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diff --git a/3968.txt b/3968.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6bb5af --- /dev/null +++ b/3968.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3356 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Jacqueline by Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc), v1 +#55 in our series The French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy +#1 in our series by Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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BENTZON + +It is natural that the attention and affection of Americans should be +attracted to a woman who has devoted herself assiduously to understanding +and to making known the aspirations of our country, especially in +introducing the labors and achievements of our women to their sisters in +France, of whom we also have much to learn; for simple, homely virtues +and the charm of womanliness may still be studied with advantage on the +cherished soil of France. + +Marie-Therese Blanc, nee Solms--for this is the name of the author who +writes under the nom de plume of Madame Bentzon--is considered the +greatest of living French female novelists. She was born in an old +French chateau at Seine-Porte (Seine et Oise), September 21, 1840. This +chateau was owned by Madame Bentzon's grandmother, the Marquise de Vitry, +who was a woman of great force and energy of character, "a ministering +angel" to her country neighborhood. Her grandmother's first marriage was +to a Dane, Major-General Adrien-Benjamin de Bentzon, a Governor of the +Danish Antilles. By this marriage there was one daughter, the mother of +Therese, who in turn married the Comte de Solms. "This mixture of +races," Madame Blanc once wrote, "surely explains a kind of moral and +intellectual cosmopolitanism which is found in my nature. My father of +German descent, my mother of Danish--my nom de plume (which was her +maiden-name) is Danish--with Protestant ancestors on her side, though she +and I were Catholics--my grandmother a sound and witty Parisian, gay, +brilliant, lively, with superb physical health and the consequent good +spirits--surely these materials could not have produced other than a +cosmopolitan being." + +Somehow or other, the family became impoverished. Therese de Solms took +to writing stories. After many refusals, her debut took place in the +'Revue des Deux Mondes', and her perseverance was largely due to the +encouragement she received from George Sand, although that great woman +saw everything through the magnifying glass of her genius. But the +person to whom Therese Bentzon was most indebted in the matter of +literary advice--she says herself--was the late M. Caro, the famous +Sorbonne professor of philosophy, himself an admirable writer, "who put +me through a course of literature, acting as my guide through a vast +amount of solid reading, and criticizing my work with kindly severity." +Success was slow. Strange as it may seem, there is a prejudice against +female writers in France, a country that has produced so many admirable +women-authors. However, the time was to come when M. Becloz found one of +her stories in the 'Journal des Debats'. It was the one entitled 'Un +Divorce', and he lost no time in engaging the young writer to become one +of his staff. From that day to this she has found the pages of the Revue +always open to her. + +Madame Bentzon is a novelist, translator, and writer of literary essays. +The list of her works runs as follows: 'Le Roman d'un Muet (1868); Un +Divorce (1872); La Grande Sauliere (1877); Un remords (1878); Yette and +Georgette (1880); Le Retour (1882); Tete folle (1883); Tony, (1884); +Emancipee (1887); Constance (1891); Jacqueline (1893). We need not enter +into the merits of style and composition if we mention that 'Un remords, +Tony, and Constance' were crowned by the French Academy, and 'Jacqueline' +in 1893. Madame Bentzon is likewise the translator of Aldrich, Bret +Harte, Dickens, and Ouida. Some of her critical works are 'Litterature +et Moeurs etrangeres', 1882, and 'Nouveaux romanciers americains', 1885. + + M. THUREAU-DANGIN + de l'Academie Francaise. + + + + +BOOK 1. + + +JACQUELINE + +CHAPTER I + +A PARISIENNE'S "AT HOME" + +Despite a short frock, checked stockings, wide turned-over collar, and a +loose sash around the waist of her blouse in other words, despite the +childish fashion of a dress which seemed to denote that she was not more +than thirteen or fourteen years of age, she seemed much older. An +observer would have put her down as the oldest of the young girls who on +Tuesdays, at Madame de Nailles's afternoons, filled what was called "the +young girls' corner" with whispered merriment and low laughter, while, +under pretence of drinking tea, the noise went on which is always audible +when there is anything to eat. + +No doubt the amber tint of this young girl's complexion, the raven +blackness of her hair, her marked yet delicate features, and the general +impression produced by her dark coloring, were reasons why she seemed +older than the rest. It was Jacqueline's privilege to exhibit that style +of beauty which comes earliest to perfection, and retains it longest; +and, what was an equal privilege, she resembled no one. + +The deep bow-window--her favorite spot--which enabled her to have a +reception-day in connection with that of her mamma, seemed like a great +basket of roses when all her friends assembled there, seated on low +chairs in unstudied attitudes: the white rose of the group was +Mademoiselle d'Etaples, a specimen of pale and pensive beauty, frail +almost to transparency; the Rose of Bengal was the charming Colette +Odinska, a girl of Polish race, but born in Paris; the dark-red rose was +Isabelle Ray-Belle she was called triumphantly--whose dimpled cheeks +flushed scarlet for almost any cause, some said for very coquetry. Then +there were three little girls called Wermant, daughters of an agent de +change--a spray of May roses, exactly alike in features, manners, and +dress, sprightly and charming as little girls could be. A little pompon +rose was tiny Dorothee d'Avrigny, to whom the pet name Dolly was +appropriate, for never had any doll's waxen face been more lovely than +her little round one, with its mouth shaped like a little heart--a mouth +smaller than her eyes, and these were round eyes, too, but so bright, and +blue, and soft, that it was easy to overlook their too frequently +startled expression. + +Jacqueline had nothing in common with a rose of any kind, but she was not +the less charming to look at. Such was the unspoken reflection of a man +who was well able to be a judge in such matters. His name was Hubert +Marien. He was a great painter, and was now watching the clear-cut, +somewhat Arab--like profile of this girl--a profile brought out +distinctly against the dark-red silk background of a screen, much as we +see a cameo stand out in sharp relief from the glittering stone from +which the artist has fashioned it. Marien looked at her from a distance, +leaning against the fireplace of the farther salon, whence he could see +plainly the corner shaded by green foliage plants where Jacqueline had +made her niche, as she called it. The two rooms formed practically but +one, being separated only by a large recess without folding-doors, or +'portires'. Hubert Marien, from his place behind Madame de Nailles's +chair, had often before watched Jacqueline as he was watching her at this +moment. She had grown up, as it were, under his own eye. He had seen +her playing with her dolls, absorbed in her story-books, and crunching +sugar-plums, he had paid her visits--for how many years? He did not care +to count them. + +And little girls bloom fast! How old they make us feel! Who would have +supposed the most unpromising of little buds would have transformed +itself so soon into what he gazed upon? Marien, as an artist, had great +pleasure in studying the delicate outline of that graceful head +surmounted by thick tresses, with rebellious ringlets rippling over the +brow before they were gathered into the thick braid that hung behind; and +Jacqueline, although she appeared to be wholly occupied with her guests, +felt the gaze that was fixed upon her, and was conscious of its magnetic +influence, from which nothing would have induced her to escape even had +she been able. All the young girls were listening attentively (despite +their more serious occupation of consuming dainties) to what was going on +in the next room among the grown-up people, whose conversation reached +them only in detached fragments. + +So long as the subject talked about was the last reception at the French +Academy, these young girls (comrades in the class-room and at the weekly +catechising) had been satisfied to discuss together their own little +affairs, but after Colonel de Valdonjon began to talk complete silence +reigned among them. One might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Their +attention, however, was of little use. Exclamations of oh! and ah! and +protests more or less sincere drowned even the loud and somewhat hoarse +voice of the Colonel. The girls heard it only through a sort of general +murmur, out of which a burst of astonishment or of dissent would +occasionally break forth. These outbreaks were all the curious group +could hear distinctly. They sniffed, as it were, at the forbidden fruit, +but they longed to inhale the full perfume of the scandal that they felt +was in the air. That stout officer of cuirassiers, of whom some people +spoke as "The Chatterbox," took advantage of his profession to tell many +an unsavory story which he had picked up or invented at his club. He had +come to Madame de Nailles's reception with a brand-new concoction of +falsehood and truth, a story likely to be hawked round Paris with great +success for several weeks to come, though ladies on first hearing it +would think proper to cry out that they would not even listen to it, and +would pretend to look round them for their fans to hide their confusion. + +The principal object of interest in this scandalous gossip was a valuable +diamond bracelet, one of those priceless bits of jewelry seldom seen +except in show-windows on the Rue de la Paix, intended to be bought only +for presentation to princesses--of some sort or kind. Well, by an +extraordinary, chance the Marquise de Versannes--aye, the lovely Georgine +de Versannes herself--had picked up this bracelet in the street--by +chance, as it were. + +"It so happened," said the Colonel, "that I was at her mother-in-law's, +where she was going to dine. She came in looking as innocent as you +please, with her hand in her pocket. 'Oh, see what I have found!' she +cried. 'I stepped upon it almost at your door.' And the bracelet was +placed under a lamp, where the diamonds shot out sparkles fit to blind +the old Marquise, and make that old fool of a Versannes see a thousand +lights. He has long known better than to take all his wife says for +gospel--but he tries hard to pretend that he believes her. 'My dear,' he +said, 'you must take that to the police.'--'I'll send it to-morrow +morning,' says the charming Georgine, 'but I wished to show you my good +luck.' Of course nobody came forward to claim the bracelet, and a month +later Madame de Versannes appeared at the Cranfords' ball with a +brilliant diamond bracelet, worn like the Queen of Sheba's, high up on +her arm, near the shoulder, to hide the lack of sleeve. This piece of +finery, which drew everybody's attention to the wearer, was the famous +bracelet picked up in the street. Clever of her!--wasn't it, now?" + +"Horrid! Unlikely! Impossible.... What do you mean us to understand +about it, Colonel? Could she have....?" + +Then the Colonel went on to demonstrate, with many coarse insinuations, +that that good Georgine, as he familiarly called her, had done many more +things than people gave her credit for. And he went on to add: "Surely, +you must have heard of the row about her between Givrac and the Homme- +Volant at the Cirque?" + +"What, the man that wears stockinet all covered with gold scales? Do +tell us, Colonel!" + +But here Madame de Nailles gave a dry little cough which was meant to +impose silence on the subject. She was not a prude, but she disapproved +of anything that was bad form at her receptions. The Colonel's +revelations had to be made in a lower tone, while his hostess endeavored +to bring back the conversation to the charming reply made by M. Renan to +the somewhat insipid address of a member of the Academie. + +"We sha'n't hear anything more now," said Colette, with a sigh. "Did you +understand it, Jacqueline?" + +"Understand--what?" + +"Why, that story about the bracelet?" + +"No--not all. The Colonel seemed to imply that she had not picked it up, +and indeed I don't see how any one could have dropped in the street, in +broad daylight, a bracelet meant only to be worn at night--a bracelet +worn near the shoulder." + +"But if she did not pick it up--she must have stolen it." + +"Stolen it?" cried Belle. "Stolen it! What! The Marquise de +Versannes? Why, she inherited the finest diamonds in Paris!" + +"How do you know?" + +"Because mamma sometimes takes me to the Opera, and her subscription day +is the same as that of the Marquise. People say a good deal of harm of +her--in whispers. They say she is barely received now in society, that +people turn their backs on her, and so forth, and so on. However, that +did not hinder her from being superb the other evening at 'Polyeucte'." + +"So you only go to see 'Polyeucte'?" said Jacqueline, making a little +face as if she despised that opera. + +"Yes, I have seen it twice. Mamma lets me go to 'Polyeucte' and +'Guillaume Tell', and to the 'Prophete', but she won't take me to see +'Faust'--and it is just 'Faust' that I want to see. Isn't it provoking +that one can't see everything, hear everything, understand everything? +You see, we could not half understand that story which seemed to amuse +the people so much in the other room. Why did they send back the +bracelet from the Prefecture to Madame de Versannes if it was not hers?" + +"Yes--why?" said all the little girls, much puzzled. + +Meantime, as the hour for closing the exhibition at the neighboring +hippodrome had arrived, visitors came pouring into Madame de Nailles's +reception--tall, graceful women, dressed with taste and elegance, as +befitted ladies who were interested in horsemanship. The tone of the +conversation changed. Nothing was talked about but superb horses, leaps +over ribbons and other obstacles. The young girls interested themselves +in the spring toilettes, which they either praised or criticised as they +passed before their eyes. + +"Oh! there is Madame Villegry," cried Jacqueline; "how handsome she is! +I should like one of these days to be that kind of beauty, so tall and +slender. Her waist measure is only twenty-one and two thirds inches. +The woman who makes her corsets and my mamma's told us so. She brought +us one of her corsets to look at, a love of a corset, in brocatelle, all +over many-colored flowers. That material is much more 'distingue' than +the old satin--" + +"But what a queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that nobody +will ever look at," said Dolly, her round eyes opening wider than before. + +"Oh! it is just to please herself, I suppose. I understand that! +Besides, nothing is too good for such a figure. But what I admire most +is her extraordinary hair." + +"Which changes its color now and then," observed the sharpest of the +three Wermant sisters. "Extraordinary is just the word for it. At +present it is dark red. Henna did that, I suppose. Raoul--our brother-- +when he was in Africa saw Arab women who used henna. They tied their +heads up in a sort of poultice made of little leaves, something like tea- +leaves. In twenty-four hours the hair will be dyed red, and will stay +red for a year or more. You can try it if you like. I think it is +disgusting." + +"Oh! look, there is Madame de Sternay. I recognized her by her perfume +before I had even seen her. What delightful things good perfumes are!" + +"What is it? Is it heliotrope or jessamine?" asked Yvonne d'Etaples, +sniffing in the air. + +"No--it is only orris-root--nothing but orris-root; but she puts it +everywhere about her--in the hem of her petticoat, in the lining of her +dress. She lives, one might say, in the middle of a sachet. The thing +that will please me most when I am married will be to have no limit to my +perfumes. Till then I have to satisfy myself with very little," sighed +Jacqueline, drawing a little bunch of violets from the loose folds of her +blouse, and inhaling their fragrance with delight. + +"'Tiens'! here comes somebody who has to be contented with much less," +said Yvonne, as a young girl joined their circle. She was small, +awkward, timid, and badly dressed. On seeing her Colette whispered "Oh! +that tiresome Giselle. We sha'n't be able to talk another word." + +Jacqueline kissed Giselle de Monredon. They were distant cousins, though +they saw each other very seldom. Giselle was an orphan, having lost both +her father and her mother, and was being educated in a convent from which +she was allowed to come out only on great occasions. Her grandmother, +whose ideas were those of the old school, had placed her there. The +Easter holidays accounted for Giselle's unexpected arrival. Wrapped in a +large cloak which covered up her convent uniform, she looked, as compared +with the gay girls around her, like a poor sombre night-moth, dazzled by +the light, in company with other glittering creatures of the insect race, +fluttering with graceful movements, transparent wings and shining +corselets. + +"Come and have some sandwiches," said Jacqueline, and she drew Giselle to +the tea-table, with the kind intention apparently of making her feel more +at her ease. But she had another motive. She saw some one who was very +interesting to her coming at that moment toward the table. That some one +was a man about forty, whose pointed black beard was becoming slightly +gray--a man whom some people thought ugly, chiefly because they had never +seen his somewhat irregular features illumined by a smile which, +spreading from his lips to his eyes, lighted up his face and transformed +it. The smile of Hubert Marien was rare, however. He was exclusive in +his friendships, often silent, always somewhat unapproachable. He seldom +troubled himself to please any one he did not care for. In society he +was not seen to advantage, because he was extremely bored, for which +reason he was seldom