Beaubien was in total ignorance
of the fact that there was to be a party at the doctor's the night he
had driven out with Nina and his sister, and that Nina had "pulled the
wool over her mother's eyes" and made her believe she was going to spend
the evening with friends in town, naming a family with whom the
Beaubiens were intimate. A long drive always made the old lady sleepy,
and, as she had accompanied Nina to the fort that afternoon, she went
early to bed, having secured her wild birdling, as she supposed, from
possibility of further meetings with Jerrold. For nearly a week, said
Cub, Madame Beaubien had dogged Nina so that she could not get a moment
with the man with whom she was evidently so smitten, and the girl was
almost at her wits' end with seeing the depth of his flirtation with
Alice Renwick and the knowledge that on the morrow her mother would
spirit her off to the cool breezes and blue waves of the great lake. Cub
said she so worked on Fanny's feelings that they put up the scheme
together and made him bring them out. Gad! if old Maman only found it
out there'd be no more germans for Nina. She'd ship her off to the good
Sisters at Creve-Coeur and slap her into a convent and leave all her
money to the Church.

And yet, said city society, old Maman idolized her beautiful daughter
and could deny her no luxury or indulgence. She dressed her superbly,
though with a somewhat barbaric taste where Nina's own good sense and
Eastern teaching did not interfere. What she feared was that the girl
would fall in love with some adventurer, or--what was quite as bad--some
army man who would carry her darling away to Arizona or other
inaccessible spot. Her plan was that Nina should marry here--at
home--some one of the staid young merchant princes rising into
prominence in the Western metropolis, and from the very outset Nina had
shown a singular infatuation for the buttons and straps and music and
heaven-knows-what-all out at the fort. She gloried in seeing her
daughter prominent in all scenes of social life. She rejoiced in her
triumphs, and took infinite pains with all preparations. She would have
set her foot against Nina's simply dancing the german at the fort with
Jerrold as a partner, but she could not resist it that the papers should
announce on Sunday morning that "the event of the season at Fort Sibley
was the german given last Tuesday night by the ladies of the garrison
and led by the lovely Miss Beaubien" with Li