merica Mr. Spragg had sent her allowance
regularly; yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls was
already gone, and she knew her Paris season would be far more expensive
than the quiet weeks on the Riviera.

Meanwhile the sense of reviving popularity, and the charm of Chelles'
devotion, had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, and
refurbished that image of herself in other minds which was her only
notion of self-seeing. Under the guidance of Madame de Trezac she had
found a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter,
and in its light bright drawing-room she sat one June afternoon
listening, with all the forbearance of which she was capable, to the
counsels of her newly-acquired guide.

"Everything but marriage--" Madame de Trezac was repeating, her long
head slightly tilted, her features wearing the rapt look of an adept
reciting a hallowed formula.

Raymond de Chelles had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, and
the former Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one of
the fundamental dogmas of her social creed; but Undine was conscious
that the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name. She made no
immediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trezac's dull
countenance, sought her own reflection in the mirror behind her
visitor's chair. A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses of
her hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl's. Undine smiled
faintly at the promise her own eyes gave her, and then turned them back
to her friend. "What can such women know about anything?" she thought
compassionately.

"There's everything against it," Madame de Trezac continued in a tone of
patient exposition. She seemed to be doing her best to make the matter
clear. "In the first place, between people in society a religious
marriage is necessary; and, since the Church doesn't recognize divorce,
that's obviously out of the question. In France, a man of position who
goes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simply
ruining himself and her. They might much better--from her point of
view as well as his--be 'friends,' as it's called over here: such
arrangements are understood and allowed for. But when a Frenchman
marries he wants to marry as his people always have. He knows there are
traditions he can't fight against--and in his heart he's glad there
are."

"Oh, I know: they've so much religious feeling. I admire tha