“Who?—­I?” she cried, astonished, “I don’t see why he should not.”  And then, with a faint laugh, she added:  “Oh, if she would only take him—­and keep him!”

But Madame de Monredon kept a sharp eye upon M. de Talbrun.  “It seems to me,” she said, looking fixedly into the face of her future grandson-in-law, “that you really take pleasure in making children skip about with you.”

“So I do,” he replied, frankly and good-humoredly.  “It makes me feel young again.”

And Madame de Monredon was satisfied.  She was ready to admit that most men marry women who have not particularly enchanted them, and she had brought up Giselle with all those passive qualities, which, together with a large fortune, usually suit best with a ‘mariage de convenance’.

Meantime Jacqueline piqued herself upon her worldly wisdom, which she looked upon as equal to Madame de Monredon’s, since the terrible event which had filled her mind with doubts.  She thought M. de Talbrun would do well enough for a husband, and she took care to say so to Giselle.

“It is a fact,” she told her, with all the self-confidence of large experience, “that men who are very fascinating always remain bachelors.  That is probably why Monsieur de Cymier, Madame de Villegry’s handsome cousin, does not think of marrying.”

She was mistaken.  The Comte de Cymier, a satellite who revolved around that star of beauty, Madame de Villegry, had been by degrees brought round by that lady herself to thoughts of matrimony.

Madame de Villegry, notwithstanding her profuse use of henna and many cosmetics, which was always the first thing to strike those who saw her, prided herself on being uncompromised as to her moral character.  There are some women who, because they stop short of actual vice, consider themselves irreproachable.  They are willing, so to speak, to hang out the bush, but keep no tavern.  In former times an appearance of evil was avoided in order to cover evil deeds, but at present there are those who, under the cover of being only “fast,” risk the appearance of evil.

Madame de Villegry was what is sometimes called a “professional beauty.”  She devoted many hours daily to her toilette, she liked to have a crowd of admirers around her.  But when one of them became too troublesome, she got rid of him by persuading him to marry.  She had before this proposed several young girls to Gerard de Cymier, each one plainer and more insignificant than the others.  It was to tell his dear friend that the one she had last suggested was positively too ugly for him, that the young attache to an embassy had come down to the sea-side to visit her.

The day after his arrival he was sitting on the shingle at Madame de Villegry’s feet, both much amused by the grotesque spectacle presented by the bathers, who exhibited themselves in all degrees of ugliness and deformity.  Of course Madame de Villegry did not bathe, being, as she said, too nervous.  She was sitting under a large parasol and enjoying her own superiority over those wretched, amphibious creatures who waddled on the sands before her, comparing Madame X to a seal and Mademoiselle Z to the skeleton of a cuttle-fish.