itherto, had found more benefits than drawbacks in her
marriage; but now the tie began to gall. It was hard to be criticized
for every grasp at opportunity by a man so avowedly unable to do the
reaching for her! Ralph had gone into business to make more money for
her; but it was plain that the "more" would never be much, and that he
would not achieve the quick rise to affluence which was man's natural
tribute to woman's merits. Undine felt herself trapped, deceived; and it
was intolerable that the agent of her disillusionment should presume to
be the critic of her conduct. Her annoyance, however, died out with
her fears. Ralph, the morning after the Elling dinner, went his way as
usual, and after nerving herself for the explosion which did not come
she set down his indifference to the dulling effect of "business." No
wonder poor women whose husbands were always "down-town" had to look
elsewhere for sympathy! Van Degen's cheque helped to calm her, and the
weeks whirled on toward the Driscoll ball.

The ball was as brilliant as she had hoped, and her own part in it as
thrilling as a page from one of the "society novels" with which she had
cheated the monotony of Apex days. She had no time for reading now:
every hour was packed with what she would have called life, and the
intensity of her sensations culminated on that triumphant evening. What
could be more delightful than to feel that, while all the women envied
her dress, the men did not so much as look at it? Their admiration was
all for herself, and her beauty deepened under it as flowers take a
warmer colour in the rays of sunset. Only Van Degen's glance weighed
on her a little too heavily. Was it possible that he might become a
"bother" less negligible than those he had relieved her of? Undine
was not greatly alarmed--she still had full faith in her powers of
self-defense; but she disliked to feel the least crease in the smooth
surface of existence. She had always been what her parents called
"sensitive."

As the winter passed, material cares once more assailed her. In
the thrill of liberation produced by Van Degen's gift she had been
imprudent--had launched into fresh expenses. Not that she accused
herself of extravagance: she had done nothing not really necessary. The
drawing-room, for instance, cried out to be "done over," and Popple, who
was an authority on decoration, had shown her, with a few strokes of his
pencil how easily it might be transformed into a Fren