at they were
saying. With humility which had in it a certain touch of bitterness he
said, still smiling:

"You might find something better to do than to talk good or evil of a
poor fellow who counts now for nothing."

"Counts for nothing! A fellow to be pitied!" cried Fred, "a man who has
just been elected to the Institute--you are hard to satisfy!"

Jacqueline sat looking at him like a young sorceress engaged in sticking
pins into the heart of a waxen figure of her enemy. She never missed an
opportunity of showing her implacable dislike of him.

She turned to Fred: "What I was telling you," she said, "I am quite
willing to repeat in his presence. The thing has lost its importance
now that he has become more indifferent to me than any other man in the
world."

She stopped, hoping that Marien had understood what she was saying
and that he resented the humiliating avowal from her own lips that her
childish love was now only a memory.

"If that is the only confession you have to make to me," said Fred, who
had almost recovered his composure, "I can put up with my former rival,
and I pass a sponge over all that has happened in your long past of
seventeen years and a half, Jacqueline. Tell me only that at present you
like no one better than me."

She smiled a half-smile, but he did not see it. She made no answer.

"Is he here, too--like the other!" he asked, sternly.

And she saw his restless eyes turn for an instant to the conservatory,
where Madame de Villegry, leaning back in her armchair, and Gerard
de Cymier, on a low seat almost at her feet, were carrying on their
platonic flirtation.

"Oh! you must not think of quarrelling with him," cried Jacqueline,
frightened at the look Fred fastened on De Cymier.

"No, it would be of no use. I shall go out to Tonquin, that's all."

"Fred! You are not serious."

"You will see whether I am not serious. At this very moment I know a man
who will be glad to exchange with me."

"What! go and get yourself killed at Tonquin for a foolish little girl
like me, who is very, very fond of you, but hardly knows her own mind.
It would be absurd!"

"People are not always killed at Tonquin, but I must have new interests,
something to divert my mind from--"

"Fred! my dear Fred"--Jacqueline had suddenly become almost tender,
almost suppliant. "Your mother! Think of your mother! What would she
say? Oh, my God!"

"My mother must be allowed to think that I love my profession bet