"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.
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