“What can she say against Fred?”

“Nothing.  She is very fond of him, that you know as well as I do.  But those childish attachments do not necessarily lead to love and marriage.”

“Friendship on her side might be enough,” said Madame d’Argy, in the tone of a woman who had never known more than that in marriage.  “My poor Fred has enthusiasm and all that, enough for two.  And in time she will be madly in love with him—­she must!  It is impossible it should be otherwise.”

“Very good, persuade her yourself if you can; but Jacqueline has a pretty strong will of her own.”

Jacqueline’s will was a reality, though the ideas of M. de Nailles may have been illusion.

“And my wife, too!” resumed the Baron, after a long sigh.  “I don’t know how it is, but Jacqueline, as she has grown up, has become like an unbroken colt, and those two, who were once all in all to each other, are now seldom of one mind.  How am I to act when their two wills cross mine, as they often do?  I have so many things on my mind.  There are times when—­”

“Yes, one can see that.  You don’t seem to know where you are.  And do you think that the disposition she shows to act, as you say, like an unbroken colt, is nothing to me?  Do you think I am quite satisfied with my son’s choice?  I could have wished that he had chosen for his wife—­but what is the use of saying what I wished?  The important thing is that he should be happy in his own way.  Besides, I dare say the young thing will calm down of her own accord.  Her mother’s daughter must be good at heart.  All will come right when she is removed from a circle which is doing her no good; it is injuring her in people’s opinion already, you must know.  And how will it be by-and-bye?  I hear people saying everywhere:  ’How can the Nailles let that young girl associate so much with foreigners?’ You say they are old school-fellows, they went to the ‘cours’ together.  But see if Madame d’Etaples and Madame Ray, under the same pretext, let Isabelle and Yvonne associate with the Odinskas!  As to that foolish woman, Madame d’Avrigny, she goes to their house to look up recruits for her operettas, and Madame Strahlberg has one advantage over regular artists, there is no call to pay her.  That is the reason why she invites her.  Besides which, she won’t find it so easy to marry Dolly.”

“Oh! there are several reasons for that,” said the Baron, who could see the mote in his neighbor’s eye, “Mademoiselle d’Avrigny has led a life so very worldly ever since she was a child, so madly fast and lively, that suitors are afraid of her.  Jacqueline, thank heaven, has never yet been in what is called the world.  She only visits those with whom she is on terms of intimacy.”

“An intimacy which includes all Paris,” said Madame d’Argy, raising her eyes to heaven.  “If she does not go to great balls, it is only because her stepmother is bored by them.  But with that exception it seems to me she is allowed to do anything.  I don’t see the difference.  But, to be sure, if Jacqueline is not for us, you have a right to say that I am interfering in what does not concern me.”