d 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 knows
it--everybody in New York knew she was wild when you married. That's
why she's always been so nasty to me. If you won't go on the Sorceress
they'll all say it's because she was jealous of me and wouldn't let
you."

Ralph's indignation had already flickered down to disgust. Undine was no
longer beautiful--she seemed to have the face of her thoughts. He stood
up 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 of
pity, the vague impulse to silence and protect her. How could he have
given way to the provocation of her weakness, when his business was to
defend her from it and lift her above it? He recalled his old dreams of
saving her from Van Degenism--it was not thus that he had imagined the
rescue.

"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. "No
doubt he was joking--and thought you were; but if you really made him
believe 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 the
chorus-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 Peter
knows."

"He told me he longed for the influence of a good woman--" She checked
herself, 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 lay
through her vanity, and he fancied that if she could be made to see
Van Degen as an object of ridicule she might give up the idea of the
Sorceress of her own accord. But her will hardened slowly under his
joking opposition, and she became no less formidable as she grew more
calm. He was used to women who, in such cases, yielded as a matter of
course to masculine judgments: if one pronounced a man "not decent"
the question was closed. But it was Undine's habit to ascribe all
interference with her plans to personal motives, and he could see that
she attributed his opposition to the furtive machinations