t about her
she laid her hand on Marvell's arm.

"Ralphie, dear, you'll come to the opera with me on Friday? We'll dine
together first--Peter's got a club dinner." They exchanged what seemed a
smile of intelligence, and Undine heard the young man accept. Then Mrs.
Van Degen turned to her.

"Good-bye, Miss Spragg. I hope you'll come--"

"--TO DINE WITH ME TOO?" That must be what she was going to say, and
Undine's heart gave a bound.

"--to see me some afternoon," Mrs. Van Degen ended, going down the steps
to her motor, at the door of which a much-furred footman waited with
more furs on his arm.

Undine's face burned as she turned to receive her cloak. When she had
drawn it on with haughty deliberation she found Marvell at her side, in
hat and overcoat, and her heart gave a higher bound. He was going to
"escort" her home, of course! This brilliant youth--she felt now that he
WAS brilliant--who dined alone with married women, whom the "Van Degen
set" called "Ralphie, dear," had really no eyes for any one but herself;
and at the thought her lost self-complacency flowed back warm through
her veins.

The street was coated with ice, and she had a delicious moment
descending the steps on Marvell's arm, and holding it fast while they
waited for her cab to come up; but when he had helped her in he closed
the door and held his hand out over the lowered window.

"Good-bye," he said, smiling; and she could not help the break of pride
in her voice, as she faltered out stupidly, from the depths of her
disillusionment: "Oh--good-bye."

IV

"Father, you've got to take a box for me at the opera next Friday."

From the tone of her voice Undine's parents knew at once that she was
"nervous."

They had counted a great deal on the Fairford dinner as a means of
tranquillization, and it was a blow to detect signs of the opposite
result when, late the next morning, their daughter came dawdling into
the sodden splendour of the Stentorian breakfast-room.

The symptoms of Undine's nervousness were unmistakable to Mr. and Mrs.
Spragg. They could read the approaching storm in the darkening of her
eyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her straight
black brows met above them and the red curves of her lips narrowed to a
parallel line below.

Mr. Spragg, having finished the last course of his heterogeneous meal,
was adjusting his gold eye-glasses for a glance at the paper when
Undine trailed down the sumptuous stuffy