d not be patient forever! She
idolized her son too much to be resigned to living without him; she felt
that he was hers no longer. Either he was at sea or at Toulon, where
she could very rarely join him, being detained at Lizerolles by the
necessity of looking after their property. With what eagerness she
awaited his promotion, which she did not doubt was all the Nailles
waited for to give their consent to the marriage; of their happy
half-consent she hastened to remind them in a note which announced the
new grade to which he had been promoted. Her indignation was great on
finding that her formal request received no decided answer; but, as her
first object was Fred's happiness, she placed the reply she had received
in its most favorable light when she forwarded it to the person whom
it most concerned. She did this in all honesty. She was not willing
to admit that she was being put off with excuses; still less could she
believe in a refusal.

She accepted the excuse that M. de Nailles gave for returning no decided
answer, viz.: that "Jacqueline was too young," though she answered him
with some vehemence: "Fred was born when I was eighteen." But she had to
accept it. Her ensign would have to pass a few more months on the
coast of Senegal, a few more months which were made shorter by the
encouragement forwarded to him by his mother, who was careful to
send him everything she could find out that seemed to be, or that
she imagined might be, in his favor; she underlined such things and
commented upon them, so as to make the faintest hypothesis seem a
certainty. Sometimes she did not even wait for the post. Fred would
find, on putting in at some post, a cablegram: "Good news," or "All goes
well," and he would be beside himself with joy and excitement until,
on receiving his poor, dear mother's next letter, he found out on how
slight a foundation her assurance had been founded.

Sometimes, she wrote him disagreeable things about Jacqueline, as if she
would like to disenchant him, and then he said to himself: "By this, I
am to understand that my affairs are not going on well; I still count
for little, notwithstanding my promotion." Ah! if he could only
have had, so near the beginning of his career, any opportunity of
distinguishing himself! No brilliant deed would have been too hard for
him. He would have scaled the very skies. Alas! he had had no chance
to win distinction, he had only had to follow in the beaten track of
ordi