to be seen at the Tuesday receptions of Madame de +Nailles; while, on other days, he frequented the house as an intimate +friend of the family. Jacqueline had known him all her life, and for her +he had always his beautiful smile. He had petted her when she was +little, and had been much amused by the sort of adoration she had no +hesitation in showing that she felt for him. He used to call her +Mademoiselle ma femme, and M. de Nailles would speak of him as "my +daughter's future husband." This joke had been kept up till the little +lady had reached her ninth year, when it ceased, probably by order of +Madame de Nailles, who in matters of propriety was very punctilious. +Jacqueline, too, became less familiar than she had been with the man she +called "my great painter." Indeed, in her heart of hearts, she cherished +a grudge against him. She thought he presumed on the right he had +assumed of teasing her. The older she grew the more he treated her as if +she were a baby, and, in the little passages of arms that continually +took place between them, Jacqueline was bitterly conscious that she no +longer had the best of it as formerly. She was no longer as droll and +lively as she had been. She was easily disconcerted, and took everything +'au serieux', and her wits became paralyzed by an embarrassment that was +new to her. And, pained by the sort of sarcasm which Marien kept up in +all their intercourse, she was often ready to burst into tears after +talking to him. Yet she was never quite satisfied unless he was present. +She counted the days from one Wednesday to another, for on Wednesdays he +always dined with them, and she greeted any opportunity of seeing him on +other days as a great pleasure. This week, for example, would be marked +with a white stone. She would have seen him twice. For half an hour +Marien had been enduring the bore of the reception, standing silent and +self-absorbed in the midst of the gay talk, which did not interest him. +He wished to escape, but was always kept from doing so by some word or +sign from Madame de Nailles. Jacqueline had been thinking: "Oh! if he +would only come and talk to us!" He was now drawing near them, and an +instinct made her wish to rush up to him and tell him--what should she +tell him? She did not know. A few moments before so many things to tell +him had been passing through her brain. + +What she said was: "Monsieur Marien, I recommend to you these little +spiced cakes." And, with some awkwardness, because her hand was +trembling, she held out the plate to him. + +"No, thank you, Mademoiselle," he said, affecting a tone of great +ceremony, "I prefer to take this glass of punch, if you will permit me." + +"The punch is cold, I fear; suppose we were to put a little tea in it. +Stay--let me help you." + +"A thousand thanks; but I like to attend to such little cookeries myself. +By the way, it seems to me that Mademoiselle Giselle, in her character of +an angel who disapproves of the good things of this life, has not left us +much to eat at your table." + +"Who--I?" cried the poor schoolgirl, in a tone of injured innocence and +astonishment. + +"Don't pay any attention to him," said Jacqueline, as if taking her under +her protection. "He is nothing but a tease; what he says is only chaff. +But I might as well talk Greek to her," she added, shrugging her +shoulders. "In the convent they don't know what to make of a joke. Only +spare her at least, if you please, Monsieur Marien." + +"I know by report that Mademoiselle Giselle is worthy of the most +profound respect," continued the pitiless painter. "I lay myself at her +feet--and at yours. Now I am going to slip away in the English fashion. +Good-evening." + +"Why do you go so soon? You can't do any more work today." + +"No, it has been a day lost--that is true." + +"That's polite! By the way--" here Jacqueline became very red and she +spoke rapidly--" what made you just now stare at me so persistently?" + +"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 + + DIED AGED TWENTY-SIX YEARS + +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?" + +Much annoyed, he replied, curtly: "We all have to row, we have also to +attend to the machinery. But that is only while we are cadets. Of +course, such apprenticeship is very hard. After that we shall get our +stripes and be ordered on foreign service, and expect promotion." + +"And glory," said Giselle, who found courage to speak. + +Fred thanked her with a look of gratitude. She, at least, understood his +profession. She entered into his feelings far better than Jacqueline, +who had been his first confidante--Jacqueline, to whom he had confided +his purposes, his ambition, and his day-dreams. He thought Jacqueline +was selfish. She seemed to care only for herself. And yet, selfish or +not selfish, she pleased him better than all the other girls he knew-- +a thousand times more than gentle, sweet Giselle. + +"Ah, glory, of course!" repeated Jacqueline. "I understand how much +that counts, but there is glory of various kinds, and I know the kind +that I prefer," she added in a tone which seemed to imply that it was not +that of arms, or of perilous navigation. "We all know," she went on, +"that not every man can have genius, but any sailor who has good luck can +get to be an admiral." + +"Let us hope you will be one soon, Monsieur Fred," said Dolly. "You will +have well deserved it, according to the way you have distinguished +yourself on board the 'Borda.'" + +This induced Fred to let them understand something of life on board the +practice-ship; he told how the masters who resided on shore ascended by a +ladder to the gun-deck, which had been turned into a schoolroom; how six +cadets occupied the space intended for each gun-carriage, where hammocks +hung from hooks served them instead of beds; how the chapel was in a +closet opened only on Sundays. He described the gymnastic feats in the +rigging, the practice in gunnery, and many other things which, had they +been well described, would have been interesting; but Fred was only a +poor narrator. The conclusion the young ladies seemed to reach +unanimously after hearing his descriptions, was discouraging. +They cried almost with one voice + +"Think of any woman being willing to marry a sailor." + +"Why not?" asked Giselle, very promptly. + +"Because, what's the use of a husband who is always out of your reach, +as it were, between water and sky? One would better be a widow. Widows, +at any rate, can marry again. But you, Giselle, don't understand these +things. You are going to be a nun." + +"Had I been in your place, Fred," said Isabelle Ray, "I should rather +have gone into the cavalry school at Saint Cyr. I should have wanted to +be a good huntsman, had I been a man, and they say naval officers are +never good horsemen." + +Poor Fred! He was not making much progress among the young girls. +Almost everything people talked about outside his cadet life was unknown +to him; what he could talk about seemed to have no interest for any one, +unless indeed it might interest Giselle, who was an adept in the art of +sympathetic listening, never having herself anything to say. + +Besides this, Fred was by no means at his ease in talking to Jacqueline. +They had been told not to 'tutoyer' each other, because they were getting +too old for such familiarity, and it was he, and not she, who remembered +this prohibition. Jacqueline perceived this after a while, and burst out +laughing: + +"Tiens! You call me 'you,"' she cried, "and I ought not to say 'thou' +but 'you.' I forgot. It seems so odd, when we have always been +accustomed to 'tutoyer' each other." + +"One ought to give it up after one's first communion," said the eldest +Mademoiselle Wermant, sententiously. "We ceased to 'tutoyer' our boy +cousins after that. I am told nothing annoys a husband so much as to see +these little familiarities between his wife and her cousins or her +playmates." + +Giselle looked very much astonished at this speech, and her air of +disapproval amused Belle and Yvonne exceedingly. They began presently to +talk of the classes in which they were considered brilliant pupils, and +of their success in compositions. They said that sometimes very +difficult subjects were given out. A week or two before, each had had to +compose a letter purporting to be from Dante in exile to a friend in +Florence, describing Paris as it was in his time, especially the manners +and customs of its universities, ending by some allusion to the state of +matters between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. + +"Good heavens! And could you do it?" said Giselle, whose knowledge of +history was limited to what may be found in school abridgments. + +It was therefore a great satisfaction to her when Fred declared that he +never should have known how to set about it. + +"Oh! papa helped me a little," said Isabelle, whose father wrote +articles much appreciated by the public in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes.' +"But he said at the same time that it was horrid to give such crack- +brained stuff to us poor girls. Happily, our subject this week is much +nicer. We have to make comparisons between La Tristesse d'Olympio, +Souvenir, and Le Lac'. That will be something interesting." + +"The Tristesse d'Olympio?" repeated Giselle, in a tone of interrogation. + +"You know, of course, that it is Victor Hugo's," said Mademoiselle de +Wermant, with a touch of pity. + +Giselle answered with sincerity and humility, "I only knew that Le Lac +was by Lamartine." + +"Well!--she knows that much," whispered Belle to Yvonne--" just that +much, anyhow." + +While they were whispering and laughing, Jacqueline recited, in a soft +voice, and with feeling that did credit to her instructor in elocution, +Mademoiselle X----, of the Theatre Francais: + + May the moan of the wind, the green rushes' soft sighing, + The fragrance that floats in the air you have moved, + May all heard, may all breathed, may all seen, seem but trying + To say: They have loved. + +Then she added, after a pause: "Isn't that beautiful?" + +"How dares she say such words?" thought Giselle, whose sense of +propriety was outraged by this allusion to love. Fred, too, looked +askance and was not comfortable, for he thought that Jacqueline had too +much assurance for her age, but that, after all, she was becoming more +and more charming. + +At that moment Belle and Yvonne were summoned, and they departed, full +of an intention to spread everywhere the news that Giselle, the little +goose, had actually known that Le Lac had been written by Lamartine. +The Benedictine Sisters positively had acquired that much knowledge. + +These girls were not the only persons that day at the reception who +indulged in a little ill-natured talk after going away. Mesdames d'Argy +and de Monredon, on their way to the Faubourg St. Germain, criticised +Madame de Nailles pretty freely. As they crossed the Parc Monceau to +reach their carriage, which was waiting for them on the Boulevard +Malesherbes, they made the young people, Giselle and Fred, walk ahead, +that they might have an opportunity of expressing themselves freely, the +old dowager especially, whose toothless mouth never lost an opportunity +of smirching the character and the reputation of her neighbors. + +"When I think of the pains my poor cousin de Nailles took to impress upon +us all that he was making what is called a 'mariage raisonnable'! Well, +if a man wants a wife who is going to set up her own notions, her own +customs, he had better marry a poor girl without fortune! This one will +simply ruin him. My dear, I am continually amazed at the way people are +living whose incomes I know to the last sou. What an example for +Jacqueline! Extravagance, fast living, elegant self-indulgence.... +Did you observe the Baronne's gown?--of rough woolen stuff. She told +some one it was the last creation of Doucet, and you know what that +implies! His serge costs more than one of our velvet gowns . . . . +And then her artistic tastes, her bric-a brac! Her salon looks like a +museum or a bazaar. I grant you it makes a very pretty setting for her +and all her coquetries. But in my time respectable women were contented +with furniture covered with red or yellow silk damask furnished by their +upholsterers. They didn't go about trying to hunt up the impossible. +'On ne cherche pas midi a quatorze heures'. You hold, as I do, to the +old fashions, though you are not nearly so old, my dear Elise, and +Jacqueline's mother thought as we think. She would say that her daughter +is being very badly brought up. To be sure, all young creatures nowadays +are the same. Parents, on a plea of tenderness, keep them at home, where +they get spoiled among grown people, when they had much better have the +same kind of education that has succeeded so well with Giselle; bolts on +the garden-gates, wholesome seclusion, the company of girls of their own +age, a great regularity of life, nothing which stimulates either vanity +or imagination. That is the proper way to bring up girls without +notions, girls who will let themselves be married without opposition, +and are satisfied with the state of life to which Providence may be +pleased to call them. For my part, I am enchanted with the ladies in +the Rue de Monsieur, and, what is more, Giselle is very happy among them; +to hear her talk you would suppose she was quite ready to take the veil. +Of course, that is a mere passing fancy. But fancies of that sort are +never dangerous, they have nothing in common with those that are passing +nowadays through most girls' brains. Having 'a day!'--what a foolish +notion: And then to let little girls take part in it, even in a corner of +the room. I'll wager that, though her skirts are half way up her legs, +and her hair is dressed like a baby's, that that little de Nailles is +less of a child than my granddaughter, who has been brought up by the +Benedictines. You say that she probably does not understand all that +goes on around her. Perhaps not, but she breathes it in. It's poison- +that's what it is!" + +There was a good deal of truth in this harsh picture, although it +contained considerable exaggeration. + +At this moment, when Madame de Monredon was sitting in judgment on the +education given to the little girls brought up in the world, and on the +ruinous extravagance of their young stepmothers, Madame de Nailles and +Jacqueline--their last visitors having departed--were resting themselves, +leaning tenderly against each other, on a sofa. Jacqueline's head lay on +her mother's lap. Her mother, without speaking, was stroking the girl's +dark hair. Jacqueline, too, was silent, but from time to time she kissed +the slender fingers sparkling with rings, as they came within reach of +her lips. + +When M. de Nailles, about dinner-time, surprised them thus, he said, with +satisfaction, as he had often said before, that it would be hard to find +a home scene more charming, as they sat under the light of a lamp with a +pink shade. + +That the stepmother and stepdaughter adored each other was beyond a +doubt. And yet, had any one been able to look into their hearts at that +moment, he would have discovered with surprise that each was thinking of +something that she could not confide to the other. + +Both were thinking of the same person. Madame de Nailles was occupied +with recollections, Jacqueline with hope. She was absorbed in +Machiavellian strategy, how to realize a hope that had been formed +that very afternoon. + +"What are you both thinking of, sitting there so quietly?" said the +Baron, stooping over them and kissing first his wife and then his child. + +"About nothing," said the wife, with the most innocent of smiles. + +"Oh! I am thinking," said Jacqueline, "of many things. I have a secret, +papa, that I want to tell you when we are quite alone. Don't be jealous, +dear mamma. It is something about a surprise--Oh, a lovely surprise for +you." + +"Saint Clotilde's day-my fete-day is still far off," said Madame de +Nailles, refastening, mother-like, the ribbon that was intended to keep +in order the rough ripples of Jacqueline's unruly hair, "and usually your +whisperings begin as the day approaches my fete." + +"Oh, dear!--you will go and guess it!" cried Jacqueline in alarm. +"Oh! don't guess it, please." + +"Well! I will do my best not to guess, then," said the good-natured +Clotilde, with a laugh. + +"And I assure you, for my part, that I am discretion itself," said M. de +Nailles. + +So saying, he drew his wife's arm within his own, and the three passed +gayly together into the dining-room. