"I shall not have to beg and implore her," she said to herself,
anticipating the objections of her stepmother. "I shall only have
politely to let her suspect that such a thing may have occurred as having
had a listener at a door. I paid dearly enough for this hold over her.
I have no scruple in using it."

Madame de Nailles was not mistaken in her stepdaughter; she was very far
advanced beyond her age, thanks to the cruel wrong that had been done her
by the loss of her trust in her elders and her respect for them. Her
heart had had its past, though she was still hardly more than a child--
a sad past, though its pain was being rapidly effaced. She now thought
about it only at intervals. Time and circumstances were operating on her
as they act upon us generally; only in her case more quickly than usual,
which produced in her character and feelings phenomena that might have
seemed curious to an observer. She was something of a woman, something
of a child, something of a philosopher. At night, when she was dancing
with Wermant, or Cymier, or even Talbrun, or on horseback, an exercise
which all the Blues were wild about, she was an audacious flirt, a girl
up to anything; and in the morning, at low tide, she might be seen, with
her legs and feet bare, among the children, of whom there were many on
the sands, digging ditches, making ramparts, constructing towers and
fortifications in wet sand, herself as much amused as if she had been one
of the babies themselves. There was screaming and jumping, and rushing
out of reach of the waves which came up ready to overthrow the most
complicated labors of the little architects, rough romping of all kinds,
enough to amaze and disconcert a lover.

But no one could have guessed at the thoughts which, in the midst of all
this fun and frolic, were passing through the too early ripened mind of