glitter of jewels on Mrs. Van Degen's bare shoulders to the way young
Marvell stroked his slight blond moustache while he smiled and listened.

Undine blushed with anger at her own simplicity in fancying that he had
been "taken" by her--that she could ever really count among these happy
self-absorbed people! They all had their friends, their ties, their
delightful crowding obligations: why should they make room for an
intruder in a circle so packed with the initiated?

As her imagination developed the details of the scene in the Van Degen
dining-room it became clear to her that fashionable society was
horribly immoral and that she could never really be happy in such a
poisoned atmosphere. She remembered that an eminent divine was preaching
a series of sermons against Social Corruption, and she determined to go
and hear him on the following Sunday.

This train of thought was interrupted by the feeling that she was being
intently observed from the neighbouring box. She turned around with a
feint of speaking to Mrs. Lipscomb, and met the bulging stare of Peter
Van Degen. He was standing behind the lady of the eye-glass, who had
replaced her tortoise-shell implement by one of closely-set brilliants,
which, at word from her companion, she critically bent on Undine.

"No--I don't remember," she said; and the girl reddened, divining
herself unidentified after this protracted scrutiny.

But there was no doubt as to young Van Degen's remembering her. She was
even conscious that he was trying to provoke in her some reciprocal sign
of recognition; and the attempt drove her to the haughty study of her
programme.