"Oh, I don't care. You're welcome to tell Raymond you've heard me insulted because I'm too poor to pay my bills—he knows it well enough already!" The words broke from Undine unguardedly, but once spoken they nourished her defiance.
"I'm sure my son has frequently recommended greater prudence—" the
Marquise murmured.
"Yes! It's a pity he didn't recommend it to your other son instead! All the money I was entitled to has gone to pay Hubert's debts."
"Raymond has told me that there are certain things you fail to understand—I have no wish whatever to discuss them." The Marquise had gone toward the door; with her hand on it she paused to add: "I shall say nothing whatever of what has happened."
Her icy magnanimity added the last touch to Undine's wrath. They knew her extremity, one and all, and it did not move them. At most, they would join in concealing it like a blot on their honour. And the menace grew and mounted, and not a hand was stretched to help her….
Hardly a half-hour earlier Moffatt, with whom she had been visiting a "private view," had sent her home in his motor with the excuse that he must hurry back to the Nouveau Luxe to meet his stenographer and sign a batch of letters for the New York mail. It was therefore probable that he was still at home—that she should find him if she hastened there at once. An overwhelming desire to cry out her wrath and wretchedness brought her to her feet and sent her down to hail a passing cab. As it whirled her through the bright streets powdered with amber sunlight her brain throbbed with confused intentions. She did not think of Moffatt as a power she could use, but simply as some one who knew her and understood her grievance. It was essential to her at that moment to be told that she was right and that every one opposed to her was wrong.
At the hotel she asked his number and was carried up in the lift. On the landing she paused a moment, disconcerted—it had occurred to her that he might not be alone. But she walked on quickly, found the number and knocked…. Moffatt opened the door, and she glanced beyond him and saw that the big bright sitting-room was empty.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, surprised; and as he stood aside to let her enter she saw him draw out his watch and glance at it surreptitiously. He was expecting someone, or he had an engagement elsewhere—something claimed him from which she was excluded. The thought flushed her with sudden resolution. She knew now what she had come for—to keep him from every one else, to keep him for herself alone.
"Don't send me away!" she said, and laid her hand on his beseechingly.