eplying, for, on the contrary, he
thought her lovelier still; and he turned the pages. Two loose
photographs slipped to the floor. She put out her hand to take them, but
did not complete the movement.

"May I?" asked Philippe.

"Yes, certainly."

He was much astonished when he examined one of the portraits:

"This," he said, "makes you look older than you are.... How funny! And
why that old-fashioned dress?... That quaint way of doing your hair....
It's you ... and yet it's not you.... Who is it?"

"Mamma," she said.

He was surprised, knowing Jorance's persistent rancour, that he should
have given his daughter the portrait of a mother whom she had been
taught to believe long dead. And he remembered the riotous adventures of
the divorced wife, now the beautiful Mme. de Glaris, who was celebrated
in the chronicles of fast society for her dresses and her jewellery and
whose photographs were displayed in the shop-windows of the Rue de
Rivoli for the admiration of the passers-by.

"Yes," he said, awkwardly and not quite knowing what he was saying,
"yes, you are like her.... And is this also ...?"

He suppressed a movement of astonishment. This time, he clearly
recognized Suzanne's mother, or rather the Mme. de Glaris of the Rue de
Rivoli, bare-shouldered, decked in her pearls and diamonds, shameless
and magnificent.

Suzanne, who kept her eyes raised to his face, did not speak; and they
remained opposite each other, motionless and silent.

"Does she know the truth?" Philippe asked himself. "No ... no ... it's
not possible.... She must have bought this photograph, because of the
likeness to herself which she saw in it, and she does not suspect
anything...."

But he was not satisfied with his surmise and he dared not question the
girl, for fear of touching upon one of those mysterious griefs which
become more acute when once they are no longer secret.

She put the two portraits back in the album and locked the clasp with a
little key. Then, after a long pause, laying her hand on Philippe's arm,
she said to him, in words that corresponded strangely with the thoughts
that troubled him:

"Do not be angry with me, dear, and, above all, do not judge me too
severely. There is a Suzanne in me whom I do not know well ... and who
often frightens me.... She is capricious, jealous, wrong-headed, capable
of anything ... yes, of anything.... The real Suzanne is good and
sensible: 'You're _my_ daughter to-day,' papa used t