suddenly younger and more animated,
and when she saw other women looking at him she remembered how
distinguished he was. It amused her to have him in her train, and
driving about with him to dinners and dances, waiting for him on
flower-decked landings, or pushing at his side through blazing
theatre-lobbies, answered to her inmost ideal of domestic intimacy.

He seemed disposed to allow her more liberty than before, and it was
only now and then that he let drop a brief reminder of the conditions on
which it was accorded. She was to keep certain people at a distance,
she was not to cheapen herself by being seen at vulgar restaurants
and tea-rooms, she was to join with him in fulfilling certain family
obligations (going to a good many dull dinners among the number); but in
other respects she was free to fill her days as she pleased.

"Not that it leaves me much time," she admitted to Madame de Trezac;
"what with going to see his mother every day, and never missing one of
his sisters' jours, and showing myself at the Hotel de Dordogne whenever
the Duchess gives a pay-up party to the stuffy people Lili Estradina
won't be bothered with, there are days when I never lay eyes on Paul,
and barely have time to be waved and manicured; but, apart from that,
Raymond's really much nicer and less fussy than he was."

Undine, as she grew older, had developed her mother's craving for a
confidante, and Madame de Trezac had succeeded in that capacity to Mabel
Lipscomb and Bertha Shallum.

"Less fussy?" Madame de Trezac's long nose lengthened thoughtfully.
"H'm--are you sure that's a good sign?"

Undine stared and laughed. "Oh, my dear, you're so quaint! Why, nobody's
jealous any more."

"No; that's the worst of it." Madame de Trezac pondered. "It's a
thousand pities you haven't got a son."

"Yes; I wish we had." Undine stood up, impatient to end the
conversation. Since she had learned that her continued childlessness
was regarded by every one about her as not only unfortunate but somehow
vaguely derogatory to her, she had genuinely begun to regret it; and any
allusion to the subject disturbed her.

"Especially," Madame de Trezac continued, "as Hubert's wife--"

"Oh, if THAT'S all they want, it's a pity Raymond didn't marry Hubert's
wife," Undine flung back; and on the stairs she murmured to herself:
"Nettie has been talking to my mother-in-law."

But this explanation did not quiet her, and that evening, as she and
Raymond drov