Edith Wharton

“ I can drop her if she comes to New York."
Ralph sat silent for a moment--then he turned away and began to gather up his scattered pages.
Undine, in the ensuing days, was no less often with Madame Adelschein, and Ralph suspected a challenge in her open frequentation of the lady. But if challenge there were, he let it lie. Whether his wife saw more or less of Madame Adelschein seemed no longer of much consequence: she had so amply shown him her ability to protect herself. The pang lay in the completeness of the proof--in the perfect functioning of her instinct of self-preservation. ”

“ But they would naturally take their tone from the women they were with; and Madame Adelschein's tone was notorious. He knew also that Undine's faculty of self-defense was weakened by the instinct of adapting herself to whatever company she was in, of copying "the others" in speech and gesture as closely as she reflected them in dress; and he was disturbed by the thought of what her ignorance might expose her to.
She came back late, flushed with her long walk, her face all sparkle and mystery, as he had seen it in the first days of their courtship ”

“ As he walked away with this fresh weight on his mind he caught sight of the strolling figure of Peter Van Degen--Peter lounging and luxuriating among the seductions of the Boulevard with the disgusting ease of a man whose wants are all measured by money, and who always has enough to gratify them. ”

“ The appearance at their hotel of the cavalry-officer from Siena was a not wholly agreeable surprise; but even after the handsome Marquis had been introduced to Undine, and had whirled her through an evening's dances, Ralph was not seriously disturbed. Husband and wife had grown closer to each other since they had come to St. Moritz, and in the brief moments she could give him Undine was now always gay and approachable. ”

“ The Marquis is awfully bright."
"I'd no idea you or Bertha Shallum knew Madame Adelschein well enough to take her off with you in that way."
Undine sat absently smoothing the tuft of glossy cock's-feathers in her hat.
"I don't see that you've got to know people particularly well to go for a walk with them. The Baroness is awfully bright too." ”

“ The advantage of going to the French dress-makers is that they'll wait twice as long for their money as the people at home. And they're all crazy to dress me--Bertha Shallum will tell you so: she says no one ever had such a chance! That's why I was willing to come to this stuffy little hotel--I wanted to save every scrap I could to get a few decent things. ”

“ To him this isn't 'society' any more than the people in an omnibus are. Society, to everybody here, means the sanction of their own special group and of the corresponding groups elsewhere. The Adelschein goes about in a place like this because it's nobody's business to stop her; but the women who tolerate her here would drop her like a shot if she set foot on their own ground."
The thoughtful air with which Undine heard him out made him fancy this argument had carried ”