"Countess!--who knows? Ambassadress! Perhaps--some day--" CHAPTER VIII A PUZZLING CORRESPONDENCE "But I can not see any reason why we should not take Jacqueline with us to Italy. She is just of an age to profit by it." These words were spoken by M. de Nailles after a long silence at the breakfast-table. They startled his hearers like a bomb. Jacqueline waited to hear what would come next, fixing a keen look upon her stepmother. Their eyes met like the flash of two swords. The eyes of the one said: "Now, let us hear what you will answer!" while the other strove to maintain that calmness which comes to some people in a moment of danger. The Baroness grew a little pale, and then said, in her softest tones: "You are quite right, 'mon ami', but Jacqueline, I think, prefers to stay." "I decidedly prefer to stay," said Jacqueline. Her adversary, much relieved by this response, could not repress a sigh. "It seems singular," said M. de Nailles. "What! that I prefer to pass a month or six weeks with Madame d'Argy? Besides, Giselle is going to be married during that time." "They might put it off until we come back, I should suppose." "Oh! I don't think they would," cried the Baroness. "Madame de Monredon is so selfish. She was offended to think we should talk of going away on the eve of an event she considers so important. Besides, she has so little regard for me that I should think her more likely to hasten the wedding-day rather than retard it, if it were only for the pleasure of giving us a lesson." "I am sorry. I should have been glad to be, as she wished, one of Giselle's witnesses, but people don't take my position into consideration. If I do not take advantage of the recess--" "Besides," interrupted Jacqueline, carelessly, "your journey must coincide with that of Monsieur Marien." She had the pleasure of seeing her stepmother again slightly change color. Madame de Nailles was pouring out for herself a cup of tea with singular care and attention. "Of course," said M. de Nailles. His daughter pitied him, and cried, with an increasing wish to annoy her stepmother: "Mamma, don't you see that your teapot has no tea in it? Yes," she went on, "it must be delightful to travel in Italy in company with a great artist who would explain everything; but then one would be expected to visit all the picture-galleries, and I hate pictures, since--" She paused and again looked meaningly at her stepmother, whose soft blue eyes showed anguish of spirit, and seemed to say: "Oh, what a cruel hold she has upon me!" Jacqueline continued, carelessly-- "Picture-galleries I don't care for--I like nature a hundred times better. Some day I should like to take a journey to suit myself, my own journey! Oh, papa, may I? A journey on foot with you in the Tyrol?" Madame de Nailles was no great walker. "Both of us, just you and I alone, with our alpenstocks in our hands--it would be lovely! But Italy and painters--"