If he regretted his lack of success it was chiefly because he was so
sorry for the Spraggs. Soon after Undine's marriage they had abandoned
their polychrome suite at the Stentorian, and since then their
peregrinations had carried them through half the hotels of the
metropolis. Undine, who had early discovered her mistake in thinking
hotel life fashionable, had tried to persuade her parents to take a
house of their own; but though they refrained from taxing her with
inconsistency they did not act on her suggestion. Mrs. Spragg seemed
to shrink from the thought of "going back to house-keeping," and Ralph
suspected that she depended on the transit from hotel to hotel as the
one element of variety in her life. As for Mr. Spragg, it was impossible
to imagine any one in whom the domestic sentiments were more completely
unlocalized and disconnected from any fixed habits; and he was probably
aware of his changes of abode chiefly as they obliged him to ascend from
the Subway, or descend from the "Elevated," a few blocks higher up or
lower down.
Neither husband nor wife complained to Ralph of their frequent
displacements, or assigned to them any cause save the vague one of
"guessing they could do better"; but Ralph noticed that the decreasing
luxury of their life synchronized with Undine's growing demands for
money. During the last few months they had transferred themselves to the
"Malibran," a tall narrow structure resembling a grain-elevator divided
into cells, where linoleum and lincrusta simulated the stucco and marble
of the Stentorian, and fagged business men and their families consumed
the watery stews dispensed by "coloured help" in the grey twilight of a
basement dining-room.
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