insignificant than the others. It was to tell his dear friend that the
one she had last suggested was positively too ugly for him, that the
young attache to an embassy had come down to the sea-side to visit her.

The day after his arrival he was sitting on the shingle at Madame de
Villegry's feet, both much amused by the grotesque spectacle presented by
the bathers, who exhibited themselves in all degrees of ugliness and
deformity. Of course Madame de Villegry did not bathe, being, as she
said, too nervous. She was sitting under a large parasol and enjoying her
own superiority over those wretched, amphibious creatures who waddled on
the sands before her, comparing Madame X to a seal and Mademoiselle Z to
the skeleton of a cuttle-fish.

"Well! it was that kind of thing you wished me to marry," said M. de
Cymier, in a tone of resentment.

"But, my poor friend, what would you have? All young girls are like that.
They improve when they are married."

"If one could only be sure."

"One is never sure of anything, especially anything relating to young
girls. One can not say that they do more than exist till they are
married. A husband has to make whatever he chooses out of them. You are
quite capable of making what you choose of your wife. Take the risk,
then."

"I could educate her as to morals--though, I must say, I am not much used
to that kind of instruction; but you will permit me to think that, as to
person, I should at least wish to see a rough sketch of what I may expect
in my wife before my marriage."

At that moment, a girl who had been bathing came out of the water a few
yards from them; the elegant outline of her slender figure, clad in a
bathing-suit of white flannel, which clung to her closely, was thrown
into strong relief by the clear blue background of a summer sky.

"Tiens!--but she is pretty!" cried Gerard, breaking off what he was
saying: "And she is the first pretty one I have seen!"

Madame de Villegry took up her tortoiseshell opera-glasses, which were
fastened to her waist, but already the young girl, over whose shoulders
an attentive servant had flung a wrapper--a 'peignoir-eponge'--had run
along the boardwalk and stopped before her, with a gay "Good-morning!"

"Jacqueline!" said Madame de Villegry. "Well, my dear child, did you find
the water pleasant?"

"Delightful!" said the young girl, giving a rapid glance at M. de Cymier,
who had risen.

He was looking at her with evident admiration