream of perspiringfaces that poured by under tilted hats. 

He found himself, next, slipping northward between the glazed walls ofthe Subway, another languid crowd in the seats about him and the nasalyelp of the stations ringing through the car like some repeated ritualwail. The blindness within him seemed to have intensified his physicalperceptions, his sensitiveness to the heat, the noise, the smells of thedishevelled midsummer city; but combined with the acuter perception ofthese offenses was a complete indifference to them, as though he weresome vivisected animal deprived of the power of discrimination. 

Now he had turned into Waverly Place, and was walking westwardtoward Washington Square. At the corner he pulled himself up, sayinghalf-aloud: "The office--I ought to be at the office. " He drew out hiswatch and stared at it blankly. What the devil had he taken it out for?He had to go through a laborious process of readjustment to find outwhat it had to say.... Twelve o'clock.... Should he turn back to theoffice? It seemed easier to cross the square, go up the steps of the oldhouse and slip his key into the door.... 

The house was empty. His mother, a few days previously, had departedwith Mr. Dagonet for their usual two months on the Maine coast, whereRalph was to join them with his boy.... The blinds were all drawn down, and the freshness and silence of the marble-paved hall laid soothinghands on him.... He said to himself: "I'll jump into a cab presently, and go and lunch at the club--" He laid down his hat and stick andclimbed the carpetless stairs to his room. When he entered it he hadthe shock of feeling himself in a strange place: it did not seem likeanything he had ever seen before. Then, one by one, all the old staleusual things in it confronted him, and he longed with a sick intensityto be in a place that was really strange. 

"How on earth can I go on living here?" he wondered. 

A careless servant had left the outer shutters open, and the sun wasbeating on the window-panes. Ralph pushed open the windows, shut theshutters, and wandered toward his arm-chair. Beads of perspiration stoodon his forehead: the temperature of the room reminded him of the heatunder the ilexes of the Sienese villa where he and Undine had satthrough a long July afternoon. He saw her before him, leaning againstthe tree-trunk in her white dress, limpid and inscrutable.... "We weremade one at Opake, Nebraska.... " Had she been thinking of it thatafternoon at Siena, he wondered? Did she ever think of it at all?... Itwas she who had asked Moffatt to dine. She had said: "Father broughthim home one day at Apex.... I don't remember ever having seen himsince"--and the man she spoke of had had her in his arms ... And perhapsit was really all she remembered!

She had lied to him--lied to him from the first ... There hadn't beena moment when she hadn't lied to him, deliberately, ingeniously andinventively. As he thought of it, there came to him, for the first timein months, that overwhelming sense of her physical nearness which hadonce so haunted and tortured him. Her freshness, her fragrance, theluminous haze of her youth, filled the room with a mocking glory; and hedropped his head on his hands to shut it out.... 

The vision was swept away by another wave of hurrying thoughts. He feltit was intensely important that he should keep the thread of every oneof them, that they all represented things to be said or done, or guardedagainst; and his mind, with the unwondering versatility and tirelesshaste of the dreamer's brain, seemed to be pursuing them allsimultaneously. Then they became as unreal and meaningless as the redspecks dancing behind the lids against which he had pressed his fistsclenched, and he had the feeling that if he opened his eyes they wouldvanish, and the familiar daylight look in on him.... 

A knock disturbed him. The old parlour-maid who was always left incharge of the house had come up to ask if he wasn't well, and if therewas anything she could do for him. He told her no ... He was perfectlywell ... Or, rather, no, he wasn't ... He supposed it must be the heat;and he began to scold her for having forgotten to close the shutters. 

It wasn't her fault, it appeared, but Eliza's: her tone implied that heknew what one had to expect of Eliza ... And wouldn't he go down to thenice cool shady dining-room, and let her make him an iced drink and afew sandwiches?

"I've always told Mrs. Marvell I couldn't turn my back for a secondbut what Eliza'd find a way to make trouble, " the old woman continued, evidently glad of the chance to air a perennial grievance. "It's notonly the things she FORGETS to do, " she added significantly; and itdawned on Ralph that she was making an appeal to him, expecting him totake sides with her in the chronic conflict between herself and Eliza. He said to himself that perhaps she was right ... That perhaps there wassomething he ought to do ... That his mother was old, and didn't alwayssee things; and for a while his mind revolved this problem with feverishintensity.... 

"Then you'll come down, sir?"

"Yes. "

The door closed, and he heard her heavy heels along the passage. 

"But the money--where's the money to come from?" The question sprang outfrom some denser fold of the fog in his brain. The money--how on earthwas he to pay it back? How could he have wasted his time in thinking ofanything else while that central difficulty existed?

"But I can't ... I can't ... It's gone ... And even if it weren't.... "He dropped back in his chair and took his head between his hands. He hadforgotten what he wanted the money for. He made a great effort to regainhold of the idea, but all the whirring, shuttling, flying had abruptlyceased in his brain, and he sat with his eyes shut, staring straightinto darkness.... The clock struck, and he remembered that he had saidhe would go down to the dining-room. "If I don't she'll come up--" Heraised his head and sat listening for the sound of the old woman's step:it seemed to him perfectly intolerable that any one should cross thethreshold of the room again. 

"Why can't they leave me alone?" he groaned.... At length through thesilence of the empty house, he fancied he heard a door opening andclosing far below; and he said to himself: "She's coming. "

He got to his feet and went to the door. He didn't feel anything nowexcept the insane dread of hearing the woman's steps come nearer. Hebolted the door and stood looking about the room. For a moment he wasconscious of seeing it in every detail with a distinctness he had neverbefore known; then everything in it vanished but the single narrow panelof a drawer under one of the bookcases. He went up to the drawer, kneltdown and slipped his hand into it. 

As he raised himself he listened again, and this time he distinctlyheard the old servant's steps on the stairs. He passed his left handover the side of his head, and down the curve of the skull behind theear. He said to himself: "My wife ... This will make it all right forher.... " and a last flash of irony twitched through him. Then he feltagain, more deliberately, for the spot he wanted, and put the muzzle ofhis revolver against it. 

XXXVII

In a drawing-room hung with portraits of high-nosed personages inperukes and orders, a circle of ladies and gentlemen, looking not unlikeevery-day versions of the official figures above their heads, satexamining with friendly interest a little boy in mourning. 

The boy was slim, fair and shy, and his small black figure, islandedin the middle of the wide lustrous floor, looked curiously lonelyand remote. This effect of remoteness seemed to strike his mother assomething intentional, and almost naughty, for after having launched himfrom the door, and waited to judge of the impression he produced, shecame forward and, giving him a slight push, said impatiently: "Paul! Whydon't you go and kiss your new granny?"

The boy, without turning to her, or moving, sent his blue glance gravelyabout the circle. "Does she want me to?" he asked, in a tone of evidentapprehension; and on his mother's answering: "Of course, you silly!" headded earnestly: "How many more do you think there'll be?"

Undine blushed to the ripples of her brilliant hair. "I never knew sucha child! They've turned him into a perfect little savage!"

Raymond de Chelles advanced from behind his mother's chair. 

"He won't be a savage long with me, " he said, stooping down so that hisfatigued finely-drawn face was close to Paul's. Their eyes met andthe boy smiled. "Come along, old chap, " Chelles continued in English, drawing the little boy after him. 

"Il est bien beau, " the Marquise de Chelles observed, her eyes turningfrom Paul's grave face to her daughter-in-law's vivid countenance. 

"Do be nice, darling! Say, 'bonjour, Madame, '" Undine urged. 

An odd mingling of emotions stirred in her while she stood watching Paulmake the round of the family group under her husband's guidance. It was"lovely" to have the child back, and to find him, after their threeyears' separation, grown into so endearing a figure: her first glimpseof him when, in Mrs. Heeny's arms, he had emerged that morning from thesteamer train, had shown what an acquisition he would be. If she hadhad any lingering doubts on the point, the impression produced on herhusband would have dispelled them. Chelles had been instantly charmed, and Paul, in a shy confused way, was already responding to his advances. The Count and Countess Raymond had returned but a few weeks beforefrom their protracted wedding journey, and were staying--as they wereapparently to do whenever they came to Paris--with the old Marquis, Raymond's father, who had amicably proposed that little Paul Marvellshould also share the hospitality of the Hotel de Chelles. Undine, atfirst, was somewhat dismayed to find that she was expected to fit theboy and his nurse into a corner of her contracted entresol. But thepossibility of a mother's not finding room for her son, however crampedher own quarters, seemed not to have occurred to her new relations, andthe preparing of her dressing-room and boudoir for Paul's occupancy wascarried on by the household with a zeal which obliged her to dissembleher lukewarmness. 

Undine had supposed that on her marriage one of the great suites ofthe Hotel de Chelles would be emptied of its tenants and put at herhusband's disposal; but she had since learned that, even had such a planoccurred to her parents-in-law, considerations of economy would havehindered it. The old Marquis and his wife, who were content, when theycame up from Burgundy in the spring, with a modest set of rooms lookingout on the court of their ancestral residence, expected their son andhis wife to fit themselves into the still smaller apartment whichhad served as Raymond's bachelor lodging. The rest of the fine oldmouldering house--the tall-windowed premier on the garden, and the wholeof the floor above--had been let for years to old fashioned tenantswho would have been more surprised than their landlord had he suddenlyproposed to dispossess them. Undine, at first, had regarded thesearrangements as merely provisional. She was persuaded that, under herinfluence, Raymond would soon convert his parents to more modern ideas, and meanwhile she was still in the flush of a completer well-being thanshe had ever known, and disposed, for the moment, to make light of anyinconveniences connected with it. The three months since her marriagehad been more nearly like what she had dreamed of than any of herprevious experiments in happiness. At last she had what she wanted, andfor the first time the glow of triumph was warmed by a deeper feeling. Her husband was really charming (it was odd how he reminded her ofRalph!), and after her bitter two years of loneliness and humiliation itwas delicious to find herself once more adored and protected. 

The very fact that Raymond was more jealous of her than Ralph had everbeen--or at any rate less reluctant to show it--gave her a keener senseof recovered power. None of the men who had been in love with her beforehad been so frankly possessive, or so eager for reciprocal assurancesof constancy. She knew that Ralph had suffered deeply from her intimacywith Van Degen, but he had betrayed his feeling only by a more studieddetachment; and Van Degen, from the first, had been contemptuouslyindifferent to what she did or felt when she was out of his sight. As toher earlier experiences, she had frankly forgotten them: her sentimentalmemories went back no farther than the beginning of her New York career. 

Raymond seemed to attach more importance to love, in all itsmanifestations, than was usual or convenient in a husband; and shegradually began to be aware that her domination over him involved acorresponding loss of independence. Since their return to Paris she hadfound that she was expected to give a circumstantial report of everyhour she spent away from him. She had nothing to hide, and no designsagainst his peace of mind except those connected with her frequent andcostly sessions at the dress-makers'; but she had never before beencalled upon to account to any one for the use of her time, and after thefirst amused surprise at Raymond's always wanting to know where she hadbeen and whom she had seen she began to be oppressed by so exacting adevotion. Her parents, from her tenderest youth, had tacitly recognizedher inalienable right to "go round, " and Ralph--though from motiveswhich she divined to be different--had shown the same respect for herfreedom. It was therefore disconcerting to find that Raymond expectedher to choose her friends, and even her acquaintances, in conformity notonly with his personal tastes but with a definite and complicated codeof family prejudices and traditions; and she was especially surprised todiscover that he viewed with disapproval her intimacy with the PrincessEstradina. 

"My cousin's extremely amusing, of course, but utterly mad and very malentourée. Most of the people she has about her ought to be in prison orBedlam: especially that unspeakable Madame Adelschein, who's a candidatefor both. My aunt's an angel, but she's been weak enough to let Liliturn the Hotel de Dordogne into an annex of Montmartre. Of course you'llhave to show yourself there now and then: in these days families likeours must hold together. But go to the reunions de famille rather thanto Lili's intimate parties; go with me, or with my mother; don't letyourself be seen there alone. You're too young and good-looking to bemixed up with that crew. A woman's classed--or rather unclassed--bybeing known as one of Lili's set. "

Agreeable as it was to Undine that an appeal to her discretion shouldbe based on the ground of her youth and good-looks, she was dismayedto find herself cut off from the very circle she had meant them toestablish her in. Before she had become Raymond's wife there had been amoment of sharp tension in her relations with the Princess Estradina andthe old Duchess. They had done their best to prevent her marrying theircousin, and had gone so far as openly to accuse her of being the causeof a breach between themselves and his parents. But Ralph Marvell'sdeath had brought about a sudden change in her situation. She was now nolonger a divorced woman struggling to obtain ecclesiastical sanction forher remarriage, but a widow whose conspicuous beauty and independentsituation made her the object of lawful aspirations. The first person toseize on this distinction and make the most of it was her old enemy theMarquise de Trezac. The latter, who had been loudly charged by the houseof Chelles with furthering her beautiful compatriot's designs, hadinstantly seen a chance of vindicating herself by taking the widowedMrs. Marvell under her wing and favouring the attentions of othersuitors. These were not lacking, and the expected result had followed. Raymond de Chelles, more than ever infatuated as attainment became lesscertain, had claimed a definite promise from Undine, and his family, discouraged by his persistent bachelorhood, and their failure to fix hisattention on any of the amiable maidens obviously designed to continuethe race, had ended by withdrawing their opposition and discovering inMrs. Marvell the moral and financial merits necessary to justify theirchange of front. 

"A good match? If she isn't, I should like to know what the Chelles callone!" Madame de Trezac went about indefatigably proclaiming. "Related tothe best people in New York--well, by marriage, that is; and her husbandleft much more money than was expected. It goes to the boy, of course;but as the boy is with his mother she naturally enjoys the income. Andher father's a rich man--much richer than is generally known; I meanwhat WE call rich in America, you understand!"

Madame de Trezac had lately discovered that the proper attitude forthe American married abroad was that of a militant patriotism; and sheflaunted Undine Marvell in the face of the Faubourg like a particularlyshowy specimen of her national banner. The success of the experimentemboldened her to throw off the most sacred observances of her past. Shetook up Madame Adelschein, she entertained the James J. Rollivers, she resuscitated Creole dishes, she patronized negro melodists, sheabandoned her weekly teas for impromptu afternoon dances, and the primdrawing-room in which dowagers had droned echoed with a cosmopolitanhubbub. 

Even when the period of tension was over, and Undine had been officiallyreceived into the family of her betrothed, Madame de Trezac did notat once surrender. She laughingly professed to have had enough of theproprieties, and declared herself bored by the social rites she hadhitherto so piously performed. "You'll always find a corner of homehere, dearest, when you get tired of their ceremonies and solemnities, "she said as she embraced the bride after the wedding breakfast; andUndine hoped that the devoted Nettie would in fact provide a refuge fromthe extreme domesticity of her new state. But since her return to Paris, and her taking up her domicile in the Hotel de Chelles, she had foundMadame de Trezac less and less disposed to abet her in any assertion ofindependence. 

"My dear, a woman must adopt her husband's nationality whether she wantsto or not. It's the law, and it's the custom besides. If you wantedto amuse yourself with your Nouveau Luxe friends you oughtn't to havemarried Raymond--but of course I say that only in joke. As if any womanwould have hesitated who'd had your chance! Take my advice--keep out ofLili's set just at first. Later ... Well, perhaps Raymond won't be soparticular; but meanwhile you'd make a great mistake to go against hispeople--" and Madame de Trezac, with a "Chere Madame, " swept forwardfrom her tea-table to receive the first of the returning dowagers. 

It was about this time that Mrs. Heeny arrived with Paul; and for awhile Undine was pleasantly absorbed in her boy. She kept Mrs. Heenyin Paris for a fortnight, and between her more pressing occupations itamused her to listen to the masseuse's New York gossip and her commentson the social organization of the old world. It was Mrs. Heeny's firstvisit to Europe, and she confessed to Undine that she had always wantedto "see something of the aristocracy"--using the phrase as a naturalistmight, with no hint of personal pretensions. Mrs. Heeny's democraticease was combined with the strictest professional discretion, and itwould never have occurred to her to regard herself, or to wish othersto regard her, as anything but a manipulator of muscles; but in thatcharacter she felt herself entitled to admission to the highest circles. 

"They certainly do things with style over here--but it's kinderone-horse after New York, ain't it? Is this what they call their season?Why, you dined home two nights last week. They ought to come over to NewYork and see!" And she poured into Undine's half-envious ear a list ofthe entertainments which had illuminated the last weeks of the New Yorkwinter. "I suppose you'll begin to give parties as soon as ever you getinto a house of your own. You're not going to have one? Oh, well, then you'll give a lot of big week-ends at your place down in theShatter-country--that's where the swells all go to in the summer time, ain't it? But I dunno what your ma would say if she knew you were goingto live on with HIS folks after you're done honey-mooning. Why, we readin the papers you were going to live in some grand hotel or other--oh, they call their houses HOTELS, do they? That's funny: I suppose it'sbecause they let out part of 'em. Well, you look handsomer than ever. Undine; I'll take THAT back to your mother, anyhow. And he's deadin love, I can see that; reminds me of the way--" but she broke offsuddenly, as if something in Undine's look had silenced her. 

