notice the change in
Jacqueline; a new loveliness, a sudden bursting into bloom of the
womanhood that had lain hidden in the bud. Her eyes took on a starry
softness quite different from their usual glint of mischief, the rich
blood in her cheeks came and went with her thoughts, her very hair had a
sort of sheen upon it like the luster on the wings of pigeons in the
spring. Blossom time, that comes once in life to every woman, with its
perilous short gift of the power that moves the world, had come in turn
to Jacqueline. It is a moment when a girl most needs her mother; but
Kate's thoughts were elsewhere.

People were saying among themselves, "The Madam's beginning to show her
age." But they could not have said in just what way she showed it. There
was no diminution of her tireless energy; she rode her spirited horses
with the same supple ease; no pallor showed in her warm cheeks; no lines
in the broad space between her brows; no gray in the glinting chestnut
of her hair, as abundant and as splendidly vital as Jacqueline's own.
The change was as subtle as the change in Jacqueline; yet many people
spoke of it.

Sometimes on the road she passed acquaintances without seeing them; or
in the midst of some important conversation, they became aware that she
was listening only with her eyes. She spent much time under the juniper
tree, sitting idle, her gaze fixed on the shadow over the distant
penitentiary, which it had for years avoided. When that shadow hung over
Jacques Benoix, her thoughts had at least known where to seek him, as
the Moslem when he prays turns toward the east. Now her thoughts had no
Mecca. They sought him homeless throughout the world.

Unused to introspection as she was, Kate had made a discovery about
herself. Of the two types of strong-hearted women created, the
mother-type and the lover-type, she would have said that she belonged
indubitably to the former; that hers was a life led chiefly for and in
her children. Now she knew that it was not so. Her work for them, her
absorption in their welfare, their property and education and
character--what were these but so much makeshift to fill the empty years
until Jacques came to her?

She had been so sure, so passionately sure, that he would come to her.
Vitality, beauty, youth, she had deliberately hoarded for him, like
precious unguents to be poured out at his feet. What was she for but to
atone to him for the bitterness that life had brought him, throug