She listened, discouraged yet fascinated by his sturdy
inaccessibility to all her arguments and objections.
He knew what he wanted, saw his road before him, and
acknowledged no obstacles. Her defense was drawn
from reasons he did not understand, or based on difficulties
that did not exist for him; and gradually she felt
herself yielding to the steady pressure of his will.
Yet the reasons he brushed away came back with redoubled
tenacity whenever he paused long enough for her to
picture the consequences of what he exacted.
“You don’t know—you don’t
understand—” she kept repeating; but
she knew that his ignorance was part of his terrible
power, and that it was hopeless to try to make him
feel the value of what he was asking her to give up.
“See here, Undine,” he said slowly, as
if he measured her resistance though he couldn’t
fathom it, “I guess it had better be yes or no
right here. It ain’t going to do either
of us any good to drag this thing out. If you
want to come back to me, come—if you don’t,
we’ll shake hands on it now. I’m
due in Apex for a directors’ meeting on the twentieth,
and as it is I’ll have to cable for a special
to get me out there. No, no, don’t cry—it
ain’t that kind of a story ... but I’ll
have a deck suite for you on the Semantic if you’ll
sail with me the day after to-morrow.”
In the great high-ceilinged library of a private hotel
overlooking one of the new quarters of Paris, Paul
Marvell stood listlessly gazing out into the twilight.
The trees were budding symmetrically along the avenue
below; and Paul, looking down, saw, between windows
and tree-tops, a pair of tall iron gates with gilt
ornaments, the marble curb of a semi-circular drive,
and bands of spring flowers set in turf. He was
now a big boy of nearly nine, who went to a fashionable
private school, and he had come home that day for
the Easter holidays. He had not been back since
Christmas, and it was the first time he had seen the
new hotel which his step-father had bought, and in
which Mr. and Mrs. Moffatt had hastily established
themselves, a few weeks earlier, on their return from
a flying trip to America. They were always coming
and going; during the two years since their marriage
they had been perpetually dashing over to New York
and back, or rushing down to Rome or up to the Engadine:
Paul never knew where they were except when a telegram
announced that they were going somewhere else.
He did not even know that there was any method of
communication between mothers and sons less laconic
than that of the electric wire; and once, when a boy
at school asked him if his mother often wrote, he
had answered in all sincerity: “Oh yes—I
got a telegram last week.”
He had been almost sure—as sure as he ever
was of anything—that he should find her
at home when he arrived; but a message (for she hadn’t
had time to telegraph) apprised him that she and Mr.
Moffatt had run down to Deauville to look at a house
they thought of hiring for the summer; they were taking
an early train back, and would be at home for dinner—were
in fact having a lot of people to dine.
