er 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 should
have to be back in a few weeks."

"But we needn't have left here in August! It's the first place in Europe
that 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 to
marry a pauper."

"It's father's fault. Why on earth did he go and speculate? There's no
use his saying he's sorry now!" She sat brooding for a moment and then
suddenly took Ralph's hand. "Couldn't your people do something--help us
out just this once, I mean?"

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

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

Undine seemed unconscious of his embarrassment. "He doesn't give us
nearly 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 home
in."

His heart contracted as he looked at her. What sinister change came
over 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 ask
Laura, no doubt: and whatever she had would be his. But the necessity
was bitter to him, and Undine's unconsciousness of the fact hurt him
more than her indifference to her father's misfortune.

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