“Well—­I’ll stay a little mite longer if you want; and supposing I was to rub up your nails while we’re talking?  It’ll be more sociable,” the masseuse suggested, lifting her bag to the table and covering its shiny onyx surface with bottles and polishers.

Mrs. Spragg consentingly slipped the rings from her small mottled hands.  It was soothing to feel herself in Mrs. Heeny’s grasp, and though she knew the attention would cost her three dollars she was secure in the sense that Abner wouldn’t mind.  It had been clear to Mrs. Spragg, ever since their rather precipitate departure from Apex City, that Abner was resolved not to mind—­resolved at any cost to “see through” the New York adventure.  It seemed likely now that the cost would be considerable.  They had lived in New York for two years without any social benefit to their daughter; and it was of course for that purpose that they had come.  If, at the time, there had been other and more pressing reasons, they were such as Mrs. Spragg and her husband never touched on, even in the gilded privacy of their bedroom at the Stentorian; and so completely had silence closed in on the subject that to Mrs. Spragg it had become non-existent:  she really believed that, as Abner put it, they had left Apex because Undine was too big for the place.

She seemed as yet—­poor child!—­too small for New York:  actually imperceptible to its heedless multitudes; and her mother trembled for the day when her invisibility should be borne in on her.  Mrs. Spragg did not mind the long delay for herself—­she had stores of lymphatic patience.  But she had noticed lately that Undine was beginning to be nervous, and there was nothing that Undine’s parents dreaded so much as her being nervous.  Mrs. Spragg’s maternal apprehensions unconsciously escaped in her next words.

“I do hope she’ll quiet down now,” she murmured, feeling quieter herself as her hand sank into Mrs. Heeny’s roomy palm.

“Who’s that?  Undine?”

“Yes.  She seemed so set on that Mr. Popple’s coming round.  From the way he acted last night she thought he’d be sure to come round this morning.  She’s so lonesome, poor child—­I can’t say as I blame her.”

“Oh, he’ll come round.  Things don’t happen as quick as that in New York,” said Mrs. Heeny, driving her nail-polisher cheeringly.

Mrs. Spragg sighed again.  “They don’t appear to.  They say New Yorkers are always in a hurry; but I can’t say as they’ve hurried much to make our acquaintance.”

Mrs. Heeny drew back to study the effect of her work.  “You wait, Mrs. Spragg, you wait.  If you go too fast you sometimes have to rip out the whole seam.”

“Oh, that’s so—­that’s so!” Mrs. Spragg exclaimed, with a tragic emphasis that made the masseuse glance up at her.

“Of course it’s so.  And it’s more so in New York than anywhere.  The wrong set’s like fly-paper:  once you’re in it you can pull and pull, but you’ll never get out of it again.”