The Custom of the Country

take a box for me at

Undine's parents knew at

nd it was a blow to detect signs of the opposite result when, late the next morning, t

pproaching storm in the darkening of her eyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her s

r a glance at the paper when Undine trailed down the sumptuous stuffy room, where coffee-fumes hung perpetua

to have ransacked the globe for gastronomic incompatibilities; and in the middle of the room a knot of equally pallid wa

ety Woman's Day" which were appearing in Boudoir Chat. Her mere appearance in the restaurant therefore prepared her parents for those symptoms of excessive tension which

ananas and cream with which she had been trying to tempt

g to address herself to her father. "Friday's the stylish night, and that n

to tilt his chair till he remembered there was no wall to meet it. He regai

arkening brow. He looked at her humorously. "

-no

sdainfully silent. "I don't s'pose you

t on more mildly: "I want to do something for Mabel Lipscomb: make some return. She

ating" could not fail of its effect, and Mrs. Spragg murmured: "S

ow what a

o," Undine returned wit

trouble. WHY won

buy seats f

Spragg--always the first to suc

I can't buy a

late thickening in the cup, while one hand, almost as much b

t back to Apex," she breathe

uggles between two resolute wills always brought on her palpit

ive dollars a night," said Mr. Spragg, trans

want i

uckering of his crows'-feet. "You o

-Undine never wanted anything long, but she wanted it "rig

m against his principles; the tender wheedling way, and the harsh-lipped and cold--and he did not know which he dreaded most. As a child they had admir

weakening, "I'm a little mi

; and what did men go "down town" for but to bring back the spoils to their women? She rose abruptly

itations when Undine rode, and since the Aaronson episod

ing a little?" Mr. Spragg suggested, cons

rn and anger in every line of her arrogant young back. Mrs. Spragg tottered meekly after her, and

lmost sure she would get her opera box, but she did not see why she should have to struggle for her rights, and she was especially annoyed with

ince she could remember there had been "fusses" about money; yet she and her mother had always got what they wanted, apparently without lasting detriment to the family fortunes. It was therefore n

as if she had come back from the dead. It was absurd, of

oned?" was her fir

e hasn

she proceeded deliberately

martly-fitting coat. Mrs. Spragg received the flying garment and smoothed it out on the bed. Neither of the ladies could "bear"

t, and the bills have been pretty heavy lately. Father was a rich

daughter, looking dow

k and waistcoat, raised her head with an impatient jerk. "

gaze; but on this occasion they held their own with a kind of awe

ing from temerity to meekness, hovered about her with obstructive zeal. "If you

he threshold she paused, as if overruled by a stronger influence, and said, with a la

r: she was struggling with

don't KNOW anybody--I never shall, if father

s the old-rose carpet, while Mrs. Spragg, turning away to hide a

rtaste was flat on her lips. What would it lead to? Nothing, as far as she could see. Ralph Marvell had not

had spoken. Perhaps she might meet some of the people she had seen at dinner--from

hionable hour in Fifth Avenue, but Undine knew none of the ladies who were bowing to each other from interlocked motors. She had to content herself with

the "look" which signified social consecration. As Undine made her way among them, she was aware of attracting almost as much notice as in the street, and she flung herself into r

this toy presented for graceful wrist movements and supercilious turns of the head. It seemed suddenly plebeian and promiscuous to look at the world with a naked eye, and all her floating desires were merged in the wish for a jewelle

would have resented his homage had not his odd physiognomy called up some vaguely agreeable association of ideas. Where had she seen before this grotesque saurian head, with eye-lids as thick as lips a

ll gleams and graces, while he s

simply awfu

ser, and with a tap of her wand, and a careless "Peter,

in, the hero of "Sunday Supplements," the captor of Blue Ribbons at Horse-Shows, of Gold Cups at Motor Races, the owner of winning race-horses and "crack" sloops: the supreme exponent, in short, of those crowning arts that made

at she could not remember anything

ver meet Peter Van Degen again--or, if she DID run across him in the same accidental way, she knew they could not continue their conversation without being "in

t impolite of him to call without making an appointment: it seemed to show that he did not wish to continue their acquaintan

d. "Sat here--all alone? Did

up all the same.

d for

t. A visitor who asked for a girl's mother!--she stared at Mrs

d asked for me." Mrs. Spragg let the fact speak for itself--it was too much o

t was a mistake, of course. Why o

he had a messag

ht. "Well, did he?" she asked, drawing out her ha

y to me, but I couldn't make out what he

ind of chill commiseration. "You ne

d a cushion under her daughter's head, and then dissembled herself behind the lace window-curtains and sat watching the lights spring out down the l

like a long struggle for something she could not have, from a trip to Europe to an opera-box; and when she felt sure that, as the past had

from her boarding-school to the comparative gentility of summer vacations at the Mealey House, whither her parents, forsaking their squalid suburb, had moved in the first flush of their rising fortunes. The tessellated floors, the plush parlours and organ-like radiators of the Mealey House had, aside from their intrinsic elegance, the immense advantage of lifting the Spraggs high above the Frusks, and making it possible for Undine, when she met Indiana in the street or at sch

ok of ill-health; and when she learned that even Indiana Frusk was to go on a month's visit to Buffalo it needed no artificial aids to emphasize the ravages of envy. Her parents,

him while he inspected the newly developed Eubaw mines; and the southern visitor's dismay, her repugnances, her recoil from the faces, the food, the amusements, the general bareness and stridency of the scene, were a terrible initiation to Undine. There was something still better beyond, then--more luxurious

sily first--till the arrival, from Washington, of Mr. and Mrs. Wincher and their daughter. Undine was much handsomer than Miss Wincher, but she saw at a glance that she did not know how to use her beauty as the other used her plainness. She was exasperated too, by the discovery that Miss Wincher seemed not only unconscious of any possible rivalry between them, but actually unaware of her existence. Listless, long-faced, supercilious, the young lady from Washington sat apart reading novels or playing solitaire with her parents, as th

got through the days; though no doubt it was as good as a rest-cure after the rush of the winter. Of course they would have preferred to hire a house, but the "hole," if one could believe it, didn't offer one; so they had simply shut themselves off as best they could from the "hotel crew"--had her friend, Miss Wincher parenthetically asked, happened to notice the Su

flower from her hair. She loathed the thought of him now: she loathed all the people about her, and most of all the disdainful Miss Wincher. It enraged her to think that the Winchers classed he

e wind-beaten inn, all shingles without and blueberry pie within, was "exclusive," parochial, Bostonian; and the Spraggs wore through the interminable weeks in blank unmitigated isolation. The incomprehensible part of it was that every other woman in the hotel was plain, dowdy or elderly--and most of them all three. If there had been a

better success. From small things to great, everything went against her. In such hours of self-searching she was ready enough to acknowledge her own mistakes, but they exasperated her less than the blunders of her parents. Sh

g had gone away to dress for dinner, and it was nearly eight

oved about behind her, laying aside his hat and overcoat; then his

et emerged, like nothing she had ever seen. She looked at it, hoping, fearing--she beamed blissful interrogation on her father

it's for every other Friday! Oh, you

rong--!" Then, convicted by her radiant eyes as she swung round on him: "I knew you only wanted it

d with moist eyes at this closing pleasantry,

u really manag

you fret about that, Leota. I'm bound to have her go round with

while Mrs. Spragg looked an

en Elme

" he returned, with a

e couldn't come

he was to get nervous and lone

the suggestion. "How'd he look

up. That's wh

continued to scrutinize her husband broodingly. "You look fairly sick, Abner.

passed his hand through her arm with the conjugal gesture familiar to Apex City. "Com