“Hallo—­hold on!  When did you come over?  Mrs. Marvell’s dying for the last news about the old homestead.”

Undine’s smile confirmed the appeal.  She wanted to know how lately Bowen had left New York, and pressed him to tell her when he had last seen her boy, how he was looking, and whether Ralph had been persuaded to go down to Clare’s on Saturdays and get a little riding and tennis?  And dear Laura—­was she well too, and was Paul with her, or still with his grandmother?  They were all dreadfully bad correspondents, and so was she.  Undine laughingly admitted; and when Ralph had last written her these questions had still been undecided.

As she smiled up at Bowen he saw her glance stray to the spot where his companion hovered; and when the diners rose to move toward the garden for coffee she said, with a sweet note and a detaining smile:  “Do come with us—­I haven’t half finished.”

Van Degen echoed the request, and Bowen, amused by Undine’s arts, was presently introducing Chelles, and joining with him in the party’s transit to the terrace.  The rain had ceased, and under the clear evening sky the restaurant garden opened green depths that skilfully hid its narrow boundaries.  Van Degen’s company was large enough to surround two of the tables on the terrace, and Bowen noted the skill with which Undine, leaving him to Mrs. Shallum’s care, contrived to draw Raymond de Chelles to the other table.  Still more noticeable was the effect of this stratagem on Van Degen, who also found himself relegated to Mrs. Shallum’s group.  Poor Peter’s state was betrayed by the irascibility which wreaked itself on a jostling waiter, and found cause for loud remonstrance in the coldness of the coffee and the badness of the cigars; and Bowen, with something more than the curiosity of the looker-on, wondered whether this were the real clue to Undine’s conduct.  He had always smiled at Mrs. Fairford’s fears for Ralph’s domestic peace.  He thought Undine too clear-headed to forfeit the advantages of her marriage; but it now struck him that she might have had a glimpse of larger opportunities.  Bowen, at the thought, felt the pang of the sociologist over the individual havoc wrought by every social readjustment:  it had so long been clear to him that poor Ralph was a survival, and destined, as such, to go down in any conflict with the rising forces.

XX

Some six weeks later.  Undine Marvell stood at the window smiling down on her recovered Paris.

Her hotel sitting-room had, as usual, been flowered, cushioned and lamp-shaded into a delusive semblance of stability; and she had really felt, for the last few weeks, that the life she was leading there must be going to last—­it seemed so perfect an answer to all her wants!