“It was very nice of you.  How do you do, Fred?” said Jacqueline, holding out her hand to a very young man, in a jacket ornamented with gold lace, who stood twisting his cap in his hand with some embarrassment “It is a long time since we have seen each other.  But it does not seem to me that you have grown a great deal.”

Fred blushed up to the roots of his hair.

“No one can say that of you, Jacqueline,” observed Madame d’Argy.

“No—­what a may-pole!—­isn’t she?” said the Baronne, carelessly.

“If she realizes it,” whispered Madame de Monredon, who was sitting beside Madame d’Argy on a ‘causeuse’ shaped like an S, “why does she persist in dressing her like a child six years old?  It is absurd!”

“Still, she can have no reason for keeping her thus in order to make herself seem young.  She is only a stepmother.”

“Of course.  But people might make comparisons.  Beauty in the bud sometimes blooms out unexpectedly when it is not welcome.”

“Yes—­she is fading fast.  Small women ought not to grow stout.”

“Anyhow, I have no patience with her for keeping a girl of fifteen in short skirts.”

“You are making her out older than she is.”

“How is that?—­how is that?  She is two years younger than Giselle, who has just entered her eighteenth year.”

While the two ladies were exchanging these little remarks, the Baronne de Nailles was saying to the young naval cadet: 

“Monsieur Fred, we should be charmed to keep you with us, but possibly you might like to see some of your old friends.  Jacqueline can take you to them.  They will be glad to see you.”

“Tiens!—­that’s true,” said Jacqueline.  “Dolly and Belle are yonder.  You remember Isabelle Ray, who used to take dancing lessons with us.”

“Of course I do,” said Fred, following his cousin with a feeling of regret that his sword was not knocking against his legs, increasing his importance in the eyes of all the ladies who were present.  He was not, however; sorry to leave their imposing circle.  Above all, he was glad to escape from the clear-sighted, critical eyes of Madame de Nailles.  On the other hand, to be sent off to the girls’ corner, after being insulted by being told he had not grown, hurt his sense of self-importance.

Meantime Jacqueline was taking him back to her own corner, where he was greeted by two or three little exclamations of surprise, shaking hands, however, as his former playmates drew their skirts around them, trying to make room for him to sit down.

“Young ladies,” said Jacqueline, “I present to you a ’bordachien’—­a little middy from the practice-ship the Borda.”

They burst out laughing:  “A bordachien!  A middy from the practice-ship!” they cried.

“I shall not be much longer on the practice-ship,” said the young man, with a gesture which seemed as if his hand were feeling for the hilt of his sword, which was not there, “for I am going very soon on my first voyage as an ensign.”