M.
de Tregars seemed visibly astonished. And she, laughing at his
surprise,

"That's the invariable programme," she went on; "and that's why I
say I'm glad at the idea of a change, whatever it may be. You find
fault with me for not pitying Mlle. Gilberte. How could I, since
I envy her? She is happy, because her future is not settled, laid
out, fixed in advance. She is poor; but she is free. She is twenty;
she is pretty; she has an admirable voice; she can go on the stage
to-morrow, and be, before six months, one of the pet actresses of
Paris. What a life then! Ah, that is the one I dream, the one I
would have selected, had I been mistress of my destiny."

But she was interrupted by the noise of the opening door.

The Baroness de Thaller appeared. As she was, immediately after
dinner, to go to the opera, and afterwards to a party given by the
Viscountess de Bois d'Ardon, she was in full dress. She wore a
dress, cut audaciously low in the neck, of very light gray satin,
trimmed with bands of cherry-colored silk edged with lace. In her
hair, worn high over her head, she had a bunch of fuchsias, the
flexible stems of which, fastened by a large diamond star, trailed
down to her very shoulders, white and smooth as marble.

But, though she forced herself to smile, her countenance was not
that of festive days; and the glance which she cast upon her
daughter and Marius de Tregars was laden with threats. In a voice
of which she tried in vain to control the emotion,

"How very kind of you, marquis," she began, "to respond so soon to
my invitation of this morning! I am really distressed to have kept
you waiting; but I was dressing. After what has happened to M. de
Thaller, it is absolutely indispensable that I should go out, show
myself: otherwise our enemies will be going around to-morrow, saying
everywhere that I am in Belgium, preparing lodgings for my husband."

And, suddenly changing her tone,

"But what was that madcap Cesarine telling you?" she asked.

It was with a profound surprise that M. de Tregars discovered that
the entente cordiale which he suspected between the mother and
daughter did not exist, at least at this moment.

Veiling under a jesting tone the strange conjectures which the
unexpected discovery aroused within him,

"Mlle. Cesarine," he replied, "who is much to be pitied, was telling
me all her troubles."

She interrupted him.

"Do not take the trouble to tell a story, M. le Marq