For a while she carried on her chat with an imaginary circle of admirers, twisting this way and that, fanning, fidgeting, twitching at her draperies, as she did in real life when people were noticing her.  Her incessant movements were not the result of shyness:  she thought it the correct thing to be animated in society, and noise and restlessness were her only notion of vivacity.  She therefore watched herself approvingly, admiring the light on her hair, the flash of teeth between her smiling lips, the pure shadows of her throat and shoulders as she passed from one attitude to another.  Only one fact disturbed her:  there was a hint of too much fulness in the curves of her neck and in the spring of her hips.  She was tall enough to carry off a little extra weight, but excessive slimness was the fashion, and she shuddered at the thought that she might some day deviate from the perpendicular.

Presently she ceased to twist and sparkle at her image, and sinking into her chair gave herself up to retrospection.  She was vexed, in looking back, to think how little notice she had taken of young Marvell, who turned out to be so much less negligible than his brilliant friend.  She remembered thinking him rather shy, less accustomed to society; and though in his quiet deprecating way he had said one or two droll things he lacked Mr. Popple’s masterly manner, his domineering yet caressing address.  When Mr. Popple had fixed his black eyes on Undine, and murmured something “artistic” about the colour of her hair, she had thrilled to the depths of her being.  Even now it seemed incredible that he should not turn out to be more distinguished than young Marvell:  he seemed so much more in the key of the world she read about in the Sunday papers—­the dazzling auriferous world of the Van Degens, the Driscolls and their peers.

She was roused by the sound in the hall of her mother’s last words to Mrs. Heeny.  Undine waited till their adieux were over; then, opening her door, she seized the astonished masseuse and dragged her into the room.  Mrs. Heeny gazed in admiration at the luminous apparition in whose hold she found herself.

“Mercy, Undine—­you do look stunning!  Are you trying on your dress for Mrs. Fairford’s?”

“Yes—­no—­this is only an old thing.”  The girl’s eyes glittered under their black brows.  “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!  As sure as I’m standing here before you, I’ve seen Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll of Fifth Avenue laying in her pink velvet bed with Honiton lace sheets on it, and crying her eyes out because she couldn’t get asked to one of Mrs. Paul Marvell’s musicals.  She’d never ’a dreamt of being asked to a dinner there!  Not all of her money couldn’t ’a bought her that—­and she knows it!”