Even to herself. Undine did not like to call up the image of RalphMarvell; and any mention of his name gave her a vague sense of distress. His death had released her, had given her what she wanted; yet she couldhonestly say to herself that she had not wanted him to die--at leastnot to die like that.... People said at the time that it was the hotweather--his own family had said so: he had never quite got over hisattack of pneumonia, and the sudden rise of temperature--one of thefierce "heat-waves" that devastate New York in summer--had probablyaffected his brain: the doctors said such cases were not uncommon.... She had worn black for a few weeks--not quite mourning, but somethingdecently regretful (the dress-makers were beginning to provide a specialgarb for such cases); and even since her remarriage, and the lapse ofa year, she continued to wish that she could have got what she wantedwithout having had to pay that particular price for it. 

This feeling was intensified by an incident--in itself far fromunwelcome--which had occurred about three months after Ralph's death. Her lawyers had written to say that the sum of a hundred thousanddollars had been paid over to Marvell's estate by the Apex ConsolidationCompany; and as Marvell had left a will bequeathing everything hepossessed to his son, this unexpected windfall handsomely increasedPaul's patrimony. Undine had never relinquished her claim on her child;she had merely, by the advice of her lawyers, waived the assertion ofher right for a few months after Marvell's death, with the expressstipulation that her doing so was only a temporary concession to thefeelings of her husband's family; and she had held out against allattempts to induce her to surrender Paul permanently. Before hermarriage she had somewhat conspicuously adopted her husband's creed, andthe Dagonets, picturing Paul as the prey of the Jesuits, had made themistake of appealing to the courts for his custody. This had confirmedUndine's resistance, and her determination to keep the child. The casehad been decided in her favour, and she had thereupon demanded, andobtained, an allowance of five thousand dollars, to be devoted to thebringing up and education of her son. This sum, added to what Mr. Spragghad agreed to give her, made up an income which had appreciably betteredher position, and justified Madame de Trezac's discreet allusions toher wealth. Nevertheless, it was one of the facts about which she leastliked to think when any chance allusion evoked Ralph's image. The moneywas hers, of course; she had a right to it, and she was an ardentbeliever in "rights. " But she wished she could have got it in someother way--she hated the thought of it as one more instance of theperverseness with which things she was entitled to always came to her asif they had been stolen. 

The approach of summer, and the culmination of the Paris season, sweptaside such thoughts. The Countess Raymond de Chelles, contrastingher situation with that of Mrs. Undine Marvell, and the fulness andanimation of her new life with the vacant dissatisfied days whichhad followed on her return from Dakota, forgot the smallness of herapartment, the inconvenient proximity of Paul and his nurse, theinterminable round of visits with her mother-in-law, and the longdinners in the solemn hotels of all the family connection. The world wasradiant, the lights were lit, the music playing; she was still young, and better-looking than ever, with a Countess's coronet, a famouschateau and a handsome and popular husband who adored her. And thensuddenly the lights went out and the music stopped when one day Raymond, putting his arm about her, said in his tenderest tones: "And now, mydear, the world's had you long enough and it's my turn. What do you sayto going down to Saint Desert?"

XXXVIII

In a window of the long gallery of the chateau de Saint Desert thenew Marquise de Chelles stood looking down the poplar avenue into theNovember rain. It had been raining heavily and persistently for a longertime than she could remember. Day after day the hills beyond the parkhad been curtained by motionless clouds, the gutters of the long steeproofs had gurgled with a perpetual overflow, the opaque surface of themoat been peppered by a continuous pelting of big drops. The water layin glassy stretches under the trees and along the sodden edges of thegarden-paths, it rose in a white mist from the fields beyond, it exudedin a chill moisture from the brick flooring of the passages and from thewalls of the rooms on the lower floor. Everything in the great emptyhouse smelt of dampness: the stuffing of the chairs, the threadbarefolds of the faded curtains, the splendid tapestries, that were fadingtoo, on the walls of the room in which Undine stood, and the wide bandsof crape which her husband had insisted on her keeping on her blackdresses till the last hour of her mourning for the old Marquis. 

The summer had been more than usually inclement, and since her firstcoming to the country Undine had lived through many periods of rainyweather; but none which had gone before had so completely epitomized, sosummed up in one vast monotonous blur, the image of her long months atSaint Desert. 

When, the year before, she had reluctantly suffered herself to be tornfrom the joys of Paris, she had been sustained by the belief that herexile would not be of long duration. Once Paris was out of sight, shehad even found a certain lazy charm in the long warm days at SaintDesert. Her parents-in-law had remained in town, and she enjoyed beingalone with her husband, exploring and appraising the treasures of thegreat half abandoned house, and watching her boy scamper over the Junemeadows or trot about the gardens on the poney his stepfather had givenhim. Paul, after Mrs. Heeny's departure, had grown fretful and restive, and Undine had found it more and more difficult to fit his smallexacting personality into her cramped rooms and crowded life. Heirritated her by pining for his Aunt Laura, his Marvell granny, and oldMr. Dagonet's funny stories about gods and fairies; and his wistfulallusions to his games with Clare's children sounded like a lesson hemight have been drilled in to make her feel how little he belonged toher. But once released from Paris, and blessed with rabbits, a poney andthe freedom of the fields, he became again all that a charming childshould be, and for a time it amused her to share in his romps andrambles. Raymond seemed enchanted at the picture they made, and thequiet weeks of fresh air and outdoor activity gave her back a bloom thatreflected itself in her tranquillized mood. She was the more resigned tothis interlude because she was so sure of its not lasting. Before theyleft Paris a doctor had been found to say that Paul--who was certainlylooking pale and pulled-down--was in urgent need of sea air, and Undinehad nearly convinced her husband of the expediency of hiring a chalet atDeauville for July and August, when this plan, and with it every otherprospect of escape, was dashed by the sudden death of the old Marquis. 

Undine, at first, had supposed that the resulting change could notbe other than favourable. She had been on too formal terms with herfather-in-law--a remote and ceremonious old gentleman to whom her ownpersonality was evidently an insoluble enigma--to feel more than themerest conventional pang at his death; and it was certainly "more fun"to be a marchioness than a countess, and to know that one's husbandwas the head of the house. Besides, now they would have the chateau tothemselves--or at least the old Marquise, when she came, would be thereas a guest and not a ruler--and visions of smart house-parties and bigshoots lit up the first weeks of Undine's enforced seclusion. Then, bydegrees, the inexorable conditions of French mourning closed in onher. Immediately after the long-drawn funeral observances the bereavedfamily--mother, daughters, sons and sons-in-law--came down toseclude themselves at Saint Desert; and Undine, through the slow hotcrape-smelling months, lived encircled by shrouded images of woe inwhich the only live points were the eyes constantly fixed on her leastmovements. The hope of escaping to the seaside with Paul vanished inthe pained stare with which her mother-in-law received the suggestion. Undine learned the next day that it had cost the old Marquise asleepless night, and might have had more distressing results had it notbeen explained as a harmless instance of transatlantic oddness. Raymondentreated his wife to atone for her involuntary legereté by submittingwith a good grace to the usages of her adopted country; and he seemed toregard the remaining months of the summer as hardly long enough for thisact of expiation. As Undine looked back on them, they appeared to havebeen composed of an interminable succession of identical days, in whichattendance at early mass (in the coroneted gallery she had once soglowingly depicted to Van Degen) was followed by a great deal ofconversational sitting about, a great deal of excellent eating, anoccasional drive to the nearest town behind a pair of heavy drafthorses, and long evenings in a lamp-heated drawing-room with all thewindows shut, and the stout cure making an asthmatic fourth at theMarquise's card-table. 

Still, even these conditions were not permanent, and the discipline ofthe last years had trained Undine to wait and dissemble. The summerover, it was decided--after a protracted family conclave--that thestate of the old Marquise's health made it advisable for her to spendthe winter with the married daughter who lived near Pau. The othermembers of the family returned to their respective estates, and Undineonce more found herself alone with her husband. But she knew by thistime that there was to be no thought of Paris that winter, or even thenext spring. Worse still, she was presently to discover that Raymond'saccession of rank brought with it no financial advantages. 

Having but the vaguest notion of French testamentary law, she wasdismayed to learn that the compulsory division of property made itimpossible for a father to benefit his eldest son at the expense of theothers. Raymond was therefore little richer than before, and with thedebts of honour of a troublesome younger brother to settle, and SaintDesert to keep up, his available income was actually reduced. He heldout, indeed, the hope of eventual improvement, since the old Marquis hadmanaged his estates with a lofty contempt for modern methods, and theapplication of new principles of agriculture and forestry were certainto yield profitable results. But for a year or two, at any rate, thisvery change of treatment would necessitate the owner's continualsupervision, and would not in the meanwhile produce any increase ofincome. 

To faire valoir the family acres had always, it appeared, been Raymond'sdeepest-seated purpose, and all his frivolities dropped from him withthe prospect of putting his hand to the plough. He was not, indeed, inhuman enough to condemn his wife to perpetual exile. He meant, heassured her, that she should have her annual spring visit to Paris--buthe stared in dismay at her suggestion that they should take possessionof the coveted premier of the Hotel de Chelles. He was gallant enough toexpress the wish that it were in his power to house her on such a scale;but he could not conceal his surprise that she had ever seriouslyexpected it. She was beginning to see that he felt her constitutionalinability to understand anything about money as the deepest differencebetween them. It was a proficiency no one had ever expected her toacquire, and the lack of which she had even been encouraged to regard asa grace and to use as a pretext. During the interval between her divorceand her remarriage she had learned what things cost, but not how to dowithout them; and money still seemed to her like some mysterious anduncertain stream which occasionally vanished underground but was sureto bubble up again at one's feet. Now, however, she found herself in aworld where it represented not the means of individual gratification butthe substance binding together whole groups of interests, and where theuses to which it might be put in twenty years were considered before thereasons for spending it on the spot. At first she was sure she couldlaugh Raymond out of his prudence or coax him round to her point ofview. She did not understand how a man so romantically in love could beso unpersuadable on certain points. Hitherto she had had to contendwith personal moods, now she was arguing against a policy; and she wasgradually to learn that it was as natural to Raymond de Chelles to adoreher and resist her as it had been to Ralph Marvell to adore her and lether have her way. At first, indeed, he appealed to her good sense, usingarguments evidently drawn from accumulations of hereditary experience. But his economic plea was as unintelligible to her as the silly problemsabout pen-knives and apples in the "Mental Arithmetic" of her infancy;and when he struck a tenderer note and spoke of the duty of providingfor the son he hoped for, she put her arms about him to whisper: "Butthen I oughtn't to be worried... "

After that, she noticed, though he was as charming as ever, he behavedas if the case were closed. He had apparently decided that his argumentswere unintelligible to her, and under all his ardour she felt thedifference made by the discovery. It did not make him less kind, but itevidently made her less important; and she had the half-frightened sensethat the day she ceased to please him she would cease to exist for him. That day was a long way off, of course, but the chill of it had brushedher face; and she was no longer heedless of such signs. She resolved tocultivate all the arts of patience and compliance, and habit might havehelped them to take root if they had not been nipped by a new cataclysm. 

It was barely a week ago that her husband had been called to Paris tostraighten out a fresh tangle in the affairs of the troublesome brotherwhose difficulties were apparently a part of the family tradition. Raymond's letters had been hurried, his telegrams brief andcontradictory, and now, as Undine stood watching for the brougham thatwas to bring him from the station, she had the sense that with hisarrival all her vague fears would be confirmed. There would be moremoney to pay out, of course--since the funds that could not be found forher just needs were apparently always forthcoming to settle Hubert'sscandalous prodigalities--and that meant a longer perspective ofsolitude at Saint Desert, and a fresh pretext for postponing thehospitalities that were to follow on their period of mourning. Thebrougham--a vehicle as massive and lumbering as the pair that drew it--presently rolled into the court, and Raymond's sable figure (she hadnever before seen a man travel in such black clothes) sprang up thesteps to the door. Whenever Undine saw him after an absence she hada curious sense of his coming back from unknown distances and notbelonging to her or to any state of things she understood. Then habitreasserted itself, and she began to think of him again with a querulousfamiliarity. But she had learned to hide her feelings, and as he came inshe put up her face for a kiss. 

"Yes--everything's settled--" his embrace expressed the satisfaction ofthe man returning from an accomplished task to the joys of his fireside. 

"Settled?" Her face kindled. "Without your having to pay?"

He looked at her with a shrug. "Of course I've had to pay. Did yousuppose Hubert's creditors would be put off with vanilla eclairs?"

"Oh, if THAT'S what you mean--if Hubert has only to wire you at any timeto be sure of his affairs being settled--!"

She saw his lips narrow and a line come out between his eyes. "Wouldn'tit be a happy thought to tell them to bring tea?" he suggested. 

"In the library, then. It's so cold here--and the tapestries smell so ofrain. "

He paused a moment to scrutinize the long walls, on which the fabulousblues and pinks of the great Boucher series looked as livid as witheredroses. "I suppose they ought to be taken down and aired, " he said. 

She thought: "In THIS air--much good it would do them!" But she hadalready repented her outbreak about Hubert, and she followed her husbandinto the library with the resolve not to let him see her annoyance. Compared with the long grey gallery the library, with its brown wallsof books, looked warm and home-like, and Raymond seemed to feel theinfluence of the softer atmosphere. He turned to his wife and put hisarm about her. 

"I know it's been a trial to you, dearest; but this is the last time Ishall have to pull the poor boy out. "

In spite of herself she laughed incredulously: Hubert's "last times"were a household word. 

But when tea had been brought, and they were alone over the fire, Raymond unfolded the amazing sequel. Hubert had found an heiress, Hubertwas to be married, and henceforth the business of paying his debts(which might be counted on to recur as inevitably as the changes of theseasons) would devolve on his American bride--the charming Miss LootyArlington, whom Raymond had remained over in Paris to meet. 

"An American? He's marrying an American?" Undine wavered between wrathand satisfaction. She felt a flash of resentment at any other intruder'sventuring upon her territory--("Looty Arlington? Who is she? What aname!")--but it was quickly superseded by the relief of knowing thathenceforth, as Raymond said, Hubert's debts would be some one else'sbusiness. Then a third consideration prevailed. "But if he's engaged toa rich girl, why on earth do WE have to pull him out?"

Her husband explained that no other course was possible. Though GeneralArlington was immensely wealthy, ("her father's a general--a GeneralManager, whatever that may be, ") he had exacted what he called "a cleanslate" from his future son-in-law, and Hubert's creditors (the boy wassuch a donkey!) had in their possession certain papers that made itpossible for them to press for immediate payment. 

"Your compatriots' views on such matters are so rigid--and it's all totheir credit--that the marriage would have fallen through at once if theleast hint of Hubert's mess had got out--and then we should have had himon our hands for life. "

Yes--from that point of view it was doubtless best to pay up; but Undineobscurely wished that their doing so had not incidentally helped anunknown compatriot to what the American papers were no doubt alreadyannouncing as "another brilliant foreign alliance. "

"Where on earth did your brother pick up anybody respectable? Do youknow where her people come from? I suppose she's perfectly awful, " shebroke out with a sudden escape of irritation. 

"I believe Hubert made her acquaintance at a skating rink. They comefrom some new state--the general apologized for its not yet being on themap, but seemed surprised I hadn't heard of it. He said it was alreadyknown as one of 'the divorce states, ' and the principal city had, inconsequence, a very agreeable society. La petite n'est vraiment pas tropmal. "

"I daresay not! We're all good-looking. But she must be horriblycommon. "

Raymond seemed sincerely unable to formulate a judgment. "My dear, youhave your own customs... "

"Oh, I know we're all alike to you!" It was one of her grievances thathe never attempted to discriminate between Americans. "You see nodifference between me and a girl one gets engaged to at a skating rink!"

He evaded the challenge by rejoining: "Miss Arlington's burning to knowyou. She says she's heard a great deal about you, and Hubert wants tobring her down next week. I think we'd better do what we can. "

"Of course. " But Undine was still absorbed in the economic aspect of thecase. "If they're as rich as you say, I suppose Hubert means to pay youback by and bye?"

"Naturally. It's all arranged. He's given me a paper. " He drew her handsinto his. "You see we've every reason to be kind to Miss Arlington. "

"Oh, I'll be as kind as you like!" She brightened at the prospect ofrepayment. Yes, they would ask the girl down... She leaned a littlenearer to her husband. "But then after a while we shall be a good dealbetter off--especially, as you say, with no more of Hubert's debts toworry us. " And leaning back far enough to give her upward smile, sherenewed her plea for the premier in the Hotel de Chelles: "Because, really, you know, as the head of the house you ought to--"

"Ah, my dear, as the head of the house I've so many obligations; and oneof them is not to miss a good stroke of business when it comes my way. "

Her hands slipped from his shoulders and she drew back. "What do youmean by a good stroke of business?

"Why, an incredible piece of luck--it's what kept me on so long inParis. Miss Arlington's father was looking for an apartment for theyoung couple, and I've let him the premier for twelve years on theunderstanding that he puts electric light and heating into the wholehotel. It's a wonderful chance, for of course we all benefit by it asmuch as Hubert. "

"A wonderful chance... Benefit by it as much as Hubert!" He seemed to bespeaking a strange language in which familiar-sounding syllables meantsomething totally unknown. Did he really think she was going to coopherself up again in their cramped quarters while Hubert and hisskating-rink bride luxuriated overhead in the coveted premier? All theresentments that had been accumulating in her during the long baffledmonths since her marriage broke into speech. "It's extraordinary of youto do such a thing without consulting me!"

