As the day of departure approached it became harder for her to temper her beams; but her pleasure showed itself so amiably that Ralph began to think she might, after all, miss the boy and himself more than she imagined. She was tenderly preoccupied with Paul’s welfare, and, to prepare for his translation to his grandparents’ she gave the household in Washington Square more of her time than she had accorded it since her marriage. She explained that she wanted Paul to grow used to his new surroundings; and with that object she took him frequently to his grandmother’s, and won her way into old Mr. Dagonet’s sympathies by her devotion to the child and her pretty way of joining in his games.
Undine was not consciously acting a part: this new phase was as natural to her as the other. In the joy of her gratified desires she wanted to make everybody about her happy. If only everyone would do as she wished she would never be unreasonable. She much preferred to see smiling faces about her, and her dread of the reproachful and dissatisfied countenance gave the measure of what she would do to avoid it.
These thoughts were in her mind when, a day or two before sailing, she came out of the Washington Square house with her boy. It was a late spring afternoon, and she and Paul had lingered on till long past the hour sacred to his grandfather’s nap. Now, as she came out into the square she saw that, however well Mr. Dagonet had borne their protracted romp, it had left his playmate flushed and sleepy; and she lifted Paul in her arms to carry him to the nearest cab-stand.
As she raised herself she saw a thick-set figure approaching her across the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul’s arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image of young motherhood.
“That the heir apparent?” Moffatt asked; adding “Happy to make your acquaintance, sir,” as the boy, at Undine’s bidding, held out a fist sticky with sugarplums.
“He’s been spending the afternoon with his grandfather, and they played so hard that he’s sleepy,” she explained. Little Paul, at that stage in his career, had a peculiar grace of wide-gazing deep-lashed eyes and arched cherubic lips, and Undine saw that Moffatt was not insensible to the picture she and her son composed. She did not dislike his admiration, for she no longer felt any shrinking from him—she would even have been glad to thank him for the service he had done her husband if she had known how to allude to it without awkwardness. Moffatt seemed equally pleased at the meeting, and they looked at each other almost intimately over Paul’s tumbled curls.
“He’s a mighty fine fellow and no mistake—but isn’t he rather an armful for you?” Moffatt asked, his eyes lingering with real kindliness on the child’s face.
“Oh, we haven’t far to go. I’ll pick up a cab at the corner.”
“Well, let me carry him that far anyhow,” said Moffatt.
Undine was glad to be relieved of her burden, for she was unused to the child’s weight, and disliked to feel that her skirt was dragging on the pavement. “Go to the gentleman, Pauly—he’ll carry you better than mother,” she said.
The little boy’s first movement was one of recoil from the ruddy sharp-eyed countenance that was so unlike his father’s delicate face; but he was an obedient child, and after a moment’s hesitation he wound his arms trustfully about the red gentleman’s neck.
“That’s a good fellow—sit tight and I’ll give you a ride,” Moffatt cried, hoisting the boy to his shoulder.
Paul was not used to being perched at such a height, and his nature was hospitable to new impressions. “Oh, I like it up here—you’re higher than father!” he exclaimed; and Moffatt hugged him with a laugh.
“It must feel mighty good to come uptown to a fellow like you in the evenings,” he said, addressing the child but looking at Undine, who also laughed a little.
“Oh, they’re a dreadful nuisance, you know; but Paul’s a very good boy.”
“I wonder if he knows what a friend I’ve been to him lately,” Moffatt went on, as they turned into Fifth Avenue.
Undine smiled: she was glad he should have given her an opening. “He shall be told as soon as he’s old enough to thank you. I’m so glad you came to Ralph about that business.”
“Oh I gave him a leg up, and I guess he’s given me one too. Queer the way things come round—he’s fairly put me in the way of a fresh start.”
Their eyes met in a silence which Undine was the first to break. “It’s been awfully nice of you to do what you’ve done—right along. And this last thing has made a lot of difference to us.”
“Well, I’m glad you feel that way. I never wanted to be anything but ‘nice,’ as you call it.” Moffatt paused a moment and then added: “If you’re less scared of me than your father is I’d be glad to call round and see you once in a while.”
The quick blood rushed to her cheeks. There was nothing challenging, demanding in his tone—she guessed at once that if he made the request it was simply for the pleasure of being with her, and she liked the magnanimity implied. Nevertheless she was not sorry to have to answer: “Of course I’ll always be glad to see you—only, as it happens, I’m just sailing for Europe.”
“For Europe?” The word brought Moffatt to a stand so abruptly that little Paul lurched on his shoulder.
“For Europe?” he repeated. “Why, I thought you said the other evening you expected to stay on in town till July. Didn’t you think of going to the Adirondacks?”
Flattered by his evident disappointment, she became high and careless in her triumph. “Oh, yes,—but that’s all changed. Ralph and the boy are going, but I sail on Saturday to join some friends in Paris—and later I may do some motoring in Switzerland an Italy.”
She laughed a little in the mere enjoyment of putting her plans into words and Moffatt laughed too, but with an edge of sarcasm.
“I see—I see: everything’s changed, as you say, and your husband can blow you off to the trip. Well, I hope you’ll have a first-class time.”
Their glances crossed again, and something in his cool scrutiny impelled Undine to say, with a burst of candour: “If I do, you know, I shall owe it all to you!”
“Well, I always told you I meant to act white by you,” he answered.
They walked on in silence, and presently he began again in his usual joking strain: “See what one of the Apex girls has been up to?”
Apex was too remote for her to understand the reference, and he went on: “Why, Millard Binch’s wife—Indiana Frusk that was. Didn’t you see in the papers that Indiana’d fixed it up with James J. Rolliver to marry her? They say it was easy enough squaring Millard Binch—you’d know it WOULD be—but it cost Roliver near a million to mislay Mrs. R. and the children. Well, Indiana’s pulled it off, anyhow; she always WAS a bright girl. But she never came up to you.”
“Oh—” she stammered with a laugh, astonished and agitated by his news. Indiana Frusk and Rolliver! It showed how easily the thing could be done. If only her father had listened to her! If a girl like Indiana Frusk could gain her end so easily, what might not Undine have accomplished? She knew Moffatt was right in saying that Indiana had never come up to her…She wondered how the marriage would strike Van Degen…