"What do you say to Nice to-morrow, dearest?" the Princess suggested
a few evenings later as she followed Undine upstairs after a languid
evening at bridge with the Duchess and Madame de Trezac.
Half-way down the passage she stopped to open a door and, putting her
finger to her lip, signed to Undine to enter. In the taper-lit dimness
stood two small white beds, each surmounted by a crucifix and a palm
branch, and each containing a small brown sleeping child with a mop of
hair and a curiously finished little face. As the Princess stood gazing
on their innocent slumbers she seemed for a moment like a third little
girl scarcely bigger and browner than the others; and the smile with
which she watched them was as clear as theirs. "Ah, si seulement je
pouvais choisir leurs amants!" she sighed as she turned away.
"--Nice to-morrow," she repeated, as she and Undine walked on to their
rooms with linked arms. "We may as well make hay while the Trezac
shines. She bores Mamma frightfully, but Mamma won't admit it because
they belong to the same oeuvres. Shall it be the eleven train, dear?
We can lunch at the Royal and look in the shops--we may meet somebody
amusing. Anyhow, it's better than staying here!"
Undine was sure the trip to Nice would be delightful. Their previous
expeditions had shown her the Princess's faculty for organizing such
adventures. At Monte-Carlo, a few days before, they had run across two
or three amusing but unassorted people, and the Princess, having fused
them in a jolly lunch, had followed it up by a bout at baccarat, and,
finally hunting down an eminent composer who had just arrived to
rehearse a new production, had insisted on his asking the party to tea,
and treating them to fragments of his opera.
A few days earlier, Undine's hope of renewing such pleasures would have
been clouded by the dread of leaving Madame de Trezac alone with the
Duchess. But she had no longer any fear of Madame de Trezac. She had
discovered that her old rival of Potash Springs was in actual dread
of her disfavour, and nervously anxious to conciliate her, and the
discovery gave her such a sense of the heights she had scaled, and the
security of her footing, that all her troubled past began to seem like
the result of some providential "design," and vague impulses of piety
stirred in her as she and the Princess whirled toward Nice through the
blue and gold glitter of the morning.
They wandered about the lively streets, they gazed into the beguiling
shops, the Princess tried on hats and Undine bought them, and they
lunched at the Royal on all sorts of succulent dishes prepared under
the head-waiter's special supervision. But as they were savouring
their "double" coffee and liqueurs, and Undine was wondering what her
companion would devise for the afternoon, the Princess clapped her hands
together and cried out: "Dearest, I'd forgotten! I must desert you."
She explained that she'd promised the Duchess to look up a friend who
was ill--a poor wretch who'd been sent to Cimiez for her lungs--and that
she must rush off at once, and would be back as soon as possible--well,
if not in an hour, then in two at latest. She was full of compunction,
but she knew Undine would forgive her, and find something amusing to
fill up the time: she advised her to go back and buy the black hat with
the osprey, and try on the crepe de Chine they'd thought so smart: for
any one as good-looking as herself the woman would probably alter it for
nothing; and they could meet again at the Palace Tea-Rooms at four. She
whirled away in a cloud of explanations, and Undine, left alone, sat
down on the Promenade des Anglais. She did not believe a word the
Princess had said. She had seen in a flash why she was being left, and
why the plan had not been divulged to her before-hand; and she
quivered with resentment and humiliation. "That's what she's wanted me
for...that's why she made up to me. She's trying it to-day, and after
this it'll happen regularly...she'll drag me over here every day or
two...at least she thinks she will!"
A sincere disgust was Undine's uppermost sensation. She was as much
ashamed as Mrs. Spragg might have been at finding herself used to screen
a clandestine adventure.
"I'll let her see... I'll make her understand," she repeated angrily;
and for a moment she was half-disposed to drive to the station and take
the first train back. But the sense of her precarious situation withheld
her; and presently, with bitterness in her heart, she got up and began
to stroll toward the shops.
To show that she was not a dupe, she arrived at the designated
meeting-place nearly an hour later than the time appointed; but when she
entered the Tea-Rooms the Princess was nowhere to be seen. The rooms
were crowded, and Undine was guided toward a small inner apartment
where isolated couples were absorbing refreshments in an atmosphere of
intimacy that made it seem incongruous to be alone. She glanced about
for a face she knew, but none was visible, and she was just giving up
the search when she beheld Elmer Moffatt shouldering his way through the
crowd.
