The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory.  Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little “fuss” as possible.  Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter’s sort:  her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his “bad” real estate in the Pure Water Move days.  But now and then youth had its way—­she could not always resist the present pleasure.  And it was amusing, too, to be “talked about” with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for “nice women.”  She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms:  it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good.

Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it.  She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph.  Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor.

“What’s the matter?  Isn’t everything all right?”

His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess.  And his extraordinary “niceness” seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence.  Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material “bothers”—­as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue!  But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter.  For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he “didn’t care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he’d give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added:  “Oh, hang waiting for the bill—­won’t a couple of thou make it all right?” in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life.

The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down—­with a nod for his “Everything jolly again now?”—­to untroubled enjoyment of the hour.  Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy—­and that was just what Ralph had never given her!  At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes:  it was almost like a part of his “nagging” that he should thrust himself in at such a moment!  She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs.