Mr. Dagonet was
always pleasant to see and hear, but his sarcasms were growing faint
and recondite: they had as little bearing on life as the humours of a
Restoration comedy. As for Mrs. Marvell and Miss Ray, they seemed to the
young man even more spectrally remote: hardly anything that mattered to
him existed for them, and their prejudices reminded him of sign-posts
warning off trespassers who have long since ceased to intrude.
Now and then he dined at his club and went on to the theatre with some
young men of his own age; but he left them afterward, half vexed with
himself for not being in the humour to prolong the adventure. There
were moments when he would have liked to affirm his freedom in however
commonplace a way: moments when the vulgarest way would have seemed
the most satisfying. But he always ended by walking home alone and
tip-toeing upstairs through the sleeping house lest he should wake his
boy....
On Saturday afternoons, when the business world was hurrying to the
country for golf and tennis, he stayed in town and took Paul to see the
Spraggs. Several times since his wife's departure he had tried to bring
about closer relations between his own family and Undine's; and the
ladies of Washington Square, in their eagerness to meet his wishes, had
made various friendly advances to Mrs. Spragg. But they were met by a
mute resistance which made Ralph suspect that Undine's strictures on his
family had taken root in her mother's brooding mind; and he gave up the
struggle to bring together what had been so effectually put asunder.
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