est as well as the silliest of them, the
frankest as the shrewdest, are seldom able to keep their secret; it
bursts from them, at any rate, to the eyes of another woman. Too much
reserve or too little; a free and luminous look; the mysterious lowering
of eyelids,--all betray, at that sudden moment, the sentiment which is
the most difficult of all to hide; for real indifference has something
so radically cold about it that it can never be simulated. Women have
a genius for shades,--shades of detail, shades of character; they know
them all. There are times when their eyes take in a rival from head to
foot; they can guess the slightest movement of a foot beneath a gown,
the almost imperceptible motion of the waist; they know the significance
of things which, to a man, seem insignificant. Two women observing each
other play one of the choicest scenes of comedy that the world can show.

"Calyste has committed some folly," thought Camille, perceiving in
each of her guests an indefinable air of persons who have a mutual
understanding.

There was no longer either stiffness or pretended indifference on the
part of Beatrix; she now regarded Calyste as her own property. Calyste
was even more transparent; he colored, as guilty people, or happy
people color. He announced that he had come to make arrangements for the
excursion on the following day.

"Then you really intend to go, my dear?" said Camille, interrogatively.

"Yes," said Beatrix.

"How did you know it, Calyste?" asked Mademoiselle des Touches.

"I came here to find out," replied Calyste, on a look flashed at him
by Madame de Rochefide, who did not wish Camille to gain the slightest
inkling of their correspondence.

"They have an agreement together," thought Camille, who caught the look
in the powerful sweep of her eye.

Under the pressure of that thought a horrible discomposure overspread
her face and frightened Beatrix.

"What is the matter, my dear?" she cried.

"Nothing. Well, then, Calyste, send my horses and yours across to
Croisic, so that we may drive home by way of Batz. We will breakfast at
Croisic, and get home in time for dinner. You must take charge of the
boat arrangements. Let us start by half-past eight. You will see some
fine sights, Beatrix, and one very strange one; you will see Cambremer,
a man who does penance on a rock for having wilfully killed his son. Oh!
you are in a primitive land, among a primitive race of people, where men
are moved