Undine had been right in supposing that her husband would expect
their life to go on as before. There was no appreciable change in the
situation save that he was more often absent-finding abundant reasons,
agricultural and political, for frequent trips to Saint Desert--and
that, when in Paris, he no longer showed any curiosity concerning her
occupations and engagements. They lived as much apart is if their
cramped domicile had been a palace; and when Undine--as she now
frequently did--joined the Shallums or Rollivers for a dinner at the
Nouveau Luxe, or a party at a petit theatre, she was not put to the
trouble of prevaricating.
Her first impulse, after her scene with Raymond, had been to ring up
Indiana Rolliver and invite herself to dine. It chanced that Indiana
(who was now in full social progress, and had "run over" for a few weeks
to get her dresses for Newport) had organized for the same evening a
showy cosmopolitan banquet in which she was enchanted to include the
Marquise de Chelles; and Undine, as she had hoped, found Elmer Moffatt
of the party. When she drove up to the Nouveau Luxe she had not fixed
on any plan of action; but once she had crossed its magic threshold her
energies revived like plants in water. At last she was in her native air
again, among associations she shared and conventions she understood; and
all her self-confidence returned as the familiar accents uttered the
accustomed things.
Save for an occasional perfunctory call, she had hitherto made no effort
to see her compatriots, and she noticed that Mrs. Jim Driscoll and
Bertha Shallum received her with a touch of constraint; but it vanished
when they remarked the cordiality of Moffatt's greeting. Her seat was
at his side, and her old sense of triumph returned as she perceived the
importance his notice conferred, not only in the eyes of her own party
but of the other diners. Moffatt was evidently a notable figure in all
the worlds represented about the crowded tables, and Undine saw that
many people who seemed personally unacquainted with him were recognizing
and pointing him out. She was conscious of receiving a large share of
the attention he attracted, and, bathed again in the bright air of
publicity, she remembered the evening when Raymond de Chelles' first
admiring glance had given her the same sense of triumph.
This inopportune memory did not trouble her: she was almost grateful to
Raymond for giving her the touch of superiority her compatriots clearly
felt in her. It was not merely her title and her "situation," but the
experiences she had gained through them, that gave her this advantage
over the loud vague company. She had learned things they did not guess:
shades of conduct, turns of speech, tricks of attitude--and easy and
free and enviable as she thought them, she would not for the world have
been back among them at the cost of knowing no more than they.
Moffatt made no allusion to his visit to Saint Desert; but when the
party had re-grouped itself about coffee and liqueurs on the terrace, he
bent over to ask confidentially: "What about my tapestries?"
She replied in the same tone: "You oughtn't to have let Fleischhauer
write that letter. My husband's furious."