 Chapter 26 of The Custom of the Country. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eugene Smith. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, Chapter 26. The next phase in the unrolling vision was the episode of her return to New York. She had gone to the Malibrand, to her parents, for it was a moment in her career when she clung passionately to the conformities, and when the fact of being able to say, I'm here with my father and mother, was worth paying for even in the discomfort of that grim abode. Nevertheless, it was another thorn in her pride, and her parents could not, for the meanest of material reasons, transfer themselves at her coming to one of the Big Fifth Avenue hotels. When she had suggested it, Mr. Sprague had briefly replied that, owing to the heavy expenses of her divorce suit, he couldn't for the moment afford anything better. And this announcement cast a deeper gloom over her future. It was not an occasion for being nervous, however. She learned too many hard facts in the last few months to think of having recourse to her youthful methods, and something told her that if she made the attempt, it would be useless. Her father and mother seemed much older, seemed tired and defeated, like herself. Parents and daughter bore their common fit here in a common silence, broken only by Mrs. Sprague's occasional tentative illusions to her grandson, but her anecdotes of Paul left the deeper silence behind them. Wundeen did not want to talk of her boy. She could forget him when, as she put it, things were going her way, but in moments of discouragement, the thought of him was an added bitterness, subtly different from her other bitter thoughts, and harder to quiet. It did not occur to her to try to gain possession of the child. She was vaguely aware that the courts had given her his custody, but she had never seriously thought of asserting this claim. Her parents' diminished means, and her own uncertain future, made her regard the care of Paul as an additional burden, and she quieted her scruples by thinking of him as better off with Ralph's family, and of herself as rather touchingly disinterested in putting his welfare before her own. Mrs. Sprague was planning for him, but Wundeen rejected her artless suggestion that Mrs. Heaney should be sent to bring him around. I wouldn't ask them a favor for the world, but just waiting for a chance to be hateful to me, she scornfully declared. But it pained her that her boy should be so near, yet inaccessible, and for the first time she was visited by unwanted questionings as to her share in the misfortunes that had befallen her. She had voluntarily stepped out of her social frame, and the only person on whom she could with any satisfaction have laid the blame was the person to whom her mind now turned with a belated tenderness. It was thus, in fact, that she thought of Ralph. His pride, his reserve, all the secret expressions of his devotion, the tones of his voice, his quiet manner, even his disconcerting irony. These seemed in contrast to what she had since known, the qualities essential to her happiness. She could console herself only by regarding it as part of her sad lot that poverty and the relentless animosity of his family should have put an end to so perfect a union. She gradually began to look on herself and Ralph as the victims of dark machinations. And when she mentioned him, she spoke forgivingly and implied that everything might have been different if people had not come between them. She had arrived in New York in mid-season, and the dread of seeing familiar faces kept her shut up in her room at the Malibrand, reading novels and brooding over possibilities of escape. She tried to avoid the daily papers, but they formed a staple diet of her parents, and now and then she could not help taking one up and turning to the society column. It's perusal produced the impression that the season must be the gayest New York had ever known. Harman B. Driscoll's, young Jim and his wife, the Thurber Van Degans, the Chauncey Ellings, and all the other Fifth Avenue potentates seemed to have their doors perpetually open to a stream of feasters, among whom the familiar presences of Grace Behringer, Bertha Shalem, Dickey Bowles, and Claude Walsingham Pupil came and went with the irritating sameness of the figures in a stage procession. Among them also, Peter Van Degen presently appeared. He had been on a tour around the world, and Undine could not look at a newspaper without seeing some allusion to his progress. After his return, she noticed that his name was usually coupled with his wife's. He and Claire seemed to be celebrating his own coming in a series of festivities. And Undine guessed that he had reasons for wishing to keep before the world the evidences of his conjugal accord. Mrs. Enie's clipping supplied her with such items as her own reading mist, and one day, the masseuse appeared with a long article from the leading journal of Little Rock describing the brilliant nuptials of Mabel Lipscomb, now Mrs. Homer Branny, and her departure for the coast in the bridegroom's private car. This put the last touch to Undine's irritation. The next morning, she got up earlier than usual, put on her most effective dress, went for a quick walk around the park, and told her father when she came in that she wanted him to take her to the opera that evening. Mr. Sprague stared and frowned, You mean you want me to go around and hire a box for you? Oh, no. Undine colored it the infalicitous allusion. Besides, she knew now that the smart people who were musical went in stalls. I only want two good seats. I don't see why I should stay shut up. I want you to go with me, she added. Her father received the latter part of the request without comment. He seemed to have gone beyond surprise, but he appeared that evening at dinner in a creased and loosely fitting dress suit, which he had probably not put on since the last time he had dined with his son-in-law, and he and Undine drove off together, leaving Mrs. Sprague to gaze after them with the pale stare of Hecuba. Their stalls were in the middle of the house, and around them swept the great curve of boxes at which Undine had so often looked up in the remote Stentorian days. Then all had been one indistinguishable glitter. Now the scene was full of familiar details. The house was throng with people she knew, and every box seemed to contain a parcel of her past. At first, she had shrunk from recognition, but gradually, as she perceived that no one noticed her, that she was merely part of the invisible crowd out of range of the exploring opera glasses, she felt a defiant desire to make herself seen. When the performance was over, the father wanted to leave the house by the door at which they had entered, but she guided him toward the stock hold as entrance, and pressed her way among the furred and jeweled ladies waiting for their motors. Oh, it's the wrong door. Never mind, we'll walk to the corner and get a cab. She exclaimed, speaking loudly enough to be overheard. Two or three heads turned, and she met Dickie Bowles's glance, and returned his laughing bound. A woman talking to him looked around, colored slightly, and made a barely perceptible motion of her head. Just beyond her, Mrs. Chauncey Elling, plumed and purple, stared, partnered her lips, and turned to say something important to young Jim Driscoll, who looked up involuntarily, and then squared his shoulders and gazed fixedly at a distant point. That is people do at a funeral. Behind them, Undine caught sight of Claire Van Degen. She stood alone, and her face was pale and listless. Shall I go up and speak to her, Undine wondered. Some intuition told her that, alone of all the women present, Claire might have greeted her kindly. But she hung back, and Mrs. Harmon Driscoll surged by on Popple's arm, Popple crimsoned, coughed, and signaled despotically to Mrs. Driscoll's footmen. Over his shoulder, Undine received a bow from Charles Bowen, and behind Bowen she saw two or three other men she knew, and read in their faces her prize, curiosity, and the wish to show their pleasure at seeing her. But she grasped her father's arm and drew him out among the entangled motors and both ciferating policemen. Neither she nor Mr. Sprague spoke a word on the way home. But when they reached the Malibrand, her father followed her up to her room. She had dropped her cloak before the wardrobe mirror, studying her reflection. When he came up behind her and she saw that he was looking at it too, where did that necklace come from? Undine's neck grew pink under the shining circlet. It was the first time since her return to New York that she had put on a low dress and thus uncovered the string of pearls she always wore. She made no answer, and Mr. Sprague continued, Did your husband give them to you? Ralph! She could not restrain a laugh. Who did then? Undine remained silent. She really had not thought about the pearls except insofar she consciously enjoyed the pleasure of possessing them. And her father, habitually so unobservant, had seemed the last person likely to raise the awkward question of their origin. What? She began without knowing what she meant to say. I guess you'd better send them back to the party they belonged to. Mr. Sprague continued in a voice she did not know. They belonged to me, she flamed up. He looked at her as if she had grown suddenly small and insignificant. You'd better send them back to Peter Van Degen the first thing tomorrow morning, he said, as he went out of the room. As far as Undine could remember, it was the first time in her life that he had ever ordered her to do anything. And when the door closed on him, she had the distinct sense that the question had closed with it and that she would have to obey. She took the pearls off and threw them from her angrily. Humiliation her father had inflicted on her was merged with the humiliation to which she had subjected herself in going to the opera. And she had never before hated her life as she hated it then. All night she lay sleepless, wondering miserably what to do. And out of her hatred of her life and her hatred of Peter Van Degen, there gradually grew a loathing of Van Degen's pearls. How could she have kept them? How have continued to wear them about her neck? Only her absorption in other cares could have kept her from feeling the humiliation of carrying about with her the price of her shame. Her novel reading had filled her mind with the vocabulary of outraged virtue and with pathetic allusions to woman's frailty. And while she pitted herself, she thought her father heroic. She was proud to think that she had such a man to defend her and rejoiced that it was in her power to express her score on a Van Degen by sending back his jewels. But her righteous ardor gradually cooled and she was left once more to face the dreary problem of the future. Her evening at the opera had shown her the impossibility of remaining in New York. She had neither the skill or the power to fight the forces of indifference leaked against her. She must get away at once and try to make a fresh start. But as usual, the lack of money hampered her. Mr. Sprague could no longer afford to make her the allowance she had intermittently received from him during the first years of her marriage. And since she was now without child or household, she could hardly make it a grievance that he had reduced her income. But what he allowed her, even with the addition of her alimony, was absurdly insufficient. Not that she looked far ahead, she had always felt herself predestined to ease and luxury and the possibility of a