Indiana, without appearing to resent this challenge, again lost herself in meditation.
"Well, I'll tell him he's just GOT to see you," she finally emerged from it to say.
Undine gave a quick upward look: this was what she had been waiting for ever since she had read, a few days earlier, in the columns of her morning journal, that Mr. Peter Van Degen and Mr. and Mrs. James J. Rolliver had been fellow-passengers on board the Semantic. But she did not betray her expectations by as much as the tremor of an eye-lash. She knew her friend well enough to pour out to her the expected tribute of surprise.
"Why, do you mean to say you know him, Indiana?"
"Mercy, yes! He's round here all the time. He crossed on the steamer with us, and Mr. Rolliver's taken a fancy to him," Indiana explained, in the tone of the absorbed bride to whom her husband's preferences are the sole criterion.
Undine turned a tear-suffused gaze on her. "Oh, Indiana, if I could only see him again I know it would be all right! He's awfully, awfully fond of me; but his family have influenced him against me—"
"I know what THAT is!" Mrs. Rolliver interjected.
"But perhaps," Undine continued, "it would be better if I could meet him first without his knowing beforehand—without your telling him … I love him too much to reproach him!" she added nobly.
Indiana pondered: it was clear that, though the nobility of the sentiment impressed her, she was disinclined to renounce the idea of taking a more active part in her friend's rehabilitation. But Undine went on: "Of course you've found out by this time that he's just a big spoiled baby. Afterward—when I've seen him—if you'd talk to him; or it you'd only just let him BE with you, and see how perfectly happy you and Mr. Rolliver are!"
Indiana seized on this at once. "You mean that what he wants is the influence of a home like ours? Yes, yes, I understand. I tell you what I'll do: I'll just ask him round to dine, and let you know the day, without telling him beforehand that you're coming."