ousin, avoiding her
disappointed eyes.

Undine, on entering her bedroom late that evening, was startled by the
presence 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 pressed
the electric button and flooded the room with light. The idea of a
mother's sitting up for her daughter was so foreign to Apex customs
that it roused only mistrust and irritation in the object of the
demonstration.

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

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

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

She moved toward the toilet-table, and began to demolish with feverish
hands the structure which Mrs. Heeny, a few hours earlier, had so
lovingly 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 face
in 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?" she
cried, the blood flaming into her pale cheeks; and as Mrs. Spragg
shrank back, she added more mildly, in the tone of a parent rebuking a
persistent child: "It's enough to MAKE anybody sick to be stared at that
way!"

Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. "I'm so sorry, Undie. I guess
it 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 to
have commands laid upon her, hastened to obey.

Undine, after this, submitted in brooding silence to having her dress
unlaced, and her slippers and dressing-gown brought to her. Mrs. Spragg
visibly yearned to say more, but she restrained the impulse lest it
should provoke her dismissal.

"Won't you take just a sup of milk before you go to bed?" she suggested
at 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 go
to bed."

Her mother seemed to be struggling between the life-long instinct
of obedience and a swift unformulated fear.