Madame Worms-Clavelin looked her up and down with a curious mixture of motherly solicitude and horse-dealer’s curiosity. Drawing her close, she glanced at her teeth, made her stand upright; looked at her figure, her shoulders and her back, and seemed pleased. “Heavens! how tall you are!” she exclaimed. “You have such long arms!...” “Don’t worry me about them, mamma! As it is, I never know what to do with them.” She sat down and clasped her red hands across her knees. She replied with a graceful air of boredom to the questions which her mother asked about her health, and listened wearily to her instructions about healthy habits and to her advice in the matter of cod-liver oil. Then she asked: “And how is papa?” Madame Worms-Clavelin was almost astonished whenever anyone asked her about her husband, not because she was herself indifferent to him, but because she felt it was impossible to say anything new about this firm, unchangeable, stolid man, who was never ill and who never said or did anything original. “Your father? What could happen to him? We have a very good position and no wish to change it.” All the same, she thought it would soon be advisable to look out for a suitable sinecure, either in the treasury, or, perhaps rather, in the Council of State. At the thought her beautiful eyes grew dim with reverie. Her daughter asked what she was thinking about. “I was thinking that one day we might return to Paris. I like Paris for my part, but there we should hardly count.” “Yet papa has great abilities. Sister Sainte-Marie-des-Anges said so once in class. She said: ‘Mademoiselle de Clavelin, your father has shown great administrative talents.’” Madame Worms-Clavelin shook her head. “One wants so much money to live in style in Paris.” “You like Paris, mamma, but for my part I like the country best.” “You know nothing about it, pet.” “But, mamma, one doesn’t care only for what one knows.” “There is, perhaps, some truth in what you say.” “You haven’t heard, mamma?... I have won the prize for history composition. Madame de Saint-Joseph said I was the only one who had treated the subject thoroughly.” Madame Worms-Clavelin asked gently: “What subject?” “The Pragmatic Sanction.” Madame Worms-Clavelin asked, this time with an accent of real surprise: “What is that?” “It was one of Charles VII’s mistakes. It was, indeed, the greatest mistake he ever made.” Madame Worms-Clavelin found this answer by no means enlightening. But since she took no interest in the history of the Middle Ages, she was willing to let the matter drop. But Jeanne, who was full of her subject, went on in all seriousness: “Yes, mamma. It was the greatest crime of that reign, a flagrant violation of the rights of the Holy See, a criminal robbery of the inheritance of St. Peter. But happily the error was set right by Francis I. And whilst we are on this subject, mamma, do you know we have found out that Alice’s governess was an old wanton?...”