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A CLEVER STEPMOTHER + +No man took more pleasure than M. de Nailles in finding himself in his +own home--partly, perhaps, because circumstances compelled him to be very +little there. The post of deputy in the French Chamber is no sinecure. +He was not often an orator from the tribune, but he was absorbed by work +in the committees--"Harnessed to a lot of bothering reports," as +Jacqueline used to say to him. He had barely any time to give to those +important duties of his position, by which, as is well known, members of +the Corps Legislatif are shamelessly harassed by constituents, who, on +pretence that they have helped to place the interests of their district +in your hands, feel authorized to worry you with personal matters, such +as the choice of agricultural machines, or a place to be found for a wet- +nurse. + +Besides his public duties, M. de Nailles was occupied by financial +speculations--operations that were no doubt made necessary by the style +of living commented on by his cousin, Madame de Monredon, who was as +stingy as she was bitter of tongue. The elegance that she found fault +with was, however, very far from being great when compared with the +luxury of the present day. Of course, the Baronne had to have her +horses, her opera-box, her fashionable frocks. To supply these very +moderate needs, which, however, she never insisted upon, being, so far +as words went, most simple in her tastes, M. de Nailles, who had not the +temperament which makes men find pleasure in hard work, became more and +more fatigued. His days were passed in the Chamber, but he never +neglected his interest on the Bourse; in the evening he accompanied his +young wife into society, which, she always declared, she did not care +for, but which had claims upon her nevertheless. It was therefore not +surprising that M. de Nailles's face showed traces of the habitual +fatigue that was fast aging him; his tall, thin form had acquired a +slight stoop; though only fifty he was evidently in his declining years. +He had once been a man of pleasure, it was said, before he entered +politics. He had married his first wife late in life. She was a prudent +woman who feared to expose him to temptation, and had kept him as far as +possible away from Paris. + +In the country, having nothing to do, he became interested in +agriculture, and in looking after his estate at Grandchaux. He had been +made a member of the Conseil General, when unfortunately death too early +deprived him of the wise and gentle counsellor for whom he felt, possibly +not a very lively love, but certainly a high esteem and affection. After +he be came a widower he met in the Pyrenees, where, as he was whiling +away the time of seclusion proper after his loss, a young lady who +appeared to him exactly the person he needed to bring up his little +daughter--because she was extremely attractive to himself. Of course +M. de Nailles found plenty of other reasons for his choice, which he gave +to the world and to himself to justify his second marriage--but this was +the true reason and the only one. His friends, however, all of whom had +urged on him the desirability of taking another wife, in consideration of +the age of Jacqueline, raised many objections as soon as he announced his +intention of espousing Mademoiselle Clotilde Hecker, eldest daughter of a +man who had been, at one time, a prefect under the Empire, but who had +been turned out of office by the Republican Government. He had a large +family and many debts; but M. de Nailles had some answer always ready for +the objections of his family and friends. He was convinced that +Mademoiselle Hecker, having no fortune, would be less exacting than other +women and more disposed to lead a quiet life. + +She had been almost a mother to her own young brothers and sisters, +which was a pledge for motherliness toward Jacqueline, etc., etc. +Nevertheless, had she not had eyes as blue as those of the beauties +painted by Greuze, plenty of audacious wit, and a delicate complexion, +due to her Alsatian origin--had she not possessed a slender waist and a +lovely figure, he might have asked himself why a young lady who, +in winter, studied painting with the commendable intention of making +her own living by art, passed the summers at all the watering-places +of France and those of neighboring countries, without any perceptible +motive. + +But, thanks to the bandage love ties over the eyes of men, he saw only +what Mademoiselle Clotilde was willing that he should see. In the first +place he saw the great desirability of a talent for painting which, +unlike music--so often dangerous to married happiness--gives women who +cultivate it sedentary interests. And then he was attracted by the model +daughter's filial piety as he beheld her taking care of her mother, who +was the victim of an incurable disorder, which required her by turns to +reside at Cauterets, or sometimes at Ems, sometimes at Aix in Savoy, and +sometimes even at Trouville. The poor girl had assured him that she +asked no happier lot than to live eight months of the year in the +country, where she would devote herself to teaching Jacqueline, for whom +at first sight she had taken a violent fancy (the attraction indeed was +mutual). She assured him she would teach her all she knew herself, and +her diplomas proved how well educated she had been. + +Indeed, it seemed as if only prejudice could find any objection to so +prudent and reasonable a marriage, a marriage contracted principally for +the good of Jacqueline. + +It came to pass, however, that the air of Grandchaux, which is situated +in the most unhealthful part of Limouzin, proved particularly hurtful to +the new Madame de Nailles. She could not live a month on her husband's +property without falling into a state of health which she attributed to +malaria. M. de Nailles was at first much concerned about the condition +of things which seemed likely to upset all his plans for retirement in +the country, but, his wife having persuaded him that his position in the +Conseil General was only a stepping-stone to a seat in the Corps +Legislatif, where his place ought to be, he presented himself to the +electors as a candidate, and was almost unanimously elected deputy, the +conservative vote being still all powerful in that part of the country. + +His wife, it was said, had shown rare zeal and activity at the time of +the election, employing in her husband's service all those little arts +which enable her sex to succeed in politics, as well as in everything +else they set their minds to. No lady ever more completely turned the +heads of country electors. It was really Madame de Nailles who took her +seat in the Left Centre of the Chamber, in the person of her husband. + +After that she returned to Limouzin only long enough to keep up her +popularity, though, with touching resignation, she frequently offered to +spend the summer at Grandchaux, even if the consequences should be her +death, like that of Pia in the Maremma. Her husband, of course, +peremptorily set his face against such self-sacrifice. + +The facilities for Jacqueline's education were increased by their +settling down as residents of Paris. Madame de Nailles superintended the +instruction of her stepdaughter with motherly solicitude, seconded, +however, by a 'promeneuse', or walking-governess, which left her free to +fulfil her own engagements in the afternoons. The walking-governess is +a singular modern institution, intended to supply the place of the too +often inconvenient daily governess of former times. The necessary +qualifications of such a person are that she should have sturdy legs, +and such knowledge of some foreign language as will enable her during +their walks to converse in it with her pupil. Fraulein Schult, who came +from one of the German cantons of Switzerland, was an ideal 'promeneuse'. +She never was tired and she was well-informed. The number of things that +could be learned from her during a walk was absolutely incredible. + +Madame de Nailles, therefore, after a time, gave up to her, not without +apparent regret, the duty of accompanying Jacqueline, while she herself +fulfilled those duties to society which the most devoted of mothers can +not wholly avoid; but the stepmother and stepdaughter were always to be +seen together at mass at one o'clock; together they attended the Cours +(that system of classes now so much in vogue) and also the weekly +instruction given in the catechism; and if Madame de Nailles, when, at +night, she told her husband all she had been doing for Jacqueline during +the day (she never made any merit of her zeal for the child's welfare), +added: "I left Jacqueline in this place or in that, where Mademoiselle +Schult was to call for her," M. de Nailles showed no disposition to ask +questions, for he well understood that his wife felt a certain delicacy +in telling him that she had been to pay a brief visit to her own +relatives, who, she knew, were distasteful to him. He had, indeed, very +soon discerned in them a love of intrigue, a desire to get the most they +could out of him, and a disagreeable propensity to parasitism. With the +consummate tact she showed in everything she did, Madame de Nailles kept +her own family in the background, though she never neglected them. She +was always doing them little services, but she knew well that there were +certain things about them that could not but be disagreeable to her +husband. M. de Nailles knew all this, too, and respected his wife's +affection for her family. He seldom asked her where she had been during +the day. If he had she would have answered, with a sigh: "I went to see +my mother while Jacqueline was taking her dancing-lesson, and before she +went to her singing-master." + +That she was passionately attached to Jacqueline was proved by the +affection the little girl conceived for her. "We two are friends," both +mother and daughter often said of each other. Even Modeste, old Modeste, +who had been at first indignant at seeing a stranger take the place of +her dead mistress, could not but acknowledge that the usurper was no +ordinary step mother. It might have been truly said that Madame de +Nailles had never scolded Jacqueline, and that Jacqueline had never done +anything contrary to the wishes of Madame de Nailles. When anything went +wrong it was Fraulein Schult who was reproached first; if there was any +difficulty in the management of Jacqueline, she alone received +complaints. In the eyes of the "two friends," Fraulein Schult was +somehow to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the family, +but between themselves an observer might have watched in vain for the +smallest cloud. Madame de Nailles, when she was first married, could not +make enough of the very ugly yet attractive little girl, whose tight +black curls and gypsy face made an admirable contrast to her own more +delicate style of beauty, which was that of a blonde. She caressed +Jacqueline, she dressed her up, she took her about with her like a little +dog, and overwhelmed her with demonstrations of affection, which served +not only to show off her own graceful attitudes, but gave spectators a +high opinion of her kindness of heart. + +When from time to time some one, envious of her happiness, pitied her for +being childless, Madame de Nailles would say: "What do you mean? I have +one daughter; she is enough for me." + +It is a pity children grow so fast, and that little girls who were once +ugly sometimes develop into beautiful young women. The time came when +the model stepmother began to wish that Jacqueline would only develop +morally, intellectually, and not physically. But she showed nothing of +this in her behavior, and replied to any compliments addressed to her +concerning Jacqueline with as much maternal modesty as if the dawning +loveliness of her stepdaughter had been due to herself. + +"Her nose is rather too long-don't you think so? And she will always be +too dark, I fear." But she used always to add, "She is good enough and +pretty enough to pass muster with any critic--poor little pussy-cat!" +She became desirous to discover some tendency to ill-health in the plant +that was too ready to bloom into beauty and perfection. She would have +liked to be able to assert that Jacqueline's health would not permit her +to sit up late at night, that fashionable hours would be injurious to +her, that it would be undesirable to let her go into society as long as +she could be kept from doing so. But Jacqueline persisted in never being +ill, and was calculating with impatience how many years it would be +before she could go to her first ball--three or four possibly. Was +Madame de Nailles in three or four years to be reduced to the position of +a chaperon? The young stepmother thought of such a possibility with +horror. Her anxiety on this subject, however, as well as several other +anxieties, was so well concealed that even her husband suspected nothing. + +The complete sympathy which existed between the two beings he most loved +made M. de Nailles very happy. He had but one thing to complain of in +his wife, and that thing was very small. Since she had married she had +completely given up her painting. He had no knowledge of art himself, +and had therefore given her credit for great artistic capacity. The fact +was that in her days of poverty she had never been artist enough to make +a living, and now that she was rich she felt inclined to laugh at her own +limited ability. Her practice of art, she said, had only served to give +her a knowledge of outline and of color; a knowledge she utilized in her +dress and in the smallest details of house decoration and furniture. +Everything she wore, everything that surrounded her, was arranged to +perfection. She had a genius for decoration, for furniture, for trifles, +and brought her artistic knowledge to bear even on the tying of a ribbon, +or the arrangement of a nosegay. + +"This is all I retain of your lessons," she said sometimes to Hubert +Marien, when recalling to his memory the days in which she sought his +advice as to how to prepare herself for the "struggle for life." + +This phrase was amusing when it proceeded from her lips. What!-- +"struggle for life" with those little delicate, soft, childlike hands? +How absurd! She laughed at the idea now, and all those who heard her +laughed with her; Marien laughed more than any one. He, who had +befriended her in her days of adversity, seemed to retain for the +Baroness in her prosperity the same respectful and discreet devotion he +had shown her as Mademoiselle Hecker. He had sent a wonderful portrait +of her, as the wife of M. de Nailles, to the Salon--a portrait that the +richer electors of Grandchaux, who had voted for her husband and who +could afford to travel, gazed at with satisfaction, congratulating +themselves that they had a deputy who had married so pretty a woman. +It even seemed as if the beauty of Madame de Nailles belonged in some +sort to the arrondissement, so proud were those who lived there of having +their share in her charms. + +Another portrait--that of M. de Nailles himself--was sent down to +Limouzin from Paris, and all the peasants in the country round were +invited to come and look at it. That also produced a very favorable +impression on the rustic public, and added to the popularity of their +deputy. Never had the proprietor of Grandchaux looked so grave, so +dignified, so majestic, so absorbed in deep reflection, as he looked +standing beside a table covered with papers--papers, no doubt, all having +relation to local interests, important to the public and to individuals. +It was the very figure of a statesman destined to high dignities. No one +who gazed on such a deputy could doubt that one day he would be in the +ministry. + +It was by such real services that Marien endeavored to repay the +friendship and the kindness always awaiting him in the small house in the +Parc Monceau, where we have just seen Jacqueline eagerly offering him +some spiced cakes. To complete what seemed due to the household there +only remained to paint the curiously expressive features of the girl at +whom he had been looking that very day with more than ordinary attention. +Once already, when Jacqueline was hardly out of baby-clothes, the great +painter had made an admirable sketch of her tousled head, a sketch in +which she looked like a little imp of darkness, and this sketch Madame de +Nailles took pains should always be seen, but it bore no resemblance to +the slender young girl who was on the eve of becoming, whatever might be +done to arrest her development, a beautiful young woman. Jacqueline +disliked to look at that picture. It seemed to do her an injury by +associating her with her nursery. Probably that was the reason why she +had been so pleased to hear Hubert Marien say unexpectedly that she was +now ready for the portrait which had been often joked about, every one +putting it off to the period, always remote, when "the may-pole" should +have developed a pretty face and figure. + +And now she was disquieted lest the idea of taking her picture, which she +felt was very flattering, should remain inoperative in the painter's +brain. She wanted it carried out at once, as soon as possible. +Jacqueline detested waiting, and for some reason, which she never talked +about, the years that seemed so short and swift to her stepmother seemed +to her to be terribly long. Marien himself had said: "There is a great +interval between a dream and its execution." These words had thrown cold +water on her sudden joy. She wanted to force him to keep his promise-- +to paint her portrait immediately. How to do this was the problem her +little head, reclining on Madame de Nailles's lap after the departure of +their visitors, had been endeavoring to solve. + +Should she communicate her wish to her indulgent stepmother, who for the +most part willed whatever she wished her to do? A vague instinct--an +instinct of some mysterious danger--warned her that in this case her +father would be her better confidant. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FRIEND OF THE FAY + +A week later M. de Nailles said to Hubert Marien, as they were smoking +together in the conservatory, after the usual little family dinner on +Wednesday was over: + +"Well!--when would you like Jacqueline to come to sit for her picture?" + +"What! are you thinking about that?" cried the painter, letting his +cigar fall in his astonishment. + +"She told me that you had proposed to make her portrait." + +"The sly little minx!" thought Marien. "I only spoke of painting it +some day," he said, with embarrassment. + +"Well! she would like that 'some day' to be now, and she has a reason +for wanting it at once, which, I hope, will decide you to gratify her. +The third of June is Sainte-Clotilde's day, and she has taken it into +her head that she would like to give her mamma a magnificent present-- +a present that, of course, we shall unite to give her. For some time +past I have been thinking of asking you to paint a portrait of my +daughter," continued M. de Nailles, who had in fact had no more wish for +the portrait than he had had to be a deputy, until it had been put into +his head. But the women of his household, little or big, could persuade +him into anything. + +"I really don't think I have the time now," said Marien. + +"Bah!--you have whole two months before you. What can absorb you so +entirely? I know you have your pictures ready for the Salon." + +"Yes--of course--of course--but are you sure that Madame de Nailles would +approve of it?" + +"She will approve whatever I sanction," said M. de Nailles, with as much +assurance as if he had been master in his domestic circle; "besides, we +don't intend to ask her. It is to be a surprise. Jacqueline is looking +forward to the pleasure it will give her. There is something very +touching to me in the affection of that little thing for--for her +mother." M. de Nailles usually hesitated a moment before saying that +word, as if he were afraid of transferring something still belonging to +his dead wife to another--that dead wife he so seldom remembered in any +other way. He added, "She is so eager to give her pleasure." + +Marien shook his head with an air of uncertainty. + +"Are you sure that such a portrait would be really acceptable to Madame +de Nailles?" + +"How can you doubt it?" said the Baron, with much astonishment. "A +portrait of her daughter!