"In short," said Madame de l'Estorade, "you are trying to make me admit that the surest way to think of a person is to put him out of sight."

"Listen to me, my dear," said Madame de Camps, with a slight touch of gravity. "I have read and re-read your letters. You were there your own self, more natural and less quibbling than you are now, and an impression has remained upon my mind: it is that Monsieur de Sallenauve has touched your heart, though he may not have entered it."

Madame de l'Estorade made a gesture of denial, but the confessor went on:--

"I know that idea provokes you; you can't very well admit to me what you have studiously denied to yourself. But what is, is. We don't say of a man, 'A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye without meeting it'; we don't cry out, 'I am invulnerable on the side of love,'

without having had some p.r.i.c.kings of it."

"But so many things have happened since I wrote that nonsense."

"True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a minister,--not like Monsieur de Rastignac, but like our great poet, Ca.n.a.lis."

"I like sermons with definite deductions," said Madame de l'Estorade, with a touch of impatience.

"That is what Vergniaud said to Robespierre on the 31st of May, and I reply, with Robespierre, Yes, I'll draw my conclusion; and it is against your self-confidence as a woman, who, having reached the age of thirty-two without a suspicion of what love is, cannot admit that at this late date she may be subjected to the common law."

"But what I want is a practical conclusion," said Madame de l'Estorade, tapping her foot.

"My practical conclusion,--here it is," replied Madame Octave. "If you will not persist in the folly of swimming against the current, I see no danger whatever in your being submerged. You are strong; you have principles and religion; you adore your children; you love Monsieur de l'Estorade, their father, in them. With all that ballast you cannot sink."

"Well?" said Madame de l'Estorade, interrogatively.

"Well, there is no need to have recourse to violent measures, the success of which is very problematical. Remain as you are; build no barricades when no one attacks you. Don't excite tempests of heart and conscience merely to pacify your conscience and quiet your heart, now ruffled only by a tiny breeze. No doubt between a man and a woman the sentiment of friendship does take something of the character ordinarily given to love; but such friendship is neither an impossible illusion nor is it a yawning gulf."

"Then," said Madame de l'Estorade, with a thoughtful air, "do you wish me to make a friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve?"

"Yes, dear, in order not to make him a fixed idea, a regret, a struggle,--three things which poison life."

"But my husband, who has already had a touch of jealousy?"

"As for your husband, I find him somewhat changed, and not for the better. I miss that deference he always showed to you personally, to your ideas and impressions,--a deference which honored him more than he thought, because there is true greatness in the power to admire. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that public life is spoiling him a little. As you cannot be with him in the Chamber of peers, he is beginning to suspect that he can have a life without you. If I were you, I should watch these symptoms of independence, and not let the work of your lifetime come to nought."

"Do you know, my dear," said Madame de l'Estorade, laughing, "that you are giving me advice that may end in fire and slaughter?"

"Not at all. I am a woman forty-five years of age, who has always seen things on their practical side. I did not marry my husband, whom I loved, until I had convinced myself, by putting him to the test, that he was worthy of my esteem. I don't make life; I take it as it comes,--trying to put order and _possibility_ into all the occurrences it brings to me. I an neither the frenzied pa.s.sion of Louise de Chaulieu, nor the insensible reason of Renee de Maucombe. I am a Jesuit in petticoats, persuaded that rather wide sleeves are better than sleeves that are tight to the wrist; and I have never gone in search of the philosopher's stone--"

At this instant Lucas opened the door of the salon and announced,--

"Monsieur le Comte de Sallenauve."

His mistress gave him a look inquiring why he had disobeyed her orders, to which Lucas replied by a sign implying that he did not suppose the prohibition applied in this instance.

Madame de Camps, who had never yet seen the new deputy, now gave her closest attention to a study of him.

Sallenauve explained his visit by his great desire to know how matters had gone at Ville d'Avray, and whether Marie-Gaston had been deeply affected by his return there. As for the business which detained him in Paris, he said he had so far met with no success. He had seen the prefect of police, who had given him a letter to Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, the chief of the detective police. Aware of the antecedents of that man, Monsieur de Sallenauve expressed himself as much surprised to find a functionary with extremely good manners and bearing; but he held out faint hope of success. "A woman hiding in Paris," he said, "is an eel in its safest hole." He (Sallenauve) should continue the search the next day with the help of Jacques Bricheteau; but if nothing came of it, he should go in the evening to Ville d'Avray, for he did not, he said, share Madame de l'Estorade's security as to Gaston's state of mind.

As he was taking leave, Madame de l'Estorade said to him,--

"Do not forget Nais' ball which takes place the day after to-morrow.

You will affront her mortally if you fail to be present. Try to bring Monsieur Gaston with you. It might divert his mind a little."

V. CHILDREN

On his return from the theatre Monsieur Octave de Camps declared that it would be long before they caught him at a _fairy_ piece again. But Nais, on the contrary, still under the spell of its marvels gave a lively recital of the scene, which showed how much her imagination was capable of being stirred.

