know the right people at last--she was going to get
what she wanted!

As she stood there, smiling at her happy image, she heard her father's
voice in the room beyond, and instantly began to tear off her dress,
strip the long gloves from her arms and unpin the rose in her hair.
Tossing the fallen finery aside, she slipped on a dressing-gown and
opened the door into the drawing-room.

Mr. Spragg was standing near her mother, who sat in a drooping attitude,
her head sunk on her breast, as she did when she had one of her "turns."
He looked up abruptly as Undine entered.

"Father--has mother told you? Mrs. Fairford has asked me to dine. She's
Mrs. Paul Marvell's daughter--Mrs. Marvell was a Dagonet--and they're
sweller than anybody; they WON'T KNOW the Driscolls and Van Degens!"

Mr. Spragg surveyed her with humorous fondness.

"That so? What do they want to know you for, I wonder?" he jeered.

"Can't imagine--unless they think I'll introduce YOU!" she jeered back
in the same key, her arms around his stooping shoulders, her shining
hair against his cheek.

"Well--and are you going to? Have you accepted?" he took up her joke as
she held him pinioned; while Mrs. Spragg, behind them, stirred in her
seat with a little moan.

Undine threw back her head, plunging her eyes in his, and pressing so
close that to his tired elderly sight her face was a mere bright blur.

"I want to awfully," she declared, "but I haven't got a single thing to
wear."

Mrs. Spragg, at this, moaned more audibly. "Undine, I wouldn't ask
father to buy any more clothes right on top of those last bills."

"I ain't on top of those last bills yet--I'm way down under them," Mr.
Spragg interrupted, raising his hands to imprison his daughter's slender
wrists.

"Oh, well--if you want me to look like a scarecrow, and not get asked
again, I've got a dress that'll do PERFECTLY," Undine threatened, in a
tone between banter and vexation.

Mr. Spragg held her away at arm's length, a smile drawing up the loose
wrinkles about his eyes.

"Well, that kind of dress might come in mighty handy on SOME occasions;
so I guess you'd better hold on to it for future use, and go and select
another for this Fairford dinner," he said; and before he could finish
he was in her arms again, and she was smothering his last word in little
cries and kisses.

III

Though she would not for the world have owned it to her parents, Undine
was disappointed in the Fairford din