"Without consulting you? But, my dear child, you've always professed themost complete indifference to business matters--you've frequently beggedme not to bore you with them. You may be sure I've acted on the bestadvice; and my mother, whose head is as good as a man's, thinks I'vemade a remarkably good arrangement. "

"I daresay--but I'm not always thinking about money, as you are. "

As she spoke she had an ominous sense of impending peril; but she wastoo angry to avoid even the risks she saw. To her surprise Raymond puthis arm about her with a smile. "There are many reasons why I have tothink about money. One is that YOU don't; and another is that I mustlook out for the future of our son. "

Undine flushed to the forehead. She had grown accustomed to suchallusions and the thought of having a child no longer filled her withthe resentful terror she had felt before Paul's birth. She had beeninsensibly influenced by a different point of view, perhaps also by adifference in her own feeling; and the vision of herself as the motherof the future Marquis de Chelles was softened to happiness by thethought of giving Raymond a son. But all these lightly-rooted sentimentswent down in the rush of her resentment, and she freed herself with apetulant movement. "Oh, my dear, you'd better leave it to your brotherto perpetuate the race. There'll be more room for nurseries in theirapartment!"

She waited a moment, quivering with the expectation of her husband'sanswer; then, as none came except the silent darkening of his face, shewalked to the door and turned round to fling back: "Of course you can dowhat you like with your own house, and make any arrangements that suityour family, without consulting me; but you needn't think I'm evergoing back to live in that stuffy little hole, with Hubert and his wifesplurging round on top of our heads!"

"Ah--" said Raymond de Chelles in a low voice. 

XXXIX

Undine did not fulfil her threat. The month of May saw her back in therooms she had declared she would never set foot in, and after her longsojourn among the echoing vistas of Saint Desert the exiguity of herParis quarters seemed like cosiness. 

In the interval many things had happened. Hubert, permitted by hisanxious relatives to anticipate the term of the family mourning, hadbeen showily and expensively united to his heiress; the Hotel de Chelleshad been piped, heated and illuminated in accordance with the bride'srequirements; and the young couple, not content with these utilitarianchanges had moved doors, opened windows, torn down partitions, and givenover the great trophied and pilastered dining-room to a decorativepainter with a new theory of the human anatomy. Undine had silentlyassisted at this spectacle, and at the sight of the old Marquise'sabject acquiescence; she had seen the Duchesse de Dordogne and thePrincesse Estradina go past her door to visit Hubert's premier andmarvel at the American bath-tubs and the Annamite bric-a-brac; and shehad been present, with her husband, at the banquet at which Hubert hadrevealed to the astonished Faubourg the prehistoric episodes depicted onhis dining-room walls. She had accepted all these necessities with thestoicism which the last months had developed in her; for more and more, as the days passed, she felt herself in the grasp of circumstancesstronger than any effort she could oppose to them. The very absenceof external pressure, of any tactless assertion of authority on herhusband's part, intensified the sense of her helplessness. He simplyleft it to her to infer that, important as she might be to him incertain ways, there were others in which she did not weigh a feather. 

Their outward relations had not changed since her outburst on thesubject of Hubert's marriage. That incident had left her half-ashamed, half-frightened at her behaviour, and she had tried to atone for itby the indirect arts that were her nearest approach to acknowledgingherself in the wrong. Raymond met her advances with a good grace, and they lived through the rest of the winter on terms of apparentunderstanding. When the spring approached it was he who suggested that, since his mother had consented to Hubert's marrying before the year ofmourning was over, there was really no reason why they should not go upto Paris as usual; and she was surprised at the readiness with which heprepared to accompany her. 

A year earlier she would have regarded this as another proof of herpower; but she now drew her inferences less quickly. Raymond was as"lovely" to her as ever; but more than once, during their months in thecountry, she had had a startled sense of not giving him all he expectedof her. She had admired him, before their marriage, as a model of socialdistinction; during the honeymoon he had been the most ardent of lovers;and with their settling down at Saint Desert she had prepared to resignherself to the society of a country gentleman absorbed in sport andagriculture. But Raymond, to her surprise, had again developed adisturbing resemblance to his predecessor. During the long winterafternoons, after he had gone over his accounts with the bailiff, orwritten his business letters, he took to dabbling with a paint-box, orpicking out new scores at the piano; after dinner, when they went to thelibrary, he seemed to expect to read aloud to her from the reviews andpapers he was always receiving; and when he had discovered her inabilityto fix her attention he fell into the way of absorbing himself in one ofthe old brown books with which the room was lined. At first he tried--asRalph had done--to tell her about what he was reading or what washappening in the world; but her sense of inadequacy made her slipaway to other subjects, and little by little their talk died down tomonosyllables. Was it possible that, in spite of his books, the eveningsseemed as long to Raymond as to her, and that he had suggested goingback to Paris because he was bored at Saint Desert? Bored as she washerself, she resented his not finding her company all-sufficient, andwas mortified by the discovery that there were regions of his life shecould not enter. 

But once back in Paris she had less time for introspection, and Raymondless for books. They resumed their dispersed and busy life, and in spiteof Hubert's ostentatious vicinity, of the perpetual lack of money, andof Paul's innocent encroachments on her freedom, Undine, once more inher element, ceased to brood upon her grievances. She enjoyed goingabout with her husband, whose presence at her side was distinctlyornamental. He seemed to have grown suddenly younger and more animated, and when she saw other women looking at him she remembered howdistinguished he was. It amused her to have him in her train, anddriving about with him to dinners and dances, waiting for him onflower-decked landings, or pushing at his side through blazingtheatre-lobbies, answered to her inmost ideal of domestic intimacy. 

He seemed disposed to allow her more liberty than before, and it wasonly now and then that he let drop a brief reminder of the conditions onwhich it was accorded. She was to keep certain people at a distance, she was not to cheapen herself by being seen at vulgar restaurantsand tea-rooms, she was to join with him in fulfilling certain familyobligations (going to a good many dull dinners among the number); but inother respects she was free to fill her days as she pleased. 

"Not that it leaves me much time, " she admitted to Madame de Trezac;"what with going to see his mother every day, and never missing one ofhis sisters' jours, and showing myself at the Hotel de Dordogne wheneverthe Duchess gives a pay-up party to the stuffy people Lili Estradinawon't be bothered with, there are days when I never lay eyes on Paul, and barely have time to be waved and manicured; but, apart from that, Raymond's really much nicer and less fussy than he was. "

Undine, as she grew older, had developed her mother's craving for aconfidante, and Madame de Trezac had succeeded in that capacity to MabelLipscomb and Bertha Shallum. 

"Less fussy?" Madame de Trezac's long nose lengthened thoughtfully. "H'm--are you sure that's a good sign?"

Undine stared and laughed. "Oh, my dear, you're so quaint! Why, nobody'sjealous any more. "

"No; that's the worst of it. " Madame de Trezac pondered. "It's athousand pities you haven't got a son. "

"Yes; I wish we had. " Undine stood up, impatient to end theconversation. Since she had learned that her continued childlessnesswas regarded by every one about her as not only unfortunate but somehowvaguely derogatory to her, she had genuinely begun to regret it; and anyallusion to the subject disturbed her. 

"Especially, " Madame de Trezac continued, "as Hubert's wife--"

"Oh, if THAT'S all they want, it's a pity Raymond didn't marry Hubert'swife, " Undine flung back; and on the stairs she murmured to herself:"Nettie has been talking to my mother-in-law. "

But this explanation did not quiet her, and that evening, as she andRaymond drove back together from a party, she felt a sudden impulse tospeak. Sitting close to him in the darkness of the carriage, it ought tohave been easy for her to find the needed word; but the barrier of hisindifference hung between them, and street after street slipped by, and the spangled blackness of the river unrolled itself beneath theirwheels, before she leaned over to touch his hand. 

"What is it, my dear?"

She had not yet found the word, and already his tone told her she wastoo late. A year ago, if she had slipped her hand in his, she would nothave had that answer. 

"Your mother blames me for our not having a child. Everybody thinks it'smy fault. "

He paused before answering, and she sat watching his shadowy profileagainst the passing lamps. 

"My mother's ideas are old-fashioned; and I don't know that it'sanybody's business but yours and mine. "

"Yes, but--"

"Here we are. " The brougham was turning under the archway of the hotel, and the light of Hubert's tall windows fell across the dusky court. Raymond helped her out, and they mounted to their door by the stairswhich Hubert had recarpeted in velvet, with a marble nymph lurking inthe azaleas on the landing. 

In the antechamber Raymond paused to take her cloak from her shoulders, and his eyes rested on her with a faint smile of approval. 

"You never looked better; your dress is extremely becoming. Good-night, my dear, " he said, kissing her hand as he turned away. 

Undine kept this incident to herself: her wounded pride made her shrinkfrom confessing it even to Madame de Trezac. She was sure Raymond would"come back"; Ralph always had, to the last. During their remaining weeksin Paris she reassured herself with the thought that once they were backat Saint Desert she would easily regain her lost hold; and when Raymondsuggested their leaving Paris she acquiesced without a protest. But atSaint Desert she seemed no nearer to him than in Paris. He continued totreat her with unvarying amiability, but he seemed wholly absorbed inthe management of the estate, in his books, his sketching and his music. He had begun to interest himself in politics and had been urged to standfor his department. This necessitated frequent displacements: trips toBeaune or Dijon and occasional absences in Paris. Undine, when he wasaway, was not left alone, for the dowager Marquise had establishedherself at Saint Desert for the summer, and relays of brothersand sisters-in-law, aunts, cousins and ecclesiastical friends andconnections succeeded each other under its capacious roof. Only Hubertand his wife were absent. They had taken a villa at Deauville, and inthe morning papers Undine followed the chronicle of Hubert's polo scoresand of the Countess Hubert's racing toilets. 

The days crawled on with a benumbing sameness. The old Marquise and theother ladies of the party sat on the terrace with their needle-work, thecure or one of the visiting uncles read aloud the Journal des Debats andprognosticated dark things of the Republic, Paul scoured the park anddespoiled the kitchen-garden with the other children of the family, the inhabitants of the adjacent chateaux drove over to call, andoccasionally the ponderous pair were harnessed to a landau as lumberingas the brougham, and the ladies of Saint Desert measured the dustykilometres between themselves and their neighbours. 

It was the first time that Undine had seriously paused to considerthe conditions of her new life, and as the days passed she began tounderstand that so they would continue to succeed each other till theend. Every one about her took it for granted that as long as she livedshe would spend ten months of every year at Saint Desert and theremaining two in Paris. Of course, if health required it, she might goto les eaux with her husband; but the old Marquise was very doubtful asto the benefit of a course of waters, and her uncle the Duke and hercousin the Canon shared her view. In the case of young married women, especially, the unwholesome excitement of the modern watering-place wasmore than likely to do away with the possible benefit of the treatment. As to travel--had not Raymond and his wife been to Egypt and Asia Minoron their wedding-journey? Such reckless enterprise was unheard of inthe annals of the house! Had they not spent days and days in the saddle, and slept in tents among the Arabs? (Who could tell, indeed, whetherthese imprudences were not the cause of the disappointment which it hadpleased heaven to inflict on the young couple?) No one in the familyhad ever taken so long a wedding-journey. One bride had gone toEngland (even that was considered extreme), and another--the artisticdaughter--had spent a week in Venice; which certainly showed that theywere not behind the times, and had no old-fashioned prejudices. Sincewedding-journeys were the fashion, they had taken them; but who hadever heard of travelling afterward?

What could be the possible object of leaving one's family, one's habits, one's friends? It was natural that the Americans, who had no homes, whowere born and died in hotels, should have contracted nomadic habits: butthe new Marquise de Chelles was no longer an American, and she had SaintDesert and the Hotel de Chelles to live in, as generations of ladies ofher name had done before her. Thus Undine beheld her future laid out forher, not directly and in blunt words, but obliquely and affably, in theallusions, the assumptions, the insinuations of the amiable women amongwhom her days were spent. Their interminable conversations were carriedon to the click of knitting-needles and the rise and fall of industriousfingers above embroidery-frames; and as Undine sat staring at thelustrous nails of her idle hands she felt that her inability to occupythem was regarded as one of the chief causes of her restlessness. Theinnumerable rooms of Saint Desert were furnished with the embroideredhangings and tapestry chairs produced by generations of diligentchatelaines, and the untiring needles of the old Marquise, her daughtersand dependents were still steadily increasing the provision. 

It struck Undine as curious that they should be willing to go on makingchair-coverings and bed-curtains for a house that didn't really belongto them, and that she had a right to pull about and rearrange as shechose; but then that was only a part of their whole incomprehensible wayof regarding themselves (in spite of their acute personal and parochialabsorptions) as minor members of a powerful and indivisible whole, thehuge voracious fetish they called The Family. 

Notwithstanding their very definite theories as to what Americans wereand were not, they were evidently bewildered at finding no correspondingsense of solidarity in Undine; and little Paul's rootlessness, his lackof all local and linear ties, made them (for all the charm he exercised)regard him with something of the shyness of pious Christians towardan elfin child. But though mother and child gave them a sense ofinsuperable strangeness, it plainly never occurred to them that bothwould not be gradually subdued to the customs of Saint Desert. Dynastieshad fallen, institutions changed, manners and morals, alas, deplorablydeclined; but as far back as memory went, the ladies of the line ofChelles had always sat at their needle-work on the terrace of SaintDesert, while the men of the house lamented the corruption of thegovernment and the cure ascribed the unhappy state of the country to thedecline of religious feeling and the rise in the cost of living. It wasinevitable that, in the course of time, the new Marquise should come tounderstand the fundamental necessity of these things being as they were;and meanwhile the forbearance of her husband's family exercised itself, with the smiling discretion of their race, through the long successionof uneventful days. 

Once, in September, this routine was broken in upon by the unannounceddescent of a flock of motors bearing the Princess Estradina and a chosenband from one watering-place to another. Raymond was away at the time, but family loyalty constrained the old Marquise to welcome her kinswomanand the latter's friends; and Undine once more found herself immersed inthe world from which her marriage had removed her. 

The Princess, at first, seemed totally to have forgotten their formerintimacy, and Undine was made to feel that in a life so variouslyagitated the episode could hardly have left a trace. But the nightbefore her departure the incalculable Lili, with one of her suddenchanges of humour, drew her former friend into her bedroom and plungedinto an exchange of confidences. She naturally unfolded her own historyfirst, and it was so packed with incident that the courtyard clock hadstruck two before she turned her attention to Undine. 

"My dear, you're handsomer than ever; only perhaps a shade too stout. Domestic bliss, I suppose? Take care! You need an emotion, a drama... You Americans are really extraordinary. You appear to live on change andexcitement; and then suddenly a man comes along and claps a ring on yourfinger, and you never look through it to see what's going on outside. Aren't you ever the least bit bored? Why do I never see anything of youany more? I suppose it's the fault of my venerable aunt--she's neverforgiven me for having a better time than her daughters. How can I helpit if I don't look like the cure's umbrella? I daresay she owes you thesame grudge. But why do you let her coop you up here? It's a thousandpities you haven't had a child. They'd all treat you differently if youhad. "

It was the same perpetually reiterated condolence; and Undine flushedwith anger as she listened. Why indeed had she let herself be cooped up?She could not have answered the Princess's question: she merely feltthe impossibility of breaking through the mysterious web of traditions, conventions, prohibitions that enclosed her in their impenetrablenet-work. But her vanity suggested the obvious pretext, and she murmuredwith a laugh: "I didn't know Raymond was going to be so jealous--"

The Princess stared. "Is it Raymond who keeps you shut up here? And whatabout his trips to Dijon? And what do you suppose he does with himselfwhen he runs up to Paris? Politics?" She shrugged ironically. "Politicsdon't occupy a man after midnight. Raymond jealous of you? Ah, merci!My dear, it's what I always say when people talk to me about fastAmericans: you're the only innocent women left in the world... "

XL

After the Princess Estradina's departure, the days at Saint Desertsucceeded each other indistinguishably; and more and more, as theypassed, Undine felt herself drawn into the slow strong current alreadyfed by so many tributary lives. Some spell she could not have namedseemed to emanate from the old house which had so long been thecustodian of an unbroken tradition: things had happened there in thesame way for so many generations that to try to alter them seemed asvain as to contend with the elements. 

Winter came and went, and once more the calendar marked the first daysof spring; but though the horse-chestnuts of the Champs Elysees werebudding snow still lingered in the grass drives of Saint Desert andalong the ridges of the hills beyond the park. Sometimes, as Undinelooked out of the windows of the Boucher gallery, she felt as if hereyes had never rested on any other scene. Even her occasional brieftrips to Paris left no lasting trace: the life of the vivid streetsfaded to a shadow as soon as the black and white horizon of Saint Desertclosed in on her again. 

