at little head filled with follies and fancies of which I am the
object. But can one--let one be ever so old--always act--or think
reasonably? You are mad, Marien! A child of fourteen! Bah!--they make
her out to be fourteen--but she is fifteen--and was not that the age of
Juliet? But, you old graybeard, you are not Romeo!--'Ma foi'! I am in a
pretty scrape. It ought to teach me not to play with fire at my age."

Those words "at my age" were the refrain to all the reflections of
Hubert Marien. He had seen enough in his relations with women to have
no doubt about Jacqueline's feelings, of which indeed he had watched
the rise and progress from the time she had first begun to conceive
a passion for him, with a mixture of amusement and conceit. The most
cautious of men are not insensible to flattery, whatever form it may
take. To be fallen in love with by a child was no doubt absurd--a thing
to be laughed at--but Jacqueline seemed no longer a child, since for him
she had uncovered her young shoulders and arranged her dark hair on
her head with the effect of a queenly diadem. Not only had her dawning
loveliness been revealed to him alone, but to him it seemed that he had
helped to make her lovely. The innocent tenderness she felt for him had
accomplished this miracle. Why should he refuse to inhale an incense
so pure, so genuine? How could he help being sensible to its fragrance?
Would it not be in his power to put an end to the whole affair whenever
he pleased? But till then might he not bask in it, as one does in a warm
ray of spring sunshine? He put aside, therefore, all scruples. And when
he did this Jacqueline with rapture saw the painter's face, no longer
with its scowl, but softened by some secret influence, the lines
smoothed from his brow, while the beautiful smile which had fascinated
so many women passed like a ray of light over his expressive mobile
features; then she would once more fancy that he was making love to her,
and indeed he said many things, which, without rousing in himself any
scruples of conscience, or alarming the propriety of Fraulein Schult,
were well calculated to delude a girl who had had no experience, and who
was charmed by the illusions of a love-affair, as she might have been by
a fairy-story.

It is true that sometimes, when he fancied he might have gone too far,
Marien would grow sarcastic, or stay silent for a time. But this
change of behavior produced on Jacqueline only the same effect t