"Just like her--always pushing in!" Undine murmured as she slipped her
arms into their transparent sleeves.

"Oh, that don't matter--I'll help dress her!" Mrs. Lipscomb's large
blond person surged across the threshold. "Seems to me I ought to lend a
hand to-night, considering I was the one that introduced them!"

Undine forced a smile, but Mrs. Spragg, her soft wrinkles deepening with
resentment, muttered to Mrs. Heeny, as she bent down to shake out the
girl's train: "I guess my daughter's only got to show herself--"

The first meeting with old Mr. Dagonet was less formidable than Undine
had expected. She had been once before to the house in Washington
Square, when, with her mother, she had returned Mrs. Marvell's
ceremonial visit; but on that occasion Ralph's grandfather had not
been present. All the rites connected with her engagement were new and
mysterious to Undine, and none more so than the unaccountable necessity
of "dragging"--as she phrased it--Mrs. Spragg into the affair. It was an
accepted article of the Apex creed that parental detachment should be
completest at the moment when the filial fate was decided; and to find
that New York reversed this rule was as puzzling to Undine as to her
mother. Mrs. Spragg was so unprepared for the part she was to play
that on the occasion of her visit to Mrs. Marvell her helplessness had
infected Undine, and their half-hour in the sober faded drawing-room
remained among the girl's most unsatisfactory memories.

She re-entered it alone with more assurance. Her confidence in her
beauty had hitherto carried her through every ordeal; and it was
fortified now by the feeling of power that came with the sense of being
loved. If they would only leave her mother out she was sure, in her