ff with a sullen look, but stopped all at once, to
exclaim: "Well, then, be quick over your talk!"

As soon as she was gone, Madame Deberle returned to the charge. "How
can you, a gentleman, show yourself in public with that actress
Florence? She is at least forty. She is ugly enough to frighten one,
and all the gentlemen in the stalls thee and thou her on first
nights."

"Have you finished?" called out Pauline, who was strolling sulkily
under the trees. "I'm not amusing myself here, you know."

Malignon, however, defended himself. He had no knowledge of this girl
Florence; he had never in his life spoken a word to her. They had
possibly seen him with a lady: he was sometimes in the company of the
wife of a friend of his. Besides, who had seen him? He wanted proofs,
witnesses.

"Pauline," hastily asked Madame Deberle, raising her voice, "did you
not meet him with Florence?"

"Yes, certainly," replied her sister. "I met them on the boulevards
opposite Bignon's."

Thereupon, glorying in her victory over Malignon, whose face wore an
embarrassed smile, Madame Deberle called out: "You can come back,
Pauline; I have finished."

Malignon, who had a box at the Folies-Dramatiques for the following
night, now gallantly placed it at Madame Deberle's service, apparently
not feeling the slightest ill-will towards her; moreover, they were
always quarreling. Pauline wished to know if she might go to see the
play that was running, and as Malignon laughed and shook his head, she
declared it was very silly; authors ought to write plays fit for girls
to see. She was only allowed such entertainments as _La Dame Blanche_
and the classic drama could offer.

Meantime, the ladies had ceased watching the children, and all at once
Lucien began to raise terrible shrieks.

"What have you done to him, Jeanne?" asked Helene.

"I have done nothing, mamma," answered the little girl. "He has thrown
himself on the ground."

The truth was, the children had just set out for the famous glaciers.
As Jeanne pretended that they were reaching the mountains, they had
lifted their feet very high, as though to step over the rocks. Lucien,
however, quite out of breath with his exertions, at last made a false
step, and fell sprawling in the middle of an imaginary ice-field.
Disgusted, and furious with child-like rage, he no sooner found
himself on the ground than he burst into tears.

"Lift him up," called Helene.

"He won't let me, mamma. He is r