His heart contracted as he looked at her. What sinister change came
over her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible,
implacable--her eyes were like the eyes of an enemy.

"I don't know--I'll see," he said, rising and moving away from her.
At that moment the touch of her hand was repugnant. Yes--he might ask
Laura, no doubt: and whatever she had would be his. But the necessity
was bitter to him, and Undine's unconsciousness of the fact hurt him
more than her indifference to her father's misfortune.

What hurt him most was the curious fact that, for all her light
irresponsibility, it was always she who made the practical suggestion,
hit the nail of expediency on the head. No sentimental scruple made the
blow waver or deflected her resolute aim. She had thought at once of
Laura, and Laura was his only, his inevitable, resource. His anxious
mind pictured his sister's wonder, and made him wince under the sting of
Henley Fairford's irony: Fairford, who at the time of the marriage had
sat silent and pulled his moustache while every one else argued and
objected, yet under whose silence Ralph had felt a deeper protest than
under all the reasoning of the others. It was no comfort to reflect that
Fairford would probably continue to say nothing! But necessity made
light of these twinges, and Ralph set his teeth and cabled.

Undine's chief surprise seemed to be that Laura's response, though
immediate and generous, did not enable them to stay on at St. Moritz.
But she apparently read in her husband's look the uselessness of such a
hope, for, with one of the sudden changes of mood that still disarmed
him, she accepted the need of departure, and took leave philosophically
of the Shallums and their band. After all, Paris was ahead, and in