on, my loveliest, but I had to speak to some old friends, and
ask them to join us to-morrow evening. We shall sup at the restaurant of
the Grand Hotel, after the opera--for, I did not tell you before, you
will have the good luck to hear Patti. Monsieur de Cymier, we shall
expect you. Au revoir."

He had been on the point of asking leave to walk home with them. But
there was something in Jacqueline's look, and in her stubborn silence,
that deterred him. He thought it best to leave a skilful advocate to
plead his cause before he continued a conversation which had not begun
satisfactorily. Not that Gerard de Cymier was discouraged by the behavior
of Jacqueline. He had expected her to be angry at his defection, and that
she would make him pay for it; but a little skill on his part, and a
little credulity on hers, backed by the intervention of a third party,
might set things right.

One moment he lingered to look at her, admiring her as she stood in the
light of the dying sun, as beautiful in her plain dress and her indignant
paleness, while she looked far out to sea, that she might not be obliged
to look at him, as she had been when he had known her in prosperity.

At that moment he knew she hated him, but it would be an additional
delight to overcome that feeling.

The two women, when he left them, continued walking on the terrace side
by side, without a word. Wanda watched her companion out of the corners
of her eyes, and hummed an air to herself to break the silence. She saw a
storm gathering under Jacqueline's black eyebrows, and knew that sharp
arrows were likely to shoot forth from those lips which several times had
opened, though not a word had been uttered, probably through fear of
saying too little or too much.

At last she made some trifling comment on the view, explaining something
about pigeon-shooting.

"Wanda," interrupted Jacqueline, "did you not know what happened once?"

"Happened, how? About what?" asked Madame Strahlberg, with an air of
innocence.

"I am speaking of the way Monsieur de Cymier treated me."

"Bah! He was in love with you. Who didn't know it? Every one could see
that. It was all the more reason why you should have been glad to meet
him."

"He did not act as if he were much in love," said Jacqueline.

"Because he went away when your family thought he was about to make his
formal proposal? Not all men are marrying men, my dear, nor have all
women that vocation. Men fall in love al