nk it's all too dreadfully dreary!" The words broke from her in a
long wail of rebellion.

Marvell gazed at her perplexedly. It seemed strange that such unguessed
thoughts should have been stirring in the heart pressed to his. "It's
less interesting than you expected--or less amusing? Is that it?"

"It's dirty and ugly--all the towns we've been to are disgustingly
dirty. I loathe the smells and the beggars. I'm sick and tired of the
stuffy rooms in the hotels. I thought it would all be so splendid--but
New York's ever so much nicer!"

"Not New York in July?"

"I don't care--there are the roof-gardens, anyway; and there are always
people round. All these places seem as if they were dead. It's all like
some awful cemetery."

A sense of compunction checked Marvell's laughter. "Don't cry,
dear--don't! I see, I understand. You're lonely and the heat has tired
you out. It IS dull here; awfully dull; I've been stupid not to feel it.
But we'll start at once--we'll get out of it."

She brightened instantly. "We'll go up to Switzerland?"

"We'll go up to Switzerland." He had a fleeting glimpse of the quiet
place with the green water-fall, where he might have made tryst with his
vision; then he turned his mind from it and said: "We'll go just where
you want. How soon can you be ready to start?"

"Oh, to-morrow--the first thing to-morrow! I'll make Celeste get out
of bed now and pack. Can we go right through to St. Moritz? I'd rather
sleep in the train than in another of these awful places."

She was on her feet in a flash, her face alight, her hair waving and
floating about her as though it rose on her happy heart-beats.

"Oh, Ralph, it's SWEET of you, and I love you!" she cried out, letting
him take her to his breast.

XII

In the quiet place with the green water-fall Ralph's vision might
have kept faith with him; but how could he hope to surprise it in the
midsummer crowds of St. Moritz? Undine, at any rate, had found there
what she wanted; and when he was at her side, and her radiant smile
included him, every other question was in abeyance. But there were hours
of solitary striding over bare grassy slopes, face to face with the
ironic interrogation of sky and mountains, when his anxieties came back,
more persistent and importunate. Sometimes they took the form of merely
material difficulties. How, for instance, was he to meet the cost of
their ruinous suite at the Engadine Palace while he awaited Mr. Spragg's