The thoughtful air with which Undine heard him out made him fancy this argument had carried; and as be ended she threw him a bright look.

“Well, that’s easy enough:  I can drop her if she comes to New York.”

Ralph sat silent for a moment—­then he turned away and began to gather up his scattered pages.

Undine, in the ensuing days, was no less often with Madame Adelschein, and Ralph suspected a challenge in her open frequentation of the lady.  But if challenge there were, he let it lie.  Whether his wife saw more or less of Madame Adelschein seemed no longer of much consequence:  she had so amply shown him her ability to protect herself.  The pang lay in the completeness of the proof—­in the perfect functioning of her instinct of self-preservation.  For the first time he was face to face with his hovering dread:  he was judging where he still adored.

Before long more pressing cares absorbed him.  He had already begun to watch the post for his father-in-law’s monthly remittance, without precisely knowing how, even with its aid, he was to bridge the gulf of expense between St. Moritz and New York.  The non-arrival of Mr. Spragg’s cheque was productive of graver tears, and these were abruptly confirmed when, coming in one afternoon, he found Undine crying over a letter from her mother.

Her distress made him fear that Mr. Spragg was ill, and he drew her to him soothingly; but she broke away with an impatient movement.

“Oh, they’re all well enough—­but father’s lost a lot of money.  He’s been speculating, and he can’t send us anything for at least three months.”

Ralph murmured reassuringly:  “As long as there’s no one ill!”—­but in reality he was following her despairing gaze down the long perspective of their barren quarter.

“Three months!  Three months!”

Undine dried her eyes, and sat with set lips and tapping foot while he read her mother’s letter.

“Your poor father!  It’s a hard knock for him.  I’m sorry,” he said as he handed it back.

For a moment she did not seem to hear; then she said between her teeth:  “It’s hard for us.  I suppose now we’ll have to go straight home.”

He looked at her with wonder.  “If that were all!  In any case I should have to be back in a few weeks.”

“But we needn’t have left here in August!  It’s the first place in Europe that I’ve liked, and it’s just my luck to be dragged away from it!”

“I’m so awfully sorry, dearest.  It’s my fault for persuading you to marry a pauper.”

“It’s father’s fault.  Why on earth did he go and speculate?  There’s no use his saying he’s sorry now!” She sat brooding for a moment and then suddenly took Ralph’s hand.  “Couldn’t your people do something—­help us out just this once, I mean?”

He flushed to the forehead:  it seemed inconceivable that she should make such a suggestion.

“I couldn’t ask them—­it’s not possible.  My grandfather does as much as he can for me, and my mother has nothing but what he gives her.”