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"Engaged? Mercy, yes! Didn't you know? To the Prince of Wales. I broke it off because I wouldn't live in the Tower." Mrs. Spragg, lifting the dress cautiously over her arm, advanced with a reassured smile. "I s'pose Undie'll go to Europe now," she said to Mrs. Heeny. "I guess Undie WILL!" the young lady herself declared. "We're going to sail right afterward.
Heeny's simplifying eye it was comparatively easy to make these explanations. "I want you to try and sell them for me I want you to do the best you can with them. I can't do it myself but you must swear you'll never tell a soul," she pressed on breathlessly. "Why, you poor child it ain't the first time," said Mrs. Heeny, coiling the pearls in her big palm. "It's a pity too: they're such beauties.
During Undine's illness of the previous winter Mrs. Heeny had become a familiar figure to Paul, who had learned to expect almost as much from her bag as from his grandmother's pockets; so that the intemperate Saturdays at the Malibran were usually followed by languid and abstemious Sundays in Washington Square. Mrs.
Marvell was about to ask her to return them to their donor. In the light of Mrs. Heeny's unclouded gaze the whole episode took on a different aspect, and Undine began to be vaguely astonished at her immediate submission to her father's will. The pearls were hers, after all! "To be re-strung?" Mrs. Heeny placidly suggested.
Heeny and I just couldn't have had that French maid 'round to-night," sighed Mrs. Spragg, sinking into a chair near the dressing-table. Undine, with a backward toss of her head, scattered her loose locks about her. As they spread and sparkled under Mrs. Heeny's touch, Mrs. Spragg leaned back, drinking in through half-closed lids her daughter's loveliness.
She's never seen me!" Her tone implied that she had long been accustomed to being "wanted" by those who had. Mrs. Heeny laughed. "HE saw you, didn't he?" "Who? Ralph Marvell? Why, of course he did Mr. Popple brought him to the party here last night." "Well, there you are... When a young man in society wants to meet a girl again, he gets his sister to ask her." Undine stared at her incredulously.
Van Degen looked like a rose she'd 'a worn a rose," Mrs. Heeny rejoined poetically. "Sit still a minute longer," she added. "Your hair's so heavy I'd feel easier if I was to put in another pin." Undine remained motionless, and the manicure, suddenly laying both hands on the girl's shoulders, and bending over to peer at her reflection, said playfully: "Ever been engaged before, Undine?"
Spragg's chair, seemed to his grandparents evidence of ill-health or undue repression, and he was subjected by Mrs. Spragg to searching enquiries as to how his food set, and whether he didn't think his Popper was too strict with him. Sometimes Ralph found Mrs. Heeny, ruddy and jovial, seated in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Spragg, and regaling her with selections from a new batch of clippings.
"Mrs. Heeny, you've got to tell me the truth ARE they as swell as you said?" "Who? The Fairfords and Marvells? If they ain't swell enough for you. Undine Spragg, you'd better go right over to the court of England!" Undine straightened herself. "I want the best. Are they as swell as the Driscolls and Van Degens?" Mrs. Heeny sounded a scornful laugh. "Look at here, now, you unbelieving girl!
His obligation to her represented far more than the relatively small sum she had been able to realize on the necklace. She hid the money in her dress, and when Mrs. Heeny had gone on to Mrs. Spragg's room she drew the packet out, and counting the bills over, murmured to herself: "Now I can get away!" Her one thought was to return to Europe; but she did not want to go alone.
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