he
drawing-room, waiting for her to come down, a servant came in with the
Sunday papers. Ralph picked one up, and was absently unfolding it when
his eye fell on his own name: a sight he had been spared since the last
echoes of his divorce had subsided. His impulse was to fling the paper
down, to hurl it as far from him as he could; but a grim fascination
tightened his hold and drew his eyes back to the hated head-line.

NEW YORK BEAUTY WEDS FRENCH NOBLEMAN MRS. UNDINE MARVELL CONFIDENT POPE
WILL ANNUL PREVIOUS MARRIAGE MRS. MARVELL TALKS ABOUT HER CASE

There it was before him in all its long-drawn horror--an "interview"--an
"interview" of Undine's about her coming marriage! Ah, she talked about
her case indeed! Her confidences filled the greater part of a column,
and the only detail she seemed to have omitted was the name of her
future husband, who was referred to by herself as "my fiance" and by
the interviewer as "the Count" or "a prominent scion of the French
nobility."

Ralph heard Laura's step behind him. He threw the paper aside and their
eyes met.

"Is this what you wanted to tell me last night?"

"Last night?--Is it in the papers?"

"Who told you? Bowen? What else has he heard?"

"Oh, Ralph, what does it matter--what can it matter?"

"Who's the man? Did he tell you that?" Ralph insisted. He saw her
growing agitation. "Why can't you answer? Is it any one I know?"

"He was told in Paris it was his friend Raymond de Chelles."

Ralph laughed, and his laugh sounded in his own ears like an echo of the
dreary mirth with which he had filled Mr. Spragg's office the day he
had learned that Undine intended to divorce him. But now his wrath was
seasoned with a wholesome irony. The fact of his wife's having reached
another stage in her ascent fell into its place as a part of the huge
human buffoonery.

"Besides," Laura went on, "it's all perfect nonsense, of course. How in
the world can she have her marriage annulled?"

Ralph pondered: this put the matter in another light. "With a great deal
of money I suppose she might."

"Well, she certainly won't get that from Chelles. He's far from rich,
Charles tells me." Laura waited, watching him, before she risked:
"That's what convinces me she wouldn't have him if she could."

Ralph shrugged. "There may be other inducements. But she won't be able
to manage it." He heard himself speaking quite collectedly. Had Undine
at last lost her power of wounding him?

Clare