It was revived by the appearance of a ruddy middle-sized young man, his stoutish figure tightly buttoned into a square-shouldered over-coat, who presently approached along the path that led to the arbour.  Silhouetted against the slope of the asphalt, the newcomer revealed an outline thick yet compact, with a round head set on a neck in which, at the first chance, prosperity would be likely to develop a red crease.  His face, with its rounded surfaces, and the sanguine innocence of a complexion belied by prematurely astute black eyes, had a look of jovial cunning which Undine had formerly thought “smart” but which now struck her as merely vulgar.  She felt that in the Marvell set Elmer Moffatt would have been stamped as “not a gentleman.”  Nevertheless something in his look seemed to promise the capacity to develop into any character he might care to assume; though it did not seem probable that, for the present, that of a gentleman would be among them.  He had always had a brisk swaggering step, and the faintly impudent tilt of the head that she had once thought “dashing”; but whereas this look had formerly denoted a somewhat desperate defiance of the world and its judgments it now suggested an almost assured relation to these powers; and Undine’s heart sank at the thought of what the change implied.

As he drew nearer, the young man’s air of assurance was replaced by an expression of mildly humorous surprise.

“Well—­this is white of you.  Undine!” he said, taking her lifeless fingers into his dapperly gloved hand.

Through her veil she formed the words:  “I said I’d come.”

He laughed.  “That’s so.  And you see I believed you.  Though I might not have—­”

“I don’t see the use of beginning like this,” she interrupted nervously.

“That’s so too.  Suppose we walk along a little ways?  It’s rather chilly standing round.”

He turned down the path that descended toward the Ramble and the girl moved on beside him with her long flowing steps.

When they had reached the comparative shelter of the interlacing trees Moffatt paused again to say:  “If we’re going to talk I’d like to see you.  Undine;” and after a first moment of reluctance she submissively threw back her veil.

He let his eyes rest on her in silence; then he said judicially:  “You’ve filled out some; but you’re paler.”  After another appreciative scrutiny he added:  “There’s mighty few women as well worth looking at, and I’m obliged to you for letting me have the chance again.”

Undine’s brows drew together, but she softened her frown to a quivering smile.

“I’m glad to see you too, Elmer—­I am, really!”

He returned her smile while his glance continued to study her humorously.  “You didn’t betray the fact last night.  Miss Spragg.”

“I was so taken aback.  I thought you were out in Alaska somewhere.”

The young man shaped his lips into the mute whistle by which he habitually vented his surprise.  “You did?  Didn’t Abner E. Spragg tell you he’d seen me down town?”