If nothing is more open to suspicion than the friendship of two fashionable ladies sharing the prerogatives of drawing-room royalty and lavishing on each other epithets, and the trivial graces of feminine fondness, the friendships of childhood keep in the grown woman a frankness of manner which distinguishes them, and makes them recognisable among all others, bonds woven naively and firm as the needlework of little girls in which an experienced hand had been prodigal of thread and big knots; plants reared in fresh soil, in flower, but with strong roots, full of vitality and new shoots.  And what a joy, hand in hand—­you glad dances of boarding-school days, where are you?—­to retrace some steps of one’s way with somebody who has an equal acquaintance with it and its least incidents, and the same laugh of tender retrospection.  A little apart, the two girls, for whom it has been sufficient to find themselves once more face to face to forget five years of separation, carry on a rapid exchange of recollections, while the little pere Joyeuse, his ruddy face brightened by a new cravat, straightens himself in pride to see his daughter thus warmly welcomed by such an illustrious person.  Proud certainly he had reason to be, for the little Parisian, even in the neighbourhood of her brilliant friend, holds her own in grace, youth, fair candour, beneath her twenty smooth and golden years, which the gladness of this meeting brings to fresh bloom.

“How happy you must be!  For my part, I have seen nothing yet; but I hear everybody saying it is so beautiful.”

“Happy above all to see you again, little Aline.  It is so long—­”

“I should think so, you naughty girl!  Whose the fault?”

And from the saddest corner of her memory, Felicia recalls the date of the breaking off of their relations, coinciding for her with another date on which her youth came to its end in an unforgettable scene.

“And what have you been doing, darling, all this time?”

“Oh, I, always the same thing—­or, nothing to speak of.”

“Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, you brave little thing!  Giving your life to other people, isn’t it?”

But Aline was no longer listening.  She was smiling affectionately to some one straight in front of her; and Felicia, turning round to see who it was, perceived Paul de Gery replying to the shy and tender greeting of Mlle. Joyeuse.

“You know each other, then?”

“Do I know M. Paul!  I should think so, indeed.  We talk of you very often.  He has never told you, then?”

“Never.  He must be a terribly sly fellow.”

She stopped short, her mind enlightened by a flash; and quickly without heed to de Gery, who was coming up to congratulate her on her triumph, she leaned over towards Aline and spoke to her in a low voice.  That young lady blushed, protested with smiles and words under her breath:  “How can you think of such a thing?  At my age—­a ’grandmamma’!” and finally seized her father’s arm in order to escape some friendly teasing.