to herself, that the career of an actress is compatible with self-respect.  This resolve that she would never be found wanting in self-respect held a prominent place in all her plans, as she began to understand better those dangers in life which are for the most part unknown to young girls born in her social position.  Jacqueline’s character, far from being injured by her trials and experiences, had gained in strength.  She grew firmer as she gained in knowledge.  Never had she been so worthy of regard and interest as at the very time when her friends were saying sadly to themselves, “She is going to the bad,” and when, from all appearances, they were right in this conclusion.

CHAPTER XVII

TWIN DEVILS

Jacqueline came to the conclusion that she had better seriously consult Madame Strahlberg.  She therefore stopped at Monaco, where this friend, whom she intended to honor with the strange office of Mentor, was passing the winter in a little villa in the Condamine quarter—­a cottage surrounded by roses and laurel-bushes, painted in soft colors and looking like a plaything.

Madame Strahlberg had already urged Jacqueline to come and make acquaintance with her “paradise,” without giving her any hint of the delights of that paradise, from which that of gambling was not excluded, for Madame Strahlberg was eager for any kind of excitement.  Roulette now occupied with her a large part of every night—­indeed, her nights had been rarely given to slumber, for her creed was that morning is the time for sleep, for which reason they never took breakfast in the pink villa, but tea, cakes, and confectionery were eaten instead at all hours until the evening.  Thus it happened very often that they had no dinner, and guests had to accommodate themselves to the strange ways of the family.  Jacqueline, however, did not stay long enough to know much of those ways.

She arrived, poor thing, with weary wing, like some bird, who, escaping from the fowler’s net, where it has left its feathers, flies straight to the spot where a sportsman lies ready to shoot it.  She was received with the same cries of joy, the same kisses, the same demonstrations of affection, as those which, the summer before, had welcomed her to the Rue de Naples.  They told her she could sleep on a sofa, exactly like the one on which she had passed that terrible night which had resulted in her expulsion from the convent; and it was decided that she must stay several days, at least, before she went on to Paris, to begin the life of hard study and courageous work which would make of her a great singer.

Tired?—­No, she was hardly tired at all.  The journey over the enchanting road of the Corniche had awakened in her a fervor of admiration which prevented her from feeling any bodily needs, and now she seemed to have reached fairyland, where the verdure of the tropics was like the hanging gardens of Babylon, only those had never had a mirror to reflect back their ancient, far-famed splendor, like that before her eyes, as she looked down upon the Mediterranean, with the sun setting in the west in a sky all crimson and gold.