The Custom of the Country: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Undine returns to the Stentorian. The next morning at breakfast, she tells Mr. Spragg that he needs to get her a box at the opera for the next Friday. He and Mrs. Spragg had hoped that Laura Fairford’s dinner would make Undine a little less excitable, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. It’s already unusual for Undine to be down at breakfast, since she usually wakes up too late and just has Celeste bring her chocolate in bed. Undine’s request surprises her parents; her father asks if orchestra seats would do, but Undine insists on a box, even though she’s going by herself. Eventually, she adds that maybe she’d invite Mabel Lipscomb to pay her back for how well she’s treated her in New York so far.

By invoking Mabel Lipscomb and the idea of reciprocity, Undine starts to convince Mr. Spragg to get the tickets. Undine pleads that she only wants an opera box once, and her father notes that Undine seems to only want most things once. Still, he protests that he’s low on cash at the moment. Undine decides to go out for a horse ride, because she knows it makes Mrs. Spragg nervous.

Mrs. Spragg is indeed worried and greets Undine enthusiastically after her horse ride. Undine tells her mother she still wants an opera box. Her mother tries to explain that while Mr. Spragg was rich for Apex, he’s not quite so rich in New York. Undine asks why they ever left, but her mother tells her they came to New York so Undine could meet people. Still at a stalemate, Undine decides to go see an art gallery that Laura Fairford mentioned to her at the dinner party.

Undine goes to the art gallery, but she’s more interested in looking at the people than the art, like a woman with a tortoise-shell eye-glass with a pearl chain. An unpleasant-looking young man with bulging eyes comes up to Undine and makes conversation about what an awful crowd it is that day. But then the lady with the eye-glass calls the young man Peter, and Undine realizes that he is Peter Van Degen, son of a famous banker. Undine is happy but remembers none of the art she saw when she goes home.

Back at the Stentorian, Undine is disappointed thinking that she’ll probably never see Peter again, and she’s also disappointed to see that Ralph stopped by and left his card (since, if he stopped without first making an appointment, this suggests he isn’t serious about her). She is even more disappointed when Mrs. Spragg informs her that Ralph actually came to see Mrs. Spragg herself, not Undine. Mrs. Spragg thought Ralph might have a message for Undine, but he simply talked for a while before leaving without really explaining what he wanted.

Undine reflects on the past and how she’s managed to get things out of her parents before. Her first big goal was to find a way to get out of Apex in the summers. Initially, when she was home from boarding school, she went to a cottage her parents owned in the summer, but it always seemed to Undine to be less exciting than what other girls were doing. Undine began insisting that she had to see New York.

Back in the present, Mr. Spragg comes into Undine’s room and lets her know that he has gotten her an opera box not just for one Friday but for every other Friday. Mrs. Spragg worries about the cost, but Mr. Spragg says that he just wants Undine to be able to keep spending time with the new crowd of people she’s meeting. In private, Mrs. Spragg asks Mr. Spragg if he happened to see Elmer again, but he says once was enough.