Her
parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture.
It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being
buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family.
From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline--whether
it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the
means of bringing upon him, or whether he feared to burn himself in the
flame which had once scorched him more than he admitted to himself, who
can say? Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders.

CHAPTER VI. A CONVENT FLOWER

One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her
cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society
when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a
little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could
condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed
as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity--a Gray
Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of
her somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than
stimulated, by the education she had received.

The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank
of the Seine, all gardens and hotels--that is, detached houses.
Grass sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no
street-lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The
petals of an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped,
like flakes of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the
springtime.

The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one
side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into
the convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old
nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was
striving to put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein
Schult, who had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps renew
the odious subject. Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed
like going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which
soothed her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far
away; it was a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young
soul, pure and white, had floated, without rapture, but without any
great grief or pain.

The porteress showed them into the parlor. Th