both her father and her mother, and was being educated in a convent
from which she was allowed to come out only on great occasions. Her
grandmother, whose ideas were those of the old school, had placed her
there. The Easter holidays accounted for Giselle's unexpected arrival.
Wrapped in a large cloak which covered up her convent uniform, she
looked, as compared with the gay girls around her, like a poor sombre
night-moth, dazzled by the light, in company with other glittering
creatures of the insect race, fluttering with graceful movements,
transparent wings and shining corselets.

"Come and have some sandwiches," said Jacqueline, and she drew Giselle
to the tea-table, with the kind intention apparently of making her feel
more at her ease. But she had another motive. She saw some one who was
very interesting to her coming at that moment toward the table. That
some one was a man about forty, whose pointed black beard was becoming
slightly gray--a man whom some people thought ugly, chiefly because
they had never seen his somewhat irregular features illumined by a smile
which, spreading from his lips to his eyes, lighted up his face and
transformed it. The smile of Hubert Marien was rare, however. He
was exclusive in his friendships, often silent, always somewhat
unapproachable. He seldom troubled himself to please any one he did
not care for. In society he was not seen to advantage, because he
was extremely bored, for which reason he was seldom to be seen at
the Tuesday receptions of Madame de Nailles; while, on other days, he
frequented the house as an intimate friend of the family. Jacqueline had
known him all her life, and for her he had always his beautiful smile.
He had petted her when she was little, and had been much amused by the
sort of adoration she had no hesitation in showing that she felt for
him. He used to call her Mademoiselle ma femme, and M. de Nailles would
speak of him as "my daughter's future husband." This joke had been kept
up till the little lady had reached her ninth year, when it ceased,
probably by order of Madame de Nailles, who in matters of propriety was
very punctilious. Jacqueline, too, became less familiar than she had
been with the man she called "my great painter." Indeed, in her heart of
hearts, she cherished a grudge against him. She thought he presumed on
the right he had assumed of teasing her. The older she grew the more he
treated her as if she were a baby, and, in the little pass