She stared.  “But why?  He’s painted your cousin, and all the smart women.”

“Oh, if a ‘smart’ portrait’s all you want!”

“I want what the others want,” she answered, frowning and pouting a little.  She was already beginning to resent in Ralph the slightest sign of resistance to her pleasure; and her resentment took the form—­a familiar one in Apex courtships—­of turning on him, in the next entr’acte, a deliberately averted shoulder.  The result of this was to bring her, for the first time, in more direct relation to her other neighbour.  As she turned he turned too, showing her, above a shining shirt-front fastened with a large imitation pearl, a ruddy plump snub face without an angle in it, which yet looked sharper than a razor.  Undine’s eyes met his with a startled look, and for a long moment they remained suspended on each other’s stare.

Undine at length shrank back with an unrecognizing face; but her movement made her opera-glass slip to the floor, and her neighbour bent down and picked it up.

“Well—­don’t you know me yet?” he said with a slight smile, as he restored the glass to her.

She had grown white to the lips, and when she tried to speak the effort produced only a faint click in her throat.  She felt that the change in her appearance must be visible, and the dread of letting Marvell see it made her continue to turn her ravaged face to her other neighbour.  The round black eyes set prominently in the latter’s round glossy countenance had expressed at first only an impersonal and slightly ironic interest; but a look of surprise grew in them as Undine’s silence continued.

“What’s the matter?  Don’t you want me to speak to you?”

She became aware that Marvell, as if unconscious of her slight show of displeasure, had left his seat, and was making his way toward the aisle; and this assertion of independence, which a moment before she would so deeply have resented, now gave her a feeling of intense relief.

“No—­don’t speak to me, please.  I’ll tell you another time—­I’ll write.”  Her neighbour continued to gaze at her, forming his lips into a noiseless whistle under his small dark moustache.

“Well, I—­That’s about the stiffest,” he murmured; and as she made no answer he added:  “Afraid I’ll ask to be introduced to your friend?”

She made a faint movement of entreaty.  “I can’t explain.  I promise to see you; but I ask you not to talk to me now.”

He unfolded his programme, and went on speaking in a low tone while he affected to study it.  “Anything to oblige, of course.  That’s always been my motto.  But is it a bargain—­fair and square?  You’ll see me?”

She receded farther from him.  “I promise.  I—­I want to,” she faltered.

“All right, then.  Call me up in the morning at the Driscoll Building.  Seven-o-nine—­got it?”

She nodded, and he added in a still lower tone:  “I suppose I can congratulate you, anyhow?” and then, without waiting for her reply, turned to study Mrs. Van Degen’s box through his opera-glass.  Clare, as if aware of the scrutiny fixed on her from below leaned back and threw a question over her shoulder to Ralph Marvell, who had just seated himself behind her.