“What I told you.  I don’t want Ralph Marvell—­or any of them—­to know anything.  If any of his folks found out, they’d never let him marry me—­never!  And he wouldn’t want to:  he’d be so horrified.  And it would kill me, Elmer—­it would just kill me!”

She pressed close to him, forgetful of her new reserves and repugnances, and impelled by the passionate absorbing desire to wring from him some definite pledge of safety.

“Oh, Elmer, if you ever liked me, help me now, and I’ll help you if I get the chance!”

He had recovered his coolness as hers forsook her, and stood his ground steadily, though her entreating hands, her glowing face, were near enough to have shaken less sturdy nerves.

“That so, Puss?  You just ask me to pass the sponge over Elmer Moffatt of Apex City?  Cut the gentleman when we meet?  That the size of it?”

“Oh, Elmer, it’s my first chance—­I can’t lose it!” she broke out, sobbing.

“Nonsense, child!  Of course you shan’t.  Here, look up.  Undine—­why, I never saw you cry before.  Don’t you be afraid of me—­I ain’t going to interrupt the wedding march.”  He began to whistle a bar of Lohengrin.  “I only just want one little promise in return.”

She threw a startled look at him and he added reassuringly:  “Oh, don’t mistake me.  I don’t want to butt into your set—­not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of ’em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—­after you’re married?’”

Their eyes met, and she remained silent for a tremulous moment or two; then she held out her hand.  “Afterward—­yes.  I promise.  And you promise, Elmer?”

“Oh, to have and to hold!” he sang out, swinging about to follow her as she hurriedly began to retrace her steps.

The March twilight had fallen, and the Stentorian facade was all aglow, when Undine regained its monumental threshold.  She slipped through the marble vestibule and soared skyward in the mirror-lined lift, hardly conscious of the direction she was taking.  What she wanted was solitude, and the time to put some order into her thoughts; and she hoped to steal into her room without meeting her mother.  Through her thick veil the clusters of lights in the Spragg drawing-room dilated and flowed together in a yellow blur, from which, as she entered, a figure detached itself; and with a start of annoyance she saw Ralph Marvell rise from the perusal of the “fiction number” of a magazine which had replaced “The Hound of the Baskervilles” on the onyx table.

“Yes; you told me not to come—­and here I am.”  He lifted her hand to his lips as his eyes tried to find hers through the veil.

She drew back with a nervous gesture.  “I told you I’d be awfully late.”

“I know—­trying on!  And you’re horribly tired, and wishing with all your might I wasn’t here.”

“I’m not so sure I’m not!” she rejoined, trying to hide her vexation in a smile.