long more pressing cares absorbed him. He had already begun to watch the post for his father-in-law’s monthly remittance, without precisely knowing how, even with its aid, he was to bridge the gulf of expense between St. Moritz and New York. The non-arrival of Mr. Spragg’s cheque was productive of graver tears, and these were abruptly confirmed when, coming in one afternoon, he found Undine crying over a letter from her mother.
Her distress made him fear that Mr. Spragg was ill, and he drew her to him soothingly; but she broke away with an impatient movement.
“Oh, they’re all well enough—but father’s lost a lot of money. He’s been speculating, and he can’t send us anything for at least three months.”
Ralph murmured reassuringly: “As long as there’s no one ill!”—but in reality he was following her despairing gaze down the long perspective of their barren quarter.
“Three months! Three months!”
Undine dried her eyes, and sat with set lips and tapping foot while he read her mother’s letter.
“Your poor father! It’s a hard knock for him. I’m sorry,” he said as he handed it back.
For a moment she did not seem to hear; then she said between her teeth: “It’s hard for US. I suppose now we’ll have to go straight home.”
He looked at her with wonder. “If that were all! In any case I should have to be back in a few weeks.”
“But we needn’t have left here in August! It’s the first place in Europe that I’ve liked, and it’s just my luck to be dragged away from it!”
“I’m so awfully sorry, dearest. It’s my fault for persuading you to marry a pauper.”
“It’s father’s fault. Why on earth did he go and speculate? There’s no use his saying he’s sorry now!” She sat brooding for a moment and then suddenly took Ralph’s hand. “Couldn’t your people do something—help us out just this once, I mean?”
He flushed to the forehead: it seemed inconceivable that she should make such a suggestion.
“I couldn’t ask them—it’s not possible. My grandfather does as much as he can for me, and my mother has nothing but what he gives her.”
Undine seemed unconscious of his embarrassment. “He doesn’t give us nearly as much as father does,” she said; and, as Ralph remained silent, she went on:
“Couldn’t you ask your sister, then? I must have some clothes to go home in.”
His heart contracted as he looked at her. What sinister change came over her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible, implacable—her eyes were like the eyes of an enemy.
“I don’t know—I’ll see,” he said, rising and moving away from her. At that moment the touch of her hand was repugnant. Yes—he might ask Laura, no doubt: and whatever she had would be his. But the necessity was bitter to him, and Undine’s unconsciousness of the fact hurt him more than her indifference to her father’s misfortune.
What hurt him most was the curious fact that, for all her light irresponsibility, it was always she who made the practical suggestion, hit the nail of expediency on the head. No sentimental scruple made the blow waver or deflected her resolute aim. She had thought at once of Laura, and Laura was his only, his inevitable, resource. His anxious mind pictured his sister’s wonder, and made him wince under the sting of Henley Fairford’s irony: Fairford, who at the time of the marriage had sat silent and pulled his moustache while every one else argued and objected, yet under whose silence Ralph had felt a deeper protest than under all the reasoning of the others. It was no comfort to reflect that Fairford would probably continue to say nothing! But necessity made light of these twinges, and Ralph set his teeth and cabled.
Undine’s chief surprise seemed to be that Laura’s response, though immediate and generous, did not enable them to stay on at St. Moritz. But she apparently read in her husband’s look the uselessness of such a hope, for, with one of the sudden changes of mood that still disarmed him, she accepted the need of departure, and took leave philosophically of the Shallums and their band. After all, Paris was ahead, and in September one would have a chance to see the new models and surprise the secret councils of the dressmakers.
Ralph was astonished at the tenacity with which she held to her purpose. He tried, when they reached Paris, to make her feel the necessity of starting at once for home; but she complained of fatigue and of feeling vaguely unwell, and he had to yield to her desire for rest. The word, however, was to strike him as strangely misapplied, for from the day of their arrival she was in state of perpetual activity. She seemed to have mastered her Paris by divination, and between the hounds of the Boulevards and the Place Vendome she moved at once with supernatural ease.
“Of course,” she explained to him, “I understand how little we’ve got to spend; but I left New York without a rag, and it was you who made me countermand my trousseau, instead of having it sent after us. I wish now I hadn’t listened to you—father’d have had to pay for THAT before he lost his money. As it is, it will be cheaper in the end for me to pick up a few things here. The advantage of going to the French dressmakers is that they’ll wait twice as long for their money as the people at home. And they’re all crazy to dress me—Bertha Shallum will tell you so: she says no one ever had such a chance! That’s why I was willing to come to this stuffy little hotel—I wanted to save every scrap I could to get a few decent things. And over here they’re accustomed to being bargained with—you ought to see how I’ve beaten them down! Have you any idea what a dinner-dress costs in New York—?”
So it went on, obtusely and persistently, whenever he tried to sound the note of prudence. But on other themes she was more than usually responsive. Paris enchanted her, and they had delightful hours at the theatres—the “little” ones—amusing dinners at fashionable restaurants, and reckless evenings in haunts where she thrilled with simple glee at the thought of what she must so obviously be “taken for.” All these familiar diversions regained, for Ralph, a fresh zest in her company. Her innocence, her high spirits, her astounding comments and credulities, renovated the old Parisian adventure and flung a veil of romance over its hackneyed scenes. Beheld through such a medium the future looked less near and implacable, and Ralph, when he had received a reassuring letter from his sister, let his conscience sleep and slipped forth on the high tide of pleasure. After all, in New York amusements would be fewer, and their life, for a time, perhaps more quiet. Moreover, Ralph’s dim glimpses of Mr. Spragg’s past suggested that the latter was likely to be on his feet again at any moment, and atoning by redoubled prodigalities for his temporary straits; and beyond all these possibilities there was the book to be written—the book on which Ralph was sure he should get a real hold as soon as they settled down in New York.
Meanwhile the daily cost of living, and the bills that could not be deferred, were eating deep into Laura’s subsidy. Ralph’s anxieties returned, and his plight was brought home to him with a shock when, on going one day to engage passages, he learned that the prices were that of the “rush season,” and one of the conditions immediate payment. At other times, he was told the rules were easier; but in September and October no exception could be made.
As he walked away with this fresh weight on his mind he caught sight of the strolling figure of Peter Van Degen—Peter lounging and luxuriating among the seductions of the Boulevard with the disgusting ease of a man whose wants are all measured by money, and who always has enough to gratify them.
His present sense of these advantages revealed itself in the affability of his greeting to Ralph, and in his offhand request that
