ind it. She was sure that in the end she would be forgiven.

No sooner was this resolution formed than she hastened to put it into
execution. It was the time of day when Madame de Nailles was usually
alone. Jacqueline went to her bedchamber, but she was not there, and a
moment after she stood on the threshold of the little salon. There she
stopped short, not quite certain how she should proceed, asking herself
what would be her reception.

"How shall I do it?" she thought. "How had I better do it?"

"Bah!" she answered these doubts. "It will be very easy. I will go in on
tiptoe, so that she can't hear me. I will slip behind her chair, and
I will hug her suddenly, so tight, so tenderly, and kiss her till she
tells me that all has been forgiven."

As she thought thus Jacqueline noiselessly opened the door of the salon,
over which, on the inner side, hung a thick plush 'portiere'. But as
she was about to lift it, the sound of a voice within made her stand
motionless. She recognized the tones of Marien. He was pleading,
imploring, interrupted now and then by the sharp and still angry voice
of her mamma. They were not speaking above their breath, but if she
listened she could hear them, and, without any scruples of conscience,
she did listen intently, anxious to see her way through the dark fog in
which, for twelve days, she had wandered.

"I do not go quite so far as that," said Madame de Nailles, dryly. "It
is enough for me that she produced an illusion of such beauty upon you.
Now I know what to expect--"

"That is nonsense," replied Marien--"mere foolishness. You jealous!
jealous of a baby whom I knew when she wore white pinafores, who has
grown up under my very eyes? But, so far as I am concerned, she exists
no longer. She is not, she never will be in my eyes, a woman. I shall
think of her as playing with her doll, eating sugar-plums, and so on."

Jacqueline grew faint. She shivered and leaned against the door-post.

"One would not suppose so, to judge by the picture with which she has
inspired you. You may say what you like, but I know that in all this
there was a set purpose to insult me."

"Clotilde!"

"In the first place, on no pretext ought you to have been induced to
paint her portrait."

"Do you think so? Consider, had I refused, the danger of awakening
suspicion? I accepted the commission most unwillingly, much put out
by it, as you may suppose. But you are making too much of an imaginary
fault. Con