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That night, at the Casino, while dancing a quadrille with Giselle, he could not refrain from saying to her, "Don't you object to Monsieur de Talbrun's dancing so much with Jacqueline?" "Who? I?" she cried, astonished, "I don't see why he should not." And then, with a faint laugh, she added: "Oh, if she would only take him and keep him!" But Madame de Monredon kept a sharp eye upon M. de Talbrun.
Thereupon ensued the poor lady's usual lamentations over the long, long absence of her beloved son; as usual, she told him she did not think she should live to see him back again; she gave him a full account of her maladies, caused, or at least aggravated, by her mortal, constant, incurable sorrow; and she told how Giselle had been nursing her with all the patience and devotion of a Sister of Charity.
"I think you might do better than that," said Giselle, wiping her friend's eyes almost as a mother might have done, "if you would only listen to Fred." Jacqueline's cheeks became crimson. "Don't mock me it is cruel I am too unworthy it would pain me to see him. Shame regret you understand! But I can tell you one thing, Giselle only you.
Giselle illustrated this day by day in her relations to a husband as disagreeable as a husband well could be, a man of small intelligence, who was not even faithful to her. But she did not cite herself as an example. She never talked about herself, or her own difficulties. "You are an angel of sense and goodness," sobbed Jacqueline. "I will do whatever you wish me to do."
"A matchmaker already!" said the Baroness, with a smile. "And so soon after you have found out what it costs to be a mother! How good of you, my dear Giselle! So you support Fred as a candidate? But I can't say I think he has much chance; Monsieur de Nailles has his own ideas." She spoke as if she really thought that M. de Nailles could have any ideas but her own.
People have heard about her doings until they are tired of them," said Giselle, with that air of knowing everything assumed by a young wife whose husband has told her all the current scandals, as a sort of initiation. "And her sister seems likely to be as bad as herself before long." "Poor Colette! She has been so badly brought up. It is not her fault."
It came into his mind that he would pay a little visit to Giselle, who, of all the people he knew, was the least likely to provoke a quarrel. He had heard that Madame de Talbrun did not go out, being confined to her sofa by much suffering, which, it might be hoped, would soon come to an end; and the certainty that he should find her if he called at once decided him.
Oh! you have come at last!" cried Jacqueline, throwing her arms around her, but Giselle repelled her with a gesture so severe that the poor child could not but understand its meaning. She murmured, pointing to the pile of newspapers: "Is it possible? Can you have believed all those dreadful things?" "What things? I have read nothing," said Giselle, harshly.
When she attempted to allude to the subject on which Jacqueline had spoken to her at the convent, and to ask her what it was that had then made her so unhappy, Jacqueline cried: "Oh! my dear, I have forgotten all about it!" But there was exaggeration in this profession of forgetfulness, and she hurriedly drew Giselle back to the game of croquet, where they were joined by M. de Talbrun.
It seemed indeed as if the Argus in a black veil had overheard part of this conversation, not perhaps the griefs of Jacqueline, which were not very intelligible, but some of the words spoken by Giselle, for, drawing near her, she said, gently: "We, too, shall all grieve to lose you, my dearest child; but remember one can serve God anywhere, and save one's soul in the world as well as in a convent."
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