"It is not to be thought of, Clemence: it would wear you out. See, you are crying now: it shows how weak and nervous you are. Besides, Leonie needs you. She is losing already, for nobody plays her accompaniments so well as you, and I do not like to have her go to the Conservatoire with a bonne when it can be helped: a girl so striking is likely to be watched and followed. I never feel safe about her unless you are with her. Don't be silly: the baby will be better off in the country." Madame Regnault was very kind to Leonie: it was impossible for her to be otherwise to any one. She was devoted to her for her father's sake: she felt a thrill of delight in her beauty, in her wonderful talents; but she did not love her. She might have loved her perhaps--though there was not much in common between the ardent, high-spirited girl and the gentle, patient woman, except, indeed, the taste for music--but it is not in nature, and hardly in grace, for a woman thirsting for her husband's love to like being always postponed to some one else. Colonel Regnault seemed to have no perception of anything but his beautiful daughter: his ambition was centred in her even more than his affection. Leonie's talent developed rapidly, and his pride was fed by the praises of her masters and the more flattering compliments of friends and connoisseurs who were present at the musical soirees given from time to time at his own house. But Leonie did not contribute to the peace of the household. Her aunt had not found it out, Madame Regnault never would have discovered it, but her father's despotic will roused one equally defiant in her, and when they came in contact it was the collision of flint and steel. Leonie often carried her point against her father, and he admired her only the more for it. The contests were quick and sharp--not very frequent, but very unpleasant to Madame Regnault. She grew thin and pale and spiritless. She was not yet thirty, and she had aged by half a score of years in the year and a half of her marriage. Her mother, Madame Dumesnil, was indignant at what she considered the colonel's neglect of his wife, and mentally threatened to give him "a piece of her mind." She had not long to wait for an occasion. "I am sorry to see Clemence looking so ill," said she to him as he entered his wife's dressing-room one day a little before breakfast--that is to say, about noon. "I had not noticed that she was ailing," he rejoined with a quick glance at his wife. "It is well that somebody has eyes," continued Madame Dumesnil. "I did not expect that my daughter was to become a governess when she married you. Her previous life had not prepared her for such arduous duties." "My wife does not complain," said the colonel haughtily.