--done by a great master? However, of course, +if we are putting you to any inconvenience--if you would rather not +undertake it, you had better say so." + +"No--of course I will do it, if you wish it," said Marien, quickly, who, +although he was anxious to do nothing to displease Madame de Nailles, was +equally desirous to stand well with her husband. "Yet I own that all the +mystery that must attend on what you propose may put me to some +embarrassment. How do you expect Jacqueline will be able to conceal--" + +"Oh! easily enough. She walks out every day with Mademoiselle Schult. +Well, Mademoiselle Schult will bring her to your studio instead of taking +her to the Champs Elysees--or to walk elsewhere." + +"But every day there will be concealments, falsehoods, deceptions. +I think Madame de Nailles might prefer to be asked for her permission." + +"Ask for her permission when I have given mine? Ah, fa! my dear Marien, +am I, or am I not, the father, of Jacqueline? I take upon myself the +whole responsibility." + +"Then there is nothing more to be said. But do you think that Jacqueline +will keep the secret till the picture is done?" + +"You don't know little girls; they are all too glad to have something of +which they can make a mystery." + +"When would you like us to begin?" + +Marien had by this time said to himself that for him to hold out longer +might seem strange to M. de Nailles. Besides, the matter, though in some +respects it gave him cause for anxiety, really excited an interest in +him. For some time past, though he had long known women and knew very +little of mere girls, he had had his suspicions that a drama was being +enacted in Jacqueline's heart, a drama of which he himself was the hero. +He amused himself by watching it, though he did nothing to promote it. +He was an artist and a keen and penetrating observer; he employed +psychology in the service of his art, and probably to that might have +been attributed the individual character of his portraits--a quality to +be found in an equal degree only in those of Ricard. + +What particularly interested him at this moment was the assumed +indifference of Jacqueline while her father was conducting the +negotiation which was of her suggestion. When they returned to the salon +after smoking she pretended not to be the least anxious to know the +result of their conversation. She sat sewing near the lamp, giving all +her attention to the piece of lace on which she was working. Her father +made her a sign which meant "He consents," and then Marien saw that the +needle in her fingers trembled, and a slight color rose in her face--but +that was all. She did not say a word. He could not know that for a week +past she had gone to church every time she took a walk, and had offered a +prayer and a candle that her wish might be granted. How very anxious and +excited she had been all that week! The famous composition of which +she had spoken to Giselle, the subject of which had so astonished the +young girl brought up by the Benedictine nuns, felt the inspiration of +her emotion and excitement. Jacqueline was in a frame of mind which made +reading those three masterpieces by three great poets, and pondering the +meaning of their words, very dangerous. The poems did not affect her +with the melancholy they inspire in those who have "lived and loved," +but she was attracted by their tenderness and their passion. Certain +lines she applied to herself--certain others to another person. The very +word love so often repeated in the verses sent a thrill through all her +frame. She aspired to taste those "intoxicating moments," those "swift +delights," those "sublime ecstasies," those "divine transports"--all the +beautiful things, in short, of which the poems spoke, and which were as +yet unknown to her. How could she know them? How could she, after an +experience of sorrow, which seemed to her to be itself enviable, retain +such sweet remembrances as the poets described? + +"Let us love--love each other! Let us hasten to enjoy the passing hour!" +so sang the poet of Le Lac. That passing hour of bliss she thought she +had already enjoyed. She was sure that for a long time past she had +loved. When had that love begun? She hardly knew. But it would last as +long as she might live. One loves but once. + +These personal emotions, mingling with the literary enchantments of the +poets, caused Jacqueline's pen to fly over her paper without effort, and +she produced a composition so far superior to anything she usually wrote +that it left the lucubrations of her companions far behind. M. Regis, +the professor, said so to the class. He was enthusiastic about it, and +greatly surprised. Belle, who had been always first in this kind of +composition, was far behind Jacqueline, and was so greatly annoyed at her +defeat that she would not speak to her for a week. On the other hand +Colette and Dolly, who never had aspired to literary triumphs, were moved +to tears when the "Study on the comparative merits of Three Poems, 'Le +Lac,' 'Souvenir,' and 'La Tristesse d'Olympio,'" signed "Mademoiselle de +Nailles," received the honor of being read aloud. This reading was +followed by a murmur of applause, mingled with some hisses which may have +proceeded from the viper of jealousy. But the paper made a sensation +like that of some new scandal. Mothers and governesses whispered +together. Many thought that that little de Nailles had expressed +sentiments not proper at her age. Some came to the conclusion that +M. Regis chose subjects for composition not suited to young girls. +A committee waited on the unlucky professor to beg him to be more prudent +for the future. He even lost, in consequence of Jacqueline's success, +one of his pupils (the most stupid one, be it said, in the class), whose +mother took her away, saying, with indignation, "One might as well risk +the things they are teaching at the Sorbonne!" + +This literary incident greatly alarmed Madame de Nailles! Of all things +she dreaded that her daughter should early become dreamy and romantic. +But on this point Jacqueline's behavior was calculated to reassure her. +She laughed about her composition, she frolicked like a six-year-old +child; without any apparent cause, she grew gayer and gayer as the time +approached for the execution of her plot. + +The evening before the day fixed on for the first sitting, Modeste, the +elderly maid of the first Madame de Nailles, who loved her daughter, whom +she had known from the moment of her birth, as if she had been her own +foster-child, arrived at the studio of Hubert Marien in the Rue de Prony, +bearing a box which she said contained all that would be wanted by +Mademoiselle. Marien had the curiosity to look into it. It contained a +robe of oriental muslin, light as air, diaphanous--and so dazzlingly +white that he remarked: + +"She will look like a fly in milk in that thing." + +"Oh!" replied Modeste, with a laugh of satisfaction, "it is very +becoming to her. I altered it to fit her, for it is one of Madame's +dresses. Mademoiselle has nothing but short skirts, and she wanted to be +painted as a young lady." + +"With the approval of her papa?" + +"Yes, of course, Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron gave his consent. But for +that I certainly should not have minded what the child said to me." + +"Then," replied Marien, "I can say nothing," and he made ready for his +sitter the next day, by turning two or three studies of the nude, which +might have shocked her, with their faces to the wall. + +A foreign language can not be properly acquired unless the learner has +great opportunities for conversation. It therefore became a fixed habit +with Fraulein Schult and Jacqueline to keep up a lively stream of talk +during their walks, and their discourse was not always about the rain, +the fine weather, the things displayed in the shop-windows, nor the +historical monuments of Paris, which they visited conscientiously. + +What is near the heart is sure to come eventually to the surface in +continual tete-a-tete intercourse. Fraulein Schult, who was of a +sentimental temperament, in spite of her outward resemblance to a +grenadier, was very willing to allow her companion to draw from her +confessions relating to an intended husband, who was awaiting her at +Berne, and whose letters, both in prose and verse, were her comfort in +her exile. This future husband was an apothecary, and the idea that he +pounded out verses as he pounded his drugs in a mortar, and rolled out +rhymes with his pills, sometimes inclined Jacqueline to laugh, but she +listened patiently to the plaintive outpourings of her 'promeneuse', +because she wished to acquire a right to reciprocate by a few half- +confidences of her own. In her turn, therefore, she confided to Fraulein +Schult--moved much as Midas had been, when for his own relief he +whispered to the reeds--that if she were sometimes idle, inattentive, +"away off in the moon," as her instructors told her by way of reproach, +it was caused by one ever-present idea, which, ever since she had been +able to think or feel, had taken possession of her inmost being--the idea +of being loved some day by somebody as she herself loved. + +"Was that somebody a boy of her own age?" + +Oh, fie!--mere boys--still schoolboys--could only be looked upon as +playfellows or comrades. Of course she considered Fred--Fred, for +example!--Frederic d'Argy--as a brother, but how different he was from +her ideal. Even young men of fashion--she had seen some of them on +Tuesdays--Raoul Wermant, the one who so distinguished himself as a leader +in the 'german', or Yvonne's brother, the officer of chasseurs, who had +gained the prize for horsemanship, and others besides these--seemed to +her very commonplace by comparison. No!--he whom she loved was a man in +the prime of life, well known to fame. She didn't care if he had a few +white hairs. + +"Is he a person of rank?" asked Fraulein Schult, much puzzled. + +"Oh! if you mean of noble birth, no, not at all. But fame is so +superior to birth! There are more ways than one of acquiring an +illustrious name, and the name that a man makes for himself is the +noblest of all!" + +Then Jacqueline begged Fraulein Schult to imagine something like the +passion of Bettina for Goethe--Fraulein Schult having told her that story +simply with a view of interesting her in German conversation only the +great man whose name she would not tell was not nearly so old as Goethe, +and she herself was much less childish than Bettina. But, above all, +it was his genius that attracted her--though his face, too, was very +pleasing. And she went on to describe his appearance--till suddenly she +stopped, burning with indignation; for she perceived that, +notwithstanding the minuteness of her description, what she said was +conveying an idea of ugliness and not one of the manly beauty she +intended to portray. + +"He is not like that at all," she cried. "He has such a beautiful smile- +a smile like no other I ever saw. And his talk is so amusing--and--" +here Jacqueline lowered her voice as if afraid to be overheard, "and I do +think--I think, after all, he does love me--just a little." + +On what could she have founded such a notion? Good heaven!--it was on +something that had at first deeply grieved her, a sudden coldness and +reserve that had come over his manner to her. Not long before she had +read an English novel (no others were allowed to come into her hands). +It was rather a stupid book, with many tedious passages, but in it she +was told how the high-minded hero, not being able, for grave reasons, to +aspire to the hand of the heroine, had taken refuge in an icy coldness, +much as it cost him, and as soon as possible had gone away. English +novels are nothing if not moral. + +This story, not otherwise interesting, threw a gleam of light on what, +up to that time, had been inexplicable to Jacqueline. He was above all +things a man of honor. He must have perceived that his presence troubled +her. He had possibly seen her when she stole a half-burned cigarette +which he had left upon the table, a prize she had laid up with other +relics--an old glove that he had lost, a bunch of violets he had gathered +for her in the country. Yes! When she came to think of it, she felt +certain he must have seen her furtively lay her hand upon that cigarette; +that cigarette had compromised her. Then it was he must have said to +himself that it was due to her parents, who had always shown him +kindness, to surmount an attachment that could come to nothing--nothing +at present. But when she should be old enough for him to ask her hand, +would he dare? Might he not rashly think himself too old? She must seek +out some way to give him encouragement, to give him to understand that +she was not, after all, so far--so very far from being a young lady--old +enough to be married. How difficult it all was! All the more difficult +because she was exceedingly afraid of him. + +It is not surprising that Fraulein Schult, after listening day after day +to such recitals, with all the alternations of hope and of discouragement +which succeeded one another in the mind of her precocious pupil, guessed, +the moment that Jacqueline came to her, in a transport of joy, to ask her +to go with her to the Rue de Prony, that the hero of the mysterious love- +story was no other than Hubert Marien. + +As soon as she understood this, she perceived that she should be placed +in a very false position. But she thought to herself there was no +possible way of getting out of it, without giving a great deal too much +importance to a very innocent piece of childish folly; she therefore +determined to say nothing about it, but to keep a strict watch in the +mean time. After all, M. de Nailles himself had given her her orders. +She was to accompany Jacqueline, and do her crochet-work in one corner of +the studio as long as the sitting lasted. + +All she could do was to obey. + +"And above all not a word to mamma, whatever she may ask you," said +Jacqueline. + +And her father added, with a laugh, "Not a word." Fraulein Schult felt +that she knew what was expected of her. She was naturally compliant, and +above all things she was anxious to get paid for as many hours of her +time as possible--much like the driver of a fiacre, because the more +money she could make the sooner she would be in a position to espouse her +apothecary. + +When Jacqueline, escorted by her Swiss duenna, penetrated almost +furtively into Marien's studio, her heart beat as if she had a +consciousness of doing something very wrong. In truth, she had pictured +to herself so many impossible scenes beforehand, had rehearsed the +probable questions and answers in so many strange dialogues, had soothed +her fancy with so many extravagant ideas, that she had at last created, +bit by bit, a situation very different from the reality, and then threw +herself into it, body and soul. + +The look of the atelier--the first she had ever been in in her life-- +disappointed her. She had expected to behold a gorgeous collection of +bric-a-brac, according to accounts she had heard of the studios of +several celebrated masters. That of Marien was remarkable only for its +vast dimensions and its abundance of light. Studies and sketches hung on +the walls, were piled one over another in corners, were scattered about +everywhere, attesting the incessant industry of the artist, whose +devotion to his calling was so great that his own work never satisfied +him. + +Only some interesting casts from antique bronzes, brought out into strong +relief by a background of tapestry, adorned this lofty hall, which had +none of that confusion of decorative objects, in the midst of which some +modern artists seem to pose themselves rather than to labor. + +A fresh canvas stood upon an easel, all ready for the sitter. + +"If you please, we will lose no time," said Marien, rather roughly, +seeing that Jacqueline was about to explore all the corners of his +apartment, and that at that moment, with the tips of her fingers, she +was drawing aside the covering he had cast over his Death of Savonarola, +the picture he was then at work upon. It was not the least of his +grudges against Jacqueline for insisting on having her portrait painted +that it obliged him to lay aside this really great work, that he might +paint a likeness. + +"In ten minutes I shall be ready," said Jacqueline, obediently taking off +her hat. + +"Why can't you stay as you are? That jacket suits you. Let us begin +immediately." + +"No, indeed! What a horrid suggestion!" she cried, running up to the +box which was half open. "You'll see how much better I can look in a +moment or two." + +"I put no faith in your fancies about your toilette. I certainly don't +promise to accept them." + +Nevertheless, he left her alone with her Bernese governess, saying: "Call +me when you are ready, I shall be in the next room." + +A quarter of an hour, and more, passed, and no signal had been given. +Marien, getting out of patience, knocked on the door. + +"Have you nearly done beautifying yourself?" he asked, in a tone of +irony. + +"Just done," replied a low voice, which trembled. + +He went in, and to the great amusement of Fraulein Schult, who was not +too preoccupied to notice everything, he stood confounded--petrified, +as a man might be by some work of magic. What had become of Jacqueline? +What had she in common with that dazzling vision? Had she been touched +by some fairy's wand? Or, to accomplish such a transformation, had +nothing been needed but the substitution of a woman's dress, fitted to +her person, for the short skirts and loose waists cut in a boyish +fashion, which had made the little girl seem hardly to belong to any sex, +an indefinite being, condemned, as it were, to childishness? How tall, +and slender, and graceful she looked in that long gown, the folds of +which fell from her waist in flowing lines, a waist as round and flexible +as the branch of a willow; what elegance there was in her modest corsage, +which displayed for the first time her lovely arms and neck, half afraid +of their own exposure. She still was not robust, but the leanness that +she herself had owned to was not brought into prominence by any bone or +angle, her dark skin was soft and polished, the color of ancient statues +which have been slightly tinted yellow by exposure to the sun. This +girl, a Parisienne, seemed formed on the model of a figurine of Tanagra. +Greek, too, was her small head, crowned only by her usual braid of hair, +which she had simply gathered up so as to show the nape of her neck, +which was perhaps the most beautiful thing in all her beautiful person. + +"Well!--what do you think of me?" she said to Marien, with a searching +glance to see how she impressed him--a glance strangely like that of a +grown woman. + +"Well!