ed to her it struck root in her mind and began to throw out
giant branches. Van Degen followed her to the window, his face still
flushed and working. "What's the matter?" he asked, as she continued to
stare silently at the telegram.

She crumpled the strip of paper in her hand. If only she had been alone,
had had a chance to think out her answers!

"What on earth's the matter?" he repeated.

"Oh, nothing--nothing."

"Nothing? When you're as white as a sheet?"

"Am I?" She gave a slight laugh. "It's only a cable from home."

"Ralph?"

She hesitated. "No. Laura."

"What the devil is SHE cabling you about?"

"She says Ralph wants me."

"Now--at once?"

"At once."

Van Degen laughed impatiently. "Why don't he tell you so himself? What
business is it of Laura Fairford's?"

Undine's gesture implied a "What indeed?"

"Is that all she says?"

She hesitated again. "Yes--that's all." As she spoke she tossed the
telegram into the basket beneath the writing-table. "As if I didn't HAVE
to go anyhow?" she exclaimed.

With an aching clearness of vision she saw what lay before her--the
hurried preparations, the long tedious voyage on a steamer chosen at
haphazard, the arrival in the deadly July heat, and the relapse into all
the insufferable daily fag of nursery and kitchen--she saw it and her
imagination recoiled.

Van Degen's eyes still hung on her: she guessed that he was intensely
engaged in trying to follow what was passing through her mind. Presently
he came up to her again, no longer perilous and importunate, but
awkwardly tender, ridiculously moved by her distress.

"Undine, listen: won't you let me make it all right for you to stay?"

Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close,
meeting his eyes coldly but without anger.

"What do you call 'making it all right'? Paying my bills? Don't you see
that's what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?"
She laid her hand on his arm. "The time has come when I must be
sensible, Peter; that's why we must say good-bye."

"Do you mean to tell me you're going back to Ralph?"

She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: "I shall never
go back to him."

"Then you DO mean to marry Chelles?"

"I've told you we must say good-bye. I've got to look out for my
future."

He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatient
senses labouring with a problem beyond their power. "Ain't I here to
look o