The shallowest of characters: Undine, in Custom of the Country

Book 3 (of 4) of Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country ends with Undine in Paris, so alone that she actually reaches out to old nemesis Elmer and invites him to her place for tea (scandalous!) where she hits him up for some $, only to learn (surprise) that he's strapped himself - in fact, he's in Paris to avoid some credits back on the U.S. - which makes us wonder, or me anyway, as to what happened to that land deal he drew Undine into - Wharton has pushed that plot element aside. But we're focused now on Undine: she wants to marry a French gentleman, Chelles (sp?), but learns that he won't marry her because she's a divorcee - he'll just use her, evidently - so she thinks perhaps she can get teh marriage annulled, as if that will matter - maybe it will - but she doesn't have the money to go through with it. Elmer, sleazy character that he is, comes up with an idea for her: threaten to take back custody of the child, Paul, whom Undine has shown zero care for or attention to, and that will put the squeeze on the Marvells to come through with some money for her. She likes this idea - it's right up her amoral alley, so to speak. So here again we see why Custom is a fascinating book but without the complexity of the later Age of Innocence, because the lead character is relentlessly evil, or at least shallow and self-centered. Adversity neither teaches her nor changes her - nothing changes her - so despite the many strengths of the novel and the very compelling writing, it's hard to care one way or another about the outcome for the main characters, or at least for Undine.