"I'm going, Undie." She
wavered. "Didn't they receive you right, daughter?" she asked with
sudden 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 her
clothes 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 the
lounge, without daring to raise her eyes to her daughter. It was not
till she heard Undine throw herself on the bed that she went toward her
and drew the coverlet up with deprecating hands.

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

Mrs. Spragg turned away obediently; then, gathering all her scattered
impulses into a passionate act of courage, she moved back to the
bedside.

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

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

IX

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

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

It was revived by the appearance of a ruddy middle-sized young man, his
stoutish figure tightly buttoned into a square-shouldered over-coat, who
presently approached along the path that led to the arbour. Silhouetted
against the slope of the