future adapted to her present budget did not occur to her. But she desperately wanted enough money to carry her without anxiety through the coming year. When her breakfast tray was brought in, she set it away untouched and continued to lie in her darkened room. She knew that when she got up she must send back the pearls. There was no longer any satisfaction in the thought of seriously wondering how she could best transmit them to Van Degen. As she lay there, she heard Mrs. Heaney's voice in the passage. Hitherto, she had avoided the messes, as she did everyone else associated with her past. Mrs. Heaney had behaved with extreme discretion, refraining from all direct illusions to Undine's misadventure, but her silence was obviously the criticism of a superior mind. Undine had disregarded her injunction to go slow, with results that justified the warning. Mrs. Heaney's very reserved, however, now marked her as a safe advisor. And Undine sprang up and called her in. My sakes, Undine! You look as if you had been sitting up all night with her remains! The messers exclaimed in her round, rich tones. Undine, without answering, caught up the pearls and thrust them into Mrs. Heaney's hands. Good land alive! The messers dropped into a chair and let the twist slip through her fat, flexible fingers. Well, you got a fortune right round your neck whenever you wear the Mundine's Sprag. Undine murmured something indistinguishable. I want you to take them. She began. Take them? Where to? Why to? She was checked by the wondering simplicity of Mrs. Heaney's stare. The masseuse must know where the pearls had come from, yet had had evidently not occurred to her that Mrs. Marvell was about to ask her to return them to their donor. In the light of Mrs. Heaney's unclouded gaze, the whole episode took on a different aspect. And Undine began to be vaguely astonished at her immediate submission to her father's will. The pearls were hers, after all. To be restrung, Mrs. Heaney placidly suggested, why you'd ought her to have it done right here before your eyes with pearls that are worth what these are. As Undine listened, a new thought shaped itself. She could not continue to wear the pearls. The idea had become intolerable. But for the first time, she saw what they might be converted into and what they might rescue her from. And suddenly she brought out, do you suppose I could get anything for them? Get anything? Why, what? Anything like what they're worth, I mean. They cost a lot of money. They came from the biggest place in Paris. Under Mrs. Heaney's simplifying eye, it was comparatively easy to make these explanations. I want you to try to sell them for me. I want you to do the best you can with them. I can't do it myself. But you must swear you will never tell a soul. You must trust on breathlessly. Why, you poor child, it ain't the first time, said Mrs. Heaney, coiling the pearls in her big palm. It's a pity, too. There's such beauties. But you'll get others, she added, as the necklace vanished into her bag. A few days later, there appeared from the same receptacle a bundle of banknotes considerable enough to quiet Undine's last scruples. She no longer understood why she had hesitated. Why should she have thought it necessary to give back the pearls to Van Degen? His obligation to her represented far more than the relatively small sum she had been able to realize on the necklace. She hid the money in her dress. And when Mrs. Heaney had gone on to Mrs. Sprague's room, she drew the packet out and counting the bills over, murmured to herself, now I can get away. Her one thought was to return to Europe. But she did not want to go alone. The vision of her solitary figure had drifted in the spring mob of transatlantic pleasure seekers depressed and mortified her. She would be sure to run across acquaintances, and they would infer that she was in quest of a new opportunity, a fresh start, and would suspect her of trying to use them for the purpose. Her thought was repugnant to her newly awakened pride. But she decided that if she went to Europe, her father and mother must go with her. The project was a bold one. And when she broached it, she had to run the whole gamut of Mr. Sprague's irony. He wanted to know what she expected to do with him when she got him there, whether she meant to introduce him to all those old kings. How she thought he and her mother would look like in a court dress. And now she's supposed he was going to get on without his new year paper. But Undine had been aware of having what he himself would have called a pull over her father since the day after their visit to the opera, he had taken her aside to ask, you set back those pearls? And she had answered coldly. This is he he's taken them. After a moment of half bewildered resistance, her parents, perhaps secretly flattered by this first expression of her need for them, had yielded to her in treaty, packed their trunks and stoically set out for the unknown. Neither Mr. Sprague nor his wife had ever before been out of their country and Undine had not understood till they stood beside her, tongue tied and helpless on the dock at Cherbourg, the task she had undertaken in uprooting them. Mr. Sprague had never been physically active, on foreign shores he was seized by a strange restlessness and a helpless dependence on his daughter. Mrs. Sprague's long habit of apathy was overcome by her dread of being left alone when her husband and Undine went out, and she delayed and impeded their expeditions by insisting on accompanying them. So that, much as Undine disliked sightseeing, there seemed no alternative between going round with her parents and shutting herself up with them in the crowded hotels to which she successfully transported them. The hotels were the only European institutions that really interested Mr. Sprague. He considered them manifestly inferior to those at home, and he was haunted by a statistical curiosity as to their size, their number, their cost, and their capacity for housing and feeding the incalculable hordes of his countrymen. He went through galleries, churches, and museums in a stalled silence like his daughters. But in the hotels, he never ceased to inquire and investigate, questioning everyone who could speak English, comparing bills, collecting prospectuses, and computing the cost of construction and the probable return on the investment. He regarded the non-existence of the cold storage system as one more proof of European inferiority and no longer wondered in the absence of the room-to-room telephone that foreigners hadn't yet mastered the first principles of time-saving. After a few weeks, it became evident to both parents and daughter that their unnatural association could not continue much longer. Mr. Sprague's shrinking from everything new and unfamiliar had developed into a kind of settled terror, and Mr. Sprague had begun to be depressed by the incredible number of the hotels in their simply incalculable housing capacity. It ain't that there are any great shakes in themselves, any one of them, but there's such a darn lot of them. They're as thick as mosquitoes every place you go. And he began to reckon up on slips of paper on the backs of bills and the margins of old newspapers the number of travelers who could be simultaneously lodged, bathed, and boarded on the continent of Europe. 500 bedrooms? 300 bathrooms? No. 350 bathrooms? That one has. That makes, supposing two-thirds of them double up, he's supposed as many as that new undie. That porter at Lucerne told me the Germans slept three in a room. Well, call it 800 people. And three meals a day per head? No, four meals with that afternoon tea they take. And the last place we were at, way up on that mountain there, why there were 75 hotels in that one spot alone, and all jam-full. Well, beats me to know where all the people come from. He had gone on in this fashion for what seemed to his daughter an endless length of days, and then suddenly he had roused himself to say, see here, undie, I gotta go back and make the money to pay for all this. There had been no question on the part of any of the three of undies returning with them, and after she had conveyed them to their steamer and seen their vaguely relieved faces merged in the handkerchief waving throng along the taff rail, she'd returned alone to Paris and made her unsuccessful attempt to enlist the aid of Indiana or Oliver. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of The Custom of the Country. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Eugene Smith, The Custom of the Country, Chapter 27. She was still brooding over this last failure when one afternoon, as she loitered on the hotel terrace, she was approached by a young woman whom she had seen sitting near the wheeled chair of an old lady wearing a crumpled black bonnet under a funny fringed parasol with a jointed handle. The young woman, who was small, slight, and brown, was dressed with the disregard of the fashion which contrasted oddly with the mauve powder on her face and the traces of artificial color in her dark, untidy hair. She looked as if she might have several different personalities, and as if the one of the moment had been hanging up a long time in her wardrobe and been hurriedly taken down as probably good enough for the present occasion. With her hands in her jacket pockets and an agreeable smile on her boyish face, she strolled up to Undine and asked, in a pretty variety of Parisian English, if she had the pleasure of speaking to Mrs. Marvell. On Undine's assenting, her smile grew more alert, and the lady continued, I think you know my friend Sasha Adelschein? No question could have been less welcome to Undine. If there was one point on which she was doggedly and puritanically resolved, it was that no extremes of social adversitation ever again draw her into the group of people among whom Madame Adelschein too conspicuously figured. Since her unsuccessful attempt to win over Indiana by introducing her to that group, Undine had been righteously resolved to remain aloof from it. And she was drawing herself up to her loftiest height of disapproval when the stranger, as if unconscious of it, went on, Sasha speaks of you so often, she admires you so much. I think you know also my cousin Shell, she added, looking into Undine's eyes. I am the Princess Estradina. I've come here with my mother for the air. The murmur of negation died on Undine's lips. She found herself grappling with a new social riddle, and such surprises were always stimulating. The name of the untidy-looking young woman she had been about to repel was one of the most eminent in the impregnable quarter beyond the Seine. No one figured more largely in the Parisian Chronicle than the Princess Estradina. And no name more impressively headed the list at every marriage, funeral, and philanthropic entertainment of the Fauberg Saint-Germain than that of her mother, the Duchess de Dordogne. Who must be no other than the old woman sitting in the bath chair with the crumpled bonnet and the ridiculous sunshade. But it was not the appearance of the two ladies that surprised Undine. She knew that social gold does not always glitter and that the lady she had heard spoken of as Lily Estradina was notoriously careless of the conventions. But that she should boast of her intimacy with Madame Adelschein and use it as a pretext for naming herself over through all Undine's hierarchies. Yes, it's hideously dull here and I'm dying of it. Do come over and speak to my mother. She's dying of it too. But don't tell her so because she hasn't found it out. There were so many things our mothers