“I don’t believe we’ll ever hear of that gentleman again,” he said contemptuously; and their eyes crossed gaily as she exclaimed: “Then they’ll give the fancy ball after all?”
“I should have given you one anyhow—shouldn’t you have liked that as well?” “Oh, you can give me one too!” she returned; and he bent closer to say: “By Jove, I will—and anything else you want.”
But on the way home her fears revived. Ralph’s indifference struck her as unnatural. He had not returned to the subject of Paul’s disappointment, had not even asked her to write a word of excuse to his mother. Van Degen’s way of looking at her at dinner—he was incapable of graduating his glances—had made it plain that the favour she had accepted would necessitate her being more conspicuously in his company (though she was still resolved that it should be on just such terms as she chose); and it would be extremely troublesome if, at this juncture, Ralph should suddenly turn suspicious and secretive.
Undine, hitherto, 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 drawingroom, 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 French “period” room, all curves and cupids: just the setting for a pretty woman and his portrait of her. But Undine, still hopeful of leaving West End Avenue, had heroically resisted the suggestion, and contented herself with the renewal of the curtains and carpet, and the purchase of some fragile gilt chairs which, as she told Ralph, would be “so much to the good” when they moved—the explanation, as she made it, seemed an additional evidence of her thrift.
Partly as a result of these exertions she had a “nervous breakdown” toward the middle of the winter, and her physician having ordered massage and a daily drive it became necessary to secure Mrs. Heeny’s attendance and to engage a motor by the month. Other unforeseen expenses—the bills, that, at such times, seem to run up without visible impulsion—were added to by a severe illness of little Paul’s: a long costly illness, with three nurses and frequent consultations. During these days Ralph’s anxiety drove him to what seemed to Undine foolish excesses of expenditure and when the boy began to get better the doctors advised country air. Ralph at once hired a small house at Tuxedo and Undine of course accompanied her son to the country; but she spent only the Sundays with him, running up to town during the week to be with her husband, as she explained. This necessitated the keeping up of two households, and even for so short a time the strain on Ralph’s purse was severe. So it came about that the bill for the fancy-dress was still unpaid, and Undine left to wonder distractedly what had become of Van Degen’s money. That Van Degen seemed also to wonder was becoming unpleasantly apparent: his cheque had evidently not brought in the return he expected, and he put his grievance to her frankly one day when he motored down to lunch at Tuxedo.
They were sitting, after luncheon, in the low-ceilinged drawingroom to which Undine had adapted her usual background of cushions, bric-a-brac and flowers—since one must make one’s setting “homelike,” however little one’s habits happened to correspond with that particular effect. Undine, conscious of the intimate charm of her mise-en-scene, and of the recovered freshness and bloom which put her in harmony with it, had never been more sure of her power to keep her friend in the desired state of adoring submission. But Peter, as he grew more adoring, became less submissive; and there came a moment when she needed all her wits to save the situation. It was easy enough to rebuff him, the easier as his physical proximity always roused in her a vague instinct of resistance; but it was hard so to temper the rebuff with promise that the game of suspense should still delude him. He put it to her at last, standing squarely before her, his batrachian sallowness unpleasantly flushed, and primitive man looking out of the eyes from which a frock-coated gentleman usually pined at her.
“Look here—the installment plan’s all right; but ain’t you a bit behind even on that?” (She had brusquely eluded a nearer approach.) “Anyhow, I think I’d rather let the interest accumulate for a while. This is goodbye till I get back from Europe.”
The announcement took her by surprise. “Europe? Why, when are you sailing?”
“On the first of April: good day for a fool to acknowledge his folly. I’m beaten, and I’m running away.”
She sat looking down, her hand absently occupied with the twist of pearls he had given her. In a flash she saw the peril of this departure. Once off on the Sorceress, he was lost to her—the power of old associations would prevail. Yet if she were as “nice” to him as he asked—“nice” enough to keep him—the end might not be much more to her advantage. Hitherto she had let herself drift on the current of their adventure, but she now saw what port she had half-unconsciously been trying for. If she had striven so hard to hold him, had “played” him with such patience and such skill, it was for something more than her passing amusement and convenience: for a purpose the more tenaciously cherished that she had not dared name it to herself. In the light of this discovery she saw the need of feigning complete indifference.
“Ah, you happy man! It’s goodbye indeed, then,” she threw back at him, lifting a plaintive smile to his frown.
“Oh, you’ll turn up in Paris later, I suppose—to get your things for Newport.”
“Paris? Newport? They’re not on my map! When Ralph can get away we shall go to the Adirondacks for the boy. I hope I shan’t need Paris clothes there! It doesn’t matter, at any rate,” she ended, laughing, “because nobody I care about will see me.”
Van Degen echoed her laugh. “Oh, come—that’s rough on Ralph!”
She looked down with a slight increase of colour. “I oughtn’t to have said it, ought I? But the fact is I’m unhappy—and a little hurt—”
“Unhappy? Hurt?” He was at her side again. “Why, what’s wrong?”
She lifted her eyes with a grave look. “I thought you’d be sorrier to leave me.”
“Oh,