The dinner that evening was unusually pleasant.  Charles Bowen, just back from his usual spring travels, had come straight down to his friends from the steamer; and the fund of impressions he brought with him gave Ralph a desire to be up and wandering.  And why not—­when the book was done?  He smiled across the table at Clare.

“Next summer you’ll have to charter a yacht, and take us all off to the Aegean.  We can’t have Charles condescending to us about the out-of-the-way places he’s been seeing.”

Was it really he who was speaking, and his cousin who was sending him back her dusky smile?  Well—­why not, again?  The seasons renewed themselves, and he too was putting out a new growth.  “My book—­my book—­my book,” kept repeating itself under all his thoughts, as Undine’s name had once perpetually murmured there.  That night as he went up to bed he said to himself that he was actually ceasing to think about his wife...

As he passed Laura’s door she called him in, and put her arms about him.

“You look so well, dear!”

“But why shouldn’t I?” he answered gaily, as if ridiculing the fancy that he had ever looked otherwise.  Paul was sleeping behind the next door, and the sense of the boy’s nearness gave him a warmer glow.  His little world was rounding itself out again, and once more he felt safe and at peace in its circle.

His sister looked as if she had something more to say; but she merely kissed him good night, and he went up whistling to his room.  The next morning he was to take a walk with Clare, and while he lounged about the drawing-room, waiting for her to come down, a servant came in with the Sunday papers.  Ralph picked one up, and was absently unfolding it when his eye fell on his own name:  a sight he had been spared since the last echoes of his divorce had subsided.  His impulse was to fling the paper down, to hurl it as far from him as he could; but a grim fascination tightened his hold and drew his eyes back to the hated head-line.

New York beauty weds French nobleman Mrs. Undine Marvell confident Pope will annul previous marriage Mrs. Marvell talks about her case

There it was before him in all its long-drawn horror—­an “interview”—­an “interview” of Undine’s about her coming marriage!  Ah, she talked about her case indeed!  Her confidences filled the greater part of a column, and the only detail she seemed to have omitted was the name of her future husband, who was referred to by herself as “my fiance” and by the interviewer as “the Count” or “a prominent scion of the French nobility.”

Ralph heard Laura’s step behind him.  He threw the paper aside and their eyes met.

“Is this what you wanted to tell me last night?”

“Last night?—­Is it in the papers?”

“Who told you?  Bowen?  What else has he heard?”