At this moment, when Madame de Monredon was sitting
in judgment on the education given to the little girls
brought up in the world, and on the ruinous extravagance
of their young stepmothers, Madame de Nailles and
Jacqueline—their last visitors having departed—were
resting themselves, leaning tenderly against each
other, on a sofa. Jacqueline’s head lay
on her mother’s lap. Her mother, without
speaking, was stroking the girl’s dark hair.
Jacqueline, too, was silent, but from time to time
she kissed the slender fingers sparkling with rings,
as they came within reach of her lips.
When M. de Nailles, about dinner-time, surprised them
thus, he said, with satisfaction, as he had often
said before, that it would be hard to find a home
scene more charming, as they sat under the light of
a lamp with a pink shade.
That the stepmother and stepdaughter adored each other
was beyond a doubt. And yet, had any one been
able to look into their hearts at that moment, he
would have discovered with surprise that each was thinking
of something that she could not confide to the other.
Both were thinking of the same person. Madame
de Nailles was occupied with recollections, Jacqueline
with hope. She was absorbed in Machiavellian
strategy, how to realize a hope that had been formed
that very afternoon.
“What are you both thinking of, sitting there
so quietly?” said the Baron, stooping over them
and kissing first his wife and then his child.
“About nothing,” said the wife, with the
most innocent of smiles.
“Oh! I am thinking,” said Jacqueline,
“of many things. I have a secret, papa,
that I want to tell you when we are quite alone.
Don’t be jealous, dear mamma. It is something
about a surprise—Oh, a lovely surprise for
you.”
“Saint Clotilde’s day-my fete-day is still
far off,” said Madame de Nailles, refastening,
mother-like, the ribbon that was intended to keep
in order the rough ripples of Jacqueline’s unruly
hair, “and usually your whisperings begin as
the day approaches my fete.”
“Oh, dear!—you will go and guess
it!” cried Jacqueline in alarm. “Oh!
don’t guess it, please.”
“Well! I will do my best not to guess,
then,” said the good-natured Clotilde, with
a laugh.
“And I assure you, for my part, that I am discretion
itself,” said M. de Nailles.
So saying, he drew his wife’s arm within his
own, and the three passed gayly together into the
dining-room.
A CLEVER STEPMOTHER
No man took more pleasure than M. de Nailles in finding
himself in his own home—partly, perhaps,
because circumstances compelled him to be very little
there. The post of deputy in the French Chamber
is no sinecure. He was not often an orator from
the tribune, but he was absorbed by work in the committees—“Harnessed
to a lot of bothering reports,” as Jacqueline
used to say to him. He had barely any time to
give to those important duties of his position, by
which, as is well known, members of the Corps Legislatif
are shamelessly harassed by constituents, who, on pretence
that they have helped to place the interests of their
district in your hands, feel authorized to worry you
with personal matters, such as the choice of agricultural
machines, or a place to be found for a wet-nurse.