Though the afternoons were still cold she had lately taken to sitting inthe gallery. The smiling scenes on its walls and the tall screens whichbroke its length made it more habitable than the drawing-rooms beyond;but her chief reason for preferring it was the satisfaction she found inhaving fires lit in both the monumental chimneys that faced each otherdown its long perspective. This satisfaction had its source in the oldMarquise's disapproval. Never before in the history of Saint Desert hadthe consumption of firewood exceeded a certain carefully-calculatedmeasure; but since Undine had been in authority this allowance had beendoubled. If any one had told her, a year earlier, that one of the chiefdistractions of her new life would be to invent ways of annoying hermother-in-law, she would have laughed at the idea of wasting her time onsuch trifles. But she found herself with a great deal of time to waste, and with a fierce desire to spend it in upsetting the immemorial customsof Saint Desert. Her husband had mastered her in essentials, but she haddiscovered innumerable small ways of irritating and hurting him, andone--and not the least effectual--was to do anything that went counterto his mother's prejudices. It was not that he always shared her views, or was a particularly subservient son; but it seemed to be one of hisfundamental principles that a man should respect his mother's wishes, and see to it that his household respected them. All Frenchmen ofhis class appeared to share this view, and to regard it as beyonddiscussion: it was based on something so much more Immutable thanpersonal feeling that one might even hate one's mother and yet insistthat her ideas as to the consumption of fire-wood should be regarded. 

The old Marquise, during the cold weather, always sat in her bedroom;and there, between the tapestried four-poster and the fireplace, thefamily grouped itself around the ground-glass of her single carcel lamp. In the evening, if there were visitors, a fire was lit in the library;otherwise the family again sat about the Marquise's lamp till thefootman came in at ten with tisane and biscuits de Reims; after whichevery one bade the dowager good night and scattered down the corridorsto chill distances marked by tapers floating in cups of oil. 

Since Undine's coming the library fire had never been allowed to go out;and of late, after experimenting with the two drawing-rooms and theso-called "study" where Raymond kept his guns and saw the bailiff, shehad selected the gallery as the most suitable place for the new andunfamiliar ceremony of afternoon tea. Afternoon refreshments had neverbefore been served at Saint Desert except when company was expected;when they had invariably consisted in a decanter of sweet port and aplate of small dry cakes--the kind that kept. That the complicated ritesof the tea-urn, with its offering-up of perishable delicacies, should beenacted for the sole enjoyment of the family, was a thing so unheard ofthat for a while Undine found sufficient amusement in elaborating theceremonial, and in making the ancestral plate groan under more variedviands; and when this palled she devised the plan of performing theoffice in the gallery and lighting sacrificial fires in both chimneys. 

She had said to Raymond, at first: "It's ridiculous that your mothershould sit in her bedroom all day. She says she does it to save fires;but if we have a fire downstairs why can't she let hers go out, and comedown? I don't see why I should spend my life in your mother's bedroom. "

Raymond made no answer, and the Marquise did, in fact, let her fire goout. But she did not come down--she simply continued to sit upstairswithout a fire. 

At first this also amused Undine; then the tacit criticism implied beganto irritate her. She hoped Raymond would speak of his mother's attitude:she had her answer ready if he did! But he made no comment, he took nonotice; her impulses of retaliation spent themselves against the blanksurface of his indifference. He was as amiable, as considerate as ever;as ready, within reason, to accede to her wishes and gratify her whims. Once or twice, when she suggested running up to Paris to take Paul tothe dentist, or to look for a servant, he agreed to the necessity andwent up with her. But instead of going to an hotel they went to theirapartment, where carpets were up and curtains down, and a care-takerprepared primitive food at uncertain hours; and Undine's first glimpseof Hubert's illuminated windows deepened her rancour and her sense ofhelplessness. 

As Madame de Trezac had predicted, Raymond's vigilance graduallyrelaxed, and during their excursions to the capital Undine came and wentas she pleased. But her visits were too short to permit of her fallingin with the social pace, and when she showed herself among her friendsshe felt countrified and out-of-place, as if even her clothes had comefrom Saint Desert. Nevertheless her dresses were more than ever herchief preoccupation: in Paris she spent hours at the dressmaker's, andin the country the arrival of a box of new gowns was the chief eventof the vacant days. But there was more bitterness than joy in theunpacking, and the dresses hung in her wardrobe like so many unfulfilledpromises of pleasure, reminding her of the days at the Stentorian whenshe had reviewed other finery with the same cheated eyes. In spite ofthis, she multiplied her orders, writing up to the dress-makers forpatterns, and to the milliners for boxes of hats which she tried on, andkept for days, without being able to make a choice. Now and then sheeven sent her maid up to Paris to bring back great assortments of veils, gloves, flowers and laces; and after periods of painful indecision sheended by keeping the greater number, lest those she sent back shouldturn out to be the ones that were worn in Paris. She knew she wasspending too much money, and she had lost her youthful faith inprovidential solutions; but she had always had the habit of going out tobuy something when she was bored, and never had she been in greater needof such solace. 

The dulness of her life seemed to have passed into her blood: hercomplexion was less animated, her hair less shining. The change in herlooks alarmed her, and she scanned the fashion-papers for new scentsand powders, and experimented in facial bandaging, electric massage andother processes of renovation. Odd atavisms woke in her, and she beganto pore over patent medicine advertisements, to send stamped envelopesto beauty doctors and professors of physical development, and to broodon the advantage of consulting faith-healers, mind-readers and theirkindred adepts. She even wrote to her mother for the receipts of some ofher grandfather's forgotten nostrums, and modified her daily life, andher hours of sleeping, eating and exercise, in accordance with each newexperiment. 

Her constitutional restlessness lapsed into an apathy like Mrs. Spragg's, and the least demand on her activity irritated her. But shewas beset by endless annoyances: bickerings with discontented maids, thedifficulty of finding a tutor for Paul, and the problem of keeping himamused and occupied without having him too much on her hands. A greatliking had sprung up between Raymond and the little boy, and during thesummer Paul was perpetually at his step-father's side in the stablesand the park. But with the coming of winter Raymond was oftener away, and Paul developed a persistent cold that kept him frequently indoors. The confinement made him fretful and exacting, and the old Marquiseascribed the change in his behaviour to the deplorable influence of histutor, a "laic" recommended by one of Raymond's old professors. Raymondhimself would have preferred an abbé: it was in the tradition of thehouse, and though Paul was not of the house it seemed fitting that heshould conform to its ways. Moreover, when the married sisters cameto stay they objected to having their children exposed to the tutor'sinfluence, and even implied that Paul's society might be contaminating. But Undine, though she had so readily embraced her husband's faith, stubbornly resisted the suggestion that she should hand over her son tothe Church. The tutor therefore remained; but the friction caused byhis presence was so irritating to Undine that she began to consider thealternative of sending Paul to school. He was still small and tenderfor the experiment; but she persuaded herself that what he needed was"hardening, " and having heard of a school where fashionable infancy wassubjected to this process, she entered into correspondence with themaster. His first letter convinced her that his establishment was justthe place for Paul; but the second contained the price-list, and aftercomparing it with the tutor's keep and salary she wrote to say that shefeared her little boy was too young to be sent away from home. 

Her husband, for some time past, had ceased to make any comment on herexpenditure. She knew he thought her too extravagant, and felt sure hewas minutely aware of what she spent; for Saint Desert projected oneconomic details a light as different as might be from the haze thatveiled them in West End Avenue. She therefore concluded that Raymond'ssilence was intentional, and ascribed it to his having shortcomings ofhis own to conceal. The Princess Estradina's pleasantry had reached itsmark. Undine did not believe that her husband was seriously in love withanother woman--she could not conceive that any one could tire of herof whom she had not first tired--but she was humiliated by hisindifference, and it was easier to ascribe it to the arts of a rivalthan to any deficiency in herself. It exasperated her to think that hemight have consolations for the outward monotony of his life, and sheresolved that when they returned to Paris he should see that she was notwithout similar opportunities. 

March, meanwhile, was verging on April, and still he did not speak ofleaving. Undine had learned that he expected to have such decisions leftto him, and she hid her impatience lest her showing it should inclinehim to delay. But one day, as she sat at tea in the gallery, he came inin his riding-clothes and said: "I've been over to the other side of themountain. The February rains have weakened the dam of the Alette, andthe vineyards will be in danger if we don't rebuild at once. "

She suppressed a yawn, thinking, as she did so, how dull he alwayslooked when he talked of agriculture. It made him seem years older, andshe reflected with a shiver that listening to him probably gave her thesame look. 

He went on, as she handed him his tea: "I'm sorry it should happenjust now. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to give up your spring inParis. " "Oh, no--no!" she broke out. A throng of half-subdued grievanceschoked in her: she wanted to burst into sobs like a child. 

"I know it's a disappointment. But our expenses have been unusuallyheavy this year. "

"It seems to me they always are. I don't see why we should give up Parisbecause you've got to make repairs to a dam. Isn't Hubert ever going topay back that money?"

He looked at her with a mild surprise. "But surely you understood at thetime that it won't be possible till his wife inherits?"

"Till General Arlington dies, you mean? He doesn't look much older thanyou!"

"You may remember that I showed you Hubert's note. He has paid theinterest quite regularly. "

"That's kind of him!" She stood up, flaming with rebellion. "You can doas you please; but I mean to go to Paris. "

"My mother is not going. I didn't intend to open our apartment. "

"I understand. But I shall open it--that's all!"

He had risen too, and she saw his face whiten. "I prefer that youshouldn't go without me. "

"Then I shall go and stay at the Nouveau Luxe with my American friends. "

"That never!"

"Why not?"

"I consider it unsuitable. "

"Your considering it so doesn't prove it. "

They stood facing each other, quivering with an equal anger; then hecontrolled himself and said in a more conciliatory tone: "You never seemto see that there are necessities--"

"Oh, neither do you--that's the trouble. You can't keep me shut up hereall my life, and interfere with everything I want to do, just by sayingit's unsuitable. "

"I've never interfered with your spending your money as you please. "

It was her turn to stare, sincerely wondering. "Mercy, I should hopenot, when you've always grudged me every penny of yours!"

"You know it's not because I grudge it. I would gladly take you to Parisif I had the money. "

"You can always find the money to spend on this place. Why don't yousell it if it's so fearfully expensive?"

"Sell it? Sell Saint Desert?"

The suggestion seemed to strike him as something monstrously, almostfiendishly significant: as if her random word had at last thrustinto his hand the clue to their whole unhappy difference. Withoutunderstanding this, she guessed it from the change in his face: it wasas if a deadly solvent had suddenly decomposed its familiar lines. 

"Well, why not?" His horror spurred her on. "You might sell some of thethings in it anyhow. In America we're not ashamed to sell what we can'tafford to keep. " Her eyes fell on the storied hangings at his back. "Why, there's a fortune in this one room: you could get anything youchose for those tapestries. And you stand here and tell me you're apauper!"

His glance followed hers to the tapestries, and then returned to herface. "Ah, you don't understand, " he said. 

"I understand that you care for all this old stuff more than you do forme, and that you'd rather see me unhappy and miserable than touch one ofyour great-grandfather's arm-chairs. "

The colour came slowly back to his face, but it hardened into lines shehad never seen. He looked at her as though the place where she stoodwere empty. "You don't understand, " he said again. 

XLI

The incident left Undine with the baffled feeling of not being able tocount on any of her old weapons of aggression. In all her struggles forauthority her sense of the rightfulness of her cause had been measuredby her power of making people do as she pleased. Raymond's firmnessshook her faith in her own claims, and a blind desire to wound anddestroy replaced her usual business-like intentness on gaining herend. But her ironies were as ineffectual as her arguments, and hisimperviousness was the more exasperating because she divined that someof the things she said would have hurt him if any one else had saidthem: it was the fact of their coming from her that made them innocuous. Even when, at the close of their talk, she had burst out: "If you grudgeme everything I care about we'd better separate, " he had merely answeredwith a shrug: "It's one of the things we don't do--" and the answer hadbeen like the slamming of an iron door in her face. 

An interval of silent brooding had resulted in a reaction of rebellion. She dared not carry out her threat of joining her compatriots at theNouveau Luxe: she had too clear a memory of the results of her formerrevolt. But neither could she submit to her present fate withoutattempting to make Raymond understand his selfish folly. She had failedto prove it by argument, but she had an inherited faith in the value ofpractical demonstration. If he could be made to see how easily he couldgive her what she wanted perhaps he might come round to her view. 

With this idea in mind, she had gone up to Paris for twenty-four hours, on the pretext of finding a new nurse for Paul; and the steps then takenhad enabled her, on the first occasion, to set her plan in motion. Theoccasion was furnished by Raymond's next trip to Beaune. He went offearly one morning, leaving word that he should not be back till night;and on the afternoon of the same day she stood at her usual post in thegallery, scanning the long perspective of the poplar avenue. 

She had not stood there long before a black speck at the end of theavenue expanded into a motor that was presently throbbing at theentrance. Undine, at its approach, turned from the window, and as shemoved down the gallery her glance rested on the great tapestries, withtheir ineffable minglings of blue and rose, as complacently as thoughthey had been mirrors reflecting her own image. 

She was still looking at them when the door opened and a servant usheredin a small swarthy man who, in spite of his conspicuously London-madeclothes, had an odd exotic air, as if he had worn rings in his ears orleft a bale of spices at the door. 

He bowed to Undine, cast a rapid eye up and down the room, and then, with his back to the windows, stood intensely contemplating the wallthat faced them. 

Undine's heart was beating excitedly. She knew the old Marquise wastaking her afternoon nap in her room, yet each sound in the silent houseseemed to be that of her heels on the stairs. 

"Ah--" said the visitor. 

He had begun to pace slowly down the gallery, keeping his face to thetapestries, like an actor playing to the footlights. 

"AH--" he said again. 

To ease the tension of her nerves Undine began: "They were given byLouis the Fifteenth to the Marquis de Chelles who--"

"Their history has been published, " the visitor briefly interposed; andshe coloured at her blunder. 

The swarthy stranger, fitting a pair of eye-glasses to a nose that waslike an instrument of precision, had begun a closer and more detailedinspection of the tapestries. He seemed totally unmindful of herpresence, and his air of lofty indifference was beginning to makeher wish she had not sent for him. His manner in Paris had been sodifferent!

Suddenly he turned and took off the glasses, which sprang back into afold of his clothing like retracted feelers. 

"Yes. " He stood and looked at her without seeing her. "Very well. I havebrought down a gentleman. "

"A gentleman--?"

"The greatest American collector--he buys only the best. He will not belong in Paris, and it was his only chance of coming down. "

Undine drew herself up. "I don't understand--I never said the tapestrieswere for sale. "

"Precisely. But this gentleman buys only this that are not for sale. "

It sounded dazzling and she wavered. "I don't know--you were only to puta price on them--"

"Let me see him look at them first; then I'll put a price on them, " hechuckled; and without waiting for her answer he went to the door andopened it. The gesture revealed the fur-coated back of a gentlemanwho stood at the opposite end of the hall examining the bust of aseventeenth century field-marshal. 

The dealer addressed the back respectfully. "Mr. Moffatt!"

Moffatt, who appeared to be interested in the bust, glanced over hisshoulder without moving. "See here--"

His glance took in Undine, widened to astonishment and passed intoapostrophe. "Well, if this ain't the damnedest--!" He came forward andtook her by both hands. "Why, what on earth are you doing down here?"

She laughed and blushed, in a tremor at the odd turn of the adventure. "I live here. Didn't you know?"

"Not a word--never thought of asking the party's name. " He turnedjovially to the bowing dealer. "Say--I told you those tapestries'dhave to be out and outers to make up for the trip; but now I see I wasmistaken. "

Undine looked at him curiously. His physical appearance was unchanged:he was as compact and ruddy as ever, with the same astute eyes under thesame guileless brow; but his self-confidence had become less aggressive, and she had never seen him so gallantly at ease. 

"I didn't know you'd become a great collector. "

"The greatest! Didn't he tell you so? I thought that was why I wasallowed to come. "

She hesitated. "Of course, you know, the tapestries are not for sale--"

"That so? I thought that was only his dodge to get me down. Well, I'mglad they ain't: it'll give us more time to talk. "

Watch in hand, the dealer intervened. "If, nevertheless, you would firsttake a glance. Our train--"

"It ain't mine!" Moffatt interrupted; "at least not if there's a laterone. "

Undine's presence of mind had returned. "Of course there is, " she saidgaily. She led the way back into the gallery, half hoping the dealerwould allege a pressing reason for departure. She was excited and amusedat Moffatt's unexpected appearance, but humiliated that he shouldsuspect her of being in financial straits. She never wanted to seeMoffatt except when she was happy and triumphant. 

The dealer had followed the other two into the gallery, and there was amoment's pause while they all stood silently before the tapestries. "ByGeorge!" Moffatt finally brought out. 

"They're historical, you know: the King gave them to Raymond'sgreat-great-grandfather. The other day when I was in Paris, " Undinehurried on, "I asked Mr. Fleischhauer to come down some time and tell uswhat they're worth ... And he seems to have misunderstood ... To havethought we meant to sell them. " She addressed herself more pointedly tothe dealer. "I'm sorry you've had the trip for nothing. "

Mr. Fleischhauer inclined himself eloquently. "It is not nothing to haveseen such beauty. "

Moffatt gave him a humorous look. "I'd hate to see Mr. Fleischhauer misshis train--"

"I shall not miss it: I miss nothing, " said Mr. Fleischhauer. He bowedto Undine and backed toward the door. 

