to
Eve's eyes after she had plucked the apple. Her investigations had very
imperfectly enlightened her. She was as much perplexed as ever, with some
false ideas besides. When she was well again, however, she continued weak
and languid; she felt somehow as if, she had come back to her old
surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now seemed
sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered. Her parents had
apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture. It had been sent
away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being buried. Hubert
Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family. From that time
forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline--whether it were that he
owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the means of
bringing upon him, or whether he feared to burn himself in the flame
which had once scorched him more than he admitted to himself, who can
say? Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders.

CHAPTER VI

A CONVENT FLOWER

One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her
cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society
when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a
little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could
condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed as
if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity--a Gray
Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of her
somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than stimulated,
by the education she had received.

The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank of
the Seine, all gardens and hotels--that is, detached houses. Grass
sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no
street-lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The petals
of an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped, like
flakes of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the
springtime.

The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one
side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into the
convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old nurse,
Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was striving to
put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein Schult, who had
known of her foolish fancy, and who might perha