The early spring found Undine once more in Paris.
She had every reason to be satisfied with the result of the course she
had pursued since she had pronounced her ultimatum on the subject of
Raymond de Chelles. She had continued to remain on the best of terms
with the Princess, to rise in the estimation of the old Duchess, and
to measure the rapidity of her ascent in the upward gaze of Madame de
Trezac; and she had given Chelles to understand that, if he wished to
renew their acquaintance, he must do so in the shelter of his venerable
aunt's protection.
To the Princess she was careful to make her attitude equally clear. "I
like your cousin very much--he's delightful, and if I'm in Paris this
spring I hope I shall see a great deal of him. But I know how easy it is
for a woman in my position to get talked about--and I have my little boy
to consider."
Nevertheless, whenever Chelles came over from Beaulieu to spend a
day with his aunt and cousin--an excursion he not infrequently
repeated--Undine was at no pains to conceal her pleasure. Nor was there
anything calculated in her attitude. Chelles seemed to her more charming
than ever, and the warmth of his wooing was in flattering contrast to
the cool reserve of his manners. At last she felt herself alive and
young again, and it became a joy to look in her glass and to try on her
new hats and dresses...
The only menace ahead was the usual one of the want of money. While she
had travelled with her parents she had been at relatively small expense,
and since their return to America Mr. Spragg had sent her allowance
regularly; yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls was
already gone, and she knew her Paris season would be far more expensive
than the quiet weeks on the Riviera.
Meanwhile the sense of reviving popularity, and the charm of Chelles'
devotion, had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, and
refurbished that image of herself in other minds which was her only
notion of self-seeing. Under the guidance of Madame de Trezac she had
found a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter,
and in its light bright drawing-room she sat one June afternoon
listening, with all the forbearance of which she was capable, to the
counsels of her newly-acquired guide.
"Everything but marriage--" Madame de Trezac was repeating, her long
head slightly tilted, her features wearing the rapt look of an adept
reciting a hallowed formula.
Raymond de Chelles had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, and
the former Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one of
the fundamental dogmas of her social creed; but Undine was conscious
that the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name. She made no
immediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trezac's dull
countenance, sought her own reflection in the mirror behind her
visitor's chair. A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses of
her hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl's. Undine smiled
faintly at the promise her own eyes gave her, and then turned them back
to her friend. "What can such women know about anything?" she thought
compassionately.
"There's everything against it," Madame de Trezac continued in a tone of
patient exposition. She seemed to be doing her best to make the matter
clear. "In the first place, between people in society a religious
marriage is necessary; and, since the Church doesn't recognize divorce,
that's obviously out of the question. In France, a man of position who
goes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simply
ruining himself and her. They might much better--from her point of
view as well as his--be 'friends,' as it's called over here: such
arrangements are understood and allowed for. But when a Frenchman
marries he wants to marry as his people always have. He knows there are
traditions he can't fight against--and in his heart he's glad there
are."
"Oh, I know: they've so much religious feeling. I admire that in them:
their religion's so beautiful." Undine looked thoughtfully at her
visitor. "I suppose even money--a great deal of money--wouldn't make the
least bit of difference?"
"None whatever, except to make matters worse," Madame de Trezac
decisively rejoined. She returned Undine's look with something of Miss
Wincher's contemptuous authority. "But," she added, softening to a
smile, "between ourselves--I can say it, since we're neither of us
children--a woman with tact, who's not in a position to remarry, will
find society extremely indulgent... provided, of course, she keeps up
appearances..."
Undine turned to her with the frown of a startled Diana. "We don't look
at things that way out at Apex," she said coldly; and the blood rose in
Madame de Trezac's sallow cheek.
"Oh, my dear, it's so refreshing to hear you talk like that! Personally,
of course, I've never quite got used to the French view--"
"I hope no American woman ever does," said Undine.
She had been in Paris for about two months when this conversation took
place, and in spite of her reviving self-confidence she was beginning to
recognize the strength of the forces opposed to her. It had taken a long
time to convince her that even money could not prevail against them;
and, in the intervals of expressing her admiration for the Catholic
creed, she now had violent reactions of militant Protestantism, during
which she talked of the tyranny of Rome and recalled school stories of
immoral Popes and persecuting Jesuits.
Meanwhile her demeanour to Chelles was that of the incorruptible but
fearless American woman, who cannot even conceive of love outside of
marriage, but is ready to give her devoted friendship to the man on
whom, in happier circumstances, she might have bestowed her hand. This
attitude was provocative of many scenes, during which her suitor's
unfailing powers of expression--his gift of looking and saying all
the desperate and devoted things a pretty woman likes to think she
inspires--gave Undine the thrilling sense of breathing the very air of
French fiction. But she was aware that too prolonged tension of these
cords usually ends in their snapping, and that Chelles' patience was
probably in inverse ratio to his ardour.
When Madame de Trezac had left her these thoughts remained in her mind.
