f his own methods, a glimpse of the
fact that there were women in the world who could get on without him.

He continued to gaze down at her sulkily. "Were the old people there?
You never told me you knew his mother."

"I don't. They weren't there. But it didn't make a bit of difference,
because Raymond sent down a cook from the Luxe."

"Oh, Lord," Van Degen groaned, dropping down on the end of the sofa.
"Was the cook got down to chaperon you?"

Undine laughed. "You talk like Ralph! I had Bertha with me."

"BERTHA!" His tone of contempt surprised her. She had supposed that Mrs.
Shallum's presence had made the visit perfectly correct.

"You went without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you?
Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it
to brag about you at his club. He wants to compromise you--that's his
game!"

"Do you suppose he does?" A flicker of a smile crossed her lips. "I'm
so unconventional: when I like a man I never stop to think about such
things. But I ought to, of course--you're quite right." She looked at
Van Degen thoughtfully. "At any rate, he's not a married man."

Van Degen had got to his feet again and was standing accusingly before
her; but as she spoke the blood rose to his neck and ears. "What
difference does that make?"

"It might make a good deal. I see," she added, "how careful I ought to
be about going round with you."

"With ME?" His face fell at the retort; then he broke into a laugh. He
adored Undine's "smartness," which was of precisely the same quality
as his own. "Oh, that's another thing: you can always trust me to look
after you!"

"With your reputation? Much obliged!"

Van Degen smiled. She knew he liked such allusions, and was pleased that
she thought him compromising.

"Oh, I'm as good as gold. You've made a new man of me!"

"Have I?" She considered him in silence for a moment. "I wonder what
you've done to me but make a discontented woman of me--discontented with
everything I had before I knew you?"

The change of tone was thrilling to him. He forgot her mockery, forgot
his rival, and sat down at her side, almost in possession of her waist.
"Look here," he asked, "where are we going to dine to-night?"

His nearness was not agreeable to Undine, but she liked his free way,
his contempt for verbal preliminaries. Ralph's reserves and delicacies,
his perpetual desire that he and she should be attuned to the same key,
had always vagu