"See here, " Moffatt called to him as he reached the threshold, "you letthe motor take you to the station, and charge up this trip to me. "

When the door closed he turned to Undine with a laugh. "Well, this beatsthe band. I thought of course you were living up in Paris. "

Again she felt a twinge of embarrassment. "Oh, French people--I mean myhusband's kind--always spend a part of the year on their estates. "

"But not this part, do they? Why, everything's humming up there now. I was dining at the Nouveau Luxe last night with the Driscolls andShallums and Mrs. Rolliver, and all your old crowd were there whoopingthings up. "

The Driscolls and Shallums and Mrs. Rolliver! How carelessly he reeledoff their names! One could see from his tone that he was one of themand wanted her to know it. And nothing could have given her a completersense of his achievement--of the number of millions he must be worth. It must have come about very recently, yet he was already at ease in hisnew honours--he had the metropolitan tone. While she examined him withthese thoughts in her mind she was aware of his giving her as close ascrutiny. "But I suppose you've got your own crowd now, " he continued;"you always WERE a lap ahead of me. " He sent his glance down the lordlylength of the room. "It's sorter funny to see you in this kind of place;but you look it--you always DO look it!"

She laughed. "So do you--I was just thinking it!" Their eyes met. "Isuppose you must be awfully rich. "

He laughed too, holding her eyes. "Oh, out of sight! The Consolidationset me on my feet. I own pretty near the whole of Apex. I came down tobuy these tapestries for my private car. "

The familiar accent of hyperbole exhilarated her. "I don't suppose Icould stop you if you really wanted them!"

"Nobody can stop me now if I want anything. "

They were looking at each other with challenge and complicity in theireyes. His voice, his look, all the loud confident vigorous things heembodied and expressed, set her blood beating with curiosity. "I didn'tknow you and Rolliver were friends, " she said. 

"Oh JIM--" his accent verged on the protective. "Old Jim's all right. He's in Congress now. I've got to have somebody up in Washington. " Hehad thrust his hands in his pockets, and with his head thrown back andhis lips shaped to the familiar noiseless whistle, was looking slowlyand discerningly about him. 

Presently his eyes reverted to her face. "So this is what I helped youto get, " he said. "I've always meant to run over some day and take alook. What is it they call you--a Marquise?"

She paled a little, and then flushed again. "What made you do it?" shebroke out abruptly. "I've often wondered. "

He laughed. "What--lend you a hand? Why, my business instinct, Isuppose. I saw you were in a tight place that time I ran across you inParis--and I hadn't any grudge against you. Fact is, I've never hadthe time to nurse old scores, and if you neglect 'em they die off likegold-fish. " He was still composedly regarding her. "It's funny to thinkof your having settled down to this kind of life; I hope you've got whatyou wanted. This is a great place you live in. "

"Yes; but I see a little too much of it. We live here most of the year. "She had meant to give him the illusion of success, but some underlyingcommunity of instinct drew the confession from her lips. 

"That so? Why on earth don't you cut it and come up to Paris?"

"Oh, Raymond's absorbed in the estates--and we haven't got the money. This place eats it all up. "

"Well, that sounds aristocratic; but ain't it rather out of date? Whenthe swells are hard-up nowadays they generally chip off an heirloom. "He wheeled round again to the tapestries. "There are a good many Parisseasons hanging right here on this wall. "

"Yes--I know. " She tried to check herself, to summon up a glitteringequivocation; but his face, his voice, the very words he used, were likeso many hammer-strokes demolishing the unrealities that imprisoned her. Here was some one who spoke her language, who knew her meanings, whounderstood instinctively all the deep-seated wants for which heracquired vocabulary had no terms; and as she talked she once more seemedto herself intelligent, eloquent and interesting. 

"Of course it's frightfully lonely down here, " she began; and throughthe opening made by the admission the whole flood of her grievancespoured forth. She tried to let him see that she had not sacrificedherself for nothing; she touched on the superiorities of her situation, she gilded the circumstances of which she called herself the victim, andlet titles, offices and attributes shed their utmost lustre on her tale;but what she had to boast of seemed small and tinkling compared with theevidences of his power. 

"Well, it's a downright shame you don't go round more, " he kept saying;and she felt ashamed of her tame acceptance of her fate. 

When she had told her story she asked for his; and for the first timeshe listened to it with interest. He had what he wanted at last. TheApex Consolidation scheme, after a long interval of suspense, hadobtained its charter and shot out huge ramifications. Rolliver had"stood in" with him at the critical moment, and between them they had"chucked out" old Harmon B. Driscoll bag and baggage, and got thewhole town in their control. Absorbed in his theme, and forgetting herinability to follow him, Moffatt launched out on an epic recital of plotand counterplot, and she hung, a new Desdemona, on his conflict with thenew anthropophagi. It was of no consequence that the details and thetechnicalities escaped her: she knew their meaningless syllables stoodfor success, and what that meant was as clear as day to her. Every WallStreet term had its equivalent in the language of Fifth Avenue, andwhile he talked of building up railways she was building up palaces, andpicturing all the multiple lives he would lead in them. To have thingshad always seemed to her the first essential of existence, and as shelistened to him the vision of the things he could have unrolled itselfbefore her like the long triumph of an Asiatic conqueror. 

"And what are you going to do next?" she asked, almost breathlessly, when he had ended. 

"Oh, there's always a lot to do next. Business never goes to sleep. "

"Yes; but I mean besides business. "

"Why--everything I can, I guess. " He leaned back in his chair with anair of placid power, as if he were so sure of getting what he wantedthat there was no longer any use in hurrying, huge as his vistas hadbecome. 

She continued to question him, and he began to talk of his growingpassion for pictures and furniture, and of his desire to form acollection which should be a great representative assemblage ofunmatched specimens. As he spoke she saw his expression change, and hiseyes grow younger, almost boyish, with a concentrated look in them thatreminded her of long-forgotten things. 

"I mean to have the best, you know; not just to get ahead of the otherfellows, but because I know it when I see it. I guess that's the onlygood reason, " he concluded; and he added, looking at her with a smile:"It was what you were always after, wasn't it?"

XLII

Undine had gained her point, and the entresol of the Hotel de Chellesreopened its doors for the season. 

Hubert and his wife, in expectation of the birth of an heir, hadwithdrawn to the sumptuous chateau which General Arlington had hired forthem near Compiegne, and Undine was at least spared the sight of theirbright windows and animated stairway. But she had to take her share ofthe felicitations which the whole far-reaching circle of friends andrelations distributed to every member of Hubert's family on the approachof the happy event. Nor was this the hardest of her trials. Raymond haddone what she asked--he had stood out against his mother's protests, setaside considerations of prudence, and consented to go up to Paris fortwo months; but he had done so on the understanding that during theirstay they should exercise the most unremitting economy. As dinner-givingput the heaviest strain on their budget, all hospitality was suspended;and when Undine attempted to invite a few friends informally she waswarned that she could not do so without causing the gravest offense tothe many others genealogically entitled to the same attention. 

Raymond's insistence on this rule was simply part of an elaborate andinveterate system of "relations" (the whole of French social life seemedto depend on the exact interpretation of that word), and Undine feltthe uselessness of struggling against such mysterious inhibitions. Hereminded her, however, that their inability to receive would give themall the more opportunity for going out, and he showed himself moresocially disposed than in the past. But his concession did not result asshe had hoped. They were asked out as much as ever, but they were askedto big dinners, to impersonal crushes, to the kind of entertainment itis a slight to be omitted from but no compliment to be included in. Nothing could have been more galling to Undine, and she frankly bewailedthe fact to Madame de Trezac. 

"Of course it's what was sure to come of being mewed up for months andmonths in the country. We're out of everything, and the people who arehaving a good time are simply too busy to remember us. We're only askedto the things that are made up from visiting-lists. "

Madame de Trezac listened sympathetically, but did not suppress a candidanswer. 

"It's not altogether that, my dear; Raymond's not a man his friendsforget. It's rather more, if you'll excuse my saying so, the fact ofyour being--you personally--in the wrong set. "

"The wrong set? Why, I'm in HIS set--the one that thinks itself too goodfor all the others. That's what you've always told me when I've said itbored me. "

"Well, that's what I mean--" Madame de Trezac took the plunge. "It's nota question of your being bored. "

Undine coloured; but she could take the hardest thrusts where herpersonal interest was involved. "You mean that I'M the bore, then?"

"Well, you don't work hard enough--you don't keep up. It's not that theydon't admire you--your looks, I mean; they think you beautiful; they'redelighted to bring you out at their big dinners, with the Sevres and theplate. But a woman has got to be something more than good-looking tohave a chance to be intimate with them: she's got to know what's beingsaid about things. I watched you the other night at the Duchess's, andhalf the time you hadn't an idea what they were talking about. I haven'talways, either; but then I have to put up with the big dinners. "

Undine winced under the criticism; but she had never lacked insight intothe cause of her own failures, and she had already had premonitions ofwhat Madame de Trezac so bluntly phrased. When Raymond ceased to beinterested in her conversation she had concluded it was the way ofhusbands; but since then it had been slowly dawning on her that sheproduced the same effect on others. Her entrances were always triumphs;but they had no sequel. As soon as people began to talk they ceased tosee her. Any sense of insufficiency exasperated her, and she had vaguethoughts of cultivating herself, and went so far as to spend amorning in the Louvre and go to one or two lectures by a fashionablephilosopher. But though she returned from these expeditions charged withopinions, their expression did not excite the interest she had hoped. Her views, if abundant, were confused, and the more she said the morenebulous they seemed to grow. She was disconcerted, moreover, by findingthat everybody appeared to know about the things she thought she haddiscovered, and her comments clearly produced more bewilderment thaninterest. 

Remembering the attention she had attracted on her first appearance inRaymond's world she concluded that she had "gone off" or grown dowdy, and instead of wasting more time in museums and lecture-halls sheprolonged her hours at the dress-maker's and gave up the rest of the dayto the scientific cultivation of her beauty. 

"I suppose I've turned into a perfect frump down there in thatwilderness, " she lamented to Madame de Trezac, who replied inexorably:"Oh, no, you're as handsome as ever; but people here don't go on lookingat each other forever as they do in London. "

Meanwhile financial cares became more pressing. A dunning letter fromone of her tradesmen fell into Raymond's hands, and the talk it led toended in his making it clear to her that she must settle her personaldebts without his aid. All the "scenes" about money which had disturbedher past had ended in some mysterious solution of her difficulty. Disagreeable as they were, she had always, vulgarly speaking, found theypaid; but now it was she who was expected to pay. Raymond took hisstand without ill-temper or apology: he simply argued from inveterateprecedent. But it was impossible for Undine to understand a socialorganization which did not regard the indulging of woman as its firstpurpose, or to believe that any one taking another view was not moved byavarice or malice; and the discussion ended in mutual acrimony. 

The morning afterward, Raymond came into her room with a letter in hishand. 

"Is this your doing?" he asked. His look and voice expressed somethingshe had never known before: the disciplined anger of a man trained tokeep his emotions in fixed channels, but knowing how to fill them to thebrim. 

The letter was from Mr. Fleischhauer, who begged to transmit to theMarquis de Chelles an offer for his Boucher tapestries from a clientprepared to pay the large sum named on condition that it was acceptedbefore his approaching departure for America. 

"What does it mean?" Raymond continued, as she did not speak. 

"How should I know? It's a lot of money, " she stammered, shaken out ofher self-possession. She had not expected so prompt a sequel to thedealer's visit, and she was vexed with him for writing to Raymondwithout consulting her. But she recognized Moffatt's high-handed way, and her fears faded in the great blaze of the sum he offered. 

Her husband was still looking at her. "It was Fleischhauer who brought aman down to see the tapestries one day when I was away at Beaune?"

He had known, then--everything was known at Saint Desert!

She wavered a moment and then gave him back his look. 

"Yes--it was Fleischhauer; and I sent for him. "

"You sent for him?"

He spoke in a voice so veiled and repressed that he seemed to beconsciously saving it for some premeditated outbreak. Undine felt itsmenace, but the thought of Moffatt sent a flame through her, and thewords he would have spoken seemed to fly to her lips. 

"Why shouldn't I? Something had to be done. We can't go on as we are. I've tried my best to economize--I've scraped and scrimped, and gonewithout heaps of things I've always had. I've moped for months andmonths at Saint Desert, and given up sending Paul to school because itwas too expensive, and asking my friends to dine because we couldn'tafford it. And you expect me to go on living like this for the rest ofmy life, when all you've got to do is to hold out your hand and have twomillion francs drop into it!"

Her husband stood looking at her coldly and curiously, as though shewere some alien apparition his eyes had never before beheld. 

"Ah, that's your answer--that's all you feel when you lay hands onthings that are sacred to us!" He stopped a moment, and then let hisvoice break out with the volume she had felt it to be gathering. "Andyou're all alike, " he exclaimed, "every one of you. You come among usfrom a country we don't know, and can't imagine, a country you care forso little that before you've been a day in ours you've forgotten thevery house you were born in--if it wasn't torn down before you knew it!You come among us speaking our language and not knowing what we mean;wanting the things we want, and not knowing why we want them; aping ourweaknesses, exaggerating our follies, ignoring or ridiculing all we careabout--you come from hotels as big as towns, and from towns as flimsy aspaper, where the streets haven't had time to be named, and the buildingsare demolished before they're dry, and the people are as proud ofchanging as we are of holding to what we have--and we're fools enoughto imagine that because you copy our ways and pick up our slangyou understand anything about the things that make life decent andhonourable for us!"

He stopped again, his white face and drawn nostrils giving him so muchthe look of an extremely distinguished actor in a fine part that, inspite of the vehemence of his emotion, his silence might have been thedeliberate pause for a replique. Undine kept him waiting long enough togive the effect of having lost her cue--then she brought out, with alittle soft stare of incredulity: "Do you mean to say you're going torefuse such an offer?"

"Ah--!" He turned back from the door, and picking up the letter that layon the table between them, tore it in pieces and tossed the pieces onthe floor. "That's how I refuse it!"

The violence of his tone and gesture made her feel as though thefluttering strips were so many lashes laid across her face, and a ragethat was half fear possessed her. 

"How dare you speak to me like that? Nobody's ever dared to before. Istalking to a woman in that way one of the things you call decent andhonourable? Now that I know what you feel about me I don't want to stayin your house another day. And I don't mean to--I mean to walk out of itthis very hour!"

For a moment they stood face to face, the depths of their mutualincomprehension at last bared to each other's angry eyes; then Raymond, his glance travelling past her, pointed to the fragments of paper on thefloor. 

"If you're capable of that you're capable of anything!" he said as hewent out of the room. 

XLIII

She watched him go in a kind of stupour, knowing that when they next methe would be as courteous and self-possessed as if nothing had happened, but that everything would nevertheless go on in the same way--in HISway--and that there was no more hope of shaking his resolve or alteringhis point of view than there would have been of transporting thedeep-rooted masonry of Saint Desert by means of the wheeled supports onwhich Apex architecture performed its easy transits. 

One of her childish rages possessed her, sweeping away every feelingsave the primitive impulse to hurt and destroy; but search as she wouldshe could not find a crack in the strong armour of her husband's habitsand prejudices. For a long time she continued to sit where he had lefther, staring at the portraits on the walls as though they had joinedhands to imprison her. Hitherto she had almost always felt herself amatch for circumstances, but now the very dead were leagued to defeather: people she had never seen and whose names she couldn't evenremember seemed to be plotting and contriving against her under theescutcheoned grave-stones of Saint Desert. 

Her eyes turned to the old warm-toned furniture beneath the pictures, and to her own idle image in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Even inthat one small room there were enough things of price to buy a releasefrom her most pressing cares; and the great house, in which the room wasa mere cell, and the other greater house in Burgundy, held treasures todeplete even such a purse as Moffatt's. She liked to see such thingsabout her--without any real sense of their meaning she felt them to bethe appropriate setting of a pretty woman, to embody something of therareness and distinction she had always considered she possessed; andshe reflected that if she had still been Moffatt's wife he would havegiven her just such a setting, and the power to live in it as becameher. 

The thought sent her memory flying back to things she had turned it fromfor years. For the first time since their far-off weeks together she letherself relive the brief adventure. She had been drawn to Elmer Moffattfrom the first--from the day when Ben Frusk, Indiana's brother, hadbrought him to a church picnic at Mulvey's Grove, and he had takeninstant possession of Undine, sitting in the big "stage" beside her onthe "ride" to the grove, supplanting Millard Binch (to whom she wasstill, though intermittently and incompletely, engaged), swinging herbetween the trees, rowing her on the lake, catching and kissing herin "forfeits, " awarding her the first prize in the Beauty Show hehilariously organized and gallantly carried out, and finally (no oneknew how) contriving to borrow a buggy and a fast colt from old Mulvey, and driving off with her at a two-forty gait while Millard and theothers took their dust in the crawling stage. 

