"Undine, listen: won't you let me make it all right for you to stay?"
Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close,
meeting his eyes coldly but without anger.
"What do you call 'making it all right'? Paying my bills? Don't you see
that's what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?"
She laid her hand on his arm. "The time has come when I must be
sensible, Peter; that's why we must say good-bye."
"Do you mean to tell me you're going back to Ralph?"
She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: "I shall never
go back to him."
"Then you DO mean to marry Chelles?"
"I've told you we must say good-bye. I've got to look out for my
future."
He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatient
senses labouring with a problem beyond their power. "Ain't I here to
look out for your future?" he said at last.
"No one shall look out for it in the way you mean. I'd rather never see
you again--"
He gave her a baffled stare. "Oh, damn it--if that's the way you feel!"
He turned and flung away toward the door.
She stood motionless where he left her, every nerve strung to the
highest pitch of watchfulness. As she stood there, the scene about her
stamped itself on her brain with the sharpest precision. She was aware
of the fading of the summer light outside, of the movements of her maid,
who was laying out her dinner-dress in the room beyond, and of the fact
that the tea-roses on her writing-table, shaken by Van Degen's tread,
were dropping their petals over Ralph's letter, and down on the crumpled
telegram which she could see through the trellised sides of the
scrap-basket.
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