nary duty; he had encountered no glorious perils, though at St.
Louis he had come very near leaving his bones, but it was only a case of
typhoid fever. This fever, however, brought about a scene between M. de
Nailles and his mother.

"When," she cried, with all the fury of a lioness, "do you expect to
come to the conclusion that my son is a suitable match for Jacqueline?
Do you imagine that I shall let him wait till he is a post-captain to
satisfy the requirements of Mademoiselle your daughter--provided he does
not die in a hospital? Do you think that I shall be willing to go
on living--if you can call it living!--all alone and in continual
apprehension? Why do you let him keep on in uncertainty? You know his
worth, and you know that with him Jacqueline would be happy. Instead of
that--instead of saying once for all to this young man, who is more in
love with her than any other man will ever be: 'There, take her, I give
her to you,' which would be the straightforward, sensible way, you go on
encouraging the caprices of a child who will end by wasting, in the
life you are permitting her to lead, all the good qualities she has and
keeping nothing but the bad ones."

"Mon Dieu! I can't see that Jacqueline leads a life like that!" said M.
de Nailles, who felt that he must say something.

"You don't see, you don't see! How can any one see who won't open his
eyes? My poor friend, just look for once at what is going on around you,
under your own roof--"

"Jacqueline is devoted to music," said her father, good-humoredly.
Madame d'Argy in her heart thought he was losing his mind.

And in truth he was growing older day by day, becoming more and more
anxious, more and more absorbed in the great struggle--not for life;
that might exhaust a man, but at least it was energetic and noble--but
for superfluous wealth, for vanity, for luxury, which, for his own
part, he cared nothing for, and which he purchased dearly, spurred on to
exertion by those near to him, who insisted on extravagances.

"Oh! yes, Jacqueline, I know, is devoted to music," went on Madame
d'Argy, with an air of extreme disapproval, "too much so! And when she
is able to sing like Madame Strahlberg, what good will it do her?
Even now I see more than one little thing about her that needs to
be reformed. How can she escape spoiling in that crowd of Slavs and
Yankees, people of no position probably in their own countries, with
whom you permit her to associate? Peopl