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.  As the couple seated themselves she caught Moffatt’s glance and saw him redden to the edge of his white forehead; but he elaborately avoided her eye—­he evidently wanted her to see him do it—­and proceeded to minister to his companion’s wants with an air of experienced gallantry.

The incident, trifling as it was, filled up the measure of Undine’s bitterness.  She thought Moffatt pitiably ridiculous, and she hated him for showing himself in such a light at that particular moment.  Her mind turned back to her own grievance, and she was just saying to herself that nothing on earth should prevent her letting the Princess know what she thought of her, when the lady in question at last appeared.  She came hurriedly forward and behind her Undine perceived the figure of a slight quietly dressed man, as to whom her immediate impression was that he made every one else in the room look as common as Moffatt.  An instant later the colour had flown to her face and her hand was in Raymond de Chelles, while the Princess, murmuring:  “Cimiez’s such a long way off; but you will forgive me?” looked into her eyes with a smile that added:  “See how I pay for what I get!”

Her first glance showed Undine how glad Raymond de Chelles was to see her.  Since their last meeting his admiration for her seemed not only to have increased but to have acquired a different character.  Undine, at an earlier stage in her career, might not have known exactly what the difference signified; but it was as clear to her now as if the Princess had said—­what her beaming eyes seemed, in fact, to convey—­“I’m only too glad to do my cousin the same kind of turn you’re doing me.”

But Undine’s increased experience, if it had made her more vigilant, had also given her a clearer measure of her power.  She saw at once that Chelles, in seeking to meet her again, was not in quest of a mere passing adventure.  He was evidently deeply drawn to her, and her present situation, if it made it natural to regard her as more accessible, had not altered the nature of his feeling.  She saw and weighed all this in the first five minutes during which, over tea and muffins, the Princess descanted on her luck in happening to run across her cousin, and Chelles, his enchanted eyes on Undine, expressed his sense of his good fortune.  He was staying, it appeared, with friends at Beaulieu, and had run over to Nice that afternoon by the merest chance:  he added that, having just learned of his aunt’s presence in the neighbourhood, he had already planned to present his homage to her.

“Oh, don’t come to us—­we’re too dull!” the Princess exclaimed.  “Let us run over occasionally and call on you:  we’re dying for a pretext, aren’t we?” she added, smiling at Undine.