nothing else, Jacqueline felt herself half naked,
though she was buttoned up to her throat. She
had taken an attitude on her wooden horse such as
might have been envied by an accomplished equestrienne,
her elbows held well back, her shoulders down, her
chest expanded, her right leg over the pommel, her
left foot in the stirrup, and never after did any
real gallop give her the same delight as this imaginary
ride on an imaginary horse, she looking at herself
with entire satisfaction all the time in an enormous
cheval-glass.
ETEXT editor’s
bookmarks:
Great interval between
a dream and its execution
Music—so
often dangerous to married happiness
Old women—at
least thirty years old!
Seldom troubled himself
to please any one he did not care for
Small women ought not
to grow stout
Sympathetic listening,
never having herself anything to say
The bandage love ties
over the eyes of men
Waste all that upon
a thing that nobody will ever look at
Women who are thirty-five
should never weep
By THERESE BENTZON (MME. BLANC)
THE BLUE BAND
Love, like any other human malady, should be treated
according to the age and temperament of the sufferer.
Madame de Nailles, who was a very keen observer, especially
where her own interests were concerned, lent herself
with the best possible grace to everything that might
amuse and distract Jacqueline, of whom she had by
this time grown afraid. Not that she now dreaded
her as a rival. The attitude of coldness and reserve
that the young girl had adopted in her intercourse
with Marien, her stepmother could see, was no evidence
of coquetry. She showed, in her behavior to the
friend of the family, a freedom from embarrassment
which was new to her, and a frigidity which could
not possibly have been assumed so persistently.
No! what struck Madame de Nailles was the suddenness
of this transformation. Jacqueline evidently
took no further interest in Marien; she had apparently
no longer any affection for herself—she,
who had been once her dear little mamma, whom she
had loved so tenderly, now felt herself to be considered
only as a stepmother. Fraulein Schult, too, received
no more confidences. What did it all mean?
Had Jacqueline, through any means, discovered a secret,
which, in her hands, might be turned into a most dangerous
weapon? She had a way of saying before the guilty
pair: “Poor papa!” with an air of
pity, as she kissed him, which made Madame de Nailles’s
flesh creep, and sometimes she would amuse herself
by making ambiguous remarks which shot arrows of suspicion
into a heart already afraid. “I feel sure,”
thought the Baroness, “that she has found out
everything. But, no! it seems impossible.
How can I discover what she knows?”
