“I am not disguised.  I am disguised when I am forced to wear those things, which do not suit me,” said Jacqueline, pointing to her gray jacket and plaid skirt which were hung up on a hat-rack.  “Oh, I know why mamma keeps me like that—­she is afraid I should get too fond of dress before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted from serious subjects.  It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I should not lose much time if I turned up my hair like this, and what harm could there be in lengthening my skirts an inch or two?  My picture will show her that I am improved by such little changes, and perhaps it will induce hor to let me go to the Bal Blanc that Madame d’Etaples is going to give on Yvonne’s birthday.  Mamma declined for me, saying I was not fit to wear a low-necked corsage, but you see she was mistaken.”

“Rather,” said Marien, smiling in spite of himself.

“Yes—­wasn’t she?” she went on, delighted at his look.  “Of course, I have bones, but they don’t show like the great hollows under the collar-bones that Dolly shows, for instance—­but Dolly looks stouter than I because her face is so round.  Well!  Dolly is going to Madame d’Etaples’s ball.”

“I grant,” said Marien, devoting all his attention to the preparation of his palette, that she might not see him laugh, “I grant that you have bones—­yes, many bones—­but they are not much seen because they are too well placed to be obtrusive.”

“I am glad of that,” said Jacqueline, delighted.

“But let me ask you one question.  Where did you pick up that queer gown?  It seems to me that I have seen it somewhere.”

“No doubt you have,” replied Jacqueline, who had quite recovered from her first shock, and was now ready to talk; “it is the dress mamma had made some time ago when she acted in a comedy.”

“So I thought,” growled Marien, biting his lips.

The dress recalled to his mind many personal recollections, and for one instant he paused.  Madame de Nailles, among other talents, possessed that of amateur acting.  On one occasion, several years before, she had asked his advice concerning what dress she should wear in a little play of Scribe’s, which was to be given at the house of Madame d’Avrigny—­the house in all Paris most addicted to private theatricals.  This reproduction of a forgotten play, with its characters attired in the costume of the period in which the play was placed, had had great success, a success due largely to the excellence of the costumes.  In the comic parts the dressing had been purposely exaggerated, but Madame de Nailles, who played the part of a great coquette, would not have been dressed in character had she not tried to make herself as bewitching as possible.

Marien had shown her pictures of the beauties of 1840, painted by Dubufe, and she had decided on a white gauze embroidered with gold, in which, on that memorable evening, she had captured more than one heart, and which had had its influence on the life and destiny of Marien.  This might have been seen in the vague glance of indignation with which he now regarded it.