it was more easy to forgive him for talking always of his stud and of his kennel, and then he was so obliging!  Every day he proposed some new jaunt, an excursion to see some view, to visit all the ruined chateaux or abbeys in the neighborhood.  And, with surprising delicacy, M. de Talbrun refrained from inviting too many of his country neighbors, who might perhaps have scared Jacqueline and arrested her gradual return to gayety.  They might also have interrupted his tete-a-tete with his wife’s guest, for they had many such conversations.  Giselle was absorbed in the duty of teaching her son his a, b, c.  Besides, being very timid, she had never ridden on horseback, and, naturally, riding was delightful to her cousin.  Jacqueline was never tired of it; while she paid as little attention to the absurd remarks Oscar made to her between their gallops as a girl does at a ball to the idle words of her partner.  She supposed it was his custom to talk in that manner—­a sort of rough gallantry—­but with the best intentions.  Jacqueline was disposed to look upon her life at Fresne as a feast after a long famine.  Everything was to her taste, the whole appearance of this lordly chateau of the time of Louis XIII, the splendid trees in the home park, the gardens laid out ‘a la Francais’, decorated with art and kept up carefully.  Everything, indeed, that pertained to that high life which to Giselle had so little importance, was to her delightful.  Giselle’s taste was so simple that it was a constant subject of reproach from her husband.  To be sure, it was with him a general rule to find fault with her about everything.  He did not spare her his reproaches on a multitude of subjects; all day long he was worrying her about small trifles with which he should have had nothing to do.  It is a mistake to suppose that a man can not be brutal and fussy at the same time.  M. de Talbrun was proof to the contrary.

“You are too patient,” said Jacqueline often to Giselle.  “You ought to answer him back—­to defend yourself.  I am sure if you did so you would have him, by-and-bye, at your beck and call.”

“Perhaps so.  I dare say you could have managed better than I do,” replied Giselle, with a sad smile, but without a spark of jealousy.  “Oh, you are in high favor.  He gave up this week the races at Deauville, the great race week from which he has never before been absent, since our marriage.  But you see my ambition has become limited; I am satisfied if he lets me alone.”  Giselle spoke these words with emphasis, and then she added:  “and lets me bring up his son my own way.  That is all I ask.”

Jacqueline thought in her heart that it was wrong to ask so little, that poor Giselle did not know how to make the best of her husband, and, curious to find out what line of conduct would serve best to subjugate M. de Talbrun, she became herself—­that is to say, a born coquette —­venturing from one thing to another, like a child playing fearlessly with a bulldog, who is gentle only with him, or a fly buzzing round a spider’s web, while the spider lies quietly within.