doing their best to lend her their aid.  Jacqueline was one of them, and, at the moment Fred approached, she was offering, with the tips of her fingers, a glass of champagne to M. de Cymier, who at the same time was eagerly trying to persuade her to believe something, about which she was gayly laughing, while she shook her head.  Poor Fred, that he might hear, and suffer, drank two mouthfuls of sherry which he could hardly swallow.

“One who was really charitable would not hesitate,” said M. de Cymier, “especially when every separate hair would be paid for if you chose.  Just one little curl—­for the sake of the poor.  It is very often done:  anything is allowable for the sake of the poor.”

“Maybe it is because, as you say, that it is very often done that I shall not do it,” said Jacqueline, still laughing.  “I have made up my mind never to do what others have done before me.”

“Well, we shall see,” said M. de Cymier, pretending to threaten her.

And her young head was thrown back in a burst of inextinguishable laughter.

Fred fled, that he might not be tempted to make a disturbance.  When he found himself again in the street, he asked himself where he should go.  His anger choked him; he felt he could not keep his resentment to himself, and yet, however angry he might be with Jacqueline, he would have been unwilling to hear his mother give utterance to the very sentiments that he was feeling, or to harsh judgments, of which he preferred to keep the monopoly.  It came into his mind that he would pay a little visit to Giselle, who, of all the people he knew, was the least likely to provoke a quarrel.  He had heard that Madame de Talbrun did not go out, being confined to her sofa by much suffering, which, it might be hoped, would soon come to an end; and the certainty that he should find her if he called at once decided him.  Since he had been in Paris he had done nothing but leave cards.  This time, however, he was sure that the lady upon whom he called would be at home.  He was taken at once into the young wife’s boudoir, where he found her very feeble, lying back upon her cushions, alone, and working at some little bits of baby-clothes.  He was not slow to perceive that she was very glad to see him.  She flushed with pleasure as he came into the room, and, dropping her sewing, held out to him two little, thin hands, white as wax.  “Take that footstool—­sit down there—­what a great, great pleasure it is to see you back again!” She was more expansive than she had been formerly; she had gained a certain ease which comes from intercourse with the world, but how delicate she seemed!  Fred for a moment looked at her in silence, she seemed so changed as she lay there in a loose robe of pale blue cashmere, whose train drawn over her feet made her look tall as it stretched to the end of the gilded couch, round which Giselle had collected all the little things required by an invalid—­bottles, boxes, work-bag, dressing-case, and writing materials.