your legs. But, sitting as you were just now, I
could see only your head, which is better. So! one has to be accountable
for looking at you? Mademoiselle feels herself affronted if any one
stares at her! I will remember this in future. There, now! suppose,
instead of quarrelling with me, you were to go and cast yourself into the
arms of your cousin Fred."

"Fred! Fred d'Argy! Fred is at Brest."

"Where are your eyes, my dear child? He has just come in with his
mother."

And at that moment Madame de Nailles, with her pure, clear voice--a voice
frequently compared to that of Mademoiselle Reichemberg, called:

"Jacqueline!"

Jacqueline never crossed the imaginary line which divided the two salons
unless she was called upon to do so. She was still summoned like a child
to speak to certain persons who took an especial interest in her, and who
were kind enough to wish to see her--Madame d'Argy, for example, who had
been the dearest friend of her dead mother. The death of that mother, who
had been long replaced by a stepmother, could hardly be said to be deeply
regretted by Jacqueline. She remembered her very indistinctly. The
stories of her she had heard from Modeste, her old nurse, probably served
her instead of any actual memory. She knew her only as a woman pale and
in ill health, always lying on a sofa. The little black frock that had
been made for her had been hardly worn out when a new mamma, as gay and
fresh as the other had been sick and suffering, had come into the
household like a ray of sunshine.

After that time Madame d'Argy and Modeste were the only people who spoke
to her of the mother who was gone. Madame d'Argy, indeed, came on certain
days to take her to visit the tomb, on which the child read, as she
prayed for the departed:

MARIE JACQUELINE ADELAIDE DE VALTIER

BARONNE DE NAILLES

DIED AGED TWENTY-SIX YEARS

And such filial sentiment as she still retained, concerning the unknown
being who had been her mother, was tinged by her association with this
melancholy pilgrimage which she was expected to perform at certain
intervals. Without exactly knowing the reason why, Jacqueline was
conscious of a certain hostility that existed between Madame d'Argy and
her stepmother.

The intimate friend of the first Madame de Nailles was a woman with
neither elegance nor beauty. She never had left off her widow's weeds,
which she had worn since she had lost her husband in ea