Chapter 4

"Father, you've got to take a box for me at the opera next Friday."

From the tone of her voice Undine's parents knew at once that she was
"nervous."

They had counted a great deal on the Fairford dinner as a means of
tranquillization, and it was a blow to detect signs of the opposite
result when, late the next morning, their daughter came dawdling into
the sodden splendour of the Stentorian breakfast-room.

The symptoms of Undine's nervousness were unmistakable to Mr. and Mrs.
Spragg. They could read the approaching storm in the darkening of her
eyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her straight
black brows met above them and the red curves of her lips narrowed to a
parallel line below.

Mr. Spragg, having finished the last course of his heterogeneous meal,
was adjusting his gold eye-glasses for a glance at the paper when
Undine trailed down the sumptuous stuffy room, where coffee-fumes hung
perpetually under the emblazoned ceiling and the spongy carpet might
have absorbed a year's crumbs without a sweeping.

About them sat other pallid families, richly dressed, and silently
eating their way through a bill-of-fare which seemed to have ransacked
the globe for gastronomic incompatibilities; and in the middle of the
room a knot of equally pallid waiters, engaged in languid conversation,
turned their backs by common consent on the persons they were supposed
to serve.

Undine, who rose too late to share the family breakfast, usually had her
chocolate brought to her in bed by Celeste, after the manner described
in the articles on "A Society Woman's Day" which were appearing in
Boudoir Chat. Her mere appearance in the restaurant therefore prepared
her parents for those symptoms of excessive tension which a nearer
inspection confirmed, and Mr. Spragg folded his paper and hooked his
glasses to his waistcoat with the air of a man who prefers to know the
worst and have it over.

"An opera box!" faltered Mrs. Spragg, pushing aside the bananas and
cream with which she had been trying to tempt an appetite too languid
for fried liver or crab mayonnaise.

"A parterre box," Undine corrected, ignoring the exclamation, and
continuing to address herself to her father. "Friday's the stylish
night, and that new tenor's going to sing again in 'Cavaleeria,'" she
condescended to explain.

"That so?" Mr. Spragg thrust his hands into his waistcoat pockets, and
began to tilt his chair till he remembered there was no wall to meet it.
He regained his balance and said: "Wouldn't a couple of good orchestra
seats do you?"

"No; they wouldn't," Undine answered with a darkening brow. He