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It was said also that she was thinking of studying for the stage with La Rochette M. de Talbrun had heard it talked about in the foyer of the Opera by an old Prince from some foreign country she could not remember his name, but he was praising Madame Strahlberg without any reserve as the most delightful of Parisiennes.
'Du reste', she seemed absorbed in prayer or thought during the ceremony, in which I took up the offerings, by the way, with a young lieutenant of dragoons just out of the military school at Saint Cyr: a uniform always looks well on such occasions. Nor was Monsieur de Talbrun one of those lukewarm Christians who hear mass with their arms crossed and their noses in the air.
But some laid the blame on the influence of that little bigot of a Talbrun, who had secretly blown up the fire of religious enthusiasm in Jacqueline, when Madame d'Avrigny's energetic "Hush!" put an end to the discussion. It was time to come back to more immediate interests, to the play which went on in spite of wind and tide.
Two parties were formed, in which care was taken to make both sides as nearly equal as possible, after which the game began, with screams, with laughter, a little cheating and some disputes, as is the usual custom. All this appeared to amuse Oscar de Talbrun exceedingly. For the first time during his wooing he was not bored.
It is a mistake to suppose that a man can not be brutal and fussy at the same time. M. de Talbrun was proof to the contrary. "You are too patient," said Jacqueline often to Giselle. "You ought to answer him back to defend yourself. I am sure if you did so you would have him, by-and-bye, at your beck and call." "Perhaps so.
The experience through which Jacqueline had just passed was not calculated to fortify her or to elevate her soul. She felt for the first time that her unprotected situation and her poverty exposed her to insult, for what other name could she give to the outrageous behavior of M. de Talbrun, which had degraded her in her own eyes? What right had that man to treat her as his plaything?
He was passionately fond of Fred, climbing on his lap as soon as the latter arrived and always maintaining that he, too, wanted a pretty red ribbon to wear in his buttonhole, a ribbon only to be got by sailing far away over the seas, like sailors. "A sailor! Heaven forbid!" cried Madame de Talbrun. "Oh! sailors come back again. He has come back. Couldn't he take me away with him soon?
Meantime Jacqueline piqued herself upon her worldly wisdom, which she looked upon as equal to Madame de Monredon's, since the terrible event which had filled her mind with doubts. She thought M. de Talbrun would do well enough for a husband, and she took care to say so to Giselle.
M. de Talbrun frightened her as much as ever, and she had looked forward to the comfort of weeping in the arms of Jacqueline, who, the last time she had seen her, had been herself so unhappy.
And, with surprising delicacy, M. de Talbrun refrained from inviting too many of his country neighbors, who might perhaps have scared Jacqueline and arrested her gradual return to gayety. They might also have interrupted his tete-a-tete with his wife's guest, for they had many such conversations. Giselle was absorbed in the duty of teaching her son his a, b, c.
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