He looked at her with wonder. "If that were all! In any case I should have to be back in a few weeks."
"But we needn't have left here in August! It's the first place in Europe that I've liked, and it's just my luck to be dragged away from it!"
"I'm so awfully sorry, dearest. It's my fault for persuading you to marry a pauper."
"It's father's fault. Why on earth did he go and speculate? There's no use his saying he's sorry now!" She sat brooding for a moment and then suddenly took Ralph's hand. "Couldn't your people do something—help us out just this once, I mean?"
He flushed to the forehead: it seemed inconceivable that she should make such a suggestion.
"I couldn't ask them—it's not possible. My grandfather does as much as he can for me, and my mother has nothing but what he gives her."
Undine seemed unconscious of his embarrassment. "He doesn't give us nearly as much as father does," she said; and, as Ralph remained silent, she went on:
"Couldn't you ask your sister, then? I must have some clothes to go home in."
His heart contracted as he looked at her. What sinister change came over her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible, implacable—her eyes were like the eyes of an enemy.
"I don't know—I'll see," he said, rising and moving away from her. At that moment the touch of her hand was repugnant. Yes—he might ask Laura, no doubt: and whatever she had would be his. But the necessity was bitter to him, and Undine's unconsciousness of the fact hurt him more than her indifference to her father's misfortune.