The Custom of the Country

ve owned it to her parents, Undine wa

ks from floor to ceiling, reminded Undine of the old circulating library at Apex, before the new marble building was put up. Then, instead of a gas-log, or a polished grate with electric bulbs behind ruby glass, there was a

, there was only a low centre-dish of ferns, and plain roasted and broiled meat that one could recognize--as if they'd been dyspeptics on a diet! With all the hints in the Sunday papers, she thought it dull of Mrs.

iety Column, displayed toward the rest of the company, convinced Undine that they must be more important than they looked. She liked Mrs. Fairford, a small incisive woman, with a big nose and good teeth revealed by frequent smiles. In her dowdy black and antiquated ornaments she was not what Undine would have called "stylish"; but she had

legate him to the background; but she had looked for some brilliant youths of her own age--in her inmost heart she had looked for Mr. Popple. He was not there, however, and of the other men one, whom they c

re if he were shy, or if his quietness were only a new kind of self-possession which expressed itself negatively instead of aggressively. Small, well-knit, fair, he sat stro

med to be a concert and not a solo. She kept drawing in the others, giving each a turn, beating time for them with her smile, and somehow harmonizing and linking together what they said. She took particular pains to give Undine her due part in the performance; but the girl's expansive impulses were always balanced by odd reactions of mistrust, and to-nig

s, and less on people, than she was used to; but though the allusions to pictures and books escaped her, she caug

was saying, in her slightly drawling voice.

to Mr. Bowen; who replied, at the same pitch: "It's a Van Degen

l his portraits seem to proclaim what a gentleman he is, and how he fascinates women! They're not

le must be the only gentleman I know; at least he's the only man who has

banter as if it had been at her own expense, yet it gave her a dizzy sense of being at last in the very stronghold of fashion. Her attention was diverted by hea

ine's perceptions bristle, and she

so light, so unemphasized, that she could not be sure of its being as indifferent as it sounded. She l

d on Marvell a gaze at once pleading and possessive; but whether betokening merely an inherited intimacy (Undine had noticed that they were all more or less cousins) or a more personal feeling, her observer was unable to decide; just as the tone of the young man's reply might have expressed the op

she had read, were almost as open to suspicion, since they had to be answered in the negative. Undine did not even know that there were any pictures to be seen, much less that "people" went to see them; and she had read no new book but "When The Kissing Had to Stop," of which Mrs. Fairford seemed not to have heard. On the theatre they were equally at odds, for while Undine had seen "Oolaloo" fourteen times, and was "wild" about Ned Norris in "The Soda-Water Fountain," she had not heard of the famou

irl, she inferred that the others didn't care to talk to her, and that her host and hostess were in league to take her off their hands. This discovery resulted in her holding her vivid head very high, and answerin

r. Undine found Mrs. Van Degen putting on her cloak. As sh

first--Peter's got a club dinner." They exchanged what seemed a smile of intelli

Spragg. I hope

st be what she was going to say,

ing down the steps to her motor, at the door of which

eart gave a higher bound. He was going to "escort" her home, of course! This brilliant youth--she felt now that he WAS brilliant--who dined alone with married women, who

Marvell's arm, and holding it fast while they waited for her cab to come up; but when

break of pride in her voice, as she faltered out stupidly