Undine's eyes opened wide. Here at last was a topic that really interested her, and one that gave another amazing glimpse into the camera obscura of New York society. "Do you mean to say Mabel would be worse off, then? Couldn't she even go round as much as she does now?"
Mrs. Marvell met this gravely. "It would depend, I should say, on the kind of people she wished to see."
"Oh, the very best, of course! That would be her only object."
Ralph interposed with another laugh. "You see, Undine, you'd better think twice before you divorce me!"
"RALPH!" his mother again breathed; but the girl, flushed and sparkling, flung back: "Oh, it all depends on YOU! Out in Apex, if a girl marries a man who don't come up to what she expected, people consider it's to her credit to want to change. YOU'D better think twice of that!"
"If I were only sure of knowing what you expect!" he caught up her joke, tossing it back at her across the fascinated silence of their listeners.
"Why, EVERYTHING!" she announced—and Mr. Dagonet, turning, laid an intricately-veined old hand on, hers, and said, with a change of tone that relaxed the tension of the listeners: "My child, if you look like that you'll get it."
VIII
It was doubtless owing to Mrs. Fairford's foresight that such possibilities of tension were curtailed, after dinner, by her carrying off Ralph and his betrothed to the theatre.
Mr. Dagonet, it was understood, always went to bed after an hour's whist with his daughter; and the silent Mr. Fairford gave his evenings to bridge at his club. The party, therefore, consisted only of Undine and Ralph, with Mrs. Fairford and her attendant friend. Undine vaguely wondered why the grave and grey-haired Mr. Bowen formed so invariable a part of that lady's train; but she concluded that it was the York custom for married ladies to have gentlemen "'round" (as girls had in Apex), and that Mr. Bowen was the sole survivor of Laura Fairford's earlier triumphs.