personal seduction."

Mr. Van Degen received this protest with a sound of almost vulgar
derision, but Undine thrilled agreeably under the glance which her
portrayer cast on her. She was flattered by Van Degen's notice, and
thought his impertinence witty; but she glowed inwardly at Mr. Popple's
eloquence. After more than three years of social experience she still
thought he "spoke beautifully," like the hero of a novel, and she
ascribed to jealousy the lack of seriousness with which her husband's
friends regarded him. His conversation struck her as intellectual, and
his eagerness to have her share his thoughts was in flattering contrast
to Ralph's growing tendency to keep his to himself. Popple's homage
seemed the, subtlest proof of what Ralph could have made of her if he
had "really understood" her. It was but another step to ascribe all her
past mistakes to the lack of such understanding; and the satisfaction
derived from this thought had once impelled her to tell the artist that
he alone knew how to rouse her 'higher self.' He had assured her that
the memory of her words would thereafter hallow his life; and as he
hinted that it had been stained by the darkest errors she was moved at
the thought of the purifying influence she exerted.

Thus it was that a man should talk to a true woman--but how few whom
she had known possessed the secret! Ralph, in the first months of their
marriage, had been eloquent too, had even gone the length of quoting
poetry; but he disconcerted her by his baffling twists and strange
allusions (she always scented ridicule in the unknown), and the poets he
quoted were esoteric and abstruse. Mr. Popple's rhetoric was drawn from
more familiar sources, and abounded in favourite phrases and in moving
reminiscences of the Fifth Reader. He was moreover as literary as he
was artistic; possessing an unequalled acquaintance with contemporary
fiction, and dipping even into the lighter type of memoirs, in which the
old acquaintances of history are served up in the disguise of "A Royal
Sorceress" or "Passion in a Palace." The mastery with which Mr.
Popple discussed the novel of the day, especially in relation to
the sensibilities of its hero and heroine, gave Undine a sense of
intellectual activity which contrasted strikingly with Marvell's
flippant estimate of such works. "Passion," the artist implied, would
have been the dominant note of his life, had it not been held in check
by a sentiment of exalted c