“Why shouldn’t she have heard my name?
And why in the world should it upset her?”
Madame de Trezac heaved a hesitating sigh. “Isn’t
it better to be frank? She thinks she has reason
to feel badly—they all do.”
“To feel badly? Because her son wants to
marry me?”
“Of course they know that’s impossible.”
Madame de Trezac smiled compassionately. “But
they’re afraid of your spoiling his other chances.”
Undine paused a moment before answering, “It
won’t be impossible when my marriage is annulled,”
she said.
The effect of this statement was less electrifying
than she had hoped. Her visitor simply broke
into a laugh. “My dear child! Your
marriage annulled? Who can have put such a mad
idea into your head?”
Undine’s gaze followed the pattern she was tracing
with a lustrous nail on her embroidered bedspread.
“Raymond himself,” she let fall.
This time there was no mistaking the effect she produced.
Madame de Trezac, with a murmured “Oh,”
sat gazing before her as if she had lost the thread
of her argument; and it was only after a considerable
interval that she recovered it sufficiently to exclaim:
“They’ll never hear of it—absolutely
never!”
“But they can’t prevent it, can they?”
“They can prevent its being of any use to you.”
“I see,” Undine pensively assented.
She knew the tone she had taken was virtually a declaration
of war; but she was in a mood when the act of defiance,
apart from its strategic value, was a satisfaction
in itself. Moreover, if she could not gain her
end without a fight it was better that the battle should
be engaged while Raymond’s ardour was at its
height. To provoke immediate hostilities she
sent for him the same afternoon, and related, quietly
and without comment, the incident of her visit to the
Duchess, and the mission with which Madame de Trezac
had been charged. In the circumstances, she went
on to explain, it was manifestly impossible that she
should continue to receive his visits; and she met
his wrathful comments on his relatives by the gently
but firmly expressed resolve not to be the cause of
any disagreement between himself and his family.
A few days after her decisive conversation with Raymond
de Chelles, Undine, emerging from the doors of the
Nouveau Luxe, where she had been to call on the newly-arrived
Mrs. Homer Branney, once more found herself face to
face with Elmer Moffatt.
This time there was no mistaking his eagerness to
be recognized. He stopped short as they met,
and she read such pleasure in his eyes that she too
stopped, holding out her hand.
“I’m glad you’re going to speak
to me,” she said, and Moffatt reddened at the
allusion.
“Well, I very nearly didn’t. I didn’t
know you. You look about as old as you did when
I first landed at Apex—remember?”
