herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple’s tea.
But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dressmaker to take it back.
“Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What’s up?” Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio.
“I don’t know—I’m tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot.”
“Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold.” Van Degen glanced at his watch. “Where are you off to?”
“West End Avenue, of course—if I can find a cab to take me there.”
It was not the least of Undine’s grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg’s first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg’s financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, moreover, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy’s birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house.
But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother’s plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation—the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: “Do let me give you a lift home, dear—Oh, I’d forgotten! I’m afraid I haven’t the time to go so far—”
It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on “lifts,” openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being “out of things.”
Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes.
“Of course you won’t get a cab on a night like this. If you don’t mind the open car, you’d better jump in with me. I’ll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner.”
The offer was tempting, for Undine’s triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous—she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin.
“Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then.” He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: “You’re not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It’s all right at this hour—Ralph’s still swinging on a strap in the elevated.”
The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little “fuss” as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter’s sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his “bad” real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way—she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be “talked about” with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for “nice women.” She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good.
Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor.
“What’s the matter? Isn’t everything all right?”
His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary “niceness” seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material “bothers”—as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he “didn’t care to part”); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he’d give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: “Oh, hang waiting for the bill—won’t a couple of thou make it all right?” in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life.
The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down—with a nod for his “Everything jolly again now?”—to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy—and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his “nagging” that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs.
“Mercy! It’s the boy’s birthday—I was to take him to his grandmother’s. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I’d forgotten!”
XV
In the Dagonet drawingroom the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece.
“No sign of her. She’s simply forgotten.”
Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock.
“Six o’clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late.”
Laura
