seemed curious to an observer. She was something of a woman, something
of a child, something of a philosopher. At night, when she was dancing
with Wermant, or Cymier, or even Talbrun, or on horseback, an exercise
which all the Blues were wild about, she was an audacious flirt, a girl
up to anything; and in the morning, at low tide, she might be seen, with
her legs and feet bare, among the children, of whom there were many on
the sands, digging ditches, making ramparts, constructing towers and
fortifications in wet sand, herself as much amused as if she had been
one of the babies themselves. There was screaming and jumping, and
rushing out of reach of the waves which came up ready to overthrow the
most complicated labors of the little architects, rough romping of all
kinds, enough to amaze and disconcert a lover.

But no one could have guessed at the thoughts which, in the midst of all
this fun and frolic, were passing through the too early ripened mind of
Jacqueline. She was thinking that many things to which we attach great
value and importance in this world are as easily swept away as the sand
barriers raised against the sea by childish hands; that everywhere there
must be flux and reflux, that the beach the children had so dug up would
soon become smooth as a mirror, ready for other little ones to dig it
over again, tempting them to work, and yet discouraging their industry.
Her heart, she thought, was like the sand, ready for new impressions.
The elegant form of M. de Cymier slightly overshadowed it, distinct
among other shadows more confused.

And Jacqueline said to herself with a smile, exactly what her father and
Madame de Nailles had said to each other:

"Countess!--who knows? Ambassadress! Perhaps--some day--"

CHAPTER VIII. A PUZZLING CORRESPONDENCE

"But I can not see any reason why we should not take Jacqueline with us
to Italy. She is just of an age to profit by it."

These words were spoken by M. de Nailles after a long silence at the
breakfast-table. They startled his hearers like a bomb.

Jacqueline waited to hear what would come next, fixing a keen look upon
her stepmother. Their eyes met like the flash of two swords.

The eyes of the one said: "Now, let us hear what you will answer!" while
the other strove to maintain that calmness which comes to some people in
a moment of danger. The Baroness grew a little pale, and then said, in
her softest tones:

"You are quite right, 'mon ami', bu