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Ah, poor little lady of Elfland! poor little Undine, with a soul wakened to suffering! "Clumsy, very clumsy!" she rebuked him. "I see that you are accustomed to prepare your lies in advance, Mr. Woods. As an extemporaneous liar you are very clumsy. Men don't propose by mistake except in farces.
Yielding to the inevitable, they suffered themselves to be impelled to a Virginia "resort," where Undine had her first glimpse of more romantic possibilities leafy moonlight rides and drives, picnics in mountain glades, and an atmosphere of Christmas-chromo sentimentality that tempered her hard edges a little, and gave her glimpses of a more delicate kind of pleasure.
The pretty ladies too, with their expansive bonnets, any one of which might handsomely have filled the space allotted to three, how sad the change! I almost fancied they must have been of the race of Undine, and that it was only when they heard the splashing of water that they could smile. As I looked into the altered eyes of my companions, I was tempted to ask, "Look I as cross as you?"
Yet if you will but wait until Bertalda's birthday, you will give me great pleasure, and you yourself will enjoy a great surprise. Listening to her gentle words, the knight forgot the ill-humour he had but lately felt, and willingly he agreed to wait until she herself wished to tell him the good news. And Undine, as she fell asleep that night, was smiling happily.
But Moffatt was obviously elated: he stood aside with a flourish to usher her in, and as he followed he shot out a pink shirt-cuff with jewelled links, and gave his moustache a gallant twist. Undine felt an unreasoning irritation: she was vexed with him both for not being alone and for being so vulgarly accompanied.
He would have burst forth in uncontrolled imprecations had not Undine said to him with a humble manner and a softly imploring tone: "For God's sake, my husband, we are on the water, do not be angry with me now." The knight was silent, and sat down absorbed in revery.
Undine Spragg and I were made one at Opake, Nebraska, just nine years ago last month. My! She was a beauty then. Nothing much had happened to her before but being engaged for a year or two to a soft called Millard Binch; the same she passed on to Indiana Rolliver; and well, I guess she liked the change.
He stood before Ralph, absently shaking the loose change in his trouser-pockets. Ralph felt the same hardness and lucidity that had come to him when he had heard his sister's answer. "She's gone, you mean? Left me? With another man?" Mr. Spragg drew himself up with a kind of slouching majesty. "My daughter is not that style. I understand Undine thinks there have been mistakes on both sides.
They were just raising it in their hands and were already poising it over the fountain, when Bertalda came running up and called out to them to stop, as it was from this fountain that the water was brought which was so good for her complexion and she would never consent to its being closed. Undine, however, although gentle as usual, was this time more than usually firm.
Father Heilmann's lips were sealed to idle gossip of any kind, and moreover, immediately after Huldbrand's arrival, he had returned to his monastery; so that people were obliged to be satisfied with their own strange conjectures, and even Bertalda herself knew no more of the truth than others. Day by day, Undine felt her affection increase for the fair maiden.
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