The Custom of the Country | Page 5

in her room, going over her dresses with that French
maid. I don't know as she's got anything fit to wear to that dinner," Mrs.
Spragg added in a tentative murmur.
Mr. Spragg smiled at last. "Well--I guess she WILL have," he said

prophetically.
He glanced again at his daughter's door, as if to make sure of its being
shut; then, standing close before his wife, he lowered his voice to say:
"I saw Elmer Moffatt down town to-day."
"Oh, Abner!" A wave of almost physical apprehension passed over Mrs.
Spragg. Her jewelled hands trembled in her black brocade lap, and the
pulpy curves of her face collapsed as if it were a pricked balloon.
"Oh, Abner," she moaned again, her eyes also on her daughter's door.
Mr. Spragg's black eyebrows gathered in an angry frown, but it was
evident that his anger was not against his wife.
"What's the good of Oh Abner-ing? Elmer Moffatt's nothing to us--no
more'n if we never laid eyes on him."
"No--I know it; but what's he doing here? Did you speak to him?" she
faltered.
He slipped his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. "No--I guess Elmer
and I are pretty well talked out."
Mrs. Spragg took up her moan. "Don't you tell her you saw him,
Abner."
"I'll do as you say; but she may meet him herself."
"Oh, I guess not--not in this new set she's going with! Don't tell her
ANYHOW."
He turned away, feeling for one of the cigars which he always carried
loose in his pocket; and his wife, rising, stole after him, and laid her
hand on his arm.
"He can't do anything to her, can he?"
"Do anything to her?" He swung about furiously. "I'd like to see him
touch her--that's all!"

II
Undine's white and gold bedroom, with sea-green panels and old rose
carpet, looked along Seventy-second Street toward the leafless tree-tops
of the Central Park.
She went to the window, and drawing back its many layers of lace
gazed eastward down the long brownstone perspective. Beyond the
Park lay Fifth Avenue--and Fifth Avenue was where she wanted to be!
She turned back into the room, and going to her writing-table laid Mrs.
Fairford's note before her, and began to study it minutely. She had read

in the "Boudoir Chat" of one of the Sunday papers that the smartest
women were using the new pigeon-blood notepaper with white ink; and
rather against her mother's advice she had ordered a large supply, with
her monogram in silver. It was a disappointment, therefore, to find that
Mrs. Fairford wrote on the old-fashioned white sheet, without even a
monogram--simply her address and telephone number. It gave Undine
rather a poor opinion of Mrs. Fairford's social standing, and for a
moment she thought with considerable satisfaction of answering the
note on her pigeon-blood paper. Then she remembered Mrs. Heeny's
emphatic commendation of Mrs. Fairford, and her pen wavered. What
if white paper were really newer than pigeon blood? It might be more
stylish, anyhow. Well, she didn't care if Mrs. Fairford didn't like red
paper--SHE did! And she wasn't going to truckle to any woman who
lived in a small house down beyond Park Avenue...
Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She
wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could
not help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion
of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to
choose between two courses. She hesitated a moment longer, and then
took from the drawer a plain sheet with the hotel address.
It was amusing to write the note in her mother's name--she giggled as
she formed the phrase "I shall be happy to permit my daughter to take
dinner with you" ("take dinner" seemed more elegant than Mrs.
Fairford's "dine")--but when she came to the signature she was met by a
new difficulty. Mrs. Fairford had signed herself "Laura Fairford"--just
as one school-girl would write to another. But could this be a proper
model for Mrs. Spragg? Undine could not tolerate the thought of her
mother's abasing herself to a denizen of regions beyond Park Avenue,
and she resolutely formed the signature: "Sincerely, Mrs. Abner E.
Spragg." Then uncertainty overcame her, and she re-wrote her note and
copied Mrs. Fairford's formula: "Yours sincerely, Leota B. Spragg."
But this struck her as an odd juxtaposition of formality and freedom,
and she made a third attempt: "Yours with love, Leota B. Spragg." This,
however, seemed excessive, as the ladies had never met; and after
several other experiments she finally decided on a compromise, and
ended the note: "Yours sincerely, Mrs. Leota B. Spragg." That might be
conventional. Undine reflected, but it was certainly correct. This point

settled, she flung open her