o secrets
for her. At Trouville she astonished the natives with the startling
novelty of her bathing-costumes; and, when she found herself the
centre of a reasonable circle of lookers-on, she threw herself in
the water with a pluck that drew upon her the applause of the
bathing-masters. She could smoke a cigarette, empty nearly a glass
of champagne; and once her mother was obliged to bring her home,
and put her quick to bed, because she had insisted upon trying
absinthe, and her conversation had become somewhat too eccentric.

Leading such a life, it was difficult that public opinion should
always spare Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller. There were sceptics who
insinuated that this steadfast friendship between mother and daughter
had very much the appearance of the association of two women bound
together by the complicity of a common secret. A broker told how,
one evening, or one night rather, for it was nearly two o'clock,
happening to pass in front of the Moulin-Rouge, he had seen the
Baroness and Mlle. Cesarine coming out, accompanied by a gentleman,
to him unknown, but who, he was quite sure, was not the Baron de
Thaller.

A certain journey which mother and daughter had undertaken in the
heart of the winter, and which had lasted not less than two months,
had been generally attributed to an imprudence, the consequences
of which it had become impossible to conceal. They had been in
Italy, they said when they returned; but no one had seen them
there. Yet, as Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller's mode of life was, after
all, the same as that of a great many women who passed for being
perfectly proper, as there was no positive or palpable fact brought
against them, as no name was mentioned, many people shrugged their
shoulders, and replied,

"Pure slanders."

And why not, since the Baron de Thaller, the most interested party,
held himself satisfied?

To the ill-advised friends who ventured some allusions to the public
rumors, he replied, according to his humor,

"My daughter can play the mischief generally, if she sees fit. As
I shall give a dowry of a million, she will always find a husband."

Or else, "And what of it? Do not American young ladies enjoy
unlimited freedom? Are they not constantly seen going out with
young gentlemen, or walking or traveling alone? Are they, for all
that, less virtuous than our girls, who are kept under such close
watch? Do they make less faithful wives, or less excellent mothers?
Hypoc