The sight was so surprising that she sat gazing with unconscious fixity
at the round black head and glossy reddish face which kept appearing and
disappearing through the intervening jungle of aigrettes. It was long
since she had either heard of Moffatt or thought about him, and now, in
her loneliness and exasperation, she took comfort in the sight of his
confident capable face, and felt a longing to hear his voice and unbosom
her woes to him. She had half risen to attract his attention when she
saw him turn back and make way for a companion, who was cautiously
steering her huge feathered hat between the tea-tables. The woman was
of the vulgarest type; everything about her was cheap and gaudy. But
Moffatt was obviously elated: he stood aside with a flourish to usher
her in, and as he followed he shot out a pink shirt-cuff with jewelled
links, and gave his moustache a gallant twist. Undine felt an
unreasoning irritation: she was vexed with him both for not being alone
and for being so vulgarly accompanied. As the couple seated themselves
she caught Moffatt's glance and saw him redden to the edge of his white
forehead; but he elaborately avoided her eye--he evidently wanted her to
see him do it--and proceeded to minister to his companion's wants with
an air of experienced gallantry.
The incident, trifling as it was, filled up the measure of Undine's
bitterness. She thought Moffatt pitiably ridiculous, and she hated him
for showing himself in such a light at that particular moment. Her mind
turned back to her own grievance, and she was just saying to herself
that nothing on earth should prevent her letting the Princess know what
she thought of her, when the lady in question at last appeared. She came
hurriedly forward and behind her Undine perceived the figure of a slight
quietly dressed man, as to whom her immediate impression was that he
made every one else in the room look as common as Moffatt. An instant
later the colour had flown to her face and her hand was in Raymond de
Chelles, while the Princess, murmuring: "Cimiez's such a long way off;
but you WILL forgive me?" looked into her eyes with a smile that added:
"See how I pay for what I get!"
Her first glance showed Undine how glad Raymond de Chelles was to see
her. Since their last meeting his admiration for her seemed not only to
have increased but to have acquired a different character. Undine, at
an earlier stage in her career, might not have known exactly what the
difference signified; but it was as clear to her now as if the Princess
had said--what her beaming eyes seemed, in fact, to convey--"I'm only
too glad to do my cousin the same kind of turn you're doing me."
But Undine's increased experience, if it had made her more vigilant,
had also given her a clearer measure of her power. She saw at once
that Chelles, in seeking to meet her again, was not in quest of a mere
passing adventure. He was evidently deeply drawn to her, and her present
situation, if it made it natural to regard her as more accessible, had
not altered the nature of his feeling. She saw and weighed all this in
the first five minutes during which, over tea and muffins, the Princess
descanted on her luck in happening to run across her cousin, and
Chelles, his enchanted eyes on Undine, expressed his sense of his good
fortune. He was staying, it appeared, with friends at Beaulieu, and had
run over to Nice that afternoon by the merest chance: he added that,
having just learned of his aunt's presence in the neighbourhood, he had
already planned to present his homage to her.
"Oh, don't come to us--we're too dull!" the Princess exclaimed. "Let us
run over occasionally and call on you: we're dying for a pretext, aren't
we?" she added, smiling at Undine.
The latter smiled back vaguely, and looked across the room. Moffatt,
looking flushed and foolish, was just pushing back his chair. To carry
off his embarrassment he put an additional touch of importance; and as
he swaggered out behind his companion, Undine said to herself, with a
shiver: "If he'd been alone they would have found me taking tea with
him."
Undine, during the ensuing weeks, returned several times to Nice with
the Princess; but, to the latter's surprise, she absolutely refused to
have Raymond de Chelles included in their luncheon-parties, or even
apprised in advance of their expeditions.
The Princess, always impatient of unnecessary dissimulation, had not
attempted to keep up the feint of the interesting invalid at Cimiez. She
confessed to Undine that she was drawn to Nice by the presence there of
the person without whom, for the moment, she found life intolerable,
and whom she could not well receive under the same roof with her little
girls and her mother. She appealed to Undine's sisterly heart to feel
for her in her difficulty, and implied that--as her conduct had already
proved--she would always be ready to render her friend a like service.
It was at this point that Undine checked her by a decided word. "I
understand your position, and I'm very sorry for you, of course," she
began (the Princess stared at the "sorry"). "Your secret's perfectly
safe with me, and I'll do anything I can for you...but if I go to Nice
with you again you must promise not to ask your cousin to meet us."
The Princess's face expressed the most genuine astonishment. "Oh, my
dear, do forgive me if I've been stupid! He admires you so tremendously;
and I thought--"
"You'll do as I ask, please--won't you?" Undine went on, ignoring the
interruption and looking straight at her under level brows; and the
Princess, with a shrug, merely murmured: "What a pity! I fancied you
liked him."