“Oh! yes, Jacqueline, I know, is devoted to music,” went on Madame d’Argy, with an air of extreme disapproval, “too much so! And when she is able to sing like Madame Strahlberg, what good will it do her? Even now I see more than one little thing about her that needs to be reformed. How can she escape spoiling in that crowd of Slavs and Yankees, people of no position probably in their own countries, with whom you permit her to associate? People nowadays are so imprudent about acquaintances! To be a foreigner is a passport into society. Just think what her poor mother would have said to the bad manners she is adopting from all parts of the globe? My poor, dear Adelaide! She was a genuine Frenchwoman of the old type; there are not many such left now. Ah!” continued Madame d’Argy, without any apparent connection with her subject, “Monsieur de Talbrun’s mother, if he had one, would be truly happy to see him married to Giselle!” “But,” faltered M. de Nailles, struck by the truth of some of these remarks, “I make no opposition--quite the contrary--I have spoken several times about your son, but I was not listened to!” “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--”