--I can't get over it!--Why have you bedizened yourself in that +fashion?" he asked, with an affectation of 'brusquerie', as he tried to +recover his power of speech. + +"Then you don't like me?" she murmured, in a low voice. Tears came into +her eyes; her lips trembled. + +"I don't see Jacqueline." + +"No--I should hope not--but I am better than Jacqueline, am I not?" + +"I am accustomed to Jacqueline. This new acquaintance disconcerts me. +Give me time to get used to her. But once again let me ask, what +possessed you to disguise yourself?" + +"I am not disguised. I am disguised when I am forced to wear those +things, which do not suit me," said Jacqueline, pointing to her gray +jacket and plaid skirt which were hung up on a hat-rack. "Oh, I know why +mamma keeps me like that--she is afraid I should get too fond of dress +before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted +from serious subjects. It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I +should not lose much time if I turned up my hair like this, and what harm +could there be in lengthening my skirts an inch or two? My picture will +show her that I am improved by such little changes, and perhaps it will +induce hor to let me go to the Bal Blanc that Madame d'Etaples is going +to give on Yvonne's birthday. Mamma declined for me, saying I was not +fit to wear a low-necked corsage, but you see she was mistaken." + +"Rather," said Marien, smiling in spite of himself. + +"Yes--wasn't she?" she went on, delighted at his look. "Of course, I +have bones, but they don't show like the great hollows under the collar- +bones that Dolly shows, for instance--but Dolly looks stouter than I +because her face is so round. Well! Dolly is going to Madame +d'Etaples's ball." + +"I grant," said Marien, devoting all his attention to the preparation of +his palette, that she might not see him laugh, "I grant that you have +bones--yes, many bones--but they are not much seen because they are too +well placed to be obtrusive." + +"I am glad of that," said Jacqueline, delighted. + +"But let me ask you one question. Where did you pick up that queer gown? +It seems to me that I have seen it somewhere." + +"No doubt you have," replied Jacqueline, who had quite recovered from her +first shock, and was now ready to talk; "it is the dress mamma had made +some time ago when she acted in a comedy." + +"So I thought," growled Marien, biting his lips. + +The dress recalled to his mind many personal recollections, and for one +instant he paused. Madame de Nailles, among other talents, possessed +that of amateur acting. On one occasion, several years before, she had +asked his advice concerning what dress she should wear in a little play +of Scribe's, which was to be given at the house of Madame d'Avrigny--the +house in all Paris most addicted to private theatricals. This +reproduction of a forgotten play, with its characters attired in the +costume of the period in which the play was placed, had had great +success, a success due largely to the excellence of the costumes. In the +comic parts the dressing had been purposely exaggerated, but Madame de +Nailles, who played the part of a great coquette, would not have been +dressed in character had she not tried to make herself as bewitching as +possible. + +Marien had shown her pictures of the beauties of 1840, painted by Dubufe, +and she had decided on a white gauze embroidered with gold, in which, on +that memorable evening, she had captured more than one heart, and which +had had its influence on the life and destiny of Marien. This might have +been seen in the vague glance of indignation with which he now regarded +it. + +"Never," he thought, "was it half so pretty when worn by Madame de +Nailles as by her stepdaughter." + +Jacqueline meantime went on talking. + +"You must know--I was rather perplexed what to do--almost all mamma's +gowns made me look horribly too old. Modeste tried them on me one after +another. We burst out laughing, they seemed so absurd. And then we were +afraid mamma might chance to want the one I took. This old thing it was +not likely she would ask for. She had worn it only once, and then put it +away. The gauze is a little yellow from lying by, don't you think so? +But we asked my father, who said it was all right, that I should look +less dark in it, and that the dress was of no particular date, which was +always an advantage. These Grecian dresses are always in the fashion. +Ah! four years ago mamma was much more slender than she is now. But we +have taken it in--oh! we took it in a great deal under the arms, but we +had to let it down. Would you believe it?--I am taller than mamma--but +you can hardly see the seam, it is concealed by the gold embroidery." + +"No matter for that. We shall only take a three-quarters' length," said +Marien. + +"Oh, what a pity! No one will see I have a long skirt on. But I shall +be 'decolletee', at any rate. I shall wear a comb. No one would know +the picture for me--nobody!--You yourself hardly knew me--did you?" + +"Not at first sight. You are much altered." + +"Mamma will be amazed," said Jacqueline, clasping her hands. "It was a +good idea!" + +"Amazed, I do not doubt," said Marien, somewhat anxiously. "But suppose +we take our pose--Stay!--keep just as you are. Your hands before you, +hanging down--so. Your fingers loosely clasped--that's it. Turn your +head a little. What a lovely neck!--how well her head is set upon it!" +he cried, involuntarily. + +Jacqueline glanced at Fraulein Schult, who was at the farther end of the +studio, busy with her crochet. "You see," said the look, "that he has +found out I am pretty--that I am worth something--all the rest will soon +happen." + +And, while Marien was sketching in the graceful figure that posed before +him, Jacqueline's imagination was investing it with the white robe of a +bride. She had a vision of the painter growing more and more resolved to +ask her hand in marriage as the portrait grew beneath his brush; of +course, her father would say at first: "You are mad--you must wait. I +shall not let Jacqueline marry till she is seventeen." But long +engagements, she had heard, had great delights, though in France they are +not the fashion. At last, after being long entreated, she was sure that +M. and Madame de Nailles would end by giving their consent--they were so +fond of Marien. Standing there, dreaming this dream, which gave her face +an expression of extreme happiness, Jacqueline made a most admirable +model. She had not felt in the least fatigued when Marien at last said to +her, apologetically: "You must be ready to drop--I forgot you were not +made of wood; we will go on to-morrow." + +Jacqueline, having put on her gray jacket with as much contempt for it as +Cinderella may have felt for her rags after her successes at the ball, +departed with the delightful sensation of having made a bold first step, +and being eager to make another. + +Thus it was with all her sittings, though some left her anxious and +unhappy, as for instance when Marien, absorbed in his work, had not +paused, except to say, "Turn your head a little--you are losing the +pose." Or else, "Now you may rest for today." + +On such occasions she would watch him anxiously as he painted swiftly, +his brush making great splashes on the canvas, his dark features wearing +a scowl, his chin on his breast, a deep frown upon his forehead, on which +the hair grew low. It was evident that at such times he had no thought +of pleasing her. Little did she suspect that he was saying to himself: +"Fool that I am!--A man of my age to take pleasure in seeing that little +head filled with follies and fancies of which I am the object. But can +one--let one be ever so old--always act--or think reasonably? You are +mad, Marien! A child of fourteen! Bah!--they make her out to be +fourteen--but she is fifteen--and was not that the age of Juliet? But, +you old graybeard, you are not Romeo!--'Ma foi'! I am in a pretty +scrape. It ought to teach me not to play with fire at my age." + +Those words "at my age" were the refrain to all the reflections of Hubert +Marien. He had seen enough in his relations with women to have no doubt +about Jacqueline's feelings, of which indeed he had watched the rise and +progress from the time she had first begun to conceive a passion for him, +with a mixture of amusement and conceit. The most cautious of men are +not insensible to flattery, whatever form it may take. To be fallen in +love with by a child was no doubt absurd--a thing to be laughed at--but +Jacqueline seemed no longer a child, since for him she had uncovered her +young shoulders and arranged her dark hair on her head with the effect of +a queenly diadem. Not only had her dawning loveliness been revealed to +him alone, but to him it seemed that he had helped to make her lovely. +The innocent tenderness she felt for him had accomplished this miracle. +Why should he refuse to inhale an incense so pure, so genuine? How could +he help being sensible to its fragrance? Would it not be in his power to +put an end to the whole affair whenever he pleased? But till then might +he not bask in it, as one does in a warm ray of spring sunshine? He put +aside, therefore, all scruples. And when he did this Jacqueline with +rapture saw the painter's face, no longer with its scowl, but softened by +some secret influence, the lines smoothed from his brow, while the +beautiful smile which had fascinated so many women passed like a ray of +light over his expressive mobile features; then she would once more fancy +that he was making love to her, and indeed he said many things, which, +without rousing in himself any scruples of conscience, or alarming the +propriety of Fraulein Schult, were well calculated to delude a girl who +had had no experience, and who was charmed by the illusions of a love- +affair, as she might have been by a fairy-story. + +It is true that sometimes, when he fancied he might have gone too far, +Marien would grow sarcastic, or stay silent for a time. But this change +of behavior produced on Jacqueline only the same effect that the caprices +of a coquette produce upon a very young admirer. She grew anxious, she +wanted to find out the reason, and finally found some explanation or +excuse for him that coincided with her fancies. + +The thing that reassured her in such cases was her picture. If she could +seem to him as beautiful as he had made her look on canvas she was sure +that he must love her. + +"Is this really I? Are you sure?" she said to Marien with a laugh of +delight. "It seems to me that you have made me too handsome." + +"I have hardly done you justice," he replied. "It is not my fault if you +are more beautiful than seems natural, like the beauties in the +keepsakes. By the way, I hold those English things in horror. What do +you say of them?" + +Then Jacqueline undertook to defend the keepsake beauties with animation, +declaring that no one but a hopelessly realistic painter would refuse to +do justice to those charming monstrosities. + +"Good heavens!" thought Marien, "if she is adding a quick wit to her +other charms--that will put the finishing stroke to me." + +When the portrait was sufficiently advanced, M. de Nailles came to the +studio to judge of the likeness. He was delighted: "Only, my friend, +I think," he cried to Marien, endeavoring to soften his one objection to +the picture, "that you have given her a look--how can I put it?--an +expression very charming no doubt, but which is not that of a child of +her age. You know what I mean. It is something tender--intense-- +profound, too feminine. It may come to her some day, perhaps--but +hitherto Jacqueline's expression has been generally that of a merry, +mischievous child." + +"Oh, papa!" cried the young girl, stung by the insult. + +"You may possibly be right," Marien hastened to reply, "it was probably +the fatigue of posing that gave her that expression." + +"Oh!" repeated Jacqueline, more shocked than ever. + +"I can alter it," said the painter, much amused by her extreme despair. +But Marien thought that Jacqueline had not in the least that precocious +air which her father attributed to her, when standing before him she gave +herself up to thoughts the current of which he followed easily, watching +on her candid face its changes of expression. How could he have painted +her other than she appeared to him? Was what he saw an apparition-- +or was it a work of magic? + +Several times during the sittings M. de Nailles made his appearance in +the studio, and after greatly praising the work, persisted in his +objection that it made Jacqueline too old. But since the painter saw her +thus they must accept his judgment. It was no doubt an effect of the +grown-up costume that she had had a fancy to put on. + +"After all," he said to Jacqueline, "it is of not much consequence; you +will grow up to it some of these days. And I pay you my compliments in +advance on your appearance in the future." + +She felt like choking with rage. "Oh! is it right," she thought, "for +parents to persist in keeping a young girl forever in her cradle, so to +speak?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A DANGEROUS MODEL + +Time passed too quickly to please Jacqueline. Her portrait was finished +at last, notwithstanding the willingness Marien had shown--or so it +seemed to her--to retouch it unnecessarily that she might again and again +come back to his atelier. But it was done at last. She glided into that +dear atelier for the last time, her heart big with regret, with no hope +that she would ever again put on the fairy robe which had, she thought, +transfigured her till she was no longer little Jacqueline. + +"I want you only for one moment, and I need only your face," said Marien. +"I want to change--a line--I hardly know what to call it, at the corner +of your mouth. Your father is right; your mouth is too grave. Think of +something amusing--of the Bal Blanc at Madame d'Etaples, or merely, if +you like, of the satisfaction it will give you to be done with these +everlasting sittings--to be no longer obliged to bear the burden of a +secret, in short to get rid of your portrait-painter." + +She made him no answer, not daring to trust her voice. + +"Come! now, on the contrary you are tightening your lips," said Marien, +continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse--provided there +ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention of +crunching it. "You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at all +becoming to you." + +"Why do you attribute to me your own thoughts? It is you who will be +glad to get rid of all this trouble." + +Fraulein Schult, who, while patiently adding stitch after stitch to the +long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues +between sitter and painter, pricked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman +would say to what was evidently intended to provoke a compliment. + +"On the contrary, I shall miss you very much," said Marien, quite simply; +"I have grown accustomed to see you here. You have become one of the +familiar objects of my studio. Your absence will create a void." + +"About as much as if this or that were gone," said Jacqueline, in a hurt +tone, pointing first to a Japanese bronze and then to an Etruscan vase; +"with only this difference, that you care least for the living object." + +"You are bitter, Mademoiselle." + +"Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling is +different," she went on impetuously, "I could pass my whole life watching +you paint." + +"You would get tired of it probably in the long run." + +"Never!" she cried, blushing a deep red. + +"And you would have to put up with my pipe--that big pipe yonder-- +a horror." + +"I should like it," she cried, with conviction. + +"But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can behave +sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for +example," here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, "does not +please me." + +"But it is beautiful--so beautiful!" + +"It is detestable. I shall have to go back some day and renew my +impressions of Florence--see once more the Piazze of the Signora and San +Marco--and then I shall begin my picture all over again. Let us go +together--will you?" + +"Oh!" she cried, fervently, "think of seeing Italy! --and with you!" + +"It might not be so great a pleasure as you think. Nothing is such a +bore as to travel with people who are pervaded by one idea, and my 'idee +fixe' is my picture--my great Dominican. He has taken complete +possession of me--he overshadows me. I can think of nothing but him." + +"Oh! but you think of me sometimes, I suppose," said Jacqueline, softly, +"for I share your time with him." + +"I think of you to blame you for taking me away from the fifteenth +century," replied Hubert Marien, half seriously. "Ouf!