do you? I say, that's first rate!"

Undine sat well forward, curving toward him a little, as she had seen
the other women do, but holding back sufficiently to let it be visible
to the house that she was conversing with no less a person than Mr.
Peter Van Degen. Mr. Popple's talk was certainly more brilliant and
purposeful, and she saw him cast longing glances at her from behind Mrs.
Lipscomb's shoulder; but she remembered how lightly he had been treated
at the Fairford dinner, and she wanted--oh, how she wanted!--to have
Ralph Marvell see her talking to Van Degen.

She poured out her heart to him, improvising an opinion on the pictures
and an opinion on the music, falling in gaily with his suggestion of
a jolly little dinner some night soon, at the Café Martin, and
strengthening her position, as she thought, by an easy allusion to her
acquaintance with Mrs. Van Degen. But at the word her companion's eye
clouded, and a shade of constraint dimmed his enterprising smile.

"My wife--? Oh, SHE doesn't go to restaurants--she moves on too high a
plane. But we'll get old Popp, and Mrs.--, Mrs.--, what'd you say your
fat friend's name was? Just a select little crowd of four--and some kind
of a cheerful show afterward... Jove! There's the curtain, and I must
skip."

As the door closed on him Undine's cheeks burned with resentment. If
Mrs. Van Degen didn't go to restaurants, why had he supposed that SHE
would? and to have to drag Mabel in her wake! The leaden sense of
failure overcame her again. Here was the evening nearly over, and what
had it led to? Looking up from the stalls, she had fancied that to sit
in a box was to be in society--now she saw it might but emphasize one's