nute, shall you be willing to give up getting that degree?" she
responded, with such gusto: "Indeed, I shall!" and her manner was so
eager, so boyish, so full of fun, that she was wildly applauded, while
Gerard embraced her as heartily as he liked, to make up to himself for
her having had, as his wife, the upper hand.

All this kissing threw him rather off his balance, and he might soon have
sealed his fate, had not a very sad event occurred, which restored his
self-possession.

The dress rehearsal was to take place one bright spring day at about four
o'clock in the afternoon. A large number of guests was assembled at the
house of Madame d'Avrigny. The performance had been much talked about
beforehand in society. The beauty, the singing, and the histrionic powers
of the principal actress had been everywhere extolled. Fully conscious of
what was expected of her, and eager to do herself credit in every way,
Jacqueline took advantage of Madame Strahlberg's presence to run over a
little song, which she was to--sing between the acts and in which she
could see no meaning whatever. This little song, which, to most of the
ladies present, seemed simply idiotic, made the men in the audience cry
"Oh!" as if half-shocked, and then "Encore! Encore!" in a sort of frenzy.
It was a so-called pastoral effusion, in which Colinette rhymed with
herbette, and in which the false innocence of the eighteenth century was
a cloak for much indelicate allusion.

"I never," said Jacqueline in self-defense, before she began the song,
"sang anything so stupid. And that is saying much when one thinks of all
the nonsensical words that people set to music! It's a marvel how any one
can like this stuff. Do tell me what there is in it?" she added, turning
to Gerard, who was charmed by her ignorance.

Standing beside the grand piano, with her arms waving as she sang,
repeating, by the expression of her eyes, the question she had asked and
to which she had received no answer, she was singing the verses she
considered nonsense with as much point as if she had understood them,
thanks to the hints given her by Madame Strahlberg, who was playing her
accompaniment, when the entrance of a servant, who pronounced her name
aloud, made a sudden interruption. "Mademoiselle de Nailles is wanted at
home at once. Modeste has come for her."

Madame d'Avrigny went out to say to the old servant: "She can not
possibly go home with you! It is only half an hour since she