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The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
page 55 of 502 (10%)
disappeared, and Undine, leaning forward, nervously touched Mabel's arm.

"What's the matter. Undine? Don't you see Mr. Marvell over there? Is
that his sister he's with?"

"No.--I wouldn't beckon like that," Undine whispered between her teeth.

"Why not? Don't you want him to know you're here?"

"Yes--but the other people are not beckoning."

Mabel looked about unabashed. "Perhaps they've all found each other.
Shall I send Harry over to tell him?" she shouted above the blare of the
wind instruments.

"NO!" gasped Undine as the curtain rose.

She was no longer capable of following the action on the stage. Two
presences possessed her imagination: that of Ralph Marvell, small,
unattainable, remote, and that of Mabel Lipscomb, near-by, immense and
irrepressible.

It had become clear to Undine that Mabel Lipscomb was ridiculous. That
was the reason why Popple did not come to the box. No one would care to
be seen talking to her while Mabel was at her side: Mabel, monumental
and moulded while the fashionable were flexible and diaphanous, Mabel
strident and explicit while they were subdued and allusive. At the
Stentorian she was the centre of her group--here she revealed herself
as unknown and unknowing. Why, she didn't even know that Mrs. Peter Van
Degen was not Ralph Marvell's sister! And she had a way of trumpeting
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