No one in Apex knew where young Moffatt had come from, and he offeredno information on the subject. He simply appeared one day behind thecounter in Luckaback's Dollar Shoe-store, drifted thence to the officeof Semple and Binch, the coal-merchants, reappeared as the stenographerof the Police Court, and finally edged his way into the power-house ofthe Apex Water-Works. He boarded with old Mrs. Flynn, down in NorthFifth Street, on the edge of the red-light slum, he never went to churchor attended lectures, or showed any desire to improve or refine himself;but he managed to get himself invited to all the picnics and lodgesociables, and at a supper of the Phi Upsilon Society, to which he hadcontrived to affiliate himself, he made the best speech that had beenheard there since young Jim Rolliver's first flights. The brothers ofUndine's friends all pronounced him "great, " though he had fits ofuncouthness that made the young women slower in admitting him to favour. But at the Mulvey's Grove picnic he suddenly seemed to dominate themall, and Undine, as she drove away with him, tasted the public triumphwhich was necessary to her personal enjoyment. 

After that he became a leading figure in the youthful world of Apex, andno one was surprised when the Sons of Jonadab, (the local TemperanceSociety) invited him to deliver their Fourth of July oration. Theceremony took place, as usual, in the Baptist church, and Undine, allin white, with a red rose in her breast, sat just beneath the platform, with Indiana jealously glaring at her from a less privileged seat, andpoor Millard's long neck craning over the row of prominent citizensbehind the orator. 

Elmer Moffatt had been magnificent, rolling out his alternating effectsof humour and pathos, stirring his audience by moving references to theBlue and the Gray, convulsing them by a new version of Washington andthe Cherry Tree (in which the infant patriot was depicted as havingcut down the tree to check the deleterious spread of cherry bounce), dazzling them by his erudite allusions and apt quotations (he confessedto Undine that he had sat up half the night over Bartlett), and windingup with a peroration that drew tears from the Grand Army pensioners inthe front row and caused the minister's wife to say that many a sermonfrom that platform had been less uplifting. 

An ice-cream supper always followed the "exercises, " and as repairs werebeing made in the church basement, which was the usual scene of thefestivity, the minister had offered the use of his house. The long tableran through the doorway between parlour and study, and another was setin the passage outside, with one end under the stairs. The stair-railwas wreathed in fire-weed and early golden-rod, and Temperance texts insmilax decked the walls. When the first course had been despatched theyoung ladies, gallantly seconded by the younger of the "Sons, " helped toladle out and carry in the ice-cream, which stood in great pails on thelarder floor, and to replenish the jugs of lemonade and coffee. ElmerMoffatt was indefatigable in performing these services, and when theminister's wife pressed him to sit down and take a mouthful himself hemodestly declined the place reserved for him among the dignitaries ofthe evening, and withdrew with a few chosen spirits to the dim table-endbeneath the stairs. Explosions of hilarity came from this corner withincreasing frequency, and now and then tumultuous rappings and howls of"Song! Song!" followed by adjurations to "Cough it up" and "Let her go, "drowned the conversational efforts at the other table. 

At length the noise subsided, and the group was ceasing to attractattention when, toward the end of the evening, the upper table, droopingunder the lengthy elucubrations of the minister and the President of theTemperance Society, called on the orator of the day for a few remarks. There was an interval of scuffling and laughter beneath the stairs, andthen the minister's lifted hand enjoined silence and Elmer Moffatt gotto his feet. 

"Step out where the ladies can hear you better, Mr. Moffatt!" theminister called. Moffatt did so, steadying himself against the table andtwisting his head about as if his collar had grown too tight. But if hisbearing was vacillating his smile was unabashed, and there was no lackof confidence in the glance he threw at Undine Spragg as he began:"Ladies and Gentlemen, if there's one thing I like better than anotherabout getting drunk--and I like most everything about it except the nextmorning--it's the opportunity you've given me of doing it right here, inthe presence of this Society, which, as I gather from its literature, knows more about the subject than anybody else. Ladies andGentlemen"--he straightened himself, and the table-cloth slid towardhim--"ever since you honoured me with an invitation to address you fromthe temperance platform I've been assiduously studying that literature;and I've gathered from your own evidence--what I'd strongly suspectedbefore--that all your converted drunkards had a hell of a good timebefore you got at 'em, and that... And that a good many of 'em have goneon having it since... "

At this point he broke off, swept the audience with his confident smile, and then, collapsing, tried to sit down on a chair that didn't happen tobe there, and disappeared among his agitated supporters. 

There was a night-mare moment during which Undine, through the doorway, saw Ben Frusk and the others close about the fallen orator to the crashof crockery and tumbling chairs; then some one jumped up and shut theparlour door, and a long-necked Sunday school teacher, who had beennervously waiting his chance, and had almost given it up, rose from hisfeet and recited High Tide at Gettysburg amid hysterical applause. 

The scandal was considerable, but Moffatt, though he vanished from thesocial horizon, managed to keep his place in the power-house till hewent off for a week and turned up again without being able to give asatisfactory reason for his absence. After that he drifted from one jobto another, now extolled for his "smartness" and business capacity, nowdismissed in disgrace as an irresponsible loafer. His head was alwaysfull of immense nebulous schemes for the enlargement and development ofany business he happened to be employed in. Sometimes his suggestionsinterested his employers, but proved unpractical and inapplicable;sometimes he wore out their patience or was thought to be a dangerousdreamer. Whenever he found there was no hope of his ideas being adoptedhe lost interest in his work, came late and left early, or disappearedfor two or three days at a time without troubling himself to account forhis absences. At last even those who had been cynical enough to smileover his disgrace at the temperance supper began to speak of him as ahopeless failure, and he lost the support of the feminine community whenone Sunday morning, just as the Baptist and Methodist churches werereleasing their congregations, he walked up Eubaw Avenue with a youngwoman less known to those sacred edifices than to the saloons of NorthFifth Street. 

Undine's estimate of people had always been based on their apparentpower of getting what they wanted--provided it came under the categoryof things she understood wanting. Success was beauty and romance to her;yet it was at the moment when Elmer Moffatt's failure was most completeand flagrant that she suddenly felt the extent of his power. After theEubaw Avenue scandal he had been asked not to return to the surveyor'soffice to which Ben Frusk had managed to get him admitted; and on theday of his dismissal he met Undine in Main Street, at the shopping hour, and, sauntering up cheerfully, invited her to take a walk with him. Shewas about to refuse when she saw Millard Binch's mother looking at herdisapprovingly from the opposite street-corner. 

"Oh, well, I will--" she said; and they walked the length of Main Streetand out to the immature park in which it ended. She was in a mood ofaimless discontent and unrest, tired of her engagement to Millard Binch, disappointed with Moffatt, half-ashamed of being seen with him, and yetnot sorry to have it known that she was independent enough to choose hercompanions without regard to the Apex verdict. 

"Well, I suppose you know I'm down and out, " he began; and she respondedvirtuously: "You must have wanted to be, or you wouldn't have behavedthe way you did last Sunday. "

"Oh, shucks!" he sneered. "What do I care, in a one-horse place likethis? If it hadn't been for you I'd have got a move on long ago. "

She did not remember afterward what else he said: she recalled only theexpression of a great sweeping scorn of Apex, into which her own disdainof it was absorbed like a drop in the sea, and the affirmation of asoaring self-confidence that seemed to lift her on wings. All her ownattempts to get what she wanted had come to nothing; but she had alwaysattributed her lack of success to the fact that she had had no one tosecond her. It was strange that Elmer Moffatt, a shiftless out-cast fromeven the small world she despised, should give her, in the very momentof his downfall, the sense of being able to succeed where she hadfailed. It was a feeling she never had in his absence, but that hisnearness always instantly revived; and he seemed nearer to her now thanhe had ever been. They wandered on to the edge of the vague park, andsat down on a bench behind the empty band-stand. 

"I went with that girl on purpose, and you know it, " he broke outabruptly. "It makes me too damned sick to see Millard Binch going roundlooking as if he'd patented you. "

"You've got no right--" she interrupted; and suddenly she was in hisarms, and feeling that no one had ever kissed her before.... 

The week that followed was a big bright blur--the wildest vividestmoment of her life. And it was only eight days later that they were inthe train together, Apex and all her plans and promises behind them, anda bigger and brighter blur ahead, into which they were plunging as the"Limited" plunged into the sunset.... 

Undine stood up, looking about her with vague eyes, as if she had comeback from a long distance. Elmer Moffatt was still in Paris--he was inreach, within telephone-call. She stood hesitating a moment; thenshe went into her dressing-room, and turning over the pages of thetelephone book, looked out the number of the Nouveau Luxe.... 

XLIV

Undine had been right in supposing that her husband would expecttheir life to go on as before. There was no appreciable change in thesituation save that he was more often absent-finding abundant reasons, agricultural and political, for frequent trips to Saint Desert--andthat, when in Paris, he no longer showed any curiosity concerning heroccupations and engagements. They lived as much apart is if theircramped domicile had been a palace; and when Undine--as she nowfrequently did--joined the Shallums or Rollivers for a dinner at theNouveau Luxe, or a party at a petit theatre, she was not put to thetrouble of prevaricating. 

Her first impulse, after her scene with Raymond, had been to ring upIndiana Rolliver and invite herself to dine. It chanced that Indiana(who was now in full social progress, and had "run over" for a few weeksto get her dresses for Newport) had organized for the same evening ashowy cosmopolitan banquet in which she was enchanted to include theMarquise de Chelles; and Undine, as she had hoped, found Elmer Moffattof the party. When she drove up to the Nouveau Luxe she had not fixedon any plan of action; but once she had crossed its magic threshold herenergies revived like plants in water. At last she was in her native airagain, among associations she shared and conventions she understood; andall her self-confidence returned as the familiar accents uttered theaccustomed things. 

Save for an occasional perfunctory call, she had hitherto made no effortto see her compatriots, and she noticed that Mrs. Jim Driscoll andBertha Shallum received her with a touch of constraint; but it vanishedwhen they remarked the cordiality of Moffatt's greeting. Her seat wasat his side, and her old sense of triumph returned as she perceived theimportance his notice conferred, not only in the eyes of her own partybut of the other diners. Moffatt was evidently a notable figure in allthe worlds represented about the crowded tables, and Undine saw thatmany people who seemed personally unacquainted with him were recognizingand pointing him out. She was conscious of receiving a large share ofthe attention he attracted, and, bathed again in the bright air ofpublicity, she remembered the evening when Raymond de Chelles' firstadmiring glance had given her the same sense of triumph. 

This inopportune memory did not trouble her: she was almost grateful toRaymond for giving her the touch of superiority her compatriots clearlyfelt in her. It was not merely her title and her "situation, " but theexperiences she had gained through them, that gave her this advantageover the loud vague company. She had learned things they did not guess:shades of conduct, turns of speech, tricks of attitude--and easy andfree and enviable as she thought them, she would not for the world havebeen back among them at the cost of knowing no more than they. 

Moffatt made no allusion to his visit to Saint Desert; but when theparty had re-grouped itself about coffee and liqueurs on the terrace, hebent over to ask confidentially: "What about my tapestries?"

She replied in the same tone: "You oughtn't to have let Fleischhauerwrite that letter. My husband's furious. "

He seemed honestly surprised. "Why? Didn't I offer him enough?"

"He's furious that any one should offer anything. I thought when hefound out what they were worth he might be tempted; but he'd rather seeme starve than part with one of his grand-father's snuff-boxes. "

"Well, he knows now what the tapestries are worth. I offered more thanFleischhauer advised. "

"Yes; but you were in too much of a hurry. "

"I've got to be; I'm going back next week. "

She felt her eyes cloud with disappointment. "Oh, why do you? I hopedyou might stay on. "

They looked at each other uncertainly a moment; then he dropped hisvoice to say: "Even if I did, I probably shouldn't see anything of you. "

"Why not? Why won't you come and see me? I've always wanted to befriends. "

He came the next day and found in her drawing-room two ladies whom sheintroduced as her sisters-in-law. The ladies lingered on for a longtime, sipping their tea stiffly and exchanging low-voiced remarks whileUndine talked with Moffatt; and when they left, with small sidelong bowsin his direction. 

Undine exclaimed: "Now you see how they all watch me!"

She began to go into the details of her married life, drawing on theexperiences of the first months for instances that scarcely applied toher present liberated state. She could thus, without great exaggeration, picture herself as entrapped into a bondage hardly conceivable toMoffatt, and she saw him redden with excitement as he listened. "I callit darned low--darned low--" he broke in at intervals. 

"Of course I go round more now, " she concluded. "I mean to see myfriends--I don't care what he says. "

"What CAN he say?"

"Oh, he despises Americans--they all do. "

"Well, I guess we can still sit up and take nourishment. "

They laughed and slipped back to talking of earlier things. She urgedhim to put off his sailing--there were so many things they might dotogether: sight-seeing and excursions--and she could perhaps show himsome of the private collections he hadn't seen, the ones it was hard toget admitted to. This instantly roused his attention, and after namingone or two collections he had already seen she hit on one he had foundinaccessible and was particularly anxious to visit. "There's an Ingresthere that's one of the things I came over to have a look at; but I wastold there was no use trying. "

"Oh, I can easily manage it: the Duke's Raymond's uncle. " It gave her apeculiar satisfaction to say it: she felt as though she were taking asurreptitious revenge on her husband. "But he's down in the country thisweek, " she continued, "and no one--not even the family--is allowed tosee the pictures when he's away. Of course his Ingres are the finest inFrance. "

She ran it off glibly, though a year ago she had never heard of thepainter, and did not, even now, remember whether he was an Old Master orone of the very new ones whose names one hadn't had time to learn. 

Moffatt put off sailing, saw the Duke's Ingres under her guidance, andaccompanied her to various other private galleries inaccessibleto strangers. She had lived in almost total ignorance of suchopportunities, but now that she could use them to advantage she showed asurprising quickness in picking up "tips, " ferreting out rare things andgetting a sight of hidden treasures. She even acquired as much of thejargon as a pretty woman needs to produce the impression of beingwell-informed; and Moffatt's sailing was more than once postponed. 

They saw each other almost daily, for she continued to come and go asshe pleased, and Raymond showed neither surprise nor disapproval. Whenthey were asked to family dinners she usually excused herself at thelast moment on the plea of a headache and, calling up Indiana or BerthaShallum, improvised a little party at the Nouveau Luxe; and on otheroccasions she accepted such invitations as she chose, without mentioningto her husband where she was going. 

In this world of lavish pleasures she lost what little prudence thediscipline of Saint Desert had inculcated. She could never be withpeople who had all the things she envied without being hypnotized intothe belief that she had only to put her hand out to obtain them, and allthe unassuaged rancours and hungers of her early days in West End Avenuecame back with increased acuity. She knew her wants so much better now, and was so much more worthy of the things she wanted!

She had given up hoping that her father might make another hit in WallStreet. Mrs. Spragg's letters gave the impression that the days of bigstrokes were over for her husband, that he had gone down in the conflictwith forces beyond his measure. If he had remained in Apex the tide ofits new prosperity might have carried him to wealth; but New York's hugewaves of success had submerged instead of floating him, and Rolliver'senmity was a hand perpetually stretched out to strike him lower. Atmost, Mr. Spragg's tenacity would keep him at the level he now held, andthough he and his wife had still further simplified their way ofliving Undine understood that their self-denial would not increaseher opportunities. She felt no compunction in continuing to accept anundiminished allowance: it was the hereditary habit of the parent animalto despoil himself for his progeny. But this conviction did not seemincompatible with a sentimental pity for her parents. Aside from allinterested motives, she wished for their own sakes that they were betteroff. Their personal requirements were pathetically limited, but renewedprosperity would at least have procured them the happiness of giving herwhat she wanted. 

Moffatt lingered on; but he began to speak more definitely of sailing, and Undine foresaw the day when, strong as her attraction was, strongerinfluences would snap it like a thread. She knew she interested andamused him, and that it flattered his vanity to be seen with her, and tohear that rumour coupled their names; but he gave her, more than anyone she had ever known, the sense of being detached from his life, incontrol of it, and able, without weakness or uncertainty, to choosewhich of its calls he should obey. If the call were that of business--ofany of the great perilous affairs he handled like a snake-charmerspinning the deadly reptiles about his head--she knew she would dropfrom his life like a loosened leaf. 

These anxieties sharpened the intensity of her enjoyment, and made thecontrast keener between her crowded sparkling hours and the vacantmonths at Saint Desert. Little as she understood of the qualities thatmade Moffatt what he was, the results were of the kind most palpable toher. He used life exactly as she would have used it in his place. Someof his enjoyments were beyond her range, but even these appealed to herbecause of the money that was required to gratify them. When she tookhim to see some inaccessible picture, or went with him to inspect thetreasures of a famous dealer, she saw that the things he looked at movedhim in a way she could not understand, and that the actual touching ofrare textures--bronze or marble, or velvets flushed with the bloom ofage--gave him sensations like those her own beauty had once roused inhim. But the next moment he was laughing over some commonplace joke, orabsorbed in a long cipher cable handed to him as they re-entered theNouveau Luxe for tea, and his aesthetic emotions had been thrust backinto their own compartment of the great steel strong-box of his mind. 

