Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. “I’m
so sorry, Undie. I guess it was just seeing you
in this glare of light.”
“Yes—the light’s awful; do
turn some off,” ordered Undine, for whom, ordinarily,
no radiance was too strong; and Mrs. Spragg, grateful
to have commands laid upon her, hastened to obey.
Undine, after this, submitted in brooding silence
to having her dress unlaced, and her slippers and
dressing-gown brought to her. Mrs. Spragg visibly
yearned to say more, but she restrained the impulse
lest it should provoke her dismissal.
“Won’t you take just a sup of milk before
you go to bed?” she suggested at length, as
Undine sank into an armchair.
“I’ve got some for you right here in the
parlour.”
Without looking up the girl answered: “No.
I don’t want anything. Do go to bed.”
Her mother seemed to be struggling between the life-long
instinct of obedience and a swift unformulated fear.
“I’m going, Undie.” She wavered.
“Didn’t they receive you right, daughter?”
she asked with sudden resolution.
“What nonsense! How should they receive
me? Everybody was lovely to me.” Undine
rose to her feet and went on with her undressing, tossing
her clothes on the floor and shaking her hair over
her bare shoulders.
Mrs. Spragg stooped to gather up the scattered garments
as they fell, folding them with a wistful caressing
touch, and laying them on the lounge, without daring
to raise her eyes to her daughter. It was not
till she heard Undine throw herself on the bed that
she went toward her and drew the coverlet up with
deprecating hands.
“Oh, do put the light out—I’m
dead tired,” the girl grumbled, pressing her
face into the pillow.
Mrs. Spragg turned away obediently; then, gathering
all her scattered impulses into a passionate act of
courage, she moved back to the bedside.
“Undie—you didn’t see anybody—I
mean at the theatre? Anybody you didn’t
want to see?”
Undine, at the question, raised her head and started
right against the tossed pillows, her white exasperated
face close to her mother’s twitching features.
The two women examined each other a moment, fear and
anger in their crossed glances; then Undine answered:
“No, nobody. Good-night.”
Undine, late the next day, waited alone under the
leafless trellising of a wistaria arbour on the west
side of the Central Park. She had put on her
plainest dress, and wound a closely, patterned veil
over her least vivid hat; but even thus toned down
to the situation she was conscious of blazing out
from it inconveniently.
The habit of meeting young men in sequestered spots
was not unknown to her: the novelty was in feeling
any embarrassment about it. Even now she—was
disturbed not so much by the unlikely chance of an
accidental encounter with Ralph Marvell as by the
remembrance of similar meetings, far from accidental,
with the romantic Aaronson. Could it be that the
hand now adorned with Ralph’s engagement ring
had once, in this very spot, surrendered itself to
the riding-master’s pressure? At the thought
a wave of physical disgust passed over her, blotting
out another memory as distasteful but more remote.
