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Ebook has 1366 lines and 84479 words, and 28 pages

"No, it has been a day lost--that is true."

"I? Impossible that I could have permitted myself to stare at you, Mademoiselle."

"That is just what you did, though. I thought you had found something to find fault with. What could it be? I fancied there was something wrong with my hair, something absurd that you were laughing at. You always do laugh, you know."

"Wrong with your hair? It is always wrong. But that is not your fault. You are not responsible for its looking like a hedgehog's."

"Hedgehogs haven't any hair," said Jacqueline, much hurt by the observation.

"True, they have only prickles, which remind me of the susceptibility of your temper. I beg your pardon I was looking at you critically. Being myself indulgent and kindhearted, I was only looking at you from an artist's point of view--as is always allowable in my profession. Remember, I see you very rarely by daylight. I am obliged to work as long as the light allows me. Well, in the light of this April sunshine I was saying to myself--excuse my boldness!--that you had reached the right age for a picture."

"For a picture? Were you thinking of painting me?" cried Jacqueline, radiant with pleasure.

"Hold a moment, please. Between a dream and its execution lies a great space. I was only imagining a picture of you."

"But my portrait would be frightful."

"Possibly. But that would depend on the skill of the painter."

"And yet a model should be--I am so thin," said Jacqueline, with confusion and discouragement.

"True; your limbs are like a grasshopper's."

"Oh! you mean my legs--but my arms...."

"Your arms must be like your legs. But, sitting as you were just now, I could see only your head, which is better. So! one has to be accountable for looking at you? Mademoiselle feels herself affronted if any one stares at her! I will remember this in future. There, now! suppose, instead of quarrelling with me, you were to go and cast yourself into the arms of your cousin Fred."

"Fred! Fred d'Argy! Fred is at Brest."

"Where are your eyes, my dear child? He has just come in with his mother."

And at that moment Madame de Nailles, with her pure, clear voice--a voice frequently compared to that of Mademoiselle Reichemberg, called:

"Jacqueline!"

Jacqueline never crossed the imaginary line which divided the two salons unless she was called upon to do so. She was still summoned like a child to speak to certain persons who took an especial interest in her, and who were kind enough to wish to see her--Madame d'Argy, for example, who had been the dearest friend of her dead mother. The death of that mother, who had been long replaced by a stepmother, could hardly be said to be deeply regretted by Jacqueline. She remembered her very indistinctly. The stories of her she had heard from Modeste, her old nurse, probably served her instead of any actual memory. She knew her only as a woman pale and in ill health, always lying on a sofa. The little black frock that had been made for her had been hardly worn out when a new mamma, as gay and fresh as the other had been sick and suffering, had come into the household like a ray of sunshine.

After that time Madame d'Argy and Modeste were the only people who spoke to her of the mother who was gone. Madame d'Argy, indeed, came on certain days to take her to visit the tomb, on which the child read, as she prayed for the departed:

MARIE JACQUELINE ADELAIDE DE VALTIER

BARONNE DE NAILLES

And such filial sentiment as she still retained, concerning the unknown being who had been her mother, was tinged by her association with this melancholy pilgrimage which she was expected to perform at certain intervals. Without exactly knowing the reason why, Jacqueline was conscious of a certain hostility that existed between Madame d'Argy and her stepmother.

The intimate friend of the first Madame de Nailles was a woman with neither elegance nor beauty. She never had left off her widow's weeds, which she had worn since she had lost her husband in early youth. In the eyes of Jacqueline her sombre figure personified austere, exacting Duty, a kind of duty not attractive to her. That very day it seemed as if duty inconveniently stepped in to break up a conversation that was deeply interesting to her. The impatient gesture that she made when her mother called her might have been interpreted into: Bother Madame d'Argy!

"Jacqueline!" called again the silvery voice that had first summoned her; and a moment after the young girl found herself in the centre of a circle of grown people, saying good-morning, making curtseys, and kissing the withered hand of old Madame de Monredon, as she had been taught to do from infancy. Madame de Monredon was Giselle's grandmother. Jacqueline had been instructed to call her "aunt;" but in her heart she called her 'La Fee Gyognon', while Madame d'Argy, pointing to her son, said: "What do you think, darling, of such a surprise? He is home on leave. We came here the first place-naturally."