--There! it is +done at last. That dimple I never could manage I have got in for better +or for worse. Now you may fly off. I set you at liberty--you poor +little thing!" + +She seemed in no hurry to profit by his permission. She stood perfectly +still in the middle of the studio. + +"Do you think I have posed well, faithfully, and with docility all these +weeks?" she asked at last. + +"I will give you a certificate to that effect, if you like. No one could +have done better." + +"And if the certificate is not all I want, will you give me some other +present?" + +"A beautiful portrait--what can you want more?" + +"The picture is for mamma. I ask a favor on my own account." + +"I refuse it beforehand. But you can tell me what it is, all the same." + +"Well, then--the only part of your house that I have ever been in is this +atelier. You can imagine I have a curiosity to see the rest." + +"I see! you threaten me with a domiciliary visit without warning. Well! +certainly, if that would give you any amusement. But my house contains +nothing wonderful. I tell you that beforehand." + +"One likes to know how one's friends look at home--in their own setting, +and I have only seen you here at work in your atelier." + +"The best point of view, believe me. But I am ready to do your bidding. +Do you wish to see where I eat my dinner?" asked Marien, as he took her +down the staircase leading to his dining-room. + +Fraulein Schult would have liked to go with them--it was, besides, her +duty. But she had not been asked to fulfil it. She hesitated a moment, +and in that moment Jacqueline had disappeared. After consideration, the +'promeneuse' went on with her crochet, with a shrug of her shoulders +which meant: "She can't come to much harm." + +Seated in the studio, she heard the sound of their voices on the floor +below. Jacqueline was lingering in the fencing-room where Marien was in +the habit of counteracting by athletic exercises the effects of a too +sedentary life. She was amusing herself by fingering the dumb-bells and +the foils; she lingered long before some precious suits of armor. Then +she was taken up into a small room, communicating with the atelier, where +there was a fine collection of drawings by the old masters. "My only +luxury," said Marien. + +Mademoiselle Schult, getting impatient, began to roll up yards and yards +of crochet, and coughed, by way of a signal, but remembering how +disagreeable it would have been to herself to be interrupted in a tete-a- +tete with her apothecary, she thought it not worth while to disturb them +in these last moments. M. de Nailles's orders had been that she was to +sit in the atelier. So she continued to sit there, doing what she had +been told to do without any qualms of conscience. + +When Marien had shown Jacqueline all his drawings he asked her: "Are you +satisfied?" + +But Jacqueline's hand was already on the portiere which separated the +little room from Marien's bedchamber. + +"Oh! I beg pardon," she exclaimed, pausing on the threshold. + +"One would think you would like to see me asleep," said Marien with some +little embarrassment. + +"I never should have thought your bedroom would have been so pretty. +Why, it is as elegant as a lady's chamber," said Jacqueline, slipping +into it as she spoke, with an exciting consciousness of doing something +she ought not to do. + +"What an insult, when I thought all my tastes were simple and severe," +he replied; but he had not followed her into the chamber, withheld by an +impulse of modesty men sometimes feel, when innocence is led into +audacity through ignorance. + +"What lovely flowers you have!" said Jacqueline, from within. "Don't +they make your head ache?" + +"I take them out at night." + +"I did not know that men liked, as we do, to be surrounded by flowers. +Won't you give me one?" + +"All, if you like." + +"Oh! one pink will be enough for me." + +"Then take it," said Marien; her curiosity alarmed him, and he was +anxious to get her away. + +"Would it not be nicer if you gave it me yourself?" she replied, with +reproach in her tones. + +"Here is one, Mademoiselle. And now I must tell you that I want to +dress. I have to go out immediately." + +She pinned the pink into her bodice so high that she could inhale its +perfume. + +"I beg your pardon. Thank you, and good-by," she said, extending her +hand to him with a sigh. + +"Au revoir." + +"Yes--'au revoir' at home--but that will not be like here." + +As she stood there before him there came into her eyes a strange +expression, to which, without exactly knowing why, he replied by pressing +his lips fervently on the little hand he was still holding in his own. + +Very often since her infancy he had kissed her before witnesses, but this +time she gave a little cry, and turned as white as the flower whose +petals were touching her cheek. + +Marien started back alarmed. + +"Good-by," he said in a tone that he endeavored to make careless--but in +vain. + +Though she was much agitated herself she failed not to remark his +emotion, and on the threshold of the atelier, she blew a kiss back to him +from the tips of her gloved fingers, without speaking or smiling. Then +she went back to Fraulein Schult, who was still sitting in the place +where she had left her, and said: "Let us go." + +The next time Madame de Nailles saw her stepdaughter she was dazzled by a +radiant look in her young face. + +"What has happened to you?" she asked, "you look triumphant." + +"Yes--I have good reason to triumph," said Jacqueline. "I think that I +have won a victory." + +"How so? Over yourself?" + +"No, indeed--victories over one's self give us the comfort of a good +conscience, but they do not make us gay--as I am." + +"Then tell me--" + +"No-no! I can not tell you yet. I must be silent two days more," said +Jacqueline, throwing herself into her mother's arms. + +Madame de Nailles asked no more questions, but she looked at her +stepdaughter with an air of great surprise. For some weeks past she had +had no pleasure in looking at Jacqueline. She began to be aware that +near her, at her side, an exquisite butterfly was about for the first +time to spread its wings--wings of a radiant loveliness, which, when they +fluttered in the air, would turn all eyes away from other butterflies, +which had lost some of their freshness during the summer. + +A difficult task was before her. How could she keep this too precocious +insect in its chrysalis state? How could she shut it up in its dark +cocoon and retard its transformation? + +"Jacqueline," she said, and the tones of her voice were less soft than +those in which she usually addressed her, "it seems to me that you are +wasting your time a great deal. You hardly practise at all; you do +almost nothing at the 'cours'. I don't know what can be distracting your +attention from your lessons, but I have received complaints which should +make a great girl like you ashamed of herself. Do you know what I am +beginning to think?--That Madame de Monredon's system of education has +done better than mine." + +"Oh! mamma, you can't be thinking of sending me to a convent!" cried +Jacqueline, in tones of comic despair. + +"I did not say that--but I really think it might be good for you to make +a retreat where your cousin Giselle is, instead of plunging into follies +which interrupt your progress." + +"Do you call Madame d'Etaples's 'bal blanc' a folly?" + +"You certainly will not go to it--that is settled," said the young +stepmother, dryly. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SURPRISES + +In all other ways Madame de Nailles did her best to assist in the success +of the surprise. On the second of June, the eve of Ste.-Clotilde's day, +she went out, leaving every opportunity for the grand plot to mature. +Had she not absented herself in like manner the year before at the same +date--thus enabling an upholsterer to drape artistically her little salon +with beautiful thick silk tapestries which had just been imported from +the East? Her idea was that this year she might find a certain lacquered +screen which she coveted. The Baroness belonged to her period; she liked +Japanese things. But, alas! the charming object that awaited her, with +a curtain hung over it to prolong the suspense, had nothing Japanese +about it whatever. Madame de Nailles received the good wishes of her +family, responded to them with all proper cordiality, and then was +dragged up joyously to a picture hanging on the wall of her room, but +still concealed under the cloth that covered it. + +"How good of you!" she said, with all confidence to her husband. + +"It is a picture by Marien!--A portrait by Marien! A likeness of +Jacqueline!" + +And he uncovered the masterpiece of the great artist, expecting to be +joyous in the joy with which she would receive it. But something strange +occurred. Madame de Nailles sprang back a step or two, stretching out +her arms as if repelling an apparition, her face was distorted, her head +was turned away; then she dropped into the nearest seat and burst into +tears. + +"Mamma!--dear little mamma!--what is it?" cried Jacqueline, springing +forward to kiss her. + +Madame de Nailles disengaged herself angrily from her embrace. + +"Let me alone!" she cried, "let me alone!--How dared you?" + +And impetuously, hardly restraining a gesture of horror and hate, she +rushed into her own chamber. Thither her husband followed her, anxious +and bewildered, and there he witnessed a nervous attack which ended in a +torrent of reproaches: + +Was it possible that he had, not seen the impropriety of those sittings +to Marien? Oh, yes! No doubt he was an old friend of the family, but +that did not prevent all these deceptions, all these disguises, and all +the other follies which he had sanctioned--he--Jacqueline's father!--from +being very improper. Did he wish to take from her all authority over his +child?--a girl who was already too much disposed to emancipate herself. +Her own efforts had all been directed to curb this alarming propensity-- +yes, alarming--alarming for the future. And all in vain! There was no +use in saying more. 'Mon Dieu'! had he no trust in her devotion to his +child, in her prudence and her foresight, that he must thwart her thus? +And she had always imagined that for ten years she had faithfully +fulfilled a mother's duties! What ingratitude from every one! +Mademoiselle Schult should be sent away at once. Jacqueline should go to +a convent. They would break off all intercourse with Marien. They had +conspired against her--every one. + +And then she wept more bitterly than ever--tears of rage, salt tears +which rubbed the powder off her cheeks and disfigured the face that had +remained beautiful by her power of will and self-control. But now the +disorder of her nerves got the better of precautions. The blonde angel, +whose beauty was on the wane, was transformed into a fury. Her six-and- +thirty years were fully apparent, her complexion appeared slightly +blotched, all her defects were obtrusive in contrast with the precocious +development of beauty in Jacqueline. She was firmly resolved that her +stepdaughter's obtrusive womanhood should remain in obscurity a very much +longer time, under pretence that Jacqueline was still a child. She was a +child, at any rate! The portrait was a lie! an imposture! an affront! +an outrage! + +Meantime M. de Nailles, almost beside himself, fancied at first that his +wife was going mad, but in the midst of her sobs and reproaches he +managed to discover that he had somehow done her wrong, and when, with a +broken voice, she cried, "You no longer love me!" he did not know what +to do to prove how bitterly he repented having grieved her. He +stammered, he made excuses, he owned that he had been to blame, that he +had been very stupid, and he begged her pardon. As to the portrait, it +should be taken from the salon, where, if seen, it might become a pretext +for foolish compliments to Jacqueline. Why not send it at once to +Grandchaux? In short, he would do anything she wished, provided she +would leave off crying. + +But Madame de Nailles continued to weep. Her husband was forced at last +to leave her and to return to Jacqueline, who stood petrified in the +salon. + +"Yes," he said, "your mamma is right. We have made a deplorable mistake +in what we have done. Besides, you must know that this unlucky picture +is not in the least like you. Marien has made some use of your features +to paint a fancy portrait--so we will let nobody see it. They might +laugh at you." + +In this way he hoped to repair the evil he had done in flattering his +daughter's vanity, and promoting that dangerous spirit of independence, +denounced to him a few minutes before, but of which, up to that time, he +had never heard. + +Jacqueline, in her turn, began to sob. + +Mademoiselle Schult had cause, too, to wipe her eyes, pretending a more +or less sincere repentance for her share in the deception. Vigorously +cross-questioned by Madame de Nailles, who called upon her to tell all +she knew, under pain of being dismissed immediately, she saw but one way +of retaining her situation, which was to deliver up Jacqueline, bound +hand and foot, to the anger of her stepmother, by telling all she knew of +the childish romance of which she had been the confidante. As a reward +she was permitted (as she had foreseen) to retain her place in the +character of a spy. + +It was a sad Ste.-Clotilde's day that year. Marien, who came in the +evening, heard with surprise that the Baroness was indisposed and could +see no one. For twelve days after this he continued in disgrace, being +refused admittance when he called. Those twelve days were days of +anguish for Jacqueline. To see Marien no longer, to be treated with +coldness by her father, to see in the blue eyes of her stepmother--eyes +so soft and tender when they looked upon her hitherto--only a harsh, +mistrustful glare, almost a look of hatred, was a punishment greater than +she could bear. What had she done to deserve punishment? Of what was +she accused? She spoke of her wretchedness to Fraulein Schult, who, +perfidiously, day after day, drew from her something to report to Madame +de Nailles. That lady was somewhat consoled, while suffering tortures of +jealousy, to know that the girl to whom these sufferings were due was +paying dearly for her fault and was very unhappy. + +On the twelfth day something occurred which, though it made no noise in +the household, had very serious consequences. The effect it produced on +Jacqueline was decisive and deplorable. The poor child, after going +through all the states of mind endured by those who suffer under +unmerited disgrace--revolt, indignation, sulkiness, silent obstinacy-- +felt unable to bear it longer. She resolved to humble herself, hoping +that by so doing the wall of ice that had arisen between her stepmother +and herself might be cast down. By this time she cared less to know of +what fault she was supposed to be guilty than to be taken back into favor +as before. What must she do to obtain forgiveness? Explanations are +usually worthless; besides, none might be granted her. She remembered +that when she was a small child she had obtained immediate oblivion of +any fault by throwing herself impulsively into the arms of her little +mamma, and asking her to forget whatever she had done to displease her, +for she had not done it on purpose. She would do the same thing now. +Putting aside all pride and obstinacy, she would go to this mamma, who, +for some days, had seemed so different. She would smother her in kisses. +She might possibly be repelled at first. She would not mind it. She was +sure that in the end she would be forgiven. + +No sooner was this resolution formed than she hastened to put it into +execution. It was the time of day when Madame de Nailles was usually +alone. Jacqueline went to her bedchamber, but she was not there, and a +moment after she stood on the threshold of the little salon. There she +stopped short, not quite certain how she should proceed, asking herself +what would be her reception. + +"How shall I do it?" she thought. "How had I better do it?" + +"Bah!" she answered these doubts. "It will be very easy. I will go in +on tiptoe, so that she can't hear me. I will slip behind her chair, and +I will hug her suddenly, so tight, so tenderly, and kiss her till she +tells me that all has been forgiven." + +As she thought thus Jacqueline noiselessly opened the door of the salon, +over which, on the inner side, hung a thick plush 'portiere'. But as she +was about to lift it, the sound of a voice within made her stand +motionless. She recognized the tones of Marien. He was pleading, +imploring, interrupted now and then by the sharp and still angry voice of +her mamma. They were not speaking above their breath, but if she +listened she could hear them, and, without any scruples of conscience, +she did listen intently, anxious to see her way through the dark fog in +which, for twelve days, she had wandered. + +"I do not go quite so far as that," said Madame de Nailles, dryly. "It +is enough for me that she produced an illusion of such beauty upon you. +Now I know what to expect--" + +"That is nonsense," replied Marien--"mere foolishness. You jealous! +jealous of a baby whom I knew when she wore white pinafores, who has +grown up under my very eyes? But, so far as I am concerned, she exists +no longer. She is not, she never will be in my eyes, a woman. I shall +think of her as playing with her doll, eating sugar-plums, and so on." + +Jacqueline grew faint. She shivered and leaned against the door-post. + +"One would not suppose so, to judge by the picture with which she has +inspired you. You may say what you like, but I know that in all this +there was a set purpose to insult me." + +"Clotilde!" + +"In the first place, on no pretext ought you to have been induced to +paint her portrait." + +"Do you think so? Consider, had I refused, the danger of awakening +suspicion? I accepted the commission most unwillingly, much put out by +it, as you may suppose. But you are making too much of an imaginary +fault. Consign the wretched picture to the barn, if you like. We will +never say another word about so foolish a matter. You promise me to +forget it, won't you?.... Dear! you will promise me?" he added, after a +pause. + +Madame de Nailles sighed and replied: "If not she it will be some one +else. I am very unhappy.... I am weak and contemptible...." + +"Clotilde!" replied Marien, in an accent that went to Jacqueline's heart +like a knife. + +She fancied that after this she heard the sound of a kiss, and, with her +cheeks aflame and her head burning, she rushed away. She understood +little of what she had overheard. She only realized that he had given +her up, that he had turned her into ridicule, that he had said +"Clotilde!" to her mother, that he had called her dear--she!