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.  She considers the tie was formed too hastily.  I believe desertion is the usual plea in such cases.”

Ralph stared about him, hardly listening.  He did not resent his father-in-law’s tone.  In a dim way he guessed that Mr. Spragg was suffering hardly less than himself.  But nothing was clear to him save the monstrous fact suddenly upheaved in his path.  His wife had left him, and the plan for her evasion had been made and executed while he lay helpless:  she had seized the opportunity of his illness to keep him in ignorance of her design.  The humour of it suddenly struck him and he laughed.

“Do you mean to tell me that Undine’s divorcing me?”

“I presume that’s her plan,” Mr. Spragg admitted.

“For desertion?” Ralph pursued, still laughing.

His father-in-law hesitated a moment; then he answered:  “You’ve always done all you could for my daughter.  There wasn’t any other plea she could think of.  She presumed this would be the most agreeable to your family.”

“It was good of her to think of that!”

Mr. Spragg’s only comment was a sigh.

“Does she imagine I won’t fight it?” Ralph broke out with sudden passion.

His father-in-law looked at him thoughtfully.  “I presume you realize it ain’t easy to change Undine, once she’s set on a thing.”

“Perhaps not.  But if she really means to apply for a divorce I can make it a little less easy for her to get.”

“That’s so,” Mr. Spragg conceded.  He turned back to his revolving chair, and seating himself in it began to drum on the desk with cigar-stained fingers.

“And by God, I will!” Ralph thundered.  Anger was the only emotion in him now.  He had been fooled, cheated, made a mock of; but the score was not settled yet.  He turned back and stood before Mr. Spragg.

“I suppose she’s gone with Van Degen?”

“My daughter’s gone alone, sir.  I saw her off at the station.  I understood she was to join a lady friend.”

At every point Ralph felt his hold slip off the surface of his father-in-law’s impervious fatalism.

“Does she suppose Van Degen’s going to marry her?”

“Undine didn’t mention her future plans to me.”  After a moment Mr. Spragg appended:  “If she had, I should have declined to discuss them with her.”  Ralph looked at him curiously, perceiving that he intended in this negative way to imply his disapproval of his daughter’s course.

“I shall fight it—­I shall fight it!” the young man cried again.  “You may tell her I shall fight it to the end!”

Mr. Spragg pressed the nib of his pen against the dust-coated inkstand.  “I suppose you would have to engage a lawyer.  She’ll know it that way,” he remarked.

“She’ll know it—­you may count on that!”