Madame de Trezac had lately discovered that the proper attitude for the American married abroad was that of a militant patriotism; and she flaunted Undine Marvell in the face of the Faubourg like a particularly showy specimen of her national banner.  The success of the experiment emboldened her to throw off the most sacred observances of her past.  She took up Madame Adelschein, she entertained the James J. Rollivers, she resuscitated Creole dishes, she patronized negro melodists, she abandoned her weekly teas for impromptu afternoon dances, and the prim drawing-room in which dowagers had droned echoed with a cosmopolitan hubbub.

Even when the period of tension was over, and Undine had been officially received into the family of her betrothed, Madame de Trezac did not at once surrender.  She laughingly professed to have had enough of the proprieties, and declared herself bored by the social rites she had hitherto so piously performed.  “You’ll always find a corner of home here, dearest, when you get tired of their ceremonies and solemnities,” she said as she embraced the bride after the wedding breakfast; and Undine hoped that the devoted Nettie would in fact provide a refuge from the extreme domesticity of her new state.  But since her return to Paris, and her taking up her domicile in the Hotel de Chelles, she had found Madame de Trezac less and less disposed to abet her in any assertion of independence.

“My dear, a woman must adopt her husband’s nationality whether she wants to or not.  It’s the law, and it’s the custom besides.  If you wanted to amuse yourself with your Nouveau Luxe friends you oughtn’t to have married Raymond—­but of course I say that only in joke.  As if any woman would have hesitated who’d had your chance!  Take my advice—­keep out of Lili’s set just at first.  Later ... well, perhaps Raymond won’t be so particular; but meanwhile you’d make a great mistake to go against his people—­” and Madame de Trezac, with a “Chere Madame,” swept forward from her tea-table to receive the first of the returning dowagers.

It was about this time that Mrs. Heeny arrived with Paul; and for a while Undine was pleasantly absorbed in her boy.  She kept Mrs. Heeny in Paris for a fortnight, and between her more pressing occupations it amused her to listen to the masseuse’s New York gossip and her comments on the social organization of the old world.  It was Mrs. Heeny’s first visit to Europe, and she confessed to Undine that she had always wanted to “see something of the aristocracy”—­using the phrase as a naturalist might, with no hint of personal pretensions.  Mrs. Heeny’s democratic ease was combined with the strictest professional discretion, and it would never have occurred to her to regard herself, or to wish others to regard her, as anything but a manipulator of muscles; but in that character she felt herself entitled to admission to the highest circles.