er your unknown charm, that shining dust
stored up by every new idea? Who passes judgment on you, and who
condemns you? Sometimes, before going out to dinner, Jansoulet, on
going up to his wife's room, would find her smoking in her easy-chair,
with her head thrown back and piles of manuscript by her side, and
Cabassu, armed with a blue pencil, reading in his hoarse voice and with
his Bourg-Saint-Andeol intonation some dramatic lucubration which he
cut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism from
the lady. "Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob's wave of the hand
would say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. He would listen and nod
his head admiringly as he looked at his wife. "She's an astonishing
creature," he would say to himself, for he knew nothing of literature,
and in that direction at all events he recognized Mademoiselle Afchin's
superiority.

"She had the theatrical instinct," as Cardailhac said; but as an
offset, the maternal instinct was entirely lacking. She never gave a
thought to her children, abandoning them to the hands of strangers,
and, when they were brought to her once a month, contenting herself
with giving them the flabby, lifeless flesh of her cheeks to kiss,
between two puffs of a cigarette, and never making inquiries concerning
the details of care and health which perpetuate the physical bond of
motherhood, and make the true mother's heart bleed in sympathy with her
child's slightest suffering.

They were three stout, heavy, apathetic boys, of eleven, nine, and
seven years, with the Levantine's sallow complexion and premature
bloated appearance, and their father's velvety, kindly eyes. They were
as ignorant as young noblemen of the Middle Ages; in Tunis M. Bompain
had charge of their studies, but in Paris the Nabob, intent upon giving
them the benefit of a Parisian education, had placed them in the most
stylish and most expensive boarding school, the College Bourdaloue,
conducted by excellent Fathers, who aimed less at teaching their pupils
than at moulding them into well-bred, reflecting men of the world, and
who succeeded in producing little monstrosities, affected and
ridiculous, scornful of play, absolutely ignorant, with no trace of
spontaneity or childishness, and despairingly pert and forward. The
little Jansoulets did not enjoy themselves overmuch in that hothouse
for early fruits, notwithstanding the special privileges accorded to
their immense wealth; they wer