never found out the Princess rambled on with her half mocking, half intimate smile. And in another moment, Undine, thrilled at having Mrs. Sprague, thus coupled with the Duchess, found herself seated between mother and daughter and responding by a radiant blush to the elder lady's amiable opening. Oh, my nephew Raymond, he's your great admirer. How had it happened? Whither would it lead? How long could it last? The questions raced through Undine's brain as she sat listening to her new friends. They seemed already too friendly to be called acquaintances, replying to their inquiries and trying to think far enough ahead to guess what they would expect her to say and what tone it would be well to take. She was used to such feats of mental agility and it was instinctive with her to become, for the moment, the person she thought her interlocutors expected her to be, but she had never had quite so new a part to play at such short notice. She took her cue, however, and from the fact that the Princess Estradina in her mother's presence made no farther allusion to her dear friend Sasha and seemed somehow though she continued to chat on in the same easy strain to look differently and throw out different implications. All these shades of demeanor were immediately perceptible to Undine, who tried to adapt herself to them by combining in her manner a mixture of apex dash and New York dignity. And the result was so successful that when she rose to go, the Princess with a hand on her arm said almost wistfully, you're staying on too? And do take pity on us. We might go on some trips together and in the evenings we could make a bridge. A new life began for Undine. The Princess, chained to her mother's side and frankly rested under her filial duty, clung to her new acquaintance with a persistence too flattering to be analyzed. My dear, I was on the brink of suicide when I saw your name in the visitors list, she explained. I felt like answering that she had nearly reached the same pass when the Princess's thin little hand had been held out to her. For the moment, she was dizzy with the effect of that random gesture. Here she was, at the lowest ember for fortunes, miraculously rehabilitated, reinstated and restored to the old victorious sense of her youth and her power. Her soul graces, her unaided personality had worked the miracle. How should she not trust in them hereafter? Aside from her feeling of concrete attainment, Undine was deeply interested in her new friends. The Princess and her mother, in their different ways, were different from anyone else she had known. The Princess, who might have been of any age between 20 and 40, had a small triangular face with caressing impudent eyes, a smile like a silent whistle and the gait of a baker's boy balancing his basket. She wore either baggy, shabby clothes like a man's or rich draperies that looked as if they had been rained on. And she seemed equally at ease in either style of dress and carelessly unconscious of both. She was extremely familiar and unblushingly inquisitive, but she never gave Undine the time to ask her any questions or the opportunity to venture on any freedom with her. Nevertheless, she did not scruple to talk of her sentimental experiences and seemed surprised and rather disappointed that Undine had so few to relate in return. She playfully accused her beautiful new friend of being Cauchotier and at the sight of Undine's blush cried out, Ah, you funny Americans! Why do you all behave as if love were a secret infirmity? The old Duchess was even more impressive because she fitted better into Undine's preconceived picture of the Fulberg Saint-Germain and was more like the people with whom she pictured the former Netty Wincher as living in privileged intimacy. The Duchess was indeed more amiable and accessible than Undine's conception of the Duchess and displayed a curiosity as great as her daughters and much more purile concerning her new friend's history and habits. But through her mild prattle and in spite of her limited perceptions, Undine felt in her the same clear impenetrable barrier that she ran against occasionally in The Princess. But she was beginning to understand that this barrier represented a number of things about what she herself had yet to learn. She would not have known this a few years earlier nor would she have seen in the Duchess anything but the ruin of an ugly woman dressed in clothes that Mrs. Sprague wouldn't have touched. The Duchess certainly looked like a ruin but Undine now saw that she looked like the ruin of a castle. The Princess, who was unofficially separated from her husband, had with her her two little girls. She seemed extremely attached to both though avowing for the younger a preference she frankly ascribed to the interesting accidents of its parentage and she could not understand that Undine as to whose domestic difficulty she minutely informed herself should have consented to leave her child to strangers. For to one's child, everyone but oneself is a stranger and whatever your agarmo, she began breaking off with a stare when Undine interrupted her to explain that the courts had ascribed all the wrongs in the case to her husband. But then, but then murmured the Princess turning away from the subject as if checked by too deep an embiss of difference. The incident had embarrassed Undine though she tried to justify herself by allusions to her boy's dependence on his father's family and to the duty of not standing in his way she saw that she made no impression. Whatever one's errors one's child belongs to one and her hearer continued to repeat and Undine, who was frequently scandalized by the Princess's conversation now found herself in the odd position of having to set watch upon her own in order not to scandalize the Princess. Each day, nevertheless, strengthened her hold on her new friends. After her first flush of triumph she began indeed to suspect that she had been a slight disappointment to the Princess, completely justified the hopes raised by the doubtful honor of being one of Sasha Adelstein's intimates. Undine guessed that the Princess had expected to find her more amusing, queerer, more startling in speech and conduct, though by instinct she was none of these things she was eager to go as far as was expected. But she felt that her audacities were on lines too normal to be interesting and that the Princess thought her rather schoolgirlish and old-fashioned. Still, they had in common their youth, their boredom, their high spirits and their hunger for amusement. And Undine was making the most of these ties when, one day, coming back from a trip to Monte Carlo with the Princess, she was brought up short by the sight of a lady, evidently a new arrival, who was seated in an attitude of respectful intimacy beside the old Duchess's chair. Undine, advancing unheard over the fine gravel of the garden path, recognized at a glance the marquis de trés act grouping nose and disdainful back and at the same moment heard her say, and her husband? Her husband? But she's an American, she's divorced. The Duchess replied, as if she were merely stating the same fact in two different ways. And Undine stopped short with a pang of apprehension. The Princess came up behind her. Who's the solemn person with Mama? Ah, that old bore of a trés act. She dropped her long eyeglass with a laugh. Well, she'll be useful. She'll stick to Mama like a leech and we shall get away off in her. Come, let's go and be charming to her. She approached Madame de trés act effusively and after an interchange of exclamations, Undine heard her say, You know my friend, Mrs. Marvell? No? How odd. Where do you manage to hide yourself, cher Madame? Undine, here's a compatriot who hasn't had the pleasure. I'm such a hermit, dear Mrs. Marvell. The Princess shows me what I miss. The marquis de trés act murmured, rising to give her hand to Undine and speaking in a voice so different from that of the supercilious Miss Wincher, that only her facial angle and the droop of her nose linked her to that hated vision of potash springs. Undine felt herself dancing on a flood tide of security. For the first time, the memory of potash springs became a thing to smile at and with the Princess's arm through her as she shone back triumphantly on Madame de trés act, who seemed to have grown suddenly obsequious and insignificant, as though the waving of the Princess's wand had stripped her of all her false advantages. But upstairs, in her own room, Undine's courage fell. Madame de trés act had been civil, if you see it even, because for the moment she had been taken off her guard by finding Mrs. Marvell on terms of intimacy with the Princess Estrudina and her mother. But the force of facts would reassert itself. Far from continuing to see Undine through her French friend's eyes, she would probably invite them to view her compatriot through the searching lens of her own ampler information. In the old hypocrite, she'll tell them everything, Undine murmured, wincing at the recollection of the dentist's assistant from deposit and staring miserably at her recollection in the dressing room mirror. Of what use were youth and grace and good looks if one drop of poison distilled from the envy of a narrow-minded woman was enough to paralyze them? Of course, Madame de trés act knew and remembered, and secure in her own impregnable position would never rest till she had driven out the intruder. End of chapter 27 CHAPTER 28 What do you say to niece, to-morrow, dearest? The princess suggested a few evenings later as she followed Undine upstairs after a languid evening at bridge with the duchess and Madame de trés act. Halfway down the passage she stopped to open a door and, putting her finger to her lip, signed to Undine to enter. In the taper-lit dimness stood two small white beds, each surmounted by a crucifix and a palm branch, and each containing a small brown sleeping child with a mop of hair and a curiously finished little face. As the princess stood gazing on their innocent slumbers, she seemed for a moment like a third little girl scarcely bigger and browner than the others, and the smile with which she watched them was as clear as theirs. Ah! si seulement je pouvais choisir le ramon, she sighed as she turned away. Niest-morrow, she repeated, as she and Undine walked on to their rooms with linked arms, we may as well make hay while the trés act shines. She bores Maman frightfully, but Maman won't admit it because they belong to the same oeuvre. Shall it be the eleven train, dear? We can lunch at the royal and look in at the shops. We may meet somebody amusing. Anyhow, it's better than staying here." Undine was sure the trip to Nice would be delightful. Their previous expeditions had shown her the princess's faculty for organizing such adventures. At Monte Carlo, a few days before, they had run across two or three amusing but unassorted people, and the princess, having fused them in a jolly lunch, had followed it up by a bout at Baccarat, and finally hunting down an eminent composer who had just arrived to rehearse a new production, had insisted on his asking the party to tea and treating them to fragments of his opera. A few days earlier, Undine's hope of renewing such pleasures would have been clouded by the dread of leaving Madame de Trés Act alone with the Duchess, but she had no longer any fear of Madame de Trés Act. She had discovered that her old rival of Potash Springs was an actual dread of her disfavor and nervously anxious to conciliate her, and the discovery gave her such a sense of the height she had scaled and the security of her footing that all her troubled