"You've been gone forever. Was it the Adelschein who made you go such
lengths?" he asked her, trying to keep to his usual joking tone.

Undine, as she dropped down on the sofa and unpinned her hat, shed on
him the light of her guileless gaze.

"I don't know: everybody was amusing. The Marquis is awfully bright."

"I'd no idea you or Bertha Shallum knew Madame Adelschein well enough to
take her off with you in that way."

Undine sat absently smoothing the tuft of glossy cock's-feathers in her
hat.

"I don't see that you've got to know people particularly well to go for
a walk with them. The Baroness is awfully bright too."

She always gave her acquaintances their titles, seeming not, in this
respect, to have noticed that a simpler form prevailed.

"I don't dispute the interest of what she says; but I've told you what
decent people think of what she does," Ralph retorted, exasperated by
what seemed a wilful pretense of ignorance.

She continued to scrutinize him with her clear eyes, in which there was
no shadow of offense.

"You mean they don't want to go round with her? You're mistaken: it's
not true. She goes round with everybody. She dined last night with the