Her new life went on without comment or interference from her husband, and she saw that he had accepted their altered relation, and intendedmerely to keep up an external semblance of harmony. To that semblanceshe knew he attached intense importance: it was an article of hiscomplicated social creed that a man of his class should appear to liveon good terms with his wife. For different reasons it was scarcelyless important to Undine: she had no wish to affront again the socialreprobation that had so nearly wrecked her. But she could not keep upthe life she was leading without more money, a great deal more money;and the thought of contracting her expenditure was no longer tolerable. 

One afternoon, several weeks later, she came in to find a tradesman'srepresentative waiting with a bill. There was a noisy scene in theanteroom before the man threateningly withdrew--a scene witnessed by theservants, and overheard by her mother-in-law, whom she found seated inthe drawing-room when she entered. The old Marquise's visits to herdaughter-in-law were made at long intervals but with ritual regularity;she called every other Friday at five, and Undine had forgotten that shewas due that day. This did not make for greater cordiality between them, and the altercation in the anteroom had been too loud for concealment. The Marquise was on her feet when her daughter-in-law came in, andinstantly said with lowered eyes: "It would perhaps be best for me togo. "

"Oh, I don't care. You're welcome to tell Raymond you've heard meinsulted because I'm too poor to pay my bills--he knows it well enoughalready!" The words broke from Undine unguardedly, but once spoken theynourished her defiance. 

"I'm sure my son has frequently recommended greater prudence--" theMarquise murmured. 

"Yes! It's a pity he didn't recommend it to your other son instead! Allthe money I was entitled to has gone to pay Hubert's debts. "

"Raymond has told me that there are certain things you fail tounderstand--I have no wish whatever to discuss them. " The Marquise hadgone toward the door; with her hand on it she paused to add: "I shallsay nothing whatever of what has happened. "

Her icy magnanimity added the last touch to Undine's wrath. They knewher extremity, one and all, and it did not move them. At most, theywould join in concealing it like a blot on their honour. And the menacegrew and mounted, and not a hand was stretched to help her.... 

Hardly a half-hour earlier Moffatt, with whom she had been visiting a"private view, " had sent her home in his motor with the excuse that hemust hurry back to the Nouveau Luxe to meet his stenographer and sign abatch of letters for the New York mail. It was therefore probable thathe was still at home--that she should find him if she hastened thereat once. An overwhelming desire to cry out her wrath and wretchednessbrought her to her feet and sent her down to hail a passing cab. As itwhirled her through the bright streets powdered with amber sunlight herbrain throbbed with confused intentions. She did not think of Moffattas a power she could use, but simply as some one who knew her andunderstood her grievance. It was essential to her at that moment to betold that she was right and that every one opposed to her was wrong. 

At the hotel she asked his number and was carried up in the lift. On thelanding she paused a moment, disconcerted--it had occurred to her thathe might not be alone. But she walked on quickly, found the number andknocked.... Moffatt opened the door, and she glanced beyond him and sawthat the big bright sitting-room was empty. 

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, surprised; and as he stood aside to let her entershe saw him draw out his watch and glance at it surreptitiously. He wasexpecting someone, or he had an engagement elsewhere--something claimedhim from which she was excluded. The thought flushed her with suddenresolution. She knew now what she had come for--to keep him from everyone else, to keep him for herself alone. 

"Don't send me away!" she said, and laid her hand on his beseechingly. 

XLV

She advanced into the room and slowly looked about her. The big vulgarwriting-table wreathed in bronze was heaped with letters and papers. Among them stood a lapis bowl in a Renaissance mounting of enamel anda vase of Phenician glass that was like a bit of rainbow caught incobwebs. On a table against the window a little Greek marble lifted itspure lines. On every side some rare and sensitive object seemed to beshrinking back from the false colours and crude contours of the hotelfurniture. There were no books in the room, but the florid console underthe mirror was stacked with old numbers of Town Talk and the New YorkRadiator. Undine recalled the dingy hall-room that Moffatt had lodged inat Mrs. Flynn's, over Hober's livery stable, and her heart beat at thesigns of his altered state. When her eyes came back to him their lidswere moist. 

"Don't send me away, " she repeated. He looked at her and smiled. "Whatis it? What's the matter?"

"I don't know--but I had to come. To-day, when you spoke again ofsailing, I felt as if I couldn't stand it. " She lifted her eyes andlooked in his profoundly. 

He reddened a little under her gaze, but she could detect no softeningor confusion in the shrewd steady glance he gave her back. 

"Things going wrong again--is that the trouble?" he merely asked with acomforting inflexion. 

"They always are wrong; it's all been an awful mistake. But I shouldn'tcare if you were here and I could see you sometimes. You're so STRONG:that's what I feel about you, Elmer. I was the only one to feel it thattime they all turned against you out at Apex.... Do you remember theafternoon I met you down on Main Street, and we walked out together tothe Park? I knew then that you were stronger than any of them.... "

She had never spoken more sincerely. For the moment all thought ofself-interest was in abeyance, and she felt again, as she had feltthat day, the instinctive yearning of her nature to be one with his. Something in her voice must have attested it, for she saw a change inhis face. 

"You're not the beauty you were, " he said irrelevantly; "but you're alot more fetching. "

The oddly qualified praise made her laugh with mingled pleasure andannoyance. 

"I suppose I must be dreadfully changed--"

"You're all right!--But I've got to go back home, " he broke offabruptly. "I've put it off too long. "

She paled and looked away, helpless in her sudden disappointment. "Iknew you'd say that.... And I shall just be left here.... " She sat downon the sofa near which they had been standing, and two tears formed onher lashes and fell. 

Moffatt sat down beside her, and both were silent. She had never seenhim at a loss before. She made no attempt to draw nearer, or to use anyof the arts of cajolery; but presently she said, without rising: "Isaw you look at your watch when I came in. I suppose somebody else iswaiting for you. "

"It don't matter. "

"Some other woman?"

"It don't matter. "

"I've wondered so often--but of course I've got no right to ask. " Shestood up slowly, understanding that he meant to let her go. 

"Just tell me one thing--did you never miss me?"

"Oh, damnably!" he brought out with sudden bitterness. 

She came nearer, sinking her voice to a low whisper. "It's the only timeI ever really cared--all through!"

He had risen too, and they stood intensely gazing at each other. Moffatt's face was fixed and grave, as she had seen it in hours she nowfound herself rapidly reliving. 

"I believe you DID, " he said. 

"Oh, Elmer--if I'd known--if I'd only known!"

He made no answer, and she turned away, touching with an unconscioushand the edge of the lapis bowl among his papers. 

"Elmer, if you're going away it can't do any harm to tell me--is thereany one else?"

He gave a laugh that seemed to shake him free. "In that kind of way?Lord, no! Too busy!"

She came close again and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Then why not--whyshouldn't we--?" She leaned her head back so that her gaze slanted upthrough her wet lashes. "I can do as I please--my husband does. Theythink so differently about marriage over here: it's just a businesscontract. As long as a woman doesn't make a show of herself no onecares. " She put her other hand up, so that she held him facing her. "I've always felt, all through everything, that I belonged to you. "

Moffatt left her hands on his shoulders, but did not lift his own toclasp them. For a moment she thought she had mistaken him, and a leadensense of shame descended on her. Then he asked: "You say your husbandgoes with other women?"

Lili Estradina's taunt flashed through her and she seized on it. "Peoplehave told me so--his own relations have. I've never stooped to spy onhim.... "

"And the women in your set--I suppose it's taken for granted they all dothe same?"

She laughed. 

"Everything fixed up for them, same as it is for the husbands, eh?Nobody meddles or makes trouble if you know the ropes?"

"No, nobody ... It's all quite easy.... " She stopped, her faintsmile checked, as his backward movement made her hands drop from hisshoulders. 

"And that's what you're proposing to me? That you and I should do likethe rest of 'em?" His face had lost its comic roundness and grown harshand dark, as it had when her father had taken her away from him atOpake. He turned on his heel, walked the length of the room and haltedwith his back to her in the embrasure of the window. There he pauseda full minute, his hands in his pockets, staring out at the perpetualinterweaving of motors in the luminous setting of the square. Then heturned and spoke from where he stood. 

"Look here. Undine, if I'm to have you again I don't want to have youthat way. That time out in Apex, when everybody in the place was againstme, and I was down and out, you stood up to them and stuck by me. Remember that walk down Main Street? Don't I!--and the way the peopleglared and hurried by; and how you kept on alongside of me, talking andlaughing, and looking your Sunday best. When Abner Spragg came out toOpake after us and pulled you back I was pretty sore at your deserting;but I came to see it was natural enough. You were only a spoilt girl, used to having everything you wanted; and I couldn't give you a thingthen, and the folks you'd been taught to believe in all told you I neverwould. Well, I did look like a back number, and no blame to you forthinking so. I used to say it to myself over and over again, layingawake nights and totting up my mistakes ... And then there were dayswhen the wind set another way, and I knew I'd pull it off yet, andI thought you might have held on.... " He stopped, his head a littlelowered, his concentrated gaze on her flushed face. "Well, anyhow, " hebroke out, "you were my wife once, and you were my wife first--and ifyou want to come back you've got to come that way: not slink through theback way when there's no one watching, but walk in by the front door, with your head up, and your Main Street look. "

Since the days when he had poured out to her his great fortune-buildingprojects she had never heard him make so long a speech; and her heart, as she listened, beat with a new joy and terror. It seemed to her thatthe great moment of her life had come at last--the moment all her minorfailures and successes had been building up with blind indefatigablehands. 

"Elmer--Elmer--" she sobbed out. 

She expected to find herself in his arms, shut in and shielded from allher troubles; but he stood his ground across the room, immovable. 

"Is it yes?"

She faltered the word after him: "Yes--?"

"Are you going to marry me?"

She stared, bewildered. "Why, Elmer--marry you? You forget!"

"Forget what? That you don't want to give up what you've got?"

"How can I? Such things are not done out here. Why, I'm a Catholic; andthe Catholic Church--" She broke off, reading the end in his face. "Butlater, perhaps ... Things might change. Oh, Elmer, if only you'd stayover here and let me see you sometimes!"

"Yes--the way your friends see each other. We're differently made out inApex. When I want that sort of thing I go down to North Fifth Street forit. "

She paled under the retort, but her heart beat high with it. What heasked was impossible--and she gloried in his asking it. Feeling herpower, she tried to temporize. "At least if you stayed we could befriends--I shouldn't feel so terribly alone. "

He laughed impatiently. "Don't talk magazine stuff to me, Undine Spragg. I guess we want each other the same way. Only our ideas are different. You've got all muddled, living out here among a lot of loafers who callit a career to run round after every petticoat. I've got my job out athome, and I belong where my job is. "

"Are you going to be tied to business all your life?" Her smile wasfaintly depreciatory. 

"I guess business is tied to ME: Wall Street acts as if it couldn't getalong without me. " He gave his shoulders a shake and moved a few stepsnearer. "See here, Undine--you're the one that don't understand. If Iwas to sell out to-morrow, and spend the rest of my life reading artmagazines in a pink villa, I wouldn't do what you're asking me. AndI've about as much idea of dropping business as you have of taking todistrict nursing. There are things a man doesn't do. I understandwhy your husband won't sell those tapestries--till he's got to. Hisancestors are HIS business: Wall Street's mine. "

He paused, and they silently faced each other. Undine made no attemptto approach him: she understood that if he yielded it would be only torecover his advantage and deepen her feeling of defeat. She put out herhand and took up the sunshade she had dropped on entering. "I supposeit's good-bye then, " she said. 

"You haven't got the nerve?"

"The nerve for what?"

"To come where you belong: with me. "

She laughed a little and then sighed. She wished he would come nearer, or look at her differently: she felt, under his cool eye, no morecompelling than a woman of wax in a show-case. 

"How could I get a divorce? With my religion--"

"Why, you were born a Baptist, weren't you? That's where you used toattend church when I waited round the corner, Sunday mornings, with oneof old Hober's buggies. " They both laughed, and he went on: "If you'llcome along home with me I'll see you get your divorce all right. Whocares what they do over here? You're an American, ain't you? What youwant is the home-made article. "

She listened, discouraged yet fascinated by his sturdy inaccessibilityto all her arguments and objections. He knew what he wanted, saw hisroad before him, and acknowledged no obstacles. Her defense was drawnfrom reasons he did not understand, or based on difficulties that didnot exist for him; and gradually she felt herself yielding to the steadypressure of his will. Yet the reasons he brushed away came back withredoubled tenacity whenever he paused long enough for her to picture theconsequences of what he exacted. 

"You don't know--you don't understand--" she kept repeating; but sheknew that his ignorance was part of his terrible power, and that it washopeless to try to make him feel the value of what he was asking her togive up. 

"See here, Undine, " he said slowly, as if he measured her resistancethough he couldn't fathom it, "I guess it had better be yes or no righthere. It ain't going to do either of us any good to drag this thing out. If you want to come back to me, come--if you don't, we'll shake hands onit now. I'm due in Apex for a directors' meeting on the twentieth, andas it is I'll have to cable for a special to get me out there. No, no, don't cry--it ain't that kind of a story ... But I'll have a deck suitefor you on the Semantic if you'll sail with me the day after to-morrow. "

XLVI

In the great high-ceilinged library of a private hotel overlooking oneof the new quarters of Paris, Paul Marvell stood listlessly gazing outinto the twilight. 

The trees were budding symmetrically along the avenue below; and Paul, looking down, saw, between windows and tree-tops, a pair of tall irongates with gilt ornaments, the marble curb of a semi-circular drive, and bands of spring flowers set in turf. He was now a big boy of nearlynine, who went to a fashionable private school, and he had come homethat day for the Easter holidays. He had not been back since Christmas, and it was the first time he had seen the new hotel which hisstep-father had bought, and in which Mr. And Mrs. Moffatt had hastilyestablished themselves, a few weeks earlier, on their return from aflying trip to America. They were always coming and going; during thetwo years since their marriage they had been perpetually dashing over toNew York and back, or rushing down to Rome or up to the Engadine: Paulnever knew where they were except when a telegram announced that theywere going somewhere else. He did not even know that there was anymethod of communication between mothers and sons less laconic than thatof the electric wire; and once, when a boy at school asked him if hismother often wrote, he had answered in all sincerity: "Oh yes--I got atelegram last week. "

He had been almost sure--as sure as he ever was of anything--that heshould find her at home when he arrived; but a message (for she hadn'thad time to telegraph) apprised him that she and Mr. Moffatt had rundown to Deauville to look at a house they thought of hiring for thesummer; they were taking an early train back, and would be at home fordinner--were in fact having a lot of people to dine. 

It was just what he ought to have expected, and had been used to eversince he could remember; and generally he didn't much mind, especiallysince his mother had become Mrs. Moffatt, and the father he had beenmost used to, and liked best, had abruptly disappeared from his life. But the new hotel was big and strange, and his own room, in which therewas not a toy or a book, or one of his dear battered relics (none ofthe new servants--they were always new--could find his things, or thinkwhere they had been put), seemed the loneliest spot in the whole house. He had gone up there after his solitary luncheon, served in the immensemarble dining-room by a footman on the same scale, and had tried tooccupy himself with pasting post-cards into his album; but the newnessand sumptuousness of the room embarrassed him--the white fur rugsand brocade chairs seemed maliciously on the watch for smears andink-spots--and after a while he pushed the album aside and began to roamthrough the house. 

He went to all the rooms in turn: his mother's first, the wonderful lacybedroom, all pale silks and velvets, artful mirrors and veiled lamps, and the boudoir as big as a drawing-room, with pictures he would haveliked to know about, and tables and cabinets holding things he wasafraid to touch. Mr. Moffatt's rooms came next. They were soberer anddarker, but as big and splendid; and in the bedroom, on the brown wall, hung a single picture--the portrait of a boy in grey velvet--thatinterested Paul most of all. The boy's hand rested on the head of a bigdog, and he looked infinitely noble and charming, and yet (in spite ofthe dog) so sad and lonely that he too might have come home that veryday to a strange house in which none of his old things could be found. 

From these rooms Paul wandered downstairs again. The library attractedhim most: there were rows and rows of books, bound in dim browns andgolds, and old faded reds as rich as velvet: they all looked as if theymight have had stories in them as splendid as their bindings. But thebookcases were closed with gilt trellising, and when Paul reached upto open one, a servant told him that Mr. Moffatt's secretary kept themlocked because the books were too valuable to be taken down. This seemedto make the library as strange as the rest of the house, and he passedon to the ballroom at the back. Through its closed doors he heard asound of hammering, and when he tried the door-handle a servant passingwith a tray-full of glasses told him that "they" hadn't finished, andwouldn't let anybody in. 

The mysterious pronoun somehow increased Paul's sense of isolation, andhe went on to the drawing-rooms, steering his way prudently between thegold arm-chairs and shining tables, and wondering whether the wigged andcorseleted heroes on the walls represented Mr. Moffatt's ancestors, andwhy, if they did, he looked so little like them. The dining-room beyondwas more amusing, because busy servants were already laying the longtable. It was too early for the florist, and the centre of the table wasempty, but down the sides were gold baskets heaped with pulpy summerfruits-figs, strawberries and big blushing nectarines. Between themstood crystal decanters with red and yellow wine, and little dishes fullof sweets; and against the walls were sideboards with great piecesof gold and silver, ewers and urns and branching candelabra, whichsprinkled the green marble walls with starlike reflections. 

