Her constitutional restlessness lapsed into an apathy like Mrs. Spragg’s, and the least demand on her activity irritated her.  But she was beset by endless annoyances:  bickerings with discontented maids, the difficulty of finding a tutor for Paul, and the problem of keeping him amused and occupied without having him too much on her hands.  A great liking had sprung up between Raymond and the little boy, and during the summer Paul was perpetually at his step-father’s side in the stables and the park.  But with the coming of winter Raymond was oftener away, and Paul developed a persistent cold that kept him frequently indoors.  The confinement made him fretful and exacting, and the old Marquise ascribed the change in his behaviour to the deplorable influence of his tutor, a “laic” recommended by one of Raymond’s old professors.  Raymond himself would have preferred an abbe:  it was in the tradition of the house, and though Paul was not of the house it seemed fitting that he should conform to its ways.  Moreover, when the married sisters came to stay they objected to having their children exposed to the tutor’s influence, and even implied that Paul’s society might be contaminating.  But Undine, though she had so readily embraced her husband’s faith, stubbornly resisted the suggestion that she should hand over her son to the Church.  The tutor therefore remained; but the friction caused by his presence was so irritating to Undine that she began to consider the alternative of sending Paul to school.  He was still small and tender for the experiment; but she persuaded herself that what he needed was “hardening,” and having heard of a school where fashionable infancy was subjected to this process, she entered into correspondence with the master.  His first letter convinced her that his establishment was just the place for Paul; but the second contained the price-list, and after comparing it with the tutor’s keep and salary she wrote to say that she feared her little boy was too young to be sent away from home.

Her husband, for some time past, had ceased to make any comment on her expenditure.  She knew he thought her too extravagant, and felt sure he was minutely aware of what she spent; for Saint Desert projected on economic details a light as different as might be from the haze that veiled them in West End Avenue.  She therefore concluded that Raymond’s silence was intentional, and ascribed it to his having shortcomings of his own to conceal.  The Princess Estradina’s pleasantry had reached its mark.  Undine did not believe that her husband was seriously in love with another woman—­she could not conceive that any one could tire of her of whom she had not first tired—­but she was humiliated by his indifference, and it was easier to ascribe it to the arts of a rival than to any deficiency in herself.  It exasperated her to think that he might have consolations for the outward monotony of his life, and she resolved that when they returned to Paris he should see that she was not without similar opportunities.