past began to seem like the result of some providential design, and vague impulses of piety stirred in her as she and the princess whirled toward Nice through the blue and gold glitter of the morning. They wandered about the lively streets. They gazed into the beguiling shops. The princess tried on hats, and Undine bought them, and they lunged at the royal on all sorts of succulent dishes prepared under the head-waiter's special supervision. But as they were savouring their double-coffee and liqueur, and Undine was wondering what her companion would devise for the afternoon, the princess clapped her hands together and cried out, "'Dearest! I'd forgotten! I must desert you!' She explained that she'd promised the Duchess to look up a friend who was ill, a poor wretch who'd been sent to Ximea for her lungs, and that she must rush off at once and would be back as soon as possible. Well, if not in an hour, then in two at latest. She was full of compunction, but she knew Undine would forgive her, and find something amusing to fill up the time. She advised her to go back and buy the black hat with the osprey, and try on the crepe de chine they thought so smart. For any one as good-looking as herself, the woman would probably alter it for nothing, and they could meet again at the palace tea-rooms at four. She whirled away in a cloud of explanations, and Undine, left alone, sat down on the promenade des anglais. She did not believe a word the princess had said. She had seen in a flash why she was being left and why the plan had not been divulged to her beforehand, and she quivered with resentment and humiliation. That's what she wanted me for. That's why she made up to me. She's trying it to-day, and after this it'll happen regularly. She'll drag me over here every day or two. At least she thinks she will. A sincere disgust was Undine's uppermost sensation. She was as much ashamed as Mrs. Sprague might have been at finding herself used to screen a clandestine adventure. I'll let her see. I'll make her understand," she repeated angrily, and for a moment she was half-disposed to drive to the station and to take the first train back. But the sense of her precarious situation withheld her, and presently, with bitterness in her heart, she got up and began to stroll toward the shops. To show that she was not a dup, she arrived at the designated meeting-place nearly an hour later than the time appointed. But when she entered the tea-rooms, the princess was nowhere to be seen. The rooms were crowded, and Undine was guided toward a small inner apartment where isolated couples were absorbing refreshments and an atmosphere of intimacy that made it seem incongruous to be alone. She glanced about for a vase she knew, but none was visible, and she was just giving up the search when she beheld Elmer Moffat shouldering his way through the crowd. The sight was so surprising that she sat gazing with unconscious fixity at the round black head and glossy reddish face which kept appearing and disappearing through the intervening jungle of Egret. It was long since she had either heard of Moffat or thought about him, and now, in her loneliness and exasperation, she took comfort in the sight of his confident, capable face and felt a longing to hear his voice and unboozle her woes to him. She had half risen to attract his attention when she saw him turn back and make way for a companion who was cautiously steering her huge feathered hat between the tea-tables. The woman was of the vulgarest type. Everything about her was cheap and gaudy. But Moffat was obviously elated. He stood aside with a flourish to usher her in, and as he followed he shot out a pink shirt cuff with jeweled links and gave his moustache a gallant twist. Undine felt an unreasoning irritation. She was vexed with him both for not being alone and for being so vulgarly accompanied. As the couple seated themselves she caught Moffat's glance and saw him reddened to the edge of his white forehead. But he elaborately avoided her eye. He evidently wanted her to see him do it, and proceeded to minister to his companion's wants with an air of experienced gallantry. The incident, trifling as it was, filled up the measure of Undine's bitterness. She thought Moffat pityably ridiculous, and she hated him for showing himself in such a light at that particular moment. Her mind turned back to her own grievance, and she was just saying to herself that nothing on earth should prevent her letting the princess know what she thought of her when the lady in question at last appeared. She came hurriedly forward and behind her Undine perceived the figure of a slight, quietly dressed man as to whom her immediate impression was that he made everyone else in the room look as common as Moffat. An instant later the colour had flown to her face, and her hand was in Raymond Duchel, while the princess murmuring, ''Simmier, such a long way off, but you will forgive me!'' looked into her eyes with a smile that added, ''See how I pay for what I get!'' Her first glance showed Undine how glad Raymond Duchel was to see her, since their last meeting his admiration for her seemed not only to have increased, but to have acquired a different character. Undine at an earlier stage in her career might not have known exactly what the difference signified, but it was as clear to her now as if the princess had said what her beaming eyes seemed in fact to convey, ''I'm only too glad to do my cousin the same kind of turn you're doing me!'' But Undine's increased experience, if it had made her more vigilant, had also given her a clearer measure of her power. She saw at once that Shell, in seeking to meet her again, was not in quest of a mere passing adventure. He was evidently deeply drawn to her, and her present situation, if it made it natural to regard her as more accessible, had not altered the nature of his feeling. She saw and weighed all this in the first five minutes during which, over tea and muffins, the princess descanted on her luck in happening to run across her cousin, and Shell, his enchanted eyes on Undine, expressed a sense of his good fortune. He was staying and appeared with friends at Beaulieu, and had run over to Nice that afternoon by the nearest chants. He added that, having just learned of his aunt's presence in the neighbourhood, he had already planned to present his homage to her. ''Oh, don't come to us! We're too dull!'' the princess exclaimed. ''Let us run over occasionally and call on you. We're dying for a pretext, aren't we?'' she added, smiling at Undine. The latter smiled back vaguely, and looked across the room. Moffit, looking flushed and foolish, was just pushing back his chair. To carry off his embarrassment, he put an additional touch of importance, and as he swaggered out behind his companion, Undine said to herself with a shiver, ''If he'd been alone, they would have found me taking tea with him.'' Undine, during the ensuing weeks, returned several times to Nice with the princess. But to the latter's surprise, she absolutely refused to have Raymond de Shell included in their luncheon parties, or even apprised in advance of their expeditions. The princess, always impatient of unnecessary dissimulation, had not attempted to keep up the faint of the interesting invalid at Simye. She confessed to Undine that she was drawn to Nice by the presence there of the person without whom, for the moment, she found life intolerable, and whom she could not well receive under the same roof with her little girls and her mother. She appealed to Undine's sisterly heart to feel for her and her difficulty, and implied that, as her conduct had already proved, she would always be ready to render her friend a like service. It was at this point that Undine checked her by a decided word. ''I understand your position, and I'm very sorry for you, of course,'' she began. The princess stared at the sorry. ''Your secret's perfectly safe with me, and I'll do anything I can for you. But if I go to Nice with you again, you must promise not to ask your cousin to meet us.'' The princess's face expressed the most genuine astonishment. ''Oh, my dear, do forgive me if I've been stupid! He admires you so tremendously, and I thought... You'll do as I ask, please, won't you?'' Undine went on, ignoring the interruption and looking straight at her under level brows, and the princess, with a shrug, merely murmured, ''What a pity! I fancied you like Tim!'' End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of The Custom of the Country This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eugene Smith. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, Chapter 29. The early spring found Undine once more in Paris. She had every reason to be satisfied with the result of the course she had pursued, since she had pronounced her ultimatum on the subject of Raymond de Chelle. She had continued to remain on the best of terms with the princess, to rise in the estimation of the old duchess, and to measure the rapidity of her assent in the upward gaze of Madame de Trésar. And she had given Chelle to understand that if he wished to renew their acquaintance, he must do so in the shelter of his venerable aunt's protection. To the princess, she was careful to make her attitude equally clear. I like your cousin very much. He's delightful. And if I'm in Paris this spring, I hope I shall see a great deal of him. But I know how easy it is for a woman in my position to get talked about, and I have my little boy to consider. Nevertheless, whenever Chelle came over from Beaure to spend a day with his aunt and cousin, an excursion he not infrequently repeated, Undine was at no pains to conceal her pleasure, nor was there anything calculated in her attitude. Chelle seemed to her more charming than ever, and the warmth of his wooing was in flattering contrast to the cool reserve of his manners. At last she felt herself alive and young again, and it became a joy to look in her glass and to try on her new hats and dresses. The only menace ahead was the usual one of the want of money. While she had traveled with her parents, she had been at relatively small expense, and since their return to America, Mr. Sprague had sent her allowance regularly, yet almost all the money she had received for the pearls was already gone, and she knew her parents' season would be far more expensive than the quiet weeks on the Riviera. Meanwhile, the sense of reviving popularity and the charm of Chelle's devotion had almost effaced the ugly memories of failure, and refurbished that image of herself in other minds, which was her only notion of self-seeing. Under the guidance of Madame de Trezac, she had found a prettily furnished apartment in a not too inaccessible quarter, and in its light, bright, drawing room, she sat one June afternoon listening with all the forbearance of what she was capable to the counsels of her newly acquired guide. Everything but marriage, Madame de Trezac was repeating, her long head slightly tilted, her features wearing the wrapped look of an adept reciting a hallowed formula. Raymond de Chelle had not been mentioned by either of the ladies, but Miss Wincher was merely imparting to her young friend one of the fundamental dogmas of her social creed. But in Dean was conscious that the air between them vibrated with an unspoken name. She made no immediate answer, but her glance, passing by Madame de Trezac's dull countenance, saw her own reflection in the mirror behind her visitor's chair. A beam of spring sunlight touched the living masses of her hair and made the face beneath as radiant as a girl's. Wundeen smiled faintly