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GENEVIEVE DE L.

A WEDDING GIFT

For a long time Jacques Bourdillere had sworn that he would never marry,
but he suddenly changed his mind. It happened suddenly, one summer, at
the seashore.

One morning as he lay stretched out on the sand, watching the women
coming out of the water, a little foot had struck him by its neatness and
daintiness. He raised his eyes and was delighted with the whole person,
although in fact he could see nothing but the ankles and the head
emerging from a flannel bathrobe carefully held closed. He was supposed
to be sensual and a fast liver. It was therefore by the mere grace of the
form that he was at first captured. Then he was held by the charm of the
young girl's sweet mind, so simple and good, as fresh as her cheeks and
lips.

He was presented to the family and pleased them. He immediately fell
madly in love. When he saw Berthe Lannis in the distance, on the long
yellow stretch of sand, he would tingle to the roots of his hair. When he
was near her he would become silent, unable to speak or even to think,
with a kind of throbbing at his heart, and a buzzing in his ears, and a
bewilderment in his mind. Was that love?

He did not know or understand, but he had fully decided to have this
child for his wife.

Her parents hesitated for a long time, restrained by the young man's bad
reputation. It was said that he had an old sweetheart, one of these
binding attachments which one always believes to be broken off and yet
which always hold.

Besides, for a shorter or longer period, he loved every woman who came
within reach of his lips.

Then he settled down and refused, even once, to see the one with whom he
had lived for so long. A friend took care of this woman's pension and
assured her an income. Jacques paid, but he did not even wish to hear of
her, pretending even to ignore her name. She wrote him letters which he
never opened. Every week he would recognize the clumsy writing of the
abandoned woman, and every week a greater anger surged within him against
her, and he would quickly tear the envelope and the paper, without
opening it, without reading one single line, knowing in advance the
reproaches and complaints which it contained.

As no one had much faith in his constancy, the test was prolonged through
the winter, and Berthe's hand was not granted him until the spring. The
wedding took place in Paris at the beginning of May.

The young couple h