marriage
annulled? Who can have put such a mad idea into your head?"

Undine's gaze followed the pattern she was tracing with a lustrous nail
on her embroidered bedspread. "Raymond himself," she let fall.

This time there was no mistaking the effect she produced. Madame de
Trezac, with a murmured "Oh," sat gazing before her as if she had
lost the thread of her argument; and it was only after a considerable
interval that she recovered it sufficiently to exclaim: "They'll never
hear of it--absolutely never!"

"But they can't prevent it, can they?"

"They can prevent its being of any use to you."

"I see," Undine pensively assented.

She knew the tone she had taken was virtually a declaration of war; but
she was in a mood when the act of defiance, apart from its strategic
value, was a satisfaction in itself. Moreover, if she could not gain
her end without a fight it was better that the battle should be
engaged while Raymond's ardour was at its height. To provoke immediate
hostilities she sent for him the same afternoon, and related, quietly
and without comment, the incident of her visit to the Duchess, and
the mission with which Madame de Trezac had been charged. In the
circumstances, she went on to explain, it was manifestly impossible that
she should continue to receive his visits; and she met his wrathful
comments on his relatives by the gently but firmly expressed resolve not
to be the cause of any disagreement between himself and his family.

XXX

A few days after her decisive conversation with Raymond de Chelles,
Undine, emerging from the doors of the Nouveau Luxe, where she had been
to call on the newly-arrived Mrs. Homer Branney, once more found herself
face to face with Elmer Moffatt.

This time there was no mistaking his eagerness to be recognized. He
stopped short as they met, and she read such pleasure in his eyes that
she too stopped, holding out her hand.

"I'm glad you're going to speak to me," she said, and Moffatt reddened at
the allusion.

"Well, I very nearly didn't. I didn't know you. You look about as old as
you did when I first landed at Apex--remember?"

He turned back and began to walk at her side in the direction of the
Champs Elysees.

"Say--this is all right!" he exclaimed; and she saw that his glance had
left her and was ranging across the wide silvery square ahead of them to
the congregated domes and spires beyond the river.

"Do you like Paris?" she asked, wondering what