Now it happened before Regina and her husband left Paris that Madame de la Barre intimated through the girls that she would like to have a little confidential chat with her pupils' mother. "Mother," said Julia to Regina, "Madame wants to see you." "She has seen me," said Regina. "Yes, yes, mother, but she wants to see you _toute seule_. I suppose she wants to tell you some delinquencies of ours, or something." "I hope not," said Regina. "Well, dear, you must expect us to be human, like other girls. We have never been in any trouble since we came here, and I don't know why she wants to see you, but, anyway, she asks if you will do her the favor of taking tea with her to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock." "I will," said Regina. "She doesn't speak one word of English, you know," said Julia. "We shall communicate somehow," said Regina, with a superb air. "I don't know how," said Julia, "since you can't speak two words of French--" "_Excuse_ me," said Regina, pointedly. "Well, excuse me too, mother--I didn't mean to be rude. But your French isn't equal to your Latin, is it?" "I will be there," said Regina, with a distinct accession of dignity. And so, punctual to the moment, Regina appeared in the _salon_ of the schoolmistress. Their mode of communication was original, it was also a little difficult, but both being determined women, they overcame the difficulties of the situation with a supreme indifference to the effect the one might have upon the other. As a matter of fact, Julia had been a little wide of the mark when she had declared to her mother that Madame did not speak one word of English. Madame spoke a little more English than Regina spoke French, and by a series of contortions, gesticulations, and other efforts which I need not attempt to reproduce here, Madame de la Barre contrived to make known to Mrs. Whittaker her object in seeking for the interview. And her object in seeking the interview was that she should explain to her that she considered the taste in dress of the demoiselles Whittaker to be something too atrocious for words. "_C'est affreux! c'est affreux_," she exclaimed, when she found that Regina was a little dense of understanding. "Horreeble--horreeble!" "I have never," said Regina, speaking very slowly and distinctly, and with an indulgent air as if she were communicating with someone a little short of being an idiot, "I have never trained my children to care about those matters." "But they are young ladies! It is most important," Madame exclaimed, with quite a tragic air. "It will come," said Regina, waving her substantial hand with a vast gesture, as if good taste in dressing was likely to drop from the clouds, "it will come. I never worry about things that are not essential." "But it is essential for a young lady--a demoiselle--it is--it is for her life."