"
The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her
tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as
fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that
evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she
needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of
a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen
raising the fur collar about her chin.
"Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come
along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a
laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with
me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a
strap in the elevated."
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.
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