fit them closely.  Neither was the precaution of oiled silk wanted to protect the thick and curling hair, now sprinkled with great drops that shone like pearls and diamonds.  The water, instead of plastering her hair upon her temples, had made it more curly and more fleecy, as it hung over her dark eyebrows, which, very near together at the nose, gave to her eyes a peculiar, slightly oblique expression.  Her teeth were dazzling, and were displayed by the smile which parted her lips—­lips which were, if anything, too red for her pale complexion.  She closed her eyelids now and then to shade her eyes from the too blinding sunlight.  Those eyes were not black, but that hazel which has golden streaks.  Though only half open, they had quickly taken in the fact that the young man sitting beside Madame de Villegry was very handsome.

As she went on with a swift step to her bathing-house, she drew out two long pins from her back hair, shaking it and letting it fall down her back with a slightly impatient and imperious gesture; she wished, probably, that it might dry more quickly.

“The devil!” said M. de Cymier, watching her till she disappeared into the bathing-house.  “I never should have thought that it was all her own!  There is nothing wanting in her.  That is a young creature it is pleasant to see.”

“Yes,” said Madame de Villegry, quietly, “she will be very good-looking when she is eighteen.”

“Is she nearly eighteen?”

“She is and she is not, for time passes so quickly.  A girl goes to sleep a child, and wakes up old enough to be married.  Would you like to be informed, without loss of time, as to her fortune?”

“Oh!  I should not care much about her dot.  I look out first for other things.”

“I know, of course; but Jacqueline de Nailles comes of a very good family.”

“Is she the daughter of the deputy?”

“Yes, his only daughter.  He has a pretty house in the Parc Monceau and a chateau of some importance in the Haute-Vienne.”

“Very good; but, I repeat, I am not mercenary.  Of course, if I should marry, I should like, for my wife’s sake, to live as well as a married man as I have lived as a bachelor.”

“Which means that you would be satisfied with a fortune equal to your own.  I should have thought you might have asked more.  It is true that if you have been suddenly thunderstruck that may alter your calculations—­for it was very sudden, was it not?  Venus rising from the sea!”

“Please don’t exaggerate!  But you are not so cruel, seeing you are always urging me to marry, as to wish me to take a wife who looks like a fright or a horror.”

“Heaven preserve me from any such wish!  I should be very glad if my little friend Jacqueline were destined to work your reformation.”

“I defy the most careful parent to find anything against me at this moment, unless it be a platonic devotion.  The youth of Mademoiselle de Nailles is an advantage, for I might indulge myself in that till we were married, and then I should settle down and leave Paris, where nothing keeps me but—­”