Peter Van Degen, who had strayed into his wife's box for a moment,
caught the colloquy, and lifted his opera-glass.
"The fellow next to Miss Spragg? (By George, Ralph, she's ripping
to-night!) Wait a minute--I know his face. Saw him in old Harmon
Driscoll's office the day of the Eubaw Mine meeting. This chap's his
secretary, or something. Driscoll called him in to give some facts to
the directors, and he seemed a mighty wide-awake customer."
Clare Van Degen turned gaily to her cousin. "If he has anything to
do with the Driscolls you'd better cultivate him! That's the kind of
acquaintance the Dagonets have always needed. I married to set them an
example!"
Ralph rose with a laugh. "You're right. I'll hurry back and make
his acquaintance." He held out his hand to his cousin, avoiding her
disappointed eyes.
Undine, on entering her bedroom late that evening, was startled by the
presence of a muffled figure which revealed itself, through the dimness,
as the ungirded midnight outline of Mrs. Spragg.
"MOTHER? What on earth--?" the girl exclaimed, as Mrs. Spragg pressed
the electric button and flooded the room with light. The idea of a
mother's sitting up for her daughter was so foreign to Apex customs
that it roused only mistrust and irritation in the object of the
demonstration.
Mrs. Spragg came forward deprecatingly to lift the cloak from her
daughter's shoulders.
"I just HAD to, Undie--I told father I HAD to. I wanted to hear all
about it."
Undine shrugged away from her. "Mercy! At this hour? You'll be as white
as a sheet to-morrow, sitting up all night like this."
She moved toward the toilet-table, and began to demolish with feverish
hands the structure which Mrs. Heeny, a few hours earlier, had so
lovingly raised. But the rose caught in a mesh of hair, and Mrs. Spragg,
venturing timidly to release it, had a full view of her daughter's face
in the glass.
"Why, Undie, YOU'RE as white as a sheet now! You look fairly sick.
What's the matter, daughter?"
The girl broke away from her.
"Oh, can't you leave me alone, mother? There--do I look white NOW?" she
cried, the blood flaming into her pale cheeks; and as Mrs. Spragg
shrank back, she added more mildly, in the tone of a parent rebuking a
persistent child: "It's enough to MAKE anybody sick to be stared at that
way!"
Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. "I'm so sorry, Undie. I guess
it was just seeing you in this glare of light."
"Yes--the light's awful; do turn some off," ordered Undine, for whom,
ordinarily, no radiance was too strong; and Mrs. Spragg, grateful to
have commands laid upon her, hastened to obey.
Undine, after this, submitted in brooding silence to having her dress
unlaced, and her slippers and dressing-gown brought to her. Mrs. Spragg
visibly yearned to say more, but she restrained the impulse lest it
should provoke her dismissal.
"Won't you take just a sup of milk before you go to bed?" she suggested
at length, as Undine sank into an armchair.
"I've got some for you right here in the parlour."
Without looking up the girl answered: "No. I don't want anything. Do go
to bed."
Her mother seemed to be struggling between the life-long instinct
of obedience and a swift unformulated fear. "I'm going, Undie." She
wavered. "Didn't they receive you right, daughter?" she asked with
sudden resolution.
"What nonsense! How should they receive me? Everybody was lovely to me."
Undine rose to her feet and went on with her undressing, tossing her
clothes on the floor and shaking her hair over her bare shoulders.
Mrs. Spragg stooped to gather up the scattered garments as they fell,
folding them with a wistful caressing touch, and laying them on the
lounge, without daring to raise her eyes to her daughter. It was not
till she heard Undine throw herself on the bed that she went toward her
and drew the coverlet up with deprecating hands.
"Oh, do put the light out--I'm dead tired," the girl grumbled, pressing
her face into the pillow.
Mrs. Spragg turned away obediently; then, gathering all her scattered
impulses into a passionate act of courage, she moved back to the
bedside.
"Undie--you didn't see anybody--I mean at the theatre? ANYBODY YOU
DIDN'T WANT TO SEE?"
Undine, at the question, raised her head and started right against
the tossed pillows, her white exasperated face close to her mother's
twitching features. The two women examined each other a moment, fear
and anger in their crossed glances; then Undine answered: "No, nobody.
Good-night."