of Moffatt's office at the conclusion of this visit
Ralph met Mr. Spragg descending from his eyrie. He stopped short with a
backward glance at Moffatt's door.

"Hallo--what were you doing in there with those cut-throats?"

Ralph judged discretion to be essential. "Oh, just a little business for
the firm."

Mr. Spragg said no more, but resorted to the soothing labial motion of
revolving his phantom toothpick.

"How's Undie getting along?" he merely asked, as he and his son-in-law
descended together in the elevator.

"She doesn't seem to feel much stronger. The doctor wants her to run
over to Europe for a few weeks. She thinks of joining her friends the
Shallums in Paris."

Mr. Spragg was again silent, but he left the building at Ralph's side,
and the two walked along together toward Wall Street.

Presently the older man asked: "How did you get acquainted with
Moffatt?"

"Why, by chance--Undine ran across him somewhere and asked him to dine
the other night."

"Undine asked him to dine?"

"Yes: she told me you used to know him out at Apex."

Mr. Spragg appeared to search his memory for confirmation of the fact.
"I believe he used to be round there at one time. I've never heard any
good of him yet." He paused at a crossing and looked probingly at his
son-in-law. "Is she terribly set on this trip to Europe?"

Ralph smiled. "You know how it is when she takes a fancy to do
anything--"

Mr. Spragg, by a slight lift of his brooding brows, seemed to convey a
deep if unspoken response.

"Well, I'd let her do it this time--I'd let her do it," he said as he
turned down the steps of the Subway.

Ralph was surprised, for he had gathered from some frightened references
of Mrs. Spragg's that Undine's parents had wind of her European plan and
were strongly opposed to it. He concluded that Mr. Spragg had long since
measured the extent of profitable resistance, and knew just when it
became vain to hold out against his daughter or advise others to do so.

Ralph, for his own part, had no inclination to resist. As he left
Moffatt's office his inmost feeling was one of relief. He had reached
the point of recognizing that it was best for both that his wife should
go. When she returned perhaps their lives would readjust themselves--but
for the moment he longed for some kind of benumbing influence, something
that should give relief to the dull daily ache of feeling her so near
and yet so inaccessible. Certainly there were mo