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Nevertheless it was galling to see Van Degen leave, and to know that for the time he had broken away from her. Over a nature so insensible to the spells of memory, the visible and tangible would always prevail. If she could have been with him again in Paris, where, in the shining spring days, every sight and sound ministered to such influences, she was sure she could have regained her hold.
Van Degen putting on her cloak. As she gathered it about her she laid her hand on Marvell's arm. "Ralphie, dear, you'll come to the opera with me on Friday? We'll dine together first Peter's got a club dinner." They exchanged what seemed a smile of intelligence, and Undine heard the young man accept. Then Mrs. Van Degen turned to her. "Good-bye, Miss Spragg. I hope you'll come "
As he spoke of Miss Spragg, so others at any rate would think of her: almost every one in Ralph's set would agree that it was luck for a girl from Apex to be started by Peter Van Degen at a Café Martin dinner... Ralph Marvell, mounting his grandfather's doorstep, looked up at the symmetrical old red house-front, with its frugal marble ornament, as he might have looked into a familiar human face.
This train of thought was interrupted by the feeling that she was being intently observed from the neighbouring box. She turned around with a feint of speaking to Mrs. Lipscomb, and met the bulging stare of Peter Van Degen.
As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated."
Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress."
She would slip into the shop of Herr Degen, and, with her greedy eyes opened as wide as possible, buy twenty pfennigs’ worth of sweets, at which she would nibble until she went to bed. The ribbons she sewed together into sashes, which she wore on her hat or around her neck or on her dress. The gaudier the colour the better she liked it.
I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far " Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner."
Clare Van Degen had come down to stay with her youngest boy, and in the afternoon she and Ralph took the two children for a sail.
He had promised to let Clare Van Degen know the result of his visit, and half an hour later he was in her drawing-room. It was the first time he had entered it since his divorce; but Van Degen was tarpon-fishing in California and besides, he had to see Clare.
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