at the promise her own eyes gave her and then turned them back to her friend. What can such women know about anything? She thought compassionately. There's everything against it, Madame de Trezac continued in a tone of patient exposition. She seemed to be doing her best to make the matter clear. In the first place, between people and society, a religious marriage is necessary. And since the church doesn't recognize divorce, that's obviously out of the question. In France, a man of position who goes through the form of civil marriage with a divorced woman is simply ruining himself and her. They might much better, from her point of view, as well as his, be friends, as it's called over here. Such arrangements are understood and allowed for. But when a Frenchman marries, he wants to marry as his people always have. He knows there are traditions he can't fight against, and in his heart he's glad there are. Oh, I know. They have so much religious feeling. I admire that in them. They're religions so beautiful. Wundeen looked thoughtful later, visitor. I suppose even money, a great deal of money, wouldn't make the least bit of difference. None whatever, except to make matters worse, Madame de Trésac decisively rejoined. She returned Wundeen's look with something of Miss Wincher's contemptuous authority. But she added, softening to a smile, between ourselves, I can say it, since we're neither of us children, a woman with tact who's not in a position to remarry. We'll find society extremely indulgent, provided, of course, she keeps up appearances. Wundeen turned to her with a frown of a startled Diana. We don't look at things that way out at apex, she said coldly, and the blood rose in Madame de Trésac's sallow cheek. Oh, my dear, it's so refreshing to hear you talk like that. Personally, of course, I've never quite got used to the French view. I hope no American woman ever does, said Wundeen. She had been in Paris for about two months when this conversation took place, and in spite of her reviving self-confidence, she was beginning to recognize the strength of the forces opposed to her. It had taken a long time to convince her that even money could not prevail against them. And in the intervals of expressing her admiration for the Catholic creed, she now had violent reactions of militant Protestantism, during which she talked of the tyranny of Rome called school stories of immoral popes and persecuting Jesuits. Meanwhile, her demeanor to show was that of the incorruptible but fearless American woman, who cannot even conceive of love outside of marriage, but is ready to give her devoted friendship to the man on whom, in happier circumstances, she might have bestowed her hand. This attitude was provocative of many scenes, during which her suitor's unfailing powers of expression, his gift of looking and saying all the desperate and devoted things a pretty woman likes to think she inspires, gave Wundeen the thrilling sense of breathing the very air of French fiction. But she was aware that too prolonged tension of these chords usually ends in their snapping, and that Shell's patience was probably an inverse ratio to his ardor. When Madame de Tresac had left her, these thoughts remained in her mind. She understood exactly what each of her new friends wanted of her. The princess, who was fond of her cousin and had the French sense of family solidarity, would have liked to see Shell happy in what seemed to her the only imaginable way. Madame de Tresac would have liked to do what she could to second the princess's efforts in this or any other line. And even the old duchess, though piously desirous of seeing her favorite nephew married, would have thought it not only natural, but inevitable, that while awaiting that happy event he should try to induce an amiable young woman to mitigate the drawbacks of celibacy. Meanwhile they might want it all weary of her, if Shell did, and a persistent rejection of his suit would probably imperil her scarcely gained footing among his friends. All this was clear to her, yet it did not shake her resolve. She was determined to give up Shell unless he was willing to marry her, and the thought of her enunciation moved to her to a kind of wistful melancholy. In this mood her mind reverted to a letter she had just received from her mother. Mrs. Sprague wrote more fully than usual, and the unwanted flow of her pen had been occasioned by an event for which she had long yearned. For months she had pined for a sight of her grandson, had tried to screw up her courage to write and ask permission to visit him, and finally breaking through her sedentary habits had begun to haunt the neighborhood of Washington Square with the result that one afternoon she had had the luck to meet the little boy coming out of the house with his nurse. She had spoken to him, and he had remembered her and called her Granny. In the next day she had received a note from Mrs. Fairford saying that Ralph would be glad to send Paul to see her. Mrs. Sprague enlarged on the little lights of the visit and the growing beauty and cleverness of her grandson. She described to Undine exactly how Paul was dressed, how he looked, and what he said, and told her how he had examined everything in the room and finally coming upon his mother's photograph and asked who the lady was. And on being told, had wanted to know if she was a very long way off and when Granny thought she would come back. As Undine reread her mother's pages, she felt an unusual tightness in her throat and two tears rose to her eyes. It was dreadful that her little boy should be growing up far away from her, perhaps dressed in clothes she would have hated and wicked and unnatural that when he saw her picture he should have to be told who she was. If I could only meet some good man who would give me a home and be a father to him, she thought, and the tears overflowed and ran down. Even as they fell, the door was thrown open to admit Oremon de Chelle and the consciousness of the moisture still listening on her cheeks perhaps strengthened her resolve to resist him and thus made her more imperiously to be desired. Certain it is that on that day her suitor first alluded to a possibility which Madame de Trésar had prudently refrained from suggesting. There fell upon Undine's attentive ears the magic phrase, a nullment of marriage. Her alert intelligence immediately set to work in this new direction. But almost at the same moment she became aware of the subtle change of tone in the princess and her mother. A change reflected in the corresponding decline of Madame de Trésar's cordiality. Undine, since her arrival in Paris, had necessarily been less in the princess' company but when they met she had found her as friendly as ever. It was manifestly not a failing of the princesses to forget past favors and though increasingly absorbed by the demands of town life she treated her new friend with the same affectionate frankness and Undine was given frequent opportunities to enlarge her Parisian acquaintance not only in the princess' intimate circle but in the majestic drawing rooms of the Hotel de Dordogne. Now, however, there was a perceptible decline in these signs of hospitality and Undine, on calling one day on the duchess noticed that her appearance sent a visible flutter of discomfort through the circle about her hostess's chair. Two or three of the ladies present looked away from the newcomer and had each other and several of them seemed spontaneously to encircle without approaching her while another gray haired elderly and slightly frightened with an adieu m'abon tante to the duchess was hastily aided in her retreat down the long line of old gilded rooms. The incident was too mute and rapid to have been noticeable had it not been followed by presuming her conversation with the ladies nearest her as though Undine had just gone out of the room instead of entering it. The sense of having been thus rendered invisible filled Undine with a vehement desire to make herself seen and an equally strong sense that all attempts to do so would be vain. And when a few minutes later she issued from the portals of the Hotel de Dordogne it was with the fixed resolve not to enter them again till she had had an explanation with the princess. She was spared the trouble of seeking one by the arrival early the next morning of Madame de Trésac who entering almost with the breakfast tray mysteriously asked to be allowed to communicate something of importance. You'll understand I know the princess is not coming herself Madame de Trésac began sitting up very straight on the edge of the armchair of Undine's lace dressing gown hung. If there's anything she wants to say to me I don't, Undine answered leaning back among her rosy pillows and reflecting compassionately that the face opposite her was just the color of the café au lait she was pouring out. There are things that are that might seem too pointed if one said them oneself Madame de Trésac continued Our dear Lily so good-natured she so hates to do anything unfriendly but she naturally thinks first of her mother her mother what's the matter with her mother I told her I knew you didn't understand I was sure you'd take it in good part Undine raised herself on her elbow what did Lily tell you to tell me Oh not to tell you simply to ask if just for the present you'd mind avoiding the duchesses Thursdays what's going on any other day that is any other day she's not home and on any other do you mean that she doesn't want me to call well not while the Marquis de Shell is embarrassed she's the duchesses favorite niece and of course they all hang together that kind of family feeling is something you naturally don't Undine had a sudden glimpse of hidden intricacies that was Raymond de Shell's mother I saw there yesterday I heard it out when I came in it seems she was very much upset she somehow heard your name why shouldn't she have heard my name and why in the world should it upset her Madame de Trezac heaved a hesitating sigh isn't it better to be frank she thinks she has reason to feel badly they all do to feel badly because her son wants to marry me of course they know that's impossible Madame de Trezac smiled compassionately but they're afraid of your spoiling his other chances Undine paused a moment before answering it won't be impossible when my marriage is a null she said the effect of this statement was less electrifying than she had hoped her visitor simply broke into a lap my dear child your marriage a null who could have put such a mad idea into your head Jean's gaze followed the pattern she was tracing with a lustrous nail on her embroidered bedspread Raymond himself she let fall this time there was no mistaking the effect she produced Madame de Trezac with a murmured oh sat gazing before her as if she had lost the thread of her argument and it was only after a considerable interval that she recovered it sufficiently to exclaim I will never hear of it absolutely never but they can't prevent it can they they can prevent its being of any use to you I see Undine densibly assented she knew the tone she had taken was virtually a declaration of war but she was in a mood when the act of defiance apart from its strategic value was a satisfaction in itself moreover if she could not gain her end without a fight it was better that the battle should be engaged while Raymond's ardor was at its height to provoke immediate hostilities she sent for him the same afternoon and related quietly and without comment the incident of her visit to the Duchess and the mission with which Madame de Trezac had been charged in the circumstances she went on