"Your arms must be like your legs. But, sitting as you were just now,
I could see only your head, which is better. So! one has to be
accountable for looking at you? Mademoiselle feels herself affronted if
any one stares at her! I will remember this in future. There, now!
suppose, instead of quarrelling with me, you were to go and cast yourself
into the arms of your cousin Fred."

"Fred! Fred d'Argy! Fred is at Brest."

"Where are your eyes, my dear child? He has just come in with his
mother."

And at that moment Madame de Nailles, with her pure, clear voice--a voice
frequently compared to that of Mademoiselle Reichemberg, called:

"Jacqueline!"

Jacqueline never crossed the imaginary line which divided the two salons
unless she was called upon to do so. She was still summoned like a child
to speak to certain persons who took an especial interest in her, and who
were kind enough to wish to see her--Madame d'Argy, for example, who had
been the dearest friend of her dead mother. The death of that mother,
who had been long replaced by a stepmother, could hardly be said to be
deeply regretted by Jacqueline. She remembered her very indistinctly.
The stories of her she had heard from Modeste, her old nurse, probably
served her instead of any actual memory. She knew her only as a woman
pale and in ill health, always lying on a sofa. The little black frock
that had been made for her had been hardly worn out when a new mamma, as
gay and fresh as the other had been sick and suffering, had come into the
household like a ray of sunshine.