th
her her two little girls. She seemed extremely attached to both--though
avowing for the younger a preference she frankly ascribed to the
interesting accident of its parentage--and she could not understand that
Undine, as to whose domestic difficulties she minutely informed herself,
should have consented to leave her child to strangers. "For, to one's
child every one but one's self is a stranger; and whatever your
egarements--" she began, breaking off with a stare when Undine
interrupted her to explain that the courts had ascribed all the wrongs
in the case to her husband. "But then--but then--" murmured the
Princess, turning away from the subject as if checked by too deep an
abyss of difference.

The incident had embarrassed Undine, and though she tried to justify
herself by allusions to her boy's dependence on his father's family,
and to the duty of not standing in his way, she saw that she made no
impression. "Whatever one's errors, one's child belongs to one," her
hearer continued to repeat; and Undine, who was frequently scandalized
by the Princess's conversation, now found herself in the odd position
of having to set a watch upon her own in order not to scandalize the
Princess.

Each day, nevertheless, strengthened her hold on her new friends. After
her first flush of triumph she began indeed to suspect that she had been
a slight disappointment to the Princess, had not completely justified
the hopes raised by the doubtful honour of being one of Sacha
Adelschein's intimates. Undine guessed that the Princess had expected to
find her more amusing, "queerer," more startling in speech and conduct.
Though by instinct she was none of these things, she was eager to go as
far as was expected; but she felt that her audacities were on lines
too normal to be interesting, and that the Princess thought her rather
school-girlish and old-fashioned. Still, they had in common their youth,
their boredom, their high spirits and their hunger for amusement; and
Undine was making the most of these ties when one day, coming back from
a trip to Monte-Carlo with the Princess, she was brought up short by the
sight of a lady--evidently a new arrival--who was seated in an attitude
of respectful intimacy beside the old Duchess's chair. Undine, advancing
unheard over the fine gravel of the garden path, recognized at a glance
the Marquise de Trezac's drooping nose and disdainful back, and at the
same moment heard her say: "--And her husband?