to explain it was manifestly impossible that she should continue to receive his visits and she met his wrathful comments on his relatives by the gently but firmly expressed resolved not to be the cause of any disagreement between himself and his family End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 of the Custom of the Country This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Eugene Smith The Custom of the Country Chapter 30 A few days after her decisive conversation with Raymond de Chelle Undine emerging from the doors of the Nouveau Lucs where she had been to call on the newly arrived Mrs. Homer Branny once more found herself face to face with Elmer Mothet This time there was no mistaking his eagerness to be recognized He stopped short as they met and she read such pleasure in his eyes that she too stopped holding out her hand I'm glad you're going to speak to me she said and Mothet reddened at the illusion Well, I very nearly didn't I didn't know you You look about as old as you did when I first landed at Apex, remember? He turned back and began to walk at her side in the direction of the Champs Elysees Say, this is all right he exclaimed and she saw that his glance had left her and was ranging across the wide silvery square ahead of them to the congregated domes and spires beyond the river Do you like Paris? she asked wondering what theaters he had been to It beats everything He seemed to be breathing in deeply the impression of fountains, sculpture, leafy avenues and long-drawn architectural distances fading into the afternoon haze I suppose you've been to that old church over there He went on his gold tipped stick pointing toward the towers of Notre Dame Oh, of course what I used to sightsee Have you never been to Paris before? No, this is my first look around I came across in March In March, she echoed inattentively It never occurred to her that other people's lives went on when they were out of her range of vision but she tried in vain to remember what she had last heard of Moffat Wasn't that a bad time to leave Wall Street? Well, so-so Fact is, I was played out needed a change Nothing of his robust mean confirmed the statement and he did not seem inclined to develop it I presume you're settled here now? he went on I saw by the papers Yes, she interrupted adding after a moment it was all a mistake from the first Well, I never thought he was your form said Moffat His eyes had come back to her and the look in them struck her as something she might use to her advantage but the next moment he had lanced away with a furrowed brow and she felt she had not wholly fixed his attention I live at the other end of Paris Why not come back and have tea with me? she suggested half moved by a desire to know more of his affairs and half by the thought that a talk with him might help to shed some light on hers In the open taxicad he seemed to recover his sense of well-being and leaned back his hands on the knob of his stick with the air of a man pleasantly aware of his privileges This Paris is a thundering good place he repeated once or twice as they rolled on through the crush and glitter of the afternoon and when they had descended at undine's door and he stood in her drawing room and looked out on the horse chestnut trees rounding their green domes under the balcony His satisfaction culminated in the comment I guess this lays out West End Avenue His eyes met undine's with their old twinkle and their expression encouraged to do murmur Of course there are times when I'm very lonely She sat down behind the tea table and he stood at a little distance watching her pull off her gloves with a queer comic twitch of his elastic mouth Well, I guess it's only one you want to be he said Grasping a lyre-backed chair by its gilt cords and sitting down astride of it his light gray trousers stretching too tightly over his plump thighs Undine was perfectly aware that he was a vulgar overdressed man with a red crease of fat above his collar and an impudent swaggering eye Yet she liked to see him there and was conscious that he stirred the fibers of his self she had forgotten but had not ceased to understand She had fancied her a vowel of loneliness might call forth some sentimental phrase But though Moffatt was clearly pleased to be with her she saw that she was not the center of his thoughts and the discovery irritated her I don't suppose you've known what it is to be lonely since you've been in Europe She continued as she held out his tea cup Oh, he said to you closely I don't always go around with a guide Once you rejoined on the same note then perhaps I shall see something of you Why, there's nothing would suit me better But the fact is, I'm probably sailing next week Oh, you are. I'm sorry There was nothing feigned in her regret Anything I can do for you across the pond? She hesitated Anything you can do for me right off He looked at her more tentatively as if his practiced eye had passed through the surface of her beauty to what might be going on behind it Do you want my blessing again? he asked with sudden irony Undine opened her eyes with a trustful look Yes, I do Well, I'll be damned said Moffatt Gailey She's been so awfully nice, she began and he leaned back, grasping both sides of the chair back and shaking it a little with his laugh He kept the same attitude while she proceeded to unfold her case listening to her with the air of sober concentration that his frivolous face took on at any serious demand on his attention When she had ended, he kept the same look during an interval of silent pondering Is it the fellow who was over at Nice with you that day? She looked at him with surprise How did you know? Well, I liked his looks, said Moffatt simply He got up and strolled toward the window On the way, he stopped before a table covered with showy trifles and after looking at them for a moment singled out a dim old brown and golden book which Shell had given her He examined it lingeringly as though it touched the spring of some choked-up sensibility for which he had no language Say! he began It was the usual prelude to his enthusiasm but he laid the book down and turned back Then you think if you had the cash you could fix it up all right with the Pope? Her heart began to beat She remembered that he had once put a job in Ralph's way and had let her understand that he had done it partly for her sake Well, he continued, relapsing into hyperbole I wish I could send the old gentleman my check tomorrow morning but the fact is, I'm high and dry He looked at her with a sudden odd intensity If I wasn't, I don't know about what phrase was lost in his familiar whistle That's an awfully fetching way you do your hair, he said It was a disappointment to Undine to hear that his affairs were not prospering or she knew that in his world pull and solvency were closely related and that such support as she had hoped he might give her would be contingent on his own condition But she had again a fleeting sense of his mysterious power of accomplishing things in the teeth of adversity And she answered, What I want is your advice He turned away and wandered across the room his hands in his pockets On her ornate writing desk he saw a photograph of Paul bright curled and sturdy-legged and a manly reefer and bent over it with a murmur of approval Say, what a fellow! Got him with you? Undine colored No, she began And seeing his look of surprise she embarked on her usual explanation I can't tell you how I miss him She ended with a ring of truth that carried conviction to her own ears if not to Moffat's Why did you get him back then? Why, I... Moffat had picked up the frame and was looking at the photograph more closely Pants, he chuckled, I declare He turned back to Undine Who does he belong to anyhow? Belong to? Who got him when you were divorced? Did you? Oh, I got everything, she said her instinct of self-defense on the alert So I thought He stood before her, stoutly planted on his short legs and speaking with an aggressive energy Well, I know what I'd do if he was mine if he was yours And you tried to get him away from me Fight you to a finish If it cost me down to my last dollar I would The conversation seemed to be wandering from the point and she answered with a touch of impatience It wouldn't cost you anything like that I haven't got a dollar to fight back with Well, you ain't got to fight Your decree gave in to you, didn't it? Why don't you send right over and get him? That's what I'd do if I was you Undine looked up Oh, but I'm awfully poor I can't afford to have him here You couldn't up to now But now you're going to get married You're going to be able to give him a home and a father's care and the foreign languages That's what I'd say if I was you His father takes considerable stock in him, don't he? She colored a denial on her lips but she could not shape it We're both awfully fond of him, of course His father'd never give him up Just so Muffet's face had grown as sharp as glass You've got the marvels running All you've got to do is sit tight and wait for their check He dropped back to his equestrian seat on the lyreback chair Whenine stood up and moved uneasily toward the window She seemed to see her little boy as though he were in the room with her She did not understand how she could have lived so long without him She stood for a long time without speaking feeling behind her the concentrated irony of Muffet's gaze You couldn't lend me the money Managed to borrow it for me, I mean? She finally turned back to ask He laughed If I could manage to borrow any money at this particular time I'd have to lend every dollar of it to Elmer Muffet, Esquire I'm stone broke, if you want to know I wanted for an investigation, too That's why I'm over here improving my mind If you were going home next week He grinned I am because I found out there's a party who wants me to stay away worse than the course who want me back making the trip just for my private satisfaction There won't be any money in it, I'm afraid Ledden disappointment descended on Undi She had felt almost sure of Muffet's helping her And for an instant she wondered if some long smoldering jealousy claimed up under its cold cinders But another look at his face denied her this solace And his evident indifference was the last blow to her pride The twinge it gave her prompted her to ask Don't you ever mean to get married? Muffet gave her a quick look Why, I shouldn't wonder, one of these days Millionaires always collect something But I've got to collect my millions first She woke coolly and half humorously And before he had ended she had lost all interest in his reply He seemed aware of the fact when he stood up and held out his hand Well, so long Mrs. Marvell It's been uncommonly pleasant to see you And you'd better think over what I've said She laid her hand sadly in his You've never had a child She replied End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 of the Custom of the Country This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Eugene Smith The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton Chapter 31 Nearly two years had passed since Ralph Marvell, waking from his long sleep in the hot summer light of Washington Square had found that the face of life was changed for him In the interval he had gradually adapted himself to the new order of things but the months of adaptation had been a time of such darkness and confusion that from the vantage ground of his recovered lucidity he could not yet distinguish by which he had worked his way out and even now his footing was not secure His first effort had been to adjust his values to