it's only when you want to be," he said,
grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords, and sitting down astride
of it, his light grey trousers stretching too tightly over his plump
thighs. Undine was perfectly aware that he was a vulgar over-dressed
man, with a red crease of fat above his collar and an impudent
swaggering eye; yet she liked to see him there, and was conscious that
he stirred the fibres of a self she had forgotten but had not ceased to
understand.

She had fancied her avowal of loneliness might call forth some
sentimental phrase; but though Moffatt was clearly pleased to be with
her she saw that she was not the centre of his thoughts, and the
discovery irritated her.

"I don't suppose YOU'VE known what it is to be lonely since you've been
in Europe?" she continued as she held out his tea-cup.

"Oh," he said jocosely, "I don't always go round with a guide"; and she
rejoined on the same note: "Then perhaps I shall see something of you."

"Why, there's nothing would suit me better; but the fact is, I'm
probably sailing next week."

"Oh, are you? I'm sorry." There was nothing feigned in her regret.

"Anything I can do for you across the pond?"

She hesitated. "There's something you can do for me right off."

He looked at her more attentively, as if his practised eve had passed
through the surface of her beauty to what might be going on behind it.
"Do you want my blessing again?" he asked with sudden irony.

Undine opened her eyes with a trustful look. "Yes--I do."

"Well--I'll be damned!" said Moffatt gaily.

"You've always been so awfully nice," she began; and he leaned back,
grasping both sides of the chair-back, and shaking it a little with his
laugh.

He kept the same attitude while she proceeded to unfold her case,
listening to her with the air of sober concentration that his frivolous
face took on at any serious demand on his attention. When she had ended
he kept the same look during an interval of silent pondering. "Is it the
fellow who was over at Nice with you that day?"

She looked at him with surprise. "How did you know?"

"Why, I liked his looks," said Moffatt simply. He got up and strolled
toward the window. On the way he stopped before a table covered with
showy trifles, and after looking at them for a moment singled out a dim
old brown and golden book which Chelles had given her. He examined
it lingeringly, as though it touched the spring of some choked-up
sensibility for wh