you
can."

M. de Nailles meantime went on talking, with little response from his
wife or his guest, about some vehement discussion of a new law going on
just then in the Chamber, and he became so interested in his own
discourse that he did not remark the constraint of the others.

Marien at last, tired of responding in monosyllables to his remarks, said
abruptly, a short time before dessert was placed upon the table,
something about the probability of his soon going to Italy.

"A pilgrimage of art to Florence!" cried the Baron, turning at once from
politics. "That's good. But wait a little--let it be after the rising of
the Chamber. We will follow your steps. It has been the desire of my
wife's life--a little jaunt to Italy. Has it not, Clotilde? So we will
all go in September or October. What say you?"

"In September or October, whichever suits you," said Marien, with
despair.

Not one month of liberty! Why couldn't they leave him to his Savanarola!
Must he drag about a ball and chain like a galley-slave?

Clotilde rewarded M. de Nailles with a smile--the first smile she had
given him since their quarrel about Jacqueline.

"My wife has got over her displeasure," he said to himself, delightedly.

Jacqueline, on her part, well remembered the day when Hubert had spoken
to her for the first time of his intended journey, and how he had added,
in a tone which she now knew to be badinage, but which then, alas! she
had believed serious: "Suppose we go together!"

And her impulse to shed tears became so great, that when they left the
dinner-table she escaped to her own room, under pretence of a headache.

"Yes--you are looking wretchedly," said her stepmother. And, turning to
M. de Nailles, she added: "Don't you think, 'mon ami', she is as yellow
as a quince!" Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been his
little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time with
repugnance.

"You are suffering, my poor Jacqueline!" he ventured to say.

"Oh! not much," she answered, with a glance at once haughty and defiant,
"to-morrow I shall be quite well again."

And, saying this, she had the courage to laugh.

But she was not quite well the next day; and for many days after she was
forced to stay in bed. The doctor who came to see her talked about "low
fever," attributed it to too rapid growth, and prescribed sea-bathing for
her that summer. The fever, which was not very severe, was of great
service to