say, and she acknowledged this to herself with an
aching heart.

"I don't exactly trust your kind of care," said Madame d'Argy, with a
smile that was not gay, and certainly not amiable.

She went, however, because Fred repeated:

"But go and see the Abbe Bardin."

Hardly had she left the room when Fred got up from his sofa and
approached Giselle with passionate eagerness.

"Are you sure I am not dreaming," said he. "Is it you--really you who
advise me to marry Jacqueline?"

"Who else should it be?" she answered, very calm to all appearance. "Who
can know better than I? But first you must oblige me by lying down again,
or else I will not say one word more. That is right. Now keep still. Your
mother is furiously displeased with me--I am sorry--but she will get over
it. I know that in Jacqueline you would have a good wife--a wife far
better than the Jacqueline you would have married formerly. She has paid
dearly for her experience of life, and has profited by its lessons, so
that she is now worthy of you, and sincerely repentant for her childish
peccadilloes."

"Giselle," said Fred, "look me full in the face--yes, look into my eyes
frankly and hide nothing. Your eyes never told anything but the truth.
Why do you turn them away? Do you really and truly wish this marriage?"

She looked at him steadily as long as he would, and let him hold her
hand, which was burning inside her glove, and which with a great effort
she prevented from trembling. Then her nerves gave way under his long and
silent gaze, which seemed to question her, and she laughed, a laugh that
sounded to herself very unnatural.

"My poor, dear friend," she cried, "how easily you men are duped! You are
trying to find out, to discover whether, in case you decide upon an
honest act, a perfectly sensible act, to which you are strongly
inclined--don't tell me you are not--whether, in short, you marry
Jacqueline, I shall be really as glad of it as I pretend. But have you
not found out what I have aimed at all along? Do you think I did not know
from the very first what it was that made you seek me?

"I was not the rope, but I had lived near the rose; I reminded you of her
continually. We two loved her; each of us felt we did. Even when you said
harm of her, I knew it was merely because you longed to utter her name,
and repeat to yourself her perfections. I laughed, yes, I laughed to
myself, and I was careful how I contradicted you. I tried to keep you
safe