and Paul's
fate was sealed. His mother refused to give him up, refused to await
the arrival of her lawyer's letter, and reiterated, in more peremptory
language, her demand that the child should be sent immediately to Paris
in Mrs. Heeny's care.

Mr. Spragg, in face of Ralph's entreaties, remained pacific but remote.
It was evident that, though he had no wish to quarrel with Ralph, he saw
no reason for resisting Undine. "I guess she's got the law on her side,"
he said; and in response to Ralph's passionate remonstrances he added
fatalistically: "I presume you'll have to leave the matter to my
daughter."

Ralph had gone to the office resolved to control his temper and keep
on the watch for any shred of information he might glean; but it soon
became clear that Mr. Spragg knew as little as himself of Undine's
projects, or of the stage her plans had reached. All she had apparently
vouchsafed her parent was the statement that she intended to re-marry,
and the command to send Paul over; and Ralph reflected that his own
betrothal to her had probably been announced to Mr. Spragg in the same
curt fashion.

The thought brought back an overwhelming sense of the past. One by one
the details of that incredible moment revived, and he felt in his
veins the glow of rapture with which he had first approached the dingy
threshold he was now leaving. There came back to him with peculiar
vividness the memory of his rushing up to Mr. Spragg's office to consult
him about a necklace for Undine. Ralph recalled the incident because his
eager appeal for advice had been received by Mr. Spragg with the very
phrase he had just used: "I presume you'll have to leave the matter to
my daughter."

Ralph saw him slouching in his chair, swung sideways from the untidy
desk, his legs stretched out, his hands in his pockets, his jaws engaged
on the phantom tooth-pick; and, in a corner of the office, the
figure of a middle-sized red-faced young man who seemed to have been
interrupted in the act of saying something disagreeable.

"Why, it must have been then that I first saw Moffatt," Ralph reflected;
and the thought suggested the memory of other, subsequent meetings in
the same building, and of frequent ascents to Moffatt's office during
the ardent weeks of their mysterious and remunerative "deal."

Ralph wondered if Moffatt's office were still in the Ararat; and on the
way out he paused before the black tablet affixed to the wall of the
vestibule and