take an inventory of him and reclassify them so that one at least might be made to appear as important as those he had lost Otherwise, there could be no reason why he should go on living He applied himself doggedly to this attempt but whenever he thought he had found a reason to rest in, it gave way under him and the old struggle for a foothold began again His two objects in life were his boy and his book The boy was incomparably the stronger argument yet the less serviceable in filling the void Ralph felt his son all the while and all through his other feelings but he could not think about him actively and continuously could not forever exercise your empty dissatisfied mind on the relatively simple problem of clothing, educating and amusing a little boy of six yet Paul's existence was the all-sufficient reason for his own and he turned again with a kind of cold fervor to his abandoned literary dream Material needs obliged him to go on with his regular business but the days work over he was possessed of a leisure as bare and blank as an unfurnished house yet that was at least his own to furnish as he pleased Meanwhile he was beginning to show a presentable face to the world and to be once more treated like a man in whose case no one is particularly interested His men friends ceased to say Hello old chap I never saw you looking fitter and the elderly ladies no longer told him they were sure he kept too much to himself and urged him to drop in any afternoon for a quiet talk People left him to his sorrow as a man is left to an incurable habit an unfortunate tie They ignored it or looked over its head if they happened to catch a glimpse of it at his elbow These glimpses were given to them more and more rarely The smothered springs of life and there were days when he was glad to wake and see the sun in his window and when he began to plan his book and to fancy that the planning really interested him He could even maintain the delusion for several days for intervals each time appreciably longer before it shriveled up again in a scorching blast of disenchantment The worst of it was that he could never tell when these hot gusts of anguish would overtake him They came sometimes just when he felt most secure when he was saying to himself After all, things are really worthwhile sometimes even when he was sitting with Claire Van Degen listening to her voice watching her hands and turning over in his mind the opening chapters of his book You ought to write They had one and all said it to him from the first that he might have begun sooner if he had not been urged on by their watchful fondness Everybody wanted him to write Everybody had decided that he ought to that he would that he must be persuaded to and the incessant, imperceptible pressure of encouragement the assumption of those about him that because it would be good for him to write he must naturally be able to act on his restive nerves as a stronger deterrent of approval Even Claire had fallen into the same mistake in one day as he sat talking with her on the veranda of Lora Fairford's house on the sound where they now most frequently met Ralph had half impatiently rejoined oh, if you think it's literature I need instantly he had seen her face change and the speaking hands crumble on her knee but she achieved the feat of not answering him or turning her steady eyes from the dancing mid-summer water at the foot of Lora's lawn Ralph leaned a little nearer and for an instant his hand imagined the flutter of hers but instead of clasping it he drew back in raising from his chair wandered away to the other end of the veranda No, he didn't feel as Claire felt if he loved her, as he sometimes thought he did in the same way he had a great tenderness for her he was more nearly happy with her than with anyone else he liked to sit and talk with her and watch her face and her hands and he wished there was some way some different way of letting her know it but he could not conceive that tenderness and desire could ever again be one for him such a notion as that seen part of the monstrous sentimental muddle which his life had gone aground I shall write of course I shall write someday turning back to his seat I've had a novel in the back of my head for years and now is the time to pull it out he hardly knew what he was saying but before the end of the sentence he saw that Claire had understood what he meant to convey and henceforth he felt committed to letting her talk to him as much as she pleased about his book he himself in consequence took to thinking about it more consecutively and just as his friends ceased to urge him to write he sat down in earnest to begin the vision that had come to him had no likeness to any of his earlier imaginings two or three subjects had haunted him pleading for expression during the first years of his marriage but these now seem either too lyrical or too tragic he no longer saw life on the heroic scale he wanted to do something in which men should look no bigger than the insects they were he contrived in the course of time to reduce one of his old subjects to these dimensions and after nights of brooding he made a dash at it and wrote an opening chapter that struck him as not too bad in the exhilaration of this first attempt he spent some pleasant evenings revising and polishing his work gradually a feeling of authority and importance developed in him in the morning when he woke instead of his habitual sense of lassitude he felt an eagerness to be up and doing and a conviction that his individual task was a necessary part of the world's machinery he kept his secret with the beginner's deadly fear of losing his hold on his half-real creations if he let any outer light on them but he went about with a more assured step shrank less from meeting his friends and even began to dine out again and to laugh at some of the jokes he heard Laura Fairford, to get Paul away from town had gone early to the country and Ralph, who went down to her every Saturday usually found Claire Van Degen there since his divorce he had never entered his cousin's pinnacle palace and Claire had never asked him why he stayed away this mutual silence had been their sole illusion to Van Degen's share in the catastrophe Ralph had spoken frankly of its other aspects they talked however most often of impersonal subjects books, pictures, plays or whatever the world that interested them was doing and she showed no desire to draw him back to his own affairs she was again staying late in town to have a pretext as he guessed going down on Sundays to the Fairfords and they often made the trip together in her motor but he had not yet spoken to her of having begun his book one May evening however as they sat alone in the veranda he suddenly told her that he was writing as he spoke his heart beat like a boy's but once the words were out they gave him a feeling of self confidence and he began to sketch his plan and then to go into its details Claire listened devotedly her eyes burning on him through the dusk like the stars deepening him up the garden and when she got up to go in he followed her with a new sense of reassurance the dinner that evening was unusually pleasant Charles Bowen just back from his usual spring travels had come straight down to his friends from the steamer and the fund of impressions he brought with him gave Ralph a desire to be up and wandering and why not when the book was done he smiled across the table at Claire next summer you'll have to charter a yacht and take us all off to the Aegean we can't have Charles Kahn descending to us about the out of the way places he's been seeing was it really he who was speaking and his cousin who was sending him back her dusky smile well why not again the seasons renewed themselves and he too was putting out a new growth my book my book my book kept repeating itself under all his thoughts as undine's name had once perpetually murmured there that night as he went up to bed he said to himself that he was actually ceasing to think about his wife as he passed Laura's door she called him in and put her arms around him you look so well dear but why shouldn't I he answered galing as if ridiculing the fancy that he had ever looked otherwise Paul was sleeping behind the next door and the sense of the boy's nearness gave him a warmer glow his little world was rounding itself out again and once more he felt safe and at peace in its circle his sister looked as if she had something more to say but she merely kissed him good night and he went up whistling to his room the next morning he was to take a walk with Claire and while he lounged about the drawing room waiting for her to come down a servant came in with the Sunday papers Ralph picked one up and was absolutely unfolding it when his eye fell on his own name a sight he had been spared since the last echoes of his divorce had subsided his impulse was to fling the paper down to hurl it as far from him as he could but a grim fascination tightened his hold and drew his eyes back to the hated headline New York beauty wed's French nobleman Mrs. Undine Marvell confident pope previous marriage Mrs. Marvell talks about her case there it was before him in all its long drawn horror an interview Mrs. Undine's about her coming marriage she talked about her case indeed her confidences filled the greater part of a column in the only details she seemed to have omitted was the name of her future husband who was referred to by herself as my fiance and by the interviewer as the Count or a prominent scion of the French nobility Ralph heard Laura step behind him and threw the paper aside and their eyes met is this what you wanted to tell me last night last night is it in the papers who told you Bowen what else has he heard oh Ralph what does it matter what can it matter who's the man did he tell you that Ralph insisted he saw her growing agitation is it anyone I know he was told in Paris it was his friend Raymond Dachel Ralph laughed and his laugh sounded in his own ears like an echo of the dreary mirth with which he had filled Mr. Sprague's office the day he learned that Undine intended to divorce him but now his wrath was seasoned with a wholesome irony the fact that his wife's having reached another stage in her ascent fell into its place as a part of the huge human buffoonery besides Laura went on it's all perfect nonsense of course how in the world can she have her marriage annulled Ralph pondered this put the matter in another light with a great deal of money I suppose she might well she certainly won't get that from Schell he's far from rich Charles tells me Laura waited watching him before she risked that's what convinces me she wouldn't have him if she could Ralph shrugged there may be other inducements but she won't be able to manage it he heard himself speaking quite collectively and Undine at last lost her power of wounding him Claire came in dressed for their walk and under Laura's angst he picked up the newspaper and held it out and he looked at her and said look at this his cousin's glance flew down the column and he saw the tremor of her lashes as she read then she lifted her head but you will be free her face was as vivid as a flower free? I'm free now as far as that goes oh but it will be so much farther when she has another name when she's a different person altogether then you'll really have Paul to yourself Paul Laura intervened with a nervous laugh but there's never been the least doubt about his having Paul they heard the boys laughter on the lawn and she went out to join him Ralph was still looking at his cousin you're glad then came from him involuntarily and she