Chapter 17 - Page 2

world that was reforming itself in London and Paris was fortified by
reasons which seemed urgent enough to justify an appeal to her father.

She went down to his office to plead her case, fearing Mrs. Spragg's
intervention. For some time past Mr. Spragg had been rather continuously
overworked, and the strain was beginning to tell on him. He had never
quite regained, in New York, the financial security of his Apex days.
Since he had changed his base of operations his affairs had followed
an uncertain course, and Undine suspected that his breach with his old
political ally, the Representative Rolliver who had seen him through the
muddiest reaches of the Pure Water Move, was not unconnected with his
failure to get a footing in Wall Street. But all this was vague and
shadowy to her Even had "business" been less of a mystery, she was too
much absorbed in her own affairs to project herself into her father's
case; and she thought she was sacrificing enough to delicacy of feeling
in sparing him the "bother" of Mrs. Spragg's opposition. When she came
to him with a grievance he always heard her out with the same mild
patience; but the long habit of "managing" him had made her, in his own
language, "discount" this tolerance, and when she ceased to speak her
heart throbbed with suspense as he leaned back, twirling an invisible
toothpick under his sallow moustache. Presently he raised a hand to
stroke the limp beard in which the moustache was merged; then he groped
for the Masonic emblem that had lost itself in one of the folds of his
depleted waistcoat.

He seemed to fish his answer from the same rusty depths, for as his
fingers closed about the trinket he said: "Yes, the heated term IS
trying in New York. That's why the Fresh Air Fund pulled my last dollar
out of me last week."

Undine frowned: there was nothing more irritating, in these encounters
with her father, than his habit of opening the discussion with a joke.

"I wish you'd understand that I'm serious, father. I've never been
strong since the baby was born, and I need a change. But it's not only
that: there are other reasons for my wanting to go."

Mr. Spragg still held to his mild tone of banter. "I never knew you
short on reasons, Undie. Trouble is you don't always know other people's
when you see 'em."

His daughter's lips tightened. "I know your reasons when I see them,
father: I've heard them often enough. But you can't know mine because I
haven't told you--not the real ones."

"Jehoshaphat! I thought they were all real as long as you had a use for
them."

Experience had taught her that such protracted trifling usually