lesome and artificial, such things as make up life
in Paris, one becomes a little like Alceste, Moliere's misanthrope, when
one gets back to them. It is ridiculous at my age, and yet if I were to
tell you--"

"What?--you puzzle me. What can there be that is unwholesome in selling
things for the poor?"

"The poor! A pretty pretext! Was it to benefit the poor that that odious
Countess Strahlberg made all those disreputable grimaces? I have seen
kermesses got up by actresses, and, upon my word, they were good form in
comparison."

"Oh! Countess Strahlberg! People have heard about her doings until they
are tired of them," said Giselle, with that air of knowing everything
assumed by a young wife whose husband has told her all the current
scandals, as a sort of initiation.

"And her sister seems likely to be as bad as herself before long."

"Poor Colette! She has been so badly brought up. It is not her fault."

"But there's Jacqueline," cried Fred, in a sudden outburst, and already
feeling better because he could mention her name.

"Allons, donc! You don't mean to say anything against Jacqueline?" cried
Giselle, clasping her hands with an air of astonishment. "What can she
have done to scandalize you--poor little dear?"

Fred paused for half a minute, then he drew the stool in the form of an
X, on which he was sitting, a little nearer to Giselle's sofa, and,
lowering his voice, told her how Jacqueline had acted under his very
eyes. As he went on, watching as he spoke the effect his words produced
upon Giselle, who listened as if slightly amused by his indignation, the
case seemed not nearly so bad as he had supposed, and a delicious sense
of relief crept over him when she to whom he told his wrongs after
hearing him quietly to the end, said, smiling:

"And what then? There is no great harm in all that. Would you have had
her refuse to go with the gentleman Madame de Villegry had sent to fetch
her? And why, may I ask, should she not have done her best to help by
pouring out champagne? An air put on to please is indispensable to a
woman, if she wishes to sell anything. Good Heavens! I don't approve any
more than you do of all these worldly forms of charity, but this kind of
thing is considered right; it has come into fashion. Jacqueline had the
permission of her parents, and I really can't see any good reason why you
should complain of her. Unless--why not tell me the whole truth, Fred? I
know it--don't we always know