e nowadays are so imprudent about
acquaintances! To be a foreigner is a passport into society. Just think
what her poor mother would have said to the bad manners she is adopting
from all parts of the globe? My poor, dear Adelaide! She was a genuine
Frenchwoman of the old type; there are not many such left now. Ah!"
continued Madame d'Argy, without any apparent connection with her
subject, "Monsieur de Talbrun's mother, if he had one, would be truly
happy to see him married to Giselle!"

"But," faltered M. de Nailles, struck by the truth of some of these
remarks, "I make no opposition--quite the contrary--I have spoken
several times about your son, but I was not listened to!"

"What can she say against Fred?"

"Nothing. She is very fond of him, that you know as well as I do.
But those childish attachments do not necessarily lead to love and
marriage."

"Friendship on her side might be enough," said Madame d'Argy, in the
tone of a woman who had never known more than that in marriage. "My poor
Fred has enthusiasm and all that, enough for two. And in time she will
be madly in love with him--she must! It is impossible it should be
otherwise."

"Very good, persuade her yourself if you can; but Jacqueline has a
pretty strong will of her own."

Jacqueline's will was a reality, though the ideas of M. de Nailles may
have been illusion.

"And my wife, too!" resumed the Baron, after a long sigh. "I don't
know how it is, but Jacqueline, as she has grown up, has become like an
unbroken colt, and those two, who were once all in all to each other,
are now seldom of one mind. How am I to act when their two wills cross
mine, as they often do? I have so many things on my mind. There are
times when--"

"Yes, one can see that. You don't seem to know where you are. And do
you think that the disposition she shows to act, as you say, like an
unbroken colt, is nothing to me? Do you think I am quite satisfied
with my son's choice? I could have wished that he had chosen for his
wife--but what is the use of saying what I wished? The important thing
is that he should be happy in his own way. Besides, I dare say the young
thing will calm down of her own accord. Her mother's daughter must be
good at heart. All will come right when she is removed from a circle
which is doing her no good; it is injuring her in people's opinion
already, you must know. And how will it be by-and-bye? I hear people
saying everywhere: 'How can the Nailles let tha