"Bah!" she answered these doubts. "It will be very easy. I will go in on tiptoe, so that she can't hear me. I will slip behind her chair, and I will hug her suddenly, so tight, so tenderly, and kiss her till she tells me that all has been forgiven." As she thought thus Jacqueline noiselessly opened the door of the salon, over which, on the inner side, hung a thick plush 'portiere'. But as she was about to lift it, the sound of a voice within made her stand motionless. She recognized the tones of Marien. He was pleading, imploring, interrupted now and then by the sharp and still angry voice of her mamma. They were not speaking above their breath, but if she listened she could hear them, and, without any scruples of conscience, she did listen intently, anxious to see her way through the dark fog in which, for twelve days, she had wandered. "I do not go quite so far as that," said Madame de Nailles, dryly. "It is enough for me that she produced an illusion of such beauty upon you. Now I know what to expect--" "That is nonsense," replied Marien--"mere foolishness. You jealous! jealous of a baby whom I knew when she wore white pinafores, who has grown up under my very eyes? But, so far as I am concerned, she exists no longer. She is not, she never will be in my eyes, a woman. I shall think of her as playing with her doll, eating sugar-plums, and so on." Jacqueline grew faint. She shivered and leaned against the door-post. "One would not suppose so, to judge by the picture with which she has inspired you. You may say what you like, but I know that in all this there was a set purpose to insult me." "Clotilde!" "In the first place, on no pretext ought you to have been induced to paint her portrait." "Do you think so? Consider, had I refused, the danger of awakening suspicion? I accepted the commission most unwillingly, much put out by it, as you may suppose. But you are making too much of an imaginary fault. Consign the wretched picture to the barn, if you like. We will never say another word about so foolish a matter. You promise me to forget it, won't you?.... Dear! you will promise me?" he added, after a pause. Madame de Nailles sighed and replied: "If not she it will be some one else. I am very unhappy.... I am weak and contemptible...." "Clotilde!" replied Marien, in an accent that went to Jacqueline's heart like a knife.