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Reed and cloth came down to me, and I found another paper and a hundred crowns in gold, without any other coin. The renegade was present, and in our cell we gave him the paper to read, which was to this effect: "I cannot think of a plan, senor, for our going to Spain, nor has Lela Marien shown me one, though I have asked her.
A week later M. de Nailles said to Hubert Marien, as they were smoking together in the conservatory, after the usual little family dinner on Wednesday was over: "Well! when would you like Jacqueline to come to sit for her picture?" "What! are you thinking about that?" cried the painter, letting his cigar fall in his astonishment. "She told me that you had proposed to make her portrait."
We at once gave him what he required, and he set about translating it bit by bit, and when he had done he said: "All that is here in Spanish is what the Moorish paper contains, and you must bear in mind that when it says 'Lela Marien' it means 'Our Lady the Virgin Mary."
And when I warned her against Madame Strahlberg, saying that she might set her a very bad example, she answered: 'I may have had worse. I suppose that was not meant for impertinence either!" "I don't know," said Hubert Marien, biting his lips doubtfully, "but " He was silent a few moments, his head drooped on his breast, he was in some painful reverie. "Go on.
It was the very figure of a statesman destined to high dignities. No one who gazed on such a deputy could doubt that one day he would be in the ministry. It was by such real services that Marien endeavored to repay the friendship and the kindness always awaiting him in the small house in the Parc Monceau, where we have just seen Jacqueline eagerly offering him some spiced cakes.
At last, after being long entreated, she was sure that M. and Madame de Nailles would end by giving their consent they were so fond of Marien. Standing there, dreaming this dream, which gave her face an expression of extreme happiness, Jacqueline made a most admirable model.
And while Fred's angry eyes, under his frowning brows, were wandering all round the salon, she pointed to Hubert Marien with a movement of her fan. Marien was looking on at the dancing, with his old smile, not so brilliant now as it had been. He now only smiled at beauty collectively, which was well represented that evening in Madame de Nailles's salon.
"I've as good a right to be helped first as he has." "Let us see if that is so. You and Marien and Henry came in from school, all hungry and anxious for your dinners. Marien is oldest she, one would suppose, from the fact that she is oldest, would be better able to feel for her brothers, and be willing to see their wants supplied before her own.
Probably that was the reason why she had been so pleased to hear Hubert Marien say unexpectedly that she was now ready for the portrait which had been often joked about, every one putting it off to the period, always remote, when "the may-pole" should have developed a pretty face and figure.
Men in black, with solemn faces, came and bore away the body, no longer like the form of the father she had loved. He had gone from her forever. Pompous funeral rites, little in accordance with the crash that soon succeeded them, were superintended by Marien, who, in the absence of near relatives, took charge of everything.