Thus it was that a man should talk to a true woman—­but how few whom she had known possessed the secret!  Ralph, in the first months of their marriage, had been eloquent too, had even gone the length of quoting poetry; but he disconcerted her by his baffling twists and strange allusions (she always scented ridicule in the unknown), and the poets he quoted were esoteric and abstruse.  Mr. Popple’s rhetoric was drawn from more familiar sources, and abounded in favourite phrases and in moving reminiscences of the Fifth Reader.  He was moreover as literary as he was artistic; possessing an unequalled acquaintance with contemporary fiction, and dipping even into the lighter type of memoirs, in which the old acquaintances of history are served up in the disguise of “A Royal Sorceress” or “Passion in a Palace.”  The mastery with which Mr. Popple discussed the novel of the day, especially in relation to the sensibilities of its hero and heroine, gave Undine a sense of intellectual activity which contrasted strikingly with Marvell’s flippant estimate of such works.  “Passion,” the artist implied, would have been the dominant note of his life, had it not been held in check by a sentiment of exalted chivalry, and by the sense that a nature of such emotional intensity as his must always be “ridden on the curb.”

Van Degen was helping himself from the tray of iced cocktails which stood near the tea-table, and Popple, turning to Undine, took up the thread of his discourse.  But why, he asked, why allude before others to feelings so few could understand?  The average man—­lucky devil!—­(with a compassionate glance at Van Degen’s back) the average man knew nothing of the fierce conflict between the lower and higher natures; and even the woman whose eyes had kindled it—­how much did she guess of its violence?  Did she know—­Popple recklessly asked—­how often the artist was forgotten in the man—­how often the man would take the bit between his teeth, were it not that the look in her eyes recalled some sacred memory, some lesson learned perhaps beside his mother’s knee?  “I say, Popp—­was that where you learned to mix this drink?  Because it does the old lady credit,” Van Degen called out, smacking his lips; while the artist, dashing a nervous hand through his hair, muttered:  “Hang it, Peter—­is nothing sacred to you?”

It pleased Undine to feel herself capable of inspiring such emotions.  She would have been fatigued by the necessity of maintaining her own talk on Popple’s level, but she liked to listen to him, and especially to have others overhear what he said to her.

Her feeling for Van Degen was different.  There was more similarity of tastes between them, though his manner flattered her vanity less than Popple’s.  She felt the strength of Van Degen’s contempt for everything he did not understand or could not buy:  that was the only kind of “exclusiveness” that impressed her.  And he was still to her, as in her inexperienced days, the master of the mundane