s myself, mamma," she answered.

"Come back!"

"So that you can scold me if I am not ready when you want to go?
Thank you, no."

"I command you to come back, Cesarine."

No answer. She was far already.

Mme. de Thaller closed the door of the little parlor, and returning
to take a seat by M. de Tregars,

"What a singular girl!" she said.

Meantime he was watching in the glass what was going on in the
other room. The suspicious-looking man was there still, and alone.
A servant had brought him pen, ink and paper; and he was writing
rapidly.

"How is it that they leave him there alone?" wondered Marius.

And he endeavored to find upon the features of the baroness an
answer to the confused presentiments which agitated his brain. But
there was no longer any trace of the emotion which she had manifested
when taken unawares. Having had time for reflection, she had
composed for herself an impenetrable countenance. Somewhat surprised
at M. de Tregars' silence,

"I was saying," she repeated, "that Cesarine is a strange girl."

Still absorbed by the scene in the grand parlor,

"Strange, indeed!" he answered.

"And such is," said the baroness with a sigh, "the result of M. de
Thaller's weakness, and above all of my own.

"We have no child but Cesarine; and it was natural that we should
spoil her. Her fancy has been, and is still, our only law. She
has never had time to express a wish: she is obeyed before she has
spoken."

She sighed again, and deeper than the first time. "You have just
seen," she went on, "the results of that insane education. And yet
it would not do to trust appearances. Cesarine, believe me, is not
as extravagant as she seems. She possesses solid qualities,--of
those which a man expects of the woman who is to be his wife."

Without taking his eyes off the glass,

"I believe you madame," said M. de Tregars.

"With her father, with me especially, she is capricious, wilful,
and violent; but, in the hands of the husband of her choice, she
would be like wax in the hands of the modeler."

The man in the parlor had finished his letter, and, with an
equivocal smile, was reading it over.

"Believe me, madame," replied M. de Tregars, "I have perfectly
understood how much naive boasting there was in all that Mlle.
Cesarine told me."

"Then, really, you do not judge her too severely?"

"Your heart has not more indulgence for her than my own."

"And yet it is from you that her first