startled him by bursting into tears he bent over and kissed her on the cheek end of chapter 31 chapter 32 of the custom of the country this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Eugene Smith a custom of the country by Edith Wharton chapter 32 Ralph, as the days passed felt that Claire was right if Undine married again he would possess himself more completely be more definitely rid of his past and he did not doubt that she would gain her end he knew her violent desires and her cold tenacity if she had failed to capture Van Degen it was probably because she lacked experience of that particular type of man of his huge immediate wants and feeble vacillating purposes most of all because she had not yet measured the strength of the social considerations that restrained him it was a mistake she was not likely to repeat and her failure had probably been a useful preliminary to success it was a long time since Ralph had allowed himself to think of her and as he did so the overwhelming fact of her beauty became present to him again no longer as an element of his being but as a power dispassionately estimated he said to himself any man who can feel at all will feel it as I did and the conviction grew in him that Raymond de Shell of whom he had formed an idea through Bowen's talk was not the man to give her up even if she failed to retain the release his religion exacted meanwhile Ralph was gradually beginning to feel himself freer and lighter Wendine's act by cutting the last link between them seemed to have given him back to himself and the mere fact that he could consider his case in all its bearings impartially and ironically showed him the distance he had traveled the extent to which he had renewed himself he had been moved to by Claire's cry of joy at his release though the nature of his feeling for her changed he was aware of a new quality in their friendship when he went back to his book again his sense of power had lost its asperity and the spectacle of life seemed less like a witless dangling of limp dolls he was well on in his second chapter now this lightness of mood was still on him when returning one afternoon to Washington Square full of projects for a long evening's work he found his mother awaiting him with a strange face he followed her into the drawing room and she explained that there had been a telephone message she didn't understand something perfectly crazed about Paul of course it was all a mistake Ralph's first thought was of an accident and his heart contracted did Laura telephone? no no not Laura it seemed to be a message from Mrs. Sprague bringing someone here to fetch him a queer name like Heaney to fetch him to a steamer on Saturday I was to be sure to have his things packed but of course it's a misunderstanding she gave an uncertain laugh and looked up at Ralph as though in treating him to return the reassurance she had given him of course of course he echoed he made his mother repeat her statement but the unforeseen always flurried her and she was confused and inaccurate she didn't actually know who had telephoned the voice hadn't sounded like Mrs. Sprague's a woman's voice yes oh not a ladies and there was certainly something about a steamer but he knew how the telephone bewildered her and she was sure she was getting a little deaf hadn't he better call up the Malibrand of course it was all a mistake but well perhaps he better go there himself as he reached the front door a letter clinked in the box and he saw his name on an ordinary looking business envelope he turned the door handle paused again and stooped to take out the letter it bore the address of a firm of lawyers who had represented Undine in the divorce proceedings and as he tore open the envelope Paul's name started out at him Mrs. Marvell had followed him into the hall and her cry broke the silence Ralph Ralph is it anything she's done nothing it's nothing he stared at her what's the day of the week Wednesday why what she suddenly seemed to understand she's not going to take him away from us Ralph dropped into a chair crumpling the letter in his head he had been in a dream poor fool that he was a dream about his child he sat gazing at the typewritten phrases that spun themselves out before him my client's circumstance is now happily permitting at last in a position to offer her son a home long separation a mother's feelings every social and educational advantage and then at the end the poisoned dart that struck him speechless of course having awarded her the soul custody soul custody but that meant that Paul was hers hers only hers were always that his father had no more claim on him than any casual stranger in the street and he Ralph Marvell a sane man young able-bodied in full possession of his wits had assisted at the perpetration of this vulnerable wrong had passively forwarded his right to the flesh of his body the blood of his being then it couldn't be, of course it couldn't be the preposterousness of it proved that it wasn't true there was a mistake somewhere a mistake his own lawyer would instantly rectify if a hammer hadn't been drumming in his head he could have recalled the terms of the decree but for the moment all the details of the agonizing episode were lost in a blur of uncertainty to escape his mother's silent anguish of interrogation he stood up and said I'll see Mr. Sprague of course it's a mistake but as he spoke he re-traveled the hateful months during the divorce proceedings remembering his incomprehensible lassitude his acquiescence and his family's determination to ignore the whole episode and his gradual lapse into the same state of apathy he recalled all the old family catchwords the full and elaborate vocabulary of evasion delicacy pride personal dignity preferring not to know about such things Mrs. Marvell's all I ask is that you won't mention the subject to your grandfather Mr. Dragonettes his mother Ralph whatever happens and even Laura's terrified of course for Paul's sake there must be no scandal for Paul's sake and it was because for Paul's sake there must be no scandal that he, Paul's father had tamely abstained from defending his rights and contesting his wife's charges and had thus handed the child over to her keeping and abhorled him up Fifth Avenue Ralph's whole body throbbed with rage against the influences that had reduced him to such weakness then gradually he saw that the weakness was innate in him he had been eloquent enough in his free youth against the conventions of his class yet when the moment came to show his contempt for them they had mysteriously mastered him deflecting his course in hereditary failing as he looked back it seemed as though even his great disaster had been conventionalized and sentimentalized by this inherited attitude that the thoughts he had thought about it were only those of generations of Dagonettes and that there had been nothing real and his own in his life but the foolish passion he had been trying so hard to think out of existence halfway to the Malibrand he changed his direction and drove to the house of the lawyer he had consulted at the time of his divorce the lawyer had not yet come uptown and Ralph had a half hour of bitter meditation before the sound of a latch key brought him to his feet the visit did not last long his host, after an affable reading, listened without surprise to what he had to say and when he had ended reminded him with somewhat ironic precision that at the time of the divorce he had asked for neither advice nor information had simply declared that he wanted to turn his back on the whole business Ralph recognized the phrase as one of his grandfathers and on hearing that in that case he had only to abstain from action and was in no need of legal services had gone away without further enquiries you led me to infer you had your reasons a slighted councilor concluded and then replied to Ralph's breathless question he subjoined why, you see, the case is closed and I don't exactly know on what ground you can reopen it unless of course you can bring evidence showing that the regularity of the mother's life is such she's going to marry again Ralph threw in indeed, well that in itself can hardly be described in fact, in certain circumstances it might be construed as an advantage to the child then I'm powerless why, unless there's an ulterior motive through which pressure might be brought to bear you mean that the first thing to do is to find out what she's up to? precisely of course if it should prove to be a genuine case of maternal feeling I won't conceal from you that the out looks bad at most you could publicly arrange to see your boy at stated intervals to see his boy at stated intervals Ralph wondered how a sane man could sit there looking responsible and efficient and talk such rubbish as he got up to go the lawyer detained him to add of course there's no immediate cause for alarm it will take time to enforce the provision of the Dakota decree in New York and till it's done your son can't be taken from you but there's sure to be a lot of nasty talk in the papers and you're bound to lose in the end Ralph thanked him and left he sped northward to the Malibran where he learned that Mr. and Mrs. Sprague were at dinner he said his name down to the subterranean restaurant and Mr. Sprague presently appeared between the limp porters of the Adam writing room he had grown older and heavier as if illness instead of health had put more flesh on his bones and there were grayish tints in the hollows of his face what's this about Paul Ralph exclaimed my mother's had a message we can't make out Mr. Sprague sat down with the effect of immersing his spinal column in the depths of the armchair he selected he crossed his legs and swung one foot to and fro in its high wrinkled boot with elastic sides didn't you get a letter he asked from Undine's lawyers yes Ralph held it out it's queer reading she hasn't hitherto been very keen to have Paul with her Mr. Sprague adjusting his glasses read the letter slowly restored it to the envelope and gave it back my daughter has intimated that she wishes these gentlemen to act for her I haven't received any additional instructions from her he said with none of the curtness of tone that his stiff legal vocabulary implied but the first communication I received was from you at least from Mrs. Sprague Mr. Sprague drew his beard through his hand the ladies are apt to be a trifle hasty I believe Mrs. Sprague had a letter yesterday instructing her to select a reliable escort for Paul and I suppose she thought oh this is all too preposterous Ralph burst out springing from his seat you don't for a moment imagine do you any of you that I'm going to deliver up my son like a bale of goods in answer to any instructions in God's world oh yes I know I let him go right to him but I didn't know what I was doing I was sick with grief and misery my people were awfully broken up over the whole business and I wanted to spare them I wanted above all to spare my boy when he grew up if I'd contested the case you know what the result would have been I let it go by default I made no conditions all I wanted was to keep Paul and never to let him hear a word against his mother Mr. Sprague received this passionate appeal in a silence that implied not so much disdain or indifference as the total inability to deal verbally with emotional crises at length he said a slight unsteadiness in his usually calm tones I presume at the time it was optional with you to demand Paul's custody oh yes it was optional Ralph sneered Mr. Sprague looked at him compassionately I'm sorry you didn't do it he said in the chapter 32