istless
queen. Beneath the charm of the life and prestige of this brilliant
nature, Monsieur de Lucan readily forgave Julia the caprices and
peculiarities of which she was lavishly prodigal, especially toward her
step-father. She showed herself generally with him what she had been at
the start; friendly and polite, with a shade of haughty irony; but she had
strong inequalities of temper. Lucan surprised sometimes her gaze riveted
upon him with a painful and almost fierce expression. One day she repelled
with sullen rudeness the hand he offered to assist her in alighting from
her horse or in climbing over a fence. She seemed to avoid every occasion
of finding herself alone with him, and when she could not escape a
tete-a-tete of a few moments, she manifested either restless irritation or
mocking impertinence. Lucan fancied she reproached herself sometimes with
belying too much her former sentiments, and that she thought she owed it
to herself to give them from time to time a token of fidelity. He was
grateful to her, however, for reserving for himself alone these equivocal
manifestations, and for not troubling her mother with them. Upon the whole
he attached but a slight importance to these symptoms. If there still was
in the affectionate manifestations of his step-daughter something of a
struggle and an effort, it was on the part of that haughty nature an
excusable feature, a last resistance, which he flattered himself soon to
remove by multiplying his delicate attentions toward her.

Some two weeks after Julia's arrival, there was a ball given by the
Marchioness de Boisfresnay, in her chateau of Boisfresnay, which is
situated two or three miles from Vastville. Monsieur and Madame de Lucan
were on pleasant visiting-terms with the marchioness. They went to that
ball with Julia and her husband, the gentlemen in the coupe, the ladies,
on account of their dresses, occupying the carriage alone. Toward
midnight, Clotilde took her husband aside, and pointing to her daughter,
who was waltzing in the adjoining parlor with a naval officer:

"Hush! my dear," she said; "I have a frightful headache, and Pierre is
fairly bored to death; but we have not the courage to take Julia away so
early. Do you wish to make yourself very agreeable? You'll bring her home,
and we will start now, Pierre and myself; we'll leave you the carriage."

"Very well, dear," said Lucan, "run off, then."

Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras slipped away at once.