She understood exactly what each of her new friends wanted of her. The
Princess, who was fond of her cousin, and had the French sense of family
solidarity, would have liked to see Chelles happy in what seemed to her
the only imaginable way. Madame de Trezac would have liked to do what
she could to second the Princess's efforts in this or any other line;
and even the old Duchess--though piously desirous of seeing her
favourite nephew married--would have thought it not only natural but
inevitable that, while awaiting that happy event, he should try to
induce an amiable young woman to mitigate the drawbacks of celibacy.
Meanwhile, they might one and all weary of her if Chelles did; and
a persistent rejection of his suit would probably imperil her
scarcely-gained footing among his friends. All this was clear to her,
yet it did not shake her resolve. She was determined to give up Chelles
unless he was willing to marry her; and the thought of her renunciation
moved her to a kind of wistful melancholy.
In this mood her mind reverted to a letter she had just received from
her mother. Mrs. Spragg wrote more fully than usual, and the unwonted
flow of her pen had been occasioned by an event for which she had long
yearned. For months she had pined for a sight of her grandson, had tried
to screw up her courage to write and ask permission to visit him, and,
finally breaking through her sedentary habits, had begun to haunt the
neighbourhood of Washington Square, with the result that one afternoon
she had had the luck to meet the little boy coming out of the house with
his nurse. She had spoken to him, and he had remembered her and called
her "Granny"; and the next day she had received a note from Mrs.
Fairford saying that Ralph would be glad to send Paul to see her. Mrs.
Spragg enlarged on the delights of the visit and the growing beauty and
cleverness of her grandson. She described to Undine exactly how Paul
was dressed, how he looked and what he said, and told her how he had
examined everything in the room, and, finally coming upon his mother's
photograph, had asked who the lady was; and, on being told, had wanted
to know if she was a very long way off, and when Granny thought she
would come back.
As Undine re-read her mother's pages, she felt an unusual tightness in
her throat and two tears rose to her eyes. It was dreadful that her
little boy should be growing up far away from her, perhaps dressed in
clothes she would have hated; and wicked and unnatural that when he saw
her picture he should have to be told who she was. "If I could only meet
some good man who would give me a home and be a father to him," she
thought--and the tears overflowed and ran down.
Even as they fell, the door was thrown open to admit Raymond de Chelles,
and the consciousness of the moisture still glistening on her cheeks
perhaps strengthened her resolve to resist him, and thus made her more
imperiously to be desired. Certain it is that on that day her suitor
first alluded to a possibility which Madame de Trezac had prudently
refrained from suggesting, there fell upon Undine's attentive ears the
magic phrase "annulment of marriage."
Her alert intelligence immediately set to work in this new direction;
but almost at the same moment she became aware of a subtle change
of tone in the Princess and her mother, a change reflected in the
corresponding decline of Madame de Trezac's cordiality. Undine, since
her arrival in Paris, had necessarily been less in the Princess's
company, but when they met she had found her as friendly as ever. It was
manifestly not a failing of the Princess's to forget past favours, and
though increasingly absorbed by the demands of town life she treated her
new friend with the same affectionate frankness, and Undine was given
frequent opportunities to enlarge her Parisian acquaintance, not only in
the Princess's intimate circle but in the majestic drawing-rooms of the
Hotel de Dordogne. Now, however, there was a perceptible decline in
these signs of hospitality, and Undine, on calling one day on the
Duchess, noticed that her appearance sent a visible flutter of
discomfort through the circle about her hostess's chair. Two or three of
the ladies present looked away from the new-comer and at each other,
and several of them seemed spontaneously to encircle without approaching
her, while another--grey-haired, elderly and slightly frightened--with
an "Adieu, ma bonne tante" to the Duchess, was hastily aided in her
retreat down the long line of old gilded rooms.
The incident was too mute and rapid to have been noticeable had it not
been followed by the Duchess's resuming her conversation with the ladies
nearest her as though Undine had just gone out of the room instead of
entering it. The sense of having been thus rendered invisible filled
Undine with a vehement desire to make herself seen, and an equally
strong sense that all attempts to do so would be vain; and when, a few
minutes later, she issued from the portals of the Hotel de Dordogne it
was with the fixed resolve not to enter them again till she had had an
explanation with the Princess.
She was spared the trouble of seeking one by the arrival, early the next
morning, of Madame de Trezac, who, entering almost with the breakfast
tray, mysteriously asked to be allowed to communicate something of
importance.
"You'll understand, I know, the Princess's not coming herself--" Madame
de Trezac began, sitting up very straight on the edge of the arm-chair
over which Undine's lace dressing-gown hung.
"If there's anything she wants to say to me, I don't," Undine answered,
leaning back among her rosy pillows, and reflecting compassionately that
the face opposite her was just the colour of the café au lait she was
pouring out.
"There are things that are...that might seem too pointed...if one said
them one's self," Madame de Trezac continued. "Our dear Lili's so
good-natured... she so hates to do anything unfriendly; but she
naturally thinks first of her mother..."
"Her mother? What's the matter with her mother?"
"I told her I knew you didn't understand. I was sure you'd take it in
good part..."