picture. It had been sent away to Grandchaux,
which was tantamount to its being buried. Hubert
Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family.
From that time forth he took less and less notice
of Jacqueline—whether it were that he owed
her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the
means of bringing upon him, or whether he feared to
burn himself in the flame which had once scorched
him more than he admitted to himself, who can say?
Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders.
A CONVENT FLOWER
One of Jacqueline’s first walks, after she had
recovered, was to see her cousin Giselle at her convent.
She did not seek this friend’s society when
she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she
thought her a little straightlaced, or, as she said,
too like a nun; but nobody could condole or sympathize
with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed
as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister
of Charity—a Gray Sister, as Jacqueline
would sometimes call her, making fun of her somewhat
dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than
stimulated, by the education she had received.
The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street
on the left bank of the Seine, all gardens and hotels—that
is, detached houses. Grass sprouted here and
there among the cobblestones. There were no street-lamps
and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there.
The petals of an acacia, which peeped timidly over
its high wall, dropped, like flakes of snow, on the
few pedestrians who passed by it in the springtime.
The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square
courtyard, on one side of which was the chapel, on
the other, the door that led into the convent.
Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her
old nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her
German lessons, and was striving to put off as long
as possible any intercourse with Fraulein Schult, who
had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps
renew the odious subject. Walking with Modeste,
on the contrary, seemed like going back to the days
of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed
her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now
very far away; it was a reminiscence of the far-off
limbo in which her young soul, pure and white, had
floated, without rapture, but without any great grief
or pain.
The porteress showed them into the parlor. There
they found several pupils who were talking to members
of their families, from whom they were separated by
a grille, whose black bars gave to those within the
appearance of captives, and made rather a barrier to
eager demonstrations of affection, though they did
not hinder the reception of good things to eat.
“Tiens! I have brought you some chocolate,”
said Jacqueline to Giselle, as soon as her cousin
appeared, looking far prettier in her black cloth
frock than when she wore an ordinary walking-costume.
Her fair hair was drawn back ‘a la Chinoise’
from a white forehead resembling that of a German
Madonna; it was one of those foreheads, slightly and
delicately curved, which phrenologists tell us indicate
reflection and enthusiasm.
