The only menace ahead was the usual one of the want of money.  While she had travelled with her parents she had been at relatively small expense, and since their return to America Mr. Spragg had sent her allowance regularly; yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls was already gone, and she knew her Paris season would be far more expensive than the quiet weeks on the Riviera.

Meanwhile the sense of reviving popularity, and the charm of Chelles’ devotion, had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, and refurbished that image of herself in other minds which was her only notion of self-seeing.  Under the guidance of Madame de Trezac she had found a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter, and in its light bright drawing-room she sat one June afternoon listening, with all the forbearance of which she was capable, to the counsels of her newly-acquired guide.

“Everything but marriage—­” Madame de Trezac was repeating, her long head slightly tilted, her features wearing the rapt look of an adept reciting a hallowed formula.

Raymond de Chelles had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, and the former Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one of the fundamental dogmas of her social creed; but Undine was conscious that the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name.  She made no immediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trezac’s dull countenance, sought her own reflection in the mirror behind her visitor’s chair.  A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses of her hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl’s.  Undine smiled faintly at the promise her own eyes gave her, and then turned them back to her friend.  “What can such women know about anything?” she thought compassionately.

“There’s everything against it,” Madame de Trezac continued in a tone of patient exposition.  She seemed to be doing her best to make the matter clear.  “In the first place, between people in society a religious marriage is necessary; and, since the Church doesn’t recognize divorce, that’s obviously out of the question.  In France, a man of position who goes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simply ruining himself and her.  They might much better—­from her point of view as well as his—­be ‘friends,’ as it’s called over here:  such arrangements are understood and allowed for.  But when a Frenchman marries he wants to marry as his people always have.  He knows there are traditions he can’t fight against—­and in his heart he’s glad there are.”

“Oh, I know:  they’ve so much religious feeling.  I admire that in them:  their religion’s so beautiful.”  Undine looked thoughtfully at her visitor.  “I suppose even money—­a great deal of money—­wouldn’t make the least bit of difference?”

“None whatever, except to make matters worse,” Madame de Trezac decisively rejoined.  She returned Undine’s look with something of Miss Wincher’s contemptuous authority.  “But,” she added, softening to a smile, “between ourselves—­I can say it, since we’re neither of us children—­a woman with tact, who’s not in a position to remarry, will find society extremely indulgent... provided, of course, she keeps up appearances...”