se that was not meant for impertinence either!"

"I don't know," said Hubert Marien, biting his lips doubtfully, "but--"

He was silent a few moments, his head drooped on his breast, he was in
some painful reverie.

"Go on. What are you thinking about?" asked Madame de Nailles,
impatiently.

"I beg your pardon. I was only thinking that a certain responsibility
might rest on those who have made that young girl what she is."

"I don't understand you," said the stepmother, with an impatient gesture.
"Who can do anything to counteract a bad disposition? You don't deny that
hers is bad? She is a very devil for pride and obstinacy--she has no
affection--she has proved it. I have no inclination to get myself wounded
by trying to control her."

"Then you prefer to let her ruin herself?"

"I should prefer not to give the world a chance to talk, by coming to an
open rupture with her, which would certainly be the case if I tried to
contradict her. After all, the Sparks and Madame Odinska are not yet put
out of the pale of good society, and she knew them long ago. An early
intimacy may be a good explanation if people blame her for going too
far--"

"So be it, then; if you are satisfied it is not for me to say anything,"
replied Marien, coldly.

"Satisfied? I am not satisfied with anything or anybody," said Madame de
Nailles, indignantly. "How could I be satisfied; I never have met with
anything but ingratitude."

CHAPTER XVI

THE SAILOR'S RETURN

Madame D'Argy did not leave her son in ignorance of all the freaks and
follies of Jacqueline. He knew every particular of the wrong-doings and
the imprudences of his early friend, and even the additions made to them
by calumny, ever since the fit of in dependence which, after her father's
death, had led her to throw off all control. She told of her sudden
departure from Fresne, where she might have found so safe a refuge with
her friend and cousin. Then had not her own imprudence and coquetry led
to a rupture with the families of d'Etaples and Ray? She told of the
scandalous intimacy with Madame Strahlberg; of her expulsion from the
convent, where they had discovered, even before she left, that she had
been in the habit of visiting undesirable persons; and finally she
informed him that Jacqueline had gone to Italy with an old Yankee and his
daughter--he being a man, it was said, who had laid the foundation of his
colossal fortune by keeping a bar-room in a mining camp