The latter smiled back vaguely, and looked across
the room. Moffatt, looking flushed and foolish,
was just pushing back his chair. To carry off
his embarrassment he put an additional touch of importance;
and as he swaggered out behind his companion, Undine
said to herself, with a shiver: “If he’d
been alone they would have found me taking tea with
him.”
Undine, during the ensuing weeks, returned several
times to Nice with the Princess; but, to the latter’s
surprise, she absolutely refused to have Raymond de
Chelles included in their luncheon-parties, or even
apprised in advance of their expeditions.
The Princess, always impatient of unnecessary dissimulation,
had not attempted to keep up the feint of the interesting
invalid at Cimiez. She confessed to Undine that
she was drawn to Nice by the presence there of the
person without whom, for the moment, she found life
intolerable, and whom she could not well receive under
the same roof with her little girls and her mother.
She appealed to Undine’s sisterly heart to feel
for her in her difficulty, and implied that—as
her conduct had already proved—she would
always be ready to render her friend a like service.
It was at this point that Undine checked her by a decided
word. “I understand your position, and
I’m very sorry for you, of course,” she
began (the Princess stared at the “sorry").
“Your secret’s perfectly safe with me,
and I’ll do anything I can for you...but if I
go to Nice with you again you must promise not to
ask your cousin to meet us.”
The Princess’s face expressed the most genuine
astonishment. “Oh, my dear, do forgive
me if I’ve been stupid! He admires you so
tremendously; and I thought—”
“You’ll do as I ask, please—won’t
you?” Undine went on, ignoring the interruption
and looking straight at her under level brows; and
the Princess, with a shrug, merely murmured:
“What a pity! I fancied you liked him.”
The early spring found Undine once more in Paris.
She had every reason to be satisfied with the result
of the course she had pursued since she had pronounced
her ultimatum on the subject of Raymond de Chelles.
She had continued to remain on the best of terms with
the Princess, to rise in the estimation of the old
Duchess, and to measure the rapidity of her ascent
in the upward gaze of Madame de Trezac; and she had
given Chelles to understand that, if he wished to
renew their acquaintance, he must do so in the shelter
of his venerable aunt’s protection.
To the Princess she was careful to make her attitude
equally clear. “I like your cousin very
much—he’s delightful, and if I’m
in Paris this spring I hope I shall see a great deal
of him. But I know how easy it is for a woman
in my position to get talked about—and I
have my little boy to consider.”
Nevertheless, whenever Chelles came over from Beaulieu
to spend a day with his aunt and cousin—an
excursion he not infrequently repeated—Undine
was at no pains to conceal her pleasure. Nor was
there anything calculated in her attitude. Chelles
seemed to her more charming than ever, and the warmth
of his wooing was in flattering contrast to the cool
reserve of his manners. At last she felt herself
alive and young again, and it became a joy to look
in her glass and to try on her new hats and dresses...
