And her young head was thrown back in a burst of inextinguishable
laughter.

Fred fled, that he might not be tempted to make a disturbance. When he
found himself again in the street, he asked himself where he should go.
His anger choked him; he felt he could not keep his resentment to
himself, and yet, however angry he might be with Jacqueline, he would
have been unwilling to hear his mother give utterance to the very
sentiments that he was feeling, or to harsh judgments, of which he
preferred to keep the monopoly. 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. Since he had been in Paris he had
done nothing but leave cards. This time, however, he was sure that the
lady upon whom he called would be at home. He was taken at once into the
young wife's boudoir, where he found her very feeble, lying back upon her
cushions, alone, and working at some little bits of baby-clothes. He was
not slow to perceive that she was very glad to see him. She flushed with
pleasure as he came into the room, and, dropping her sewing, held out to
him two little, thin hands, white as wax. "Take that footstool--sit down
there--what a great, great pleasure it is to see you back again!" She
was more expansive than she had been formerly; she had gained a certain
ease which comes from intercourse with the world, but how delicate she
seemed! Fred for a moment looked at her in silence, she seemed so
changed as she lay there in a loose robe of pale blue cashmere, whose
train drawn over her feet made her look tall as it stretched to the end
of the gilded couch, round which Giselle had collected all the little
things required by an invalid--bottles, boxes, work-bag, dressing-case,