"It was very nice of you. How do you do, Fred?" said Jacqueline, holding out her hand to a very young man, in a jacket ornamented with gold lace, who stood twisting his cap in his hand with some embarrassment "It is a long time since we have seen each other. But it does not seem to me that you have grown a great deal."

Fred blushed up to the roots of his hair.

"No one can say that of you, Jacqueline," observed Madame d'Argy.

"No--what a may-pole!--isn't she?" said the Baronne, carelessly.

"If she realizes it," whispered Madame de Monredon, who was sitting beside Madame d'Argy on a 'causeuse' shaped like an S, "why does she persist in dressing her like a child six years old? It is absurd!"

"Still, she can have no reason for keeping her thus in order to make herself seem young. She is only a stepmother."

"Of course. But people might make comparisons. Beauty in the bud sometimes blooms out unexpectedly when it is not welcome."

"Yes--she is fading fast. Small women ought not to grow stout."

"Anyhow, I have no patience with her for keeping a girl of fifteen in short skirts."

"You are making her out older than she is."

"How is that?--how is that? She is two years younger than Giselle, who has just entered her eighteenth year."

While the two ladies were exchanging these little remarks, the Baronne de Nailles was saying to the young naval cadet:

"Monsieur Fred, we should be charmed to keep you with us, but possibly you might like to see some of your old friends. Jacqueline can take you to them. They will be glad to see you."

"Tiens!--that's true," said Jacqueline. "Dolly and Belle are yonder. You remember Isabelle Ray, who used to take dancing lessons with us."

"Of course I do," said Fred, following his cousin with a feeling of regret that his sword was not knocking against his legs, increasing his importance in the eyes of all the ladies who were present. He was not, however; sorry to leave their imposing circle. Above all, he was glad to escape from the clear-sighted, critical eyes of Madame de Nailles. On the other hand, to be sent off to the girls' corner, after being insulted by being told he had not grown, hurt his sense of self-importance.

Meantime Jacqueline was taking him back to her own corner, where he was greeted by two or three little exclamations of surprise, shaking hands, however, as his former playmates drew their skirts around them, trying to make room for him to sit down.

"Young ladies," said Jacqueline, "I present to you a 'bordachien'--a little middy from the practice-ship the Borda."

They burst out laughing: "A bordachien! A middy from the practice-ship!" they cried.

"I shall not be much longer on the practice-ship," said the young man, with a gesture which seemed as if his hand were feeling for the hilt of his sword, which was not there, "for I am going very soon on my first voyage as an ensign."

"Yes," explained Jacqueline, "he is going to be transferred from the 'Borda' to the 'Jean-Bart'--which, by the way, is no longer the 'Jean-Bart', only people call her so because they are used to it. Meantime you see before you "C," the great "C," the famous "C," that is, he is the pupil who stands highest on the roll of the naval school at this moment."

There was a vague murmur of applause. Poor Fred was indeed in need of some appreciation on the score of merit, for he was not much to look upon, being at that trying age when a young fellow's moustache is only a light down, an age at which youths always look their worst, and are awkward and unsociable because they are timid.

"Then you are no longer an idle fellow," said Dolly, rather teasingly. "People used to say that you went into the navy to get rid of your lessons. That I can quite understand."

"Oh, he has passed many difficult exams," cried Giselle, coming to the rescue.

"I thought I had had enough of school," said Fred, without making any defense, "and besides I had other reasons for going into the navy."

His "other reasons" had been a wish to emancipate himself from the excessive solicitude of his mother, who kept him tied to her apron-strings like a little girl. He was impatient to do something for himself, to become a man as soon as possible. But he said nothing of all this, and to escape further questions devoured three or four little cakes that were offered him. Before taking them he removed his gloves and displayed a pair of chapped and horny hands.

"Why--poor Fred!" cried Jacqueline, who remarked them in a moment, "what kind of almond paste do you use?"

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