After a while he grew tired of watching the coming and going ofwhite-sleeved footmen, and of listening to the butler's vociferatedorders, and strayed back into the library. The habit of solitude hadgiven him a passion for the printed page, and if he could have founda book anywhere--any kind of a book--he would have forgotten the longhours and the empty house. But the tables in the library held onlymassive unused inkstands and immense immaculate blotters; not a singlevolume had slipped its golden prison. 

His loneliness had grown overwhelming, and he suddenly thought of Mrs. Heeny's clippings. His mother, alarmed by an insidious gain in weight, had brought the masseuse back from New York with her, and Mrs. Heeny, with her old black bag and waterproof, was established in one of thegrand bedrooms lined with mirrors. She had been loud in her joy atseeing her little friend that morning, but four years had passed sincetheir last parting, and her personality had grown remote to him. He sawtoo many people, and they too often disappeared and were replaced byothers: his scattered affections had ended by concentrating themselveson the charming image of the gentleman he called his French father; andsince his French father had vanished no one else seemed to matter muchto him. 

"Oh, well, " Mrs. Heeny had said, discerning the reluctance under hiscivil greeting, "I guess you're as strange here as I am, and we're bothpretty strange to each other. You just go and look round, and see whata lovely home your Ma's got to live in; and when you get tired of that, come up here to me and I'll give you a look at my clippings. "

The word woke a train of dormant associations, and Paul saw himselfseated on a dingy carpet, between two familiar taciturn old presences, while he rummaged in the depths of a bag stuffed with strips ofnewspaper. 

He found Mrs. Heeny sitting in a pink arm-chair, her bonnet perched on apink-shaded electric lamp and her numerous implements spread out on animmense pink toilet-table. Vague as his recollection of her was, shegave him at once a sense of reassurance that nothing else in the houseconveyed, and after he had examined all her scissors and pastes andnail-polishers he turned to the bag, which stood on the carpet at herfeet as if she were waiting for a train. 

"My, my!" she said, "do you want to get into that again? How you used tohunt in it for taffy, to be sure, when your Pa brought you up to GrandmaSpragg's o' Saturdays! Well, I'm afraid there ain't any taffy in it now;but there's piles and piles of lovely new clippings you ain't seen. "

"My Papa?" He paused, his hand among the strips of newspaper. "My Papanever saw my Grandma Spragg. He never went to America. "

"Never went to America? Your Pa never--? Why, land alive!" Mrs. Heenygasped, a blush empurpling her large warm face. "Why, Paul Marvell, don't you remember your own father, you that bear his name?" sheexclaimed. 

The boy blushed also, conscious that it must have been wrong to forget, and yet not seeing how he was to blame. 

"That one died a long long time ago, didn't he? I was thinking of myFrench father, " he explained. 

"Oh, mercy, " ejaculated Mrs. Heeny; and as if to cut the conversationshort she stooped over, creaking like a ship, and thrust her plumpstrong hand into the bag. 

"Here, now, just you look at these clippings--I guess you'll find a lotin them about your Ma. --Where do they come from? Why, out of the papers, of course, " she added, in response to Paul's enquiry. "You'd oughterstart a scrap-book yourself--you're plenty old enough. You could makea beauty just about your Ma, with her picture pasted in the front--andanother about Mr. Moffatt and his collections. There's one I cut out theother day that says he's the greatest collector in America. "

Paul listened, fascinated. He had the feeling that Mrs. Heeny'sclippings, aside from their great intrinsic interest, might furnish himthe clue to many things he didn't understand, and that nobody had everhad time to explain to him. His mother's marriages, for instance: he wassure there was a great deal to find out about them. But she always said:"I'll tell you all about it when I come back"--and when she came backit was invariably to rush off somewhere else. So he had remained withouta key to her transitions, and had had to take for granted numberlessthings that seemed to have no parallel in the experience of the otherboys he knew. 

"Here--here it is, " said Mrs. Heeny, adjusting the big tortoiseshellspectacles she had taken to wearing, and reading out in a slow chantthat seemed to Paul to come out of some lost remoteness of his infancy. 

"'It is reported in London that the price paid by Mr. Elmer Moffatt forthe celebrated Grey Boy is the largest sum ever given for a Vandyck. Since Mr. Moffatt began to buy extensively it is estimated in artcircles that values have gone up at least seventy-five per cent. '"

But the price of the Grey Boy did not interest Paul, and he said alittle impatiently: "I'd rather hear about my mother. "

"To be sure you would! You wait now. " Mrs. Heeny made another dive, andagain began to spread her clippings on her lap like cards on a big blacktable. 

"Here's one about her last portrait--no, here's a better one abouther pearl necklace, the one Mr. Moffatt gave her last Christmas. 'Thenecklace, which was formerly the property of an Austrian Archduchess, iscomposed of five hundred perfectly matched pearls that took thirty yearsto collect. It is estimated among dealers in precious stones that sinceMr. Moffatt began to buy the price of pearls has gone up over fifty percent. '"

Even this did not fix Paul's attention. He wanted to hear about hismother and Mr. Moffatt, and not about their things; and he didn't quiteknow how to frame his question. But Mrs. Heeny looked kindly at him andhe tried. "Why is mother married to Mr. Moffatt now?"

"Why, you must know that much, Paul. " Mrs. Heeny again looked warm andworried. "She's married to him because she got a divorce--that's why. "And suddenly she had another inspiration. "Didn't she ever send youover any of those splendid clippings that came out the time they weremarried? Why, I declare, that's a shame; but I must have some of 'emright here. "

She dived again, shuffled, sorted, and pulled out a long discolouredstrip. "I've carried this round with me ever since, and so many's wantedto read it, it's all torn. " She smoothed out the paper and began:

"'Divorce and remarriage of Mrs. Undine Spragg-de Chelles. AmericanMarquise renounces ancient French title to wed Railroad King. Quick workuntying and tying. Boy and girl romance renewed. "'Reno, November 23d. The Marquise de Chelles, of Paris, France, formerly Mrs. Undine SpraggMarvell, of Apex City and New York, got a decree of divorce at a specialsession of the Court last night, and was remarried fifteen minuteslater to Mr. Elmer Moffatt, the billionaire Railroad King, who was theMarquise's first husband. 

"'No case has ever been railroaded through the divorce courts of thisState at a higher rate of speed: as Mr. Moffatt said last night, beforehe and his bride jumped onto their east-bound special, every record hasbeen broken. It was just six months ago yesterday that the present Mrs. Moffatt came to Reno to look for her divorce. Owing to a delayed train, her counsel was late yesterday in receiving some necessary papers, andit was feared the decision would have to be held over; but Judge Toomey, who is a personal friend of Mr. Moffatt's, held a night session andrushed it through so that the happy couple could have the knot tied andboard their special in time for Mrs. Moffatt to spend Thanksgiving inNew York with her aged parents. The hearing began at seven ten p. M. Andat eight o'clock the bridal couple were steaming out of the station. 

"'At the trial Mrs. Spragg-de Chelles, who wore copper velvet andsables, gave evidence as to the brutality of her French husband, but shehad to talk fast as time pressed, and Judge Toomey wrote the entry attop speed, and then jumped into a motor with the happy couple anddrove to the Justice of the Peace, where he acted as best man to thebridegroom. The latter is said to be one of the six wealthiest men eastof the Rockies. His gifts to the bride are a necklace and tiara ofpigeon-blood rubies belonging to Queen Marie Antoinette, a milliondollar cheque and a house in New York. The happy pair will pass thehoneymoon in Mrs. Moffatt's new home, 5009 Fifth Avenue, which is anexact copy of the Pitti Palace, Florence. They plan to spend theirsprings in France. '"

Mrs. Heeny drew a long breath, folded the paper and took off herspectacles. "There, " she said, with a benignant smile and a tap onPaul's cheek, "now you see how it all happened.... "

Paul was not sure he did; but he made no answer. His mind was too fullof troubled thoughts. In the dazzling description of his mother's latestnuptials one fact alone stood out for him--that she had said things thatweren't true of his French father. Something he had half-guessed in her, and averted his frightened thoughts from, took his little heart in aniron grasp. She said things that weren't true.... That was what he hadalways feared to find out.... She had got up and said before a lot ofpeople things that were awfully false about his dear French father.... 

The sound of a motor turning in at the gates made Mrs. Heeny exclaim"Here they are!" and a moment later Paul heard his mother calling tohim. He got up reluctantly, and stood wavering till he felt Mrs. Heeny'sastonished eye upon him. Then he heard Mr. Moffatt's jovial shout of"Paul Marvell, ahoy there!" and roused himself to run downstairs. 

As he reached the landing he saw that the ballroom doors were open andall the lustres lit. His mother and Mr. Moffatt stood in the middle ofthe shining floor, looking up at the walls; and Paul's heart gavea wondering bound, for there, set in great gilt panels, were thetapestries that had always hung in the gallery at Saint Desert. 

"Well, Senator, it feels good to shake your fist again!" his step-fathersaid, taking him in a friendly grasp; and his mother, who lookedhandsomer and taller and more splendidly dressed than ever, exclaimed:"Mercy! how they've cut his hair!" before she bent to kiss him. 

"Oh, mother, mother!" he burst out, feeling, between his mother's faceand the others, hardly less familiar, on the walls, that he was reallyat home again, and not in a strange house. 

"Gracious, how you squeeze!" she protested, loosening his arms. "But youlook splendidly--and how you've grown!" She turned away from him andbegan to inspect the tapestries critically. "Somehow they look smallerhere, " she said with a tinge of disappointment. 

Mr. Moffatt gave a slight laugh and walked slowly down the room, as ifto study its effect. As he turned back his wife said: "I didn't thinkyou'd ever get them. " He laughed again, more complacently. "Well, Idon't know as I ever should have, if General Arlington hadn't happenedto bust up. "

They both smiled, and Paul, seeing his mother's softened face, stole hishand in hers and began: "Mother, I took a prize in composition--"

"Did you? You must tell me about it to-morrow. No, I really must rushoff now and dress--I haven't even placed the dinner-cards. " She freedher hand, and as she turned to go Paul heard Mr. Moffatt say: "Can't youever give him a minute's time, Undine?"

She made no answer, but sailed through the door with her head high, asshe did when anything annoyed her; and Paul and his step-father stoodalone in the illuminated ball-room. 

Mr. Moffatt smiled good-naturedly at the little boy and then turned backto the contemplation of the hangings. 

"I guess you know where those come from, don't you?" he asked in a toneof satisfaction. 

"Oh, yes, " Paul answered eagerly, with a hope he dared not utter that, since the tapestries were there, his French father might be coming too. 

"You're a smart boy to remember them. I don't suppose you ever thoughtyou'd see them here?"

"I don't know, " said Paul, embarrassed. 

"Well, I guess you wouldn't have if their owner hadn't been in a prettytight place. It was like drawing teeth for him to let them go. "

Paul flushed up, and again the iron grasp was on his heart. He hadn't, hitherto, actually disliked Mr. Moffatt, who was always in a goodhumour, and seemed less busy and absent-minded than his mother; but atthat instant he felt a rage of hate for him. He turned away and burstinto tears. 

"Why, hullo, old chap--why, what's up?" Mr. Moffatt was on his kneesbeside the boy, and the arms embracing him were firm and friendly. ButPaul, for the life of him, couldn't answer: he could only sob and sob asthe great surges of loneliness broke over him. 

"Is it because your mother hadn't time for you? Well, she's like that, you know; and you and I have got to lump it, " Mr. Moffatt continued, getting to his feet. He stood looking down at the boy with a queersmile. "If we two chaps stick together it won't be so bad--we can keepeach other warm, don't you see? I like you first rate, you know; whenyou're big enough I mean to put you in my business. And it looks as ifone of these days you'd be the richest boy in America.... "

The lamps were lit, the vases full of flowers, the foot-men assembledon the landing and in the vestibule below, when Undine descended to thedrawing-room. As she passed the ballroom door she glanced in approvinglyat the tapestries. They really looked better than she had been willingto admit: they made her ballroom the handsomest in Paris. But somethinghad put her out on the way up from Deauville, and the simplest way ofeasing her nerves had been to affect indifference to the tapestries. Nowshe had quite recovered her good humour, and as she glanced down thelist of guests she was awaiting she said to herself, with a sigh ofsatisfaction, that she was glad she had put on her rubies. 

For the first time since her marriage to Moffatt she was about toreceive in her house the people she most wished to see there. Thebeginnings had been a little difficult; their first attempt in New Yorkwas so unpromising that she feared they might not be able to live downthe sensational details of their reunion, and had insisted on herhusband's taking her back to Paris. But her apprehensions wereunfounded. It was only necessary to give people the time to pretend theyhad forgotten; and already they were all pretending beautifully. TheFrench world had of course held out longest; it had strongholds shemight never capture. But already seceders were beginning to showthemselves, and her dinner-list that evening was graced with the namesof an authentic Duke and a not too-damaged Countess. In addition, ofcourse, she had the Shallums, the Chauncey Ellings, May Beringer, DickyBowles, Walsingham Popple, and the rest of the New York frequenters ofthe Nouveau Luxe; she had even, at the last minute, had the amusement ofadding Peter Van Degen to their number. In the evening there were to beSpanish dancing and Russian singing; and Dicky Bowles had promised hera Grand Duke for her next dinner, if she could secure the new tenor whoalways refused to sing in private houses. 

Even now, however, she was not always happy. She had everything shewanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things shemight want if she knew about them. And there had been moments latelywhen she had had to confess to herself that Moffatt did not fit into thepicture. At first she had been dazzled by his success and subdued by hisauthority. He had given her all she had ever wished for, and more thanshe had ever dreamed of having: he had made up to her for all herfailures and blunders, and there were hours when she still felt hisdominion and exulted in it. But there were others when she saw hisdefects and was irritated by them: when his loudness and redness, hismisplaced joviality, his familiarity with the servants, his alternatingswagger and ceremony with her friends, jarred on perceptions that haddeveloped in her unawares. Now and then she caught herself thinkingthat his two predecessors--who were gradually becoming merged in hermemory--would have said this or that differently, behaved otherwise insuch and such a case. And the comparison was almost always to Moffatt'sdisadvantage. 

This evening, however, she thought of him indulgently. She was pleasedwith his clever stroke in capturing the Saint Desert tapestries, whichGeneral Arlington's sudden bankruptcy, and a fresh gambling scandal ofHubert's, had compelled their owner to part with. She knew that Raymondde Chelles had told the dealers he would sell his tapestries to anyonebut Mr. Elmer Moffatt, or a buyer acting for him; and it amused her tothink that, thanks to Elmer's astuteness, they were under her roof afterall, and that Raymond and all his clan were by this time aware of it. These facts disposed her favourably toward her husband, and deepened thesense of well-being with which--according to her invariable habit--shewalked up to the mirror above the mantelpiece and studied the image itreflected. 

She was still lost in this pleasing contemplation when her husbandentered, looking stouter and redder than ever, in evening clothes thatwere a little too tight. His shirt front was as glossy as his baldness, and in his buttonhole he wore the red ribbon bestowed on him for waivinghis claim to a Velasquez that was wanted for the Louvre. He carrieda newspaper in his hand, and stood looking about the room with acomplacent eye. 

"Well, I guess this is all right, " he said, and she answered briefly:"Don't forget you're to take down Madame de Follerive; and for goodness'sake don't call her 'Countess. '"

"Why, she is one, ain't she?" he returned good-humouredly. 

"I wish you'd put that newspaper away, " she continued; his habit ofleaving old newspapers about the drawing-room annoyed her. 

"Oh, that reminds me--" instead of obeying her he unfolded the paper. "I brought it in to show you something. Jim Driscoll's been appointedAmbassador to England. "

"Jim Driscoll--!" She caught up the paper and stared at the paragraphhe pointed to. Jim Driscoll--that pitiful nonentity, with his stoutmistrustful commonplace wife! It seemed extraordinary that thegovernment should have hunted up such insignificant people. Andimmediately she had a great vague vision of the splendours they weregoing to--all the banquets and ceremonies and precedences.... 

"I shouldn't say she'd want to, with so few jewels--" She dropped thepaper and turned to her husband. "If you had a spark of ambition, that'sthe kind of thing you'd try for. You could have got it just as easily asnot!"

He laughed and thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes with thegesture she disliked. "As it happens, it's about the one thing Icouldn't. "

"You couldn't? Why not?"

"Because you're divorced. They won't have divorced Ambassadresses. "

"They won't? Why not, I'd like to know?"

"Well, I guess the court ladies are afraid there'd be too many prettywomen in the Embassies, " he answered jocularly. 

She burst into an angry laugh, and the blood flamed up into her face. "I never heard of anything so insulting!" she cried, as if the rule hadbeen invented to humiliate her. 

There was a noise of motors backing and advancing in the court, and sheheard the first voices on the stairs. She turned to give herself a lastlook in the glass, saw the blaze of her rubies, the glitter of her hair, and remembered the brilliant names on her list. 

But under all the dazzle a tiny black cloud remained. She had learnedthat there was something she could never get, something that neitherbeauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She couldnever be an Ambassador's wife; and as she advanced to welcome her firstguests she said to herself that it was the one part she was really madefor. 

THE END