ting for her: she intended herself to take her to the convent, and for
that purpose had assumed the imposing air of a noble matron.

Alas! it was in vain! Jacqueline, was made to understand that such an
infraction of the rules could not be overlooked. To pass the night
without leave out of the convent, and not with her own family, was cause
for expulsion. Neither the prayers nor the anger of Madame Odinska had
any power to change the sentence. While the Mother Superior calmly
pronounced her decree, she was taking the measure of this stout foreigner
who appeared in behalf of Jacqueline, a woman overdressed, yet at the
same time shabby, who had a far from well-bred or aristocratic air. "Out
of consideration for Madame de Talbrun," she said, "the convent consents
to keep Mademoiselle de Nailles a few days longer--a few weeks perhaps,
until she can find some other place to go. That is all we can do for
her."

Jacqueline listened to this sentence as she might have watched a game of
dice when her fate hung on the result, but she showed no emotion. "Now,"
she thought, "my fate has been decided; respectable people will have
nothing more to do with me. I will go with the others, who, perhaps,
after all are not worse, and who most certainly are more amusing."

A fortnight after this, Madame de Nailles, having come back to Paris,
from some watering-place, was telling Marien that Jacqueline had started
for Bellagio with Mr. and Miss Sparks, the latter having taken a notion
that she wanted that kind of chaperon who is called a companion in
England and America.

"But they are of the same age," said Marien.

"That is just what Miss Sparks wants. She does not wish to be hampered by
an elderly chaperon, but to be accompanied, as she would have been by her
sister."

"Jacqueline will be exposed to see strange things; how could you have
consented--"

"Consented? As if she cared for my consent! And then she manages to say
such irritating things as soon as one attempts to blame her or advise
her. For example, this is one of them: 'Don't you suppose,' she said to
me, 'that every one will take the most agreeable chance that offers for a
visit to Italy?' What do you think of that allusion? It closed my lips
absolutely."

"Perhaps she did not mean what you think she meant."

"Do you think so? And when I warned her against Madame Strahlberg, saying
that she might set her a very bad example, she answered: 'I may have had
worse.' I suppo