came Madame Theophile Mineur; on the day of the wedding little
Berenice--named after a particularly uncanny heroine of Poe's by his
relentless French admirer--scratched the long features of her
stepfather. The entire town accepted this as a distressing omen and it
was not deceived; Berenice Cot grew up in the likeness of a determined
young lady whose mother weakly endured her tyranny, whose new father
secretly feared her.

At the age of eighteen she had refused nearly all the young painters
between Ecouen and Domaine de Vallieres; and had spent several summers
in England, and four years at a Lausanne school. She feared neither man
nor mouse, and once, when she saw a famous Polish pianist walking on his
terrace at Morges, she took him by the hand, asked for a lock of his
hair, and was not refused by the amiable virtuoso. After that Berenice
was the acknowledged leader of her class. The teachers trembled before
her sparkling, wrathful black eyes. At home she ruled the household, and
as she was an heiress no one dared to contradict her. Her contempt for
her stepfather was only matched by her impatience in the company of
young men. She pretended--so her intimates said--to loathe them.
"Frivolous idiots" was her mildest form of reproof when an ambitious boy
would trench upon her pet art theories or attempt to flirt. She called
her mother "the lamb" and her stepfather "the parrot"--he had a long
curved nose; all together she was very unlike the pattern French girl.
Her favourite lounging place was the wall, and after she had draped it
with a scarlet shawl and perched herself upon it, she was only too
happy to worry any unfortunate man who presented himself.

The night Hubert Falcroft called at Chalfontaine Mademoiselle Elise
Evergonde told him that her cousin, Madame Mineur, and Berenice had gone
in the direction of the pool. He had walked over from the station,
preferring the open air to the stuffy train. So a few vigorous steps
brought to his view mother and daughter as they slowly moved, encircling
each other's waist. The painter paused and noted the general loveliness
of the picture; the setting sun had splashed the blue basin overhead
with delicate pinks, and in the fretted edges of some high floating
cloud-fleece there was a glint of fire. The smooth grass parquet swept
gracefully to the semicircle of dark green trees, against the foliage of
which the virginal white of the gowns was transposed to an ivory tone by
the b