. If they don't know ME they ain't in
it, and Claud Walsingham Popple's in it. But he ain't nearly AS in it,"
she continued judicially, "as Ralph Marvell--the little fellow, as you
call him."

Undine Spragg, at the word, swept round on the speaker with one of the
quick turns that revealed her youthful flexibility. She was always
doubling and twisting on herself, and every movement she made seemed
to start at the nape of her neck, just below the lifted roll of
reddish-gold hair, and flow without a break through her whole slim
length to the tips of her fingers and the points of her slender restless
feet.

"Why, do you know the Marvells? Are THEY stylish?" she asked.

Mrs. Heeny gave the discouraged gesture of a pedagogue who has vainly
striven to implant the rudiments of knowledge in a rebellious mind.

"Why, Undine Spragg, I've told you all about them time and again!
His mother was a Dagonet. They live with old Urban Dagonet down in
Washington Square."

To Mrs. Spragg this conveyed even less than to her daughter, "'way down
there? Why do they live with somebody else? Haven't they got the means
to have a home of their own?"

Undine's perceptions were more rapid, and she fixed her eyes searchingly
on Mrs. Heeny.

"Do you mean to say Mr. Marvell's as swell as Mr. Popple?"

"As swell? Why, Claud Walsingham Popple ain't in the same class with
him!"

The girl was upon her mother with a spring, snatching and smoothing out
the crumpled note.

"Laura Fairford--is that the sister's name?"

"Mrs. Henley Fairford; yes. What does she write about?"

Undine's face lit up as if a shaft of sunset had struck it through the
triple-curtained windows of the Stentorian.

"She says she wants me to dine with her next Wednesday. Isn't it queer?
Why does SHE want me? She's never seen me!" Her tone implied that she
had long been accustomed to being "wanted" by those who had.

Mrs. Heeny laughed. "HE saw you, didn't he?"

"Who? Ralph Marvell? Why, of course he did--Mr. Popple brought him to
the party here last night."

"Well, there you are... When a young man in society wants to meet a girl
again, he gets his sister to ask her."

Undine stared at her incredulously. "How queer! But they haven't all
got sisters, have they? It must be fearfully poky for the ones that
haven't."

"They get their mothers--or their married friends," said Mrs. Heeny
omnisciently.

"Married gentlemen?" enquired Mrs. Spragg, slightly shocked, but
g