--the woman +she had so adored, so venerated, her best friend, her father's wife, her +mother by adoption! Everything in this world seemed to be giving way +under her feet. The world was full of falsehood and of treason, and +life, so bad, so cruel, was no longer what she had supposed it to be. +It had broken its promise to herself, it had made her bad--bad forever. +She loved no one, she believed in no one. She wished she were dead. + +How she reached her own room in this state Jacqueline never knew. She +was aware at last of being on her knees beside her bed, with her face +hidden in the bed-clothes. She was biting them to stifle her desire to +scream. Her hands were clenched convulsively. + +"Mamma!" she cried, "mamma!" + +Was this a reproach addressed to her she had so long called by that name? +Or was it an appeal, vibrating with remorse, to her real mother, so long +forgotten in favor of this false idol, her rival, her enemy? + +Undoubtedly, Jacqueline was too innocent, too ignorant to guess the real +truth from what she had overheard. But she had learned enough to be no +longer the pure-minded young girl of a few hours before. It seemed to +her as if a fetid swamp now lay before her, barring her entrance into +life. Vague as her perceptions were, this swamp before her seemed more +deep, more dark, more dreadful from uncertainty, and Jacqueline felt that +thenceforward she could make no step in life without risk of falling into +it. To whom now could she open her heart in confidence--that heart +bleeding and bruised as if it had been trampled one as if some one had +crushed it? The thing that she now knew was not like her own little +personal secrets, such as she had imprudently confided to Fraulein +Schult. The words that she had overheard she could repeat to no one. +She must carry them in her heart, like the barb of an arrow in a secret +wound, where they would fester and grow more painful day by day. + +"But, above all," she said at length, rising from her knees, "let me show +proper pride." + +She bathed her fevered face in cold water, then she walked up to her +mirror. As she gazed at herself with a strange interest, trying to see +whether the entire change so suddenly accomplished in herself had left +its visible traces on her features, she seemed to see something in her +eyes that spoke of the clairvoyance of despair. She smiled at herself, +to see whether the new Jacqueline could play the part, which--whether she +would or not--was now assigned to her. What a sad smile it was! + +"I have lost everything," she said, "I have lost everything!" And she +remembered, as one remembers something in the far-off long ago, how that +very morning, when she awoke, her first thought had been "Shall I see him +to-day?" Each day she passed without seeing him had seemed to her a lost +day, and she had accustomed herself to go to sleep thinking of him, +remembering all he had said to her, and how he had looked at her. Of +course, sometimes she had been unhappy, but what a difference it seemed +between such vague unhappiness and what she now experienced? And then, +when she was sad, she could always find a refuge in that dear mamma--in +that Clotilde whom she vowed she would never kiss again, except with such +kisses as might be necessary to avoid suspicion. Kisses of that kind +were worth nothing. Quite the contrary! Could she kiss her father now +without a pang? Her father! He had gone wholly over to the side of that +other in this affair. She had seen him in one moment turn against +herself. No!--no one was left her!.... If she could only lay her head +in Modeste's lap and be soothed while she crooned her old songs as in the +nursery! But, whatever Marien or any one else might choose to say, she +was no longer a baby. The bitter sense of her isolation arose in her. +She could hardly breathe. Suddenly she pressed her lips upon the glass +which reflected her own image, so sad, so pale, so desolate. She put the +pity for herself into a long, long, fervent kiss, which seemed to say: +"Yes, I am all alone--alone forever." Then, in a spirit of revenge, she +opened what seemed a safety-valve, preventing her from giving way to any +other emotion. + +She rushed for a little box which she had converted into a sort of +reliquary. She took out of it the half-burned cigarette, the old glove, +the withered violets, and a visiting-card with his name, on which three +unimportant lines had been written. She insulted these keepsakes, she +tore them with her nails, she trampled them underfoot, she reduced them +to fragments; she left nothing whatever of them, except a pile of shreds, +which at last she set fire to. She had a feeling as if she were employed +in executing two great culprits, who deserved cruel tortures at her +hands; and, with them, she slew now and forever the foolish fancy she had +called her love. By a strange association of ideas, the famous +composition, so praised by M. Regis, came back to her memory, and she +cried: + + "Je ne veux me souvenir.... me souvenir de rien!" + +"If I remember, I shall be more unhappy. All has been a dream. His look +was a dream, his pressure of my hand, his kiss on the last day, all--all +--were dreams. He was making a fool of me when he gave me that pink +which is now in this pile of ashes. He was laughing when he told me I +was more beautiful than was natural. Never have I been--never shall I be +in his eyes--more than the baby he remembers playing with her doll." + +And unconsciously, as Jacqueline said these words, she imitated the +careless accent with which she had heard them fall from the lips of the +artist. And she would have again to meet him! If she had had thunder +and lightning at her command, as she had had the match with which she had +set fire to the memorials of her juvenile folly, Marien would have been +annihilated on the spot. She was at that moment a murderess at heart. +But the dinner-bell rang. The young fury gave a last glance at the +adornments of her pretty bedchamber, so elegant, so original--all blue +and pink, with a couch covered with silk embroidered with flowers. +She seemed to say to them all: "Keep my secret. It is a sad one. Be +careful: keep it safely." The cupids on the clock, the little book-rest +on a velvet stand, the picture of the Virgin that hung over her bed, with +rosaries and palms entwined about it, the photographs of her girl-friends +standing on her writing table in pretty frames of old-fashioned silk-all +seemed to see her depart with a look of sympathy. + +She went down to the dining-room, resolved to prove that she would not +submit to punishment. The best way to brave Madame de Nailles was, she +thought, to affect great calmness and indifference, aye, even, if she +could, some gayety. But the task before her was more difficult than she +had expected. Apparently, as a proof of reconciliation, Marien had been +kept to dinner. To see him so soon again after his words of outrage was +more than she could bear. For one moment the earth seemed to sink under +her feet; she roused her pride by an heroic effort, and that sustained +her. She exchanged with the artist, as she always did, a friendly "Good- +evening!" and ate her dinner, though it nearly choked her. + +Madame de Nailles had red eyes; and Jacqueline made the reflection that +women who are thirty-five should never weep. She knew that her face had +not been made ugly by her tears, and this gave her a perverse +satisfaction in the midst of her misery. Of Marien she thought: "He sits +there as if he had been put 'en penitence'." No doubt he could not +endure scenes, and the one he had just passed through must have given him +the downcast look which Jacqueline noticed with contempt. + +What she did not know was that his depression had more than one cause. +He felt--and felt with shame and with discouragement--that the fetters of +a connection which had long since ceased to charm had been fastened on +his wrists tighter than ever; and he thought: "I shall lose all my +energy, I shall lose even my talent! While I wear these chains I shall +see ever before me--ah! tortures of Tantalus!--the vision of a new love, +fresh as the dawn which beckons to me as it passes before my sight, which +lays on me the light touch of a caress, while I am forced to see it glide +away, to let it vanish, disappear forever! And alas! that is not all. +If I have deceived an inexperienced heart by words spoken or deeds done +in a moment of weakness or temptation, can I flatter myself that I have +acted like an honest man?" + +This is what Marien was really thinking, while Jacqueline looked at him +with an expression she strove to make indifferent, but which he +interpreted, though she knew it not: "You have done me all the harm you +can." + +M. de Nailles meantime went on talking, with little response from his +wife or his guest, about some vehement discussion of a new law going on +just then in the Chamber, and he became so interested in his own +discourse that he did not remark the constraint of the others. + +Marien at last, tired of responding in monosyllables to his remarks, +said abruptly, a short time before dessert was placed upon the table, +something about the probability of his soon going to Italy. + +"A pilgrimage of art to Florence!" cried the Baron, turning at once from +politics. "That's good. But wait a little--let it be after the rising +of the Chamber. We will follow your steps. It has been the desire of my +wife's life--a little jaunt to Italy. Has it not, Clotilde? So we will +all go in September or October. What say you?" + +"In September or October, whichever suits you," said Marien, with +despair. + +Not one month of liberty! Why couldn't they leave him to his Savanarola! +Must he drag about a ball and chain like a galley-slave? + +Clotilde rewarded M. de Nailles with a smile--the first smile she had +given him since their quarrel about Jacqueline. + +"My wife has got over her displeasure," he said to himself, delightedly. + +Jacqueline, on her part, well remembered the day when Hubert had spoken +to her for the first time of his intended journey, and how he had added, +in a tone which she now knew to be badinage, but which then, alas! she +had believed serious: "Suppose we go together!" + +And her impulse to shed tears became so great, that when they left the +dinner-table she escaped to her own room, under pretence of a headache. + +"Yes--you are looking wretchedly," said her stepmother. And, turning to +M. de Nailles, she added: "Don't you think, 'mon ami', she is as yellow +as a quince!" Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been +his little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time with +repugnance. + +"You are suffering, my poor Jacqueline!" he ventured to say. + +"Oh! not much," she answered, with a glance at once haughty and defiant, +"to-morrow I shall be quite well again." + +And, saying this, she had the courage to laugh. + +But she was not quite well the next day; and for many days after she was +forced to stay in bed. The doctor who came to see her talked about "low +fever," attributed it to too rapid growth, and prescribed sea-bathing for +her that summer. The fever, which was not very severe, was of great +service to Jacqueline. It enabled her to recover in quiet from the +effects of a bitter deception. + +Madame de Nailles was not sufficiently uneasy about her to be always at +her bedside. Usually the sick girl stayed alone, with her window- +curtains closed, lying there in the soft half-light that was soothing to +her nerves. The silence was broken at intervals by the voice of Modeste, +who would come and offer her her medicine. When Jacqueline had taken it, +she would shut her eyes, and resume, half asleep, her sad reflections. +These were always the same. What could be the tie between her stepmother +and Marien? + +She tried to recall all the proofs of friendship she had seen pass +between them, but all had taken place openly. Nothing that she could +remember seemed suspicious. So she thought at first, but as she thought +more, lying, feverish, upon her bed, several things, little noticed at +the time, were recalled to her remembrance. They might mean nothing, or +they might mean much. In the latter case, Jacqueline could not +understand them very well. But she knew he had called her "Clotilde," +that he had even dared to say "thou" to her in private--these were things +she knew of her own knowledge. Her pulse beat quicker as she thought of +them; her head burned. In that studio, where she had passed so many +happy hours, had Marien and her stepmother ever met as lovers? + +Her stepmother and Marien! She could not understand what it meant. +Must she apply to them a dreadful word that she had picked up in the +history books, where it had been associated with such women as Margaret +of Burgundy, Isabeau of Bavaria, Anne Boleyn, and other princesses of +very evil reputation? She had looked it out in the dictionary, where the +meaning given was: "To be unfaithful to conjugal vows." Even then she +could not understand precisely the meaning of adultery, and she set +herself to solve it during the long lonely days when she was +convalescent. When she was able to walk from one room to another, she +wandered in a loose dressing-gown, whose long, lank folds showed that she +had grown taller and thinner during her illness, into the room that held +the books, and went boldly up to the bookcase, the key of which had been +left in the lock, for everybody had entire confidence in Jacqueline's +scrupulous honesty. Never before had she broken a promise; she knew that +a well-brought-up young girl ought to read only such books as were put +into her hands. The idea of taking a volume from those shelves had no +more occurred to her than the idea of taking money out of somebody's +purse; that is, up to this moment it had not occurred to her to do so; +but now that she had lost all respect for those in authority over her, +Jacqueline considered herself released from any obligation to obey them. +She therefore made use of the first opportunity that presented itself to +take down a novel of George Sand, which she had heard spoken of as a very +dangerous book, not doubting it would throw some light on the subject +that absorbed her. But she shut up the volume in a rage when she found +that it had nothing but excuses to offer for the fall of a married woman. +After that, and guided only by chance, she read a number of other novels, +most of which were of antediluvian date, thus accounting, she supposed, +for their sentiments, which she found old fashioned. We should be wrong, +however, if we supposed that Jacqueline's crude judgment of these books +had nothing in common with true criticism. Her only object, however, in +reading all this sentimental prose was to discover, as formerly she had +found in poetry, something that applied to her own case; but she soon +discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books +were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows +or old women--at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was +nothing--absolutely nothing--about young girls, except instances in which +they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these +victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors +and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded them! What a varied +assortment of deceptions, treacheries, and mysteries, lay hidden under +the outward decency and respectability of what men called "the world!" +Her young head became a stage on which strange plays were acted. What +one reads is good or bad for us, according to the frame of mind in which +we read it--according as we discover in a volume healing for the sickness +of our souls--or the contrary. In view of the circumstances in which she +found herself, what Jacqueline absorbed from these books was poison. + +When, after the physical and moral crisis through which she had passed, +Jacqueline resumed the life of every day, she had in her sad eyes, around +which for some time past had been dark circles, an expression of anxiety +such as the first contact with a knowledge of evil might have put into +Eve's eyes after she had plucked the apple. Her investigations had very +imperfectly enlightened her. She was as much perplexed as ever, with +some false ideas besides. When she was well again, however, she +continued weak and languid; she felt somehow as if, she had come back to +her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now +seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered. +Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture. +It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being +buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family. +From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline--whether +it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the +means of bringing upon him, or whether he feared to burn himself in the +flame which had once scorched him more than he admitted to himself, who +can say? Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A CONVENT FLOWER + +One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her +cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society +when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a +little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could +condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed +as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity--a Gray +Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of her +somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than stimulated, +by the education she had received. + +The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank of +the Seine, all gardens and hotels--that is, detached houses. Grass +sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no street- +lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The petals of +an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped, like flakes +of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the springtime. + +The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one +side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into the +convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old +nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was +striving to put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein +Schult, who had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps renew +the odious subject. Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed like +going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed +her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far away; it was +a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young soul, pure and +white, had floated, without rapture, but without any great grief or pain. + +The porteress showed them into the parlor. There they found several +pupils who were talking to members of their families, from whom they were +separated by a grille, whose black bars gave to those within the +appearance of captives, and made rather a barrier to eager demonstrations +of affection, though they did not hinder the reception of good things to +eat. + +"Tiens! I have brought you some chocolate," said Jacqueline to Giselle, +as soon as her cousin appeared, looking far prettier in her black cloth +frock than when she wore an ordinary walking-costume. Her fair hair was +drawn back 'a la Chinoise' from a white forehead resembling that of a +German Madonna; it was one of those foreheads, slightly and delicately +curved, which phrenologists tell us indicate reflection and enthusiasm. + +But Giselle, without thanking Jacqueline for the chocolate, exclaimed at +once: "Mon Dieu! What has been the matter with you?" + +She spoke rather louder than usual, it being understood that +conversations were to be carried on in a low tone, so as not to interfere +with those of other persons. She added: "I find you so altered." + +"Yes--I have been ill," said Jacqueline, carelessly, "sorrow has made me +ill," she added, in a whisper, looking to see whether the nun, who was +discreetly keeping watch, walking to and fro behind the grille, might +chance to be listening. "Oh, ask me no questions! I must never tell +you--but for me, you must know--the happiness of my life is at an end-- +is at an end--" + +She felt herself to be very interesting while she was speaking thus; her +sorrows were somewhat assuaged. There was undoubtedly a certain pleasure +in letting some one look down into the unfathomable, mysterious depths of +a suffering soul. + +She had expected much curiosity on the part of Giselle, and had resolved +beforehand to give her no answers; but Giselle only sighed, and said, +softly: + +"Ah--my poor darling! I, too, am very unhappy. If you only knew--" + +"How? Good heavens! what can have happened to you here?" + +"Here? oh! nothing, of course; but this year I am to leave the convent +--and I think I can guess what will then be before me." + +Here, seeing that the nun who was keeping guard was listening, Giselle, +with great presence of mind, spoke louder on indifferent subjects till +she had passed out of earshot, then she rapidly poured her secret into +Jacqueline's ear. + +From a few words that had passed between her grandmother and Madame +d'Argy, she had found out that Madame de Monredon intended to marry her. + +"But that need not make you unhappy," said Jacqueline, "unless he is +really distasteful to you." + +"That is what I am not sure about--perhaps he is not the one I think. +But I hardly know why--I have a dread, a great dread, that it is one of +our neighbors in the country. Grandmamma has several times spoken in my +presence of the advantage of uniting our two estates--they touch each +other--oh! I know her ideas! she wants a man well-born, one who has a +position in the world--some one, as she says, who knows something of +life--that is, I suppose, some one no longer young, and who has not much +hair on his head--like Monsieur de Talbrun." + +"Is he very ugly--this Monsieur de Talbrun?" + +"He's not ugly--and not handsome. But, just think! he is thirty-four!" + +Jacqueline blushed, seeing in this speech a reflection on her own taste +in such matters. + +"That's twice my age," sighed Giselle. + +"Of course that would be dreadful if he were to stay always twice your +age--for instance, if you were now thirty-five, he would be seventy, and +a hundred and twenty when you reached your sixtieth year--but really to +be twice your age now will only make him seventeen years older than +yourself." + +In the midst of this chatter, which was beginning to attract the notice +of the nun, they broke off with a laugh, but it was only one of those +laughs 'au bout des levres', uttered by persons who have made up their +minds to be unhappy. Then Giselle went on: + +"I know nothing about him, you understand--but he frightens me. +I tremble to think of taking his arm, of talking to him, of being his +wife. Just think even of saying thou to him!" + +"But married people don't say thou to each other nowadays," said +Jacqueline, "it is considered vulgar." + +"But I shall have to call him by his Christian name!" + +"What is Monsieur de Talbrun's Christian name?" + +"Oscar." + +"Humph! That is not a very pretty name, but you could get over the +difficulty--you could say 'mon ami'. After all, your sorrows are less +than mine." + +"Poor Jacqueline!" said Giselle, her soft hazel eyes moist with +sympathy. + +"I have lost at one blow all my illusions, and I have made a horrible +discovery, that it would be wicked to tell to any one--you understand-- +not even to my confessor." + +"Heavens! but you could tell your mother!" + +"You forget, I have no mother," replied Jacqueline in a tone which +frightened her friend: "I had a dear mamma once, but she would enter less +than any one into my sorrows; and as to my father--it would make things +worse to speak to him," she added, clasping her hands. "Have you ever +read any novels, Giselle?" + +"Hem!" said the discreet voice of the nun, by way of warning. + +"Two or three by Walter Scott." + +"Oh! then you can imagine nothing like what I could tell you. How +horrid that nun is, she stops always as she comes near us! Why can't she +do as Modeste does, and leave us to talk by ourselves?" + +It seemed indeed as if the Argus in a black veil had overheard part of +this conversation, not perhaps the griefs of Jacqueline, which were not +very intelligible, but some of the words spoken by Giselle, for, drawing +near her, she said, gently: "We, too, shall all grieve to lose you, my +dearest child; but remember one can serve God anywhere, and save one's +soul--in the world as well as in a convent." And she passed on, giving a +kind smile to Jacqueline, whom she knew, having seen her several times in +the convent parlor, and whom she thought a nice girl, notwithstanding +what she called her "fly-away airs"--"the airs they acquire from modern +education," she said to herself, with a sigh. + +"Those poor ladies would have us think of nothing but a future life," +said Jacqueline, shrugging her shoulders. + +"We ought to think of it first of all," said Giselle, who had become +serious. "Sometimes I think my place should have been among these ladies +who have brought me up. They are so good, and they seem to be so happy. +Besides, do you know, I stand less in awe of them than I do of my +grandmother. When grandmamma orders me I never shall dare to object, +even if--But you must think me very selfish, my poor Jacqueline! I am +talking only of myself. Do you know what you ought to do as you go away? +You should go into the chapel, and pray with all your heart for me, that +I may be brought in safety through my troubles about which I have told +you, and I will do the same for yours, about which you have not told me. +An exchange of prayers is the best foundation for a friendship," she +added; for Giselle had many little convent maxims at her fingers' ends, +to which, when she uttered them, her sincerity of look and tone gave a +personal meaning. + +"You are right," said Jacqueline, much moved. "It has done me good to +see you. Take this chocolate." + +"And you must take this," said Giselle, giving her a little illuminated +card, with sacred words and symbols. + +"Adieu, dearest-say, have you ever detested any one?" + +"Never!" cried Giselle, with horror. + +"Well! I do detest--detest--You are right, I will go into the chapel. +I need some exorcism." + +And laughing at her use of this last word--the same little mirthless +laugh that she had uttered before--Jacqueline went away, followed by the +admiring glances of the other girls, who from behind the bars of their +cage noted the brilliant plumage of this bird who was at liberty. She +crossed the courtyard, and, followed by Modeste, entered the chapel, +where she sank upon her knees. The mystic half-light of the place, +tinged purple by its passage through the stained windows, seemed to +enlarge the little chancel, parted in two by a double grille, behind +which the nuns could hear the service without being seen. + +The silence was so deep that the low murmur of a prayer could now and +then be heard. The worshipers might have fancied themselves a hundred +leagues from all the noises of the world, which seemed to die out when +they reached the convent walls. + +Jacqueline read, and re-read mechanically, the words printed in letters +of gold on the little card Giselle had given her. It was a symbolical +picture, and very ugly; but the words were: "Oh! that I had wings like a +dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest." + +"Wings!" she repeated, with vague aspiration. The aspiration seemed to +disengage her from herself, and from this earth, which had nothing more +to offer her. Ah! how far away was now the time when she had entered +churches, full of happiness and hope, to offer a candle that her prayer +might be granted, which she felt sure it would be! All was vanity! As +she gazed at the grille, behind which so many women, whose worldly lives +had been cut short, now lived, safe from the sorrows and temptations of +this world, Jacqueline seemed for the first time to understand why +Giselle regretted that she might not share forever the blessed peace +enjoyed in the convent. A torpor stole over her, caused by the dimness, +the faint odor of the incense, and the solemn silence. She imagined +herself in the act of giving up the world. She saw herself in a veil, +with her eyes raised to Heaven, very pale, standing behind the grille. +She would have to cut off her hair. + +That seemed hard, but she would make the sacrifice. She would accept +anything, provided the ungrateful pair, whom she would not name, could +feel sorrow for her loss--maybe even remorse. Full of these ideas, which +certainly had little in common with the feelings of those who seek to +forgive those who trespass against them, Jacqueline continued to imagine +herself a Benedictine sister, under the soothing influence of her +surroundings, just as she had mistaken the effects of physical weakness +when she was ill for a desire to die. Such feelings were the result of a +void which the whole universe, as she thought, never could fill, but it +was really a temporary vacuum, like that caused by the loss of a first +tooth. These teeth come out with the first jar, and nature intends them +to be speedily replaced by others, much more permanent; but children cry +when they are pulled out, and fancy they are in very tight. Perhaps they +suffer, after all, nearly as much as they think they do. + +"Mademoiselle!" said Modeste, touching her on the shoulder. + +"I was content to be here," answered Jacqueline, with a sigh. "Do you +know, Modeste," she went on, when they got out of doors, "that I have +almost made up my mind to be a nun. What do you say to that?" + +"Heaven forbid!" cried the old nurse, much startled. + +"Life is so hard," replied her young mistress. + +"Not for you, anyhow. It would be a sin to say so." + +"Ah! Modeste, we so little know the real truth of things--we can see only +appearances. Don't you think that a linen band over my forehead would be +very becoming to me? I should look like Saint Theresa." + +"And what would be the good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when +there would be nobody to tell you so?" said Modeste, with the practical +good-sense that never forsook her. "You would be beautiful for yourself +alone. You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about +that fancy to Monsieur--we should soon see what he would say to such a +notion." + +M. de Nailles, having just left the Chamber, was crossing the Pont de la +Concorde on foot at this moment. His daughter ran up to him, and caught +him by the arm. They walked homeward talking of very different things +from bolts and bars. The Baron, who was a weak man, thought in his heart +that he had been too severe with his daughter for some time past. As he +recalled what had taken place, the anger of Madame de Nailles in the +matter of the picture seemed to him to have been extreme and unnecessary. +Jacqueline was just at an age when young girls are apt to be nervous and +impressionable; they had been wrong to be rough with one who was so +sensitive. His wife was quite of his opinion, she acknowledged (not +wishing him to think too much on the subject) that she had been too +quick-tempered. + +"Yes," she had said, frankly, "I am jealous; I want things to myself. I +own I was angry when I thought that Jacqueline was about to throw off my +authority, and hurt when I found she was capable of keeping up a +concealment--when I believed she was so open always with me. My behavior +was foolish, I acknowledge. But what can we do? Neither of us can go +and ask her pardon?" + +"Of course not," said the father, "all we can do is to treat her with a +little more consideration for the future; and, with your permission, I +shall use her illness as an excuse for spoiling her a little." + +"You have carte blanche, my dear, I agree to everything." So M. de +Nailles, with his daughter's arm in his, began to spoil her, as he had +intended. + +"You are still rather pale," he said, "but sea-bathing will change all +that. Would you like to go to the seaside next month?" + +Jacqueline answered with a little incredulous smile: + +"Oh, certainly, papa." + +"You don't seem very sure about it. In the first place, where shall we +go? Your mamma seems to fancy Houlgate?" + +"Of course we must do what she wishes," replied Jacqueline, rather +bitterly. + +"But, little daughter, what would you like? What do you say to Treport?" + +"I should like Treport very much, because there we should be near Madame +d'Argy." + +Jacqueline had felt much drawn to Madame d'Argy since her troubles, for +she had been the nearest friend of her own mother--her own dead mother, +too long forgotten. The chateau of Madame d'Argy, called Lizerolles, was +only two miles from Treport, in a charming situation on the road to St. +Valery. + +"That's the very thing, then!" said M. de Nailles. + +"Fred is going to spend a month at Lizerolles with his mother. You might +ride on horseback with him. He is going to enjoy a holiday, poor fellow! +before he has to be sent off on long and distant voyages." + +"I don't know how to ride," said Jacqueline, still in the tone of a +victim. + +"The doctor thinks riding would be good for you, and you have time enough +yet to take some lessons. Mademoiselle Schult could take you nine or ten +times to the riding-school. And I will go with you the first time," +added M. de Nailles, in despair at not having been able to please her. +"To-day we will go to Blackfern's and order a habit--a riding-habit! +Can I do more?" + +At this, as if by magic, whether she would or not, the lines of sadness +and sullenness disappeared from Jacqueline's face; her eyes sparkled. +She gave one more proof, that to every Parisienne worthy of the name, +the two pleasures in riding are, first to have a perfectly fitting habit, +secondly, to have the opportunity of showing how pretty she can be after +a new fashion. + +"Shall we go to Blackfern's now?" + +"This very moment, if you wish it." + +"You really mean Blackfern? Yvonne's habit came from Blackfern's!" +Yvonne d'Etaples was the incarnation of chic--of fashionable elegance-- +in Jacqueline's eyes. Her heart beat with pleasure when she thought how +Belle and Dolly would envy her when she told them: "I have a myrtle-green +riding-habit, just like Yvonne's." She danced rather than walked as they +went together to Blackfern's. A habit was much nicer than a long gown. + +A quarter of an hour later they were in the waiting-room, where the last +creations of the great ladies' tailor, were displayed upon lay figures, +among saleswomen and 'essayeuses', the very prettiest that could be found +in England or the Batignolles, chosen because they showed off to +perfection anything that could be put upon their shoulders, from the +ugliest to the most extravagant. Deceived by the unusual elegance of +these beautiful figures, ladies who are neither young nor well-shaped +allow themselves to be beguiled and cajoled into buying things not suited +to them. Very seldom does a hunchbacked dowager hesitate to put upon her +shoulders the garment that draped so charmingly those of the living +statue hired to parade before her. Jacqueline could not help laughing as +she watched this way of hunting larks; and thought the mirror might have +warned them, like a scarecrow, rather than have tempted them into the +snare. + +The head tailor of the establishment made them wait long enough to allow +the pretty showgirls to accomplish their work of temptation. They +fascinated Jacqueline's father by their graces and their glances, while +at the same time they warbled into his daughter's ear, with a slightly +foreign' accent: "That would be so becoming to Mademoiselle." + +For ladies going to the seaside there were things of the most exquisite +simplicity: this white fur, trimmed with white velvet, for instance; that +jacket like the uniform of a naval officer with a cap to match--"All to +please Fred," said Jacqueline, laughing. M. de Nailles, while they +waited for the tailor, chose two costumes quite as original as those of +Mademoiselle d'Etaples, which delighted Jacqueline all the more, because +she thought it probable they would displease her stepmother. At last the +magnificent personage, his face adorned with luxuriant whiskers, appeared +with the bow of a great artist or a diplomatist; took Jacqueline's +measure as if he were fulfilling some important function, said a few +brief words to his secretary, and then disappeared; the group of English +beauties saying in chorus that Mademoiselle might come back that day week +and try it on. + +Accordingly, a week later Jacqueline, seated on the wooden-horse used for +this purpose, had the satisfaction of assuring herself that her habit, +fitting marvelously to her bust, showed not a wrinkle, any more than a +'gant de Suede' shows on the hand; it was closely fitted to a figure not +yet fully developed, but which the creator of the chef-d'oeuvre deigned +to declare was faultless. Usually, he said, he recommended his customers +to wear a certain corset of a special cut, with elastic material over the +hips covered by satin that matched the riding-habit, but at +Mademoiselle's age, and so supple as she was, the corset was not +necessary. In short, the habit was fashioned to perfection, and fitted +like her skin to her little flexible figure. In her close-fitting +petticoat, her riding-trousers and nothing else, Jacqueline felt herself +half naked, though she was buttoned up to her throat. She had taken an +attitude on her wooden horse such as might have been envied by an +accomplished equestrienne, her elbows held well back, her shoulders down, +her chest expanded, her right leg over the pommel, her left foot in the +stirrup, and never after did any real gallop give her the same delight as +this imaginary ride on an imaginary horse, she looking at herself with +entire satisfaction all the time in an enormous cheval-glass. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Great interval between a dream and its execution +Music--so often dangerous to married happiness +Old women--at least thirty years old! +Seldom troubled himself to please any one he did not care for +Small women ought not to grow stout +Sympathetic listening, never having herself anything to say +The bandage love ties over the eyes of men +Waste all that upon a thing that nobody will ever look at +Women who are thirty-five should never weep + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Jacqueline, v1 +by Therese Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) |