As Madame de Camps and her husband walked away together, the former remarked,--

"That child is really very disquieting. Madame de l'Estorade develops her too much; I should not be surprised if she gave her a great deal of trouble in future years."

It would be difficult to mark the precise moment in our contemporary habits and customs when a new species of religion, which might be called child-idolatry, appeared. Nor shall we find it easier to discover by what species of influence this worship has reached its present enormous development among us. But, although unexplained, the fact exists and ought to be recorded by every faithful historian of the great and the little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken the place of the household G.o.ds of the ancients, and whoever does not share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and annoying reasoner,--he is simply an atheist.

Try to amuse one of these beloved adored ones, all puffed up, as they naturally are, by a sense of their importance, with dolls and toys and Punch-and-Judys, as in the days of our unsophisticated innocence!

Nonsense! Boys must have ponies and cigarettes, and the reading of novelettes; and girls, the delight of playing hostess, giving afternoon dances, and evening parties at which the real Guignol of the Champs Elysees and Robert Houdin appear,--the entertainment being announced on the invitation cards. Sometimes, as now in the case of Nais de l'Estorade, these little sovereigns obtain permission to give a ball in _grown-up_ style,--so much so, that policemen are stationed about the doors, and Delisle, Nattier, and Prevost provide the toilets and the decorations.

With the character we have already seen in Nais, it may be said that no one was better fitted than she for the duties that devolved upon her by the abdication of her mother. This abdication took place before the evening of the ball itself, for it was Mademoiselle Nais de l'Estorade who, in her own name, invited her guests to do her the honor to pa.s.s the evening _chez elle_; and as Madame de l'Estorade would not allow the parody to go as far as printed cards, Nais spent several days writing her notes of invitation, taking care to put in the corner, in conspicuous letters, the sacramental word, "Dancing."

Nothing could be more curious, or, as Madame de Camps might have said, more alarming, than the self-possession of this little girl of fourteen, behaving precisely as she had seen her mother do on like occasions; stationed, to receive her company, at the door of the salon, and marking by her manner the proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the degrees of intimacy,--simple inclination of the head for unknown guests or those of less account; with little speeches now and then, and delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage that element may be.

With the fathers and mothers of her guests, as the ball was not given for them, Nais as a general thing reversed the nature of the Gospel invocation, _Sinite parvulos venire ad me_, and was careful not to pa.s.s the limit of cold though respectful politeness. But when Lucas, following the instructions he had received, reversed the natural order of things and announced, "Mesdemoiselles de la Roche-Hugon, Madame la Baronne de la Roche-Hugon, and Madame la Comtesse de Rastignac," the little strategist laid aside her reserve, and, running up to the wife of the minister, she took her hand and pressed it to her lips with charming grace.

After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of her engagements,--a circ.u.mstance which very nearly led, in spite of the _entente cordiale_, to an open rupture between France and perfidious Albion. A quadrille doubly promised, to a young English peer aged ten and a pupil in the Naval School of about the same years, came very near producing unpleasant complications, inasmuch as the young British scion of n.o.bility had a.s.sumed a boxing att.i.tude. That fray pacified, another annoying episode occurred. A small boy, seeing a servant with a tray of refreshments and being unable to reach up to the objects of his greed, had the deplorable idea of putting his hand on the edge of the tray and bending it down to him. Result: a cascade of mingled orgeat, negus, and syrups; and happy would it have been had the young author of this mischief been the only sufferer from the sugary torrent; but, alas!

nearly a dozen innocent victims were splashed and spattered by the disastrous accident,--among them four or five bacchantes, who were furious at seeing their toilets injured, and would fain have made an Orpheus of the clumsy infant. While he was being rescued with great difficulty from their clutches by the German governess, a voice was heard amid the hubbub,--that of a pretty little blonde, saying to a small Scottish youth with whom she had danced the whole evening,--

"How odd of Nais to invite little boys of that age!"

"That's easily explained," said the Scottish youth; "he's a boy of the Treasury department. Nais had to ask him on account of her parents,--a matter of policy, you know."

Then, taking the arm of one of his friends, the same youth continued:--

"Hey, Ernest," he said, "I'd like a cigar; suppose we find a quiet corner, out of the way of all this racket?"

"I can't, my dear fellow," replied Ernest, in a whisper; "you know Leontine always makes me a scene when she smells I've been smoking, and she is charming to me to-night. See, look at what she has given me!"

"A horse-hair ring!" exclaimed the Scot, disdainfully, "with two locked hearts; all the boys at school have them."

"What have you to show that's better?" replied Ernest, in a piqued tone.

"Oh!" said the Scot, with a superior air, "something much better."

And drawing from the pouch which formed an integral part of his costume a note on violet paper highly perfumed,--

"There," he said, putting it under Ernest's nose, "smell that!"

Indelicate friend that he was, Ernest pounced upon the note and took possession of it. The Scottish youth, furious, flung himself upon the treacherous French boy; on which Monsieur de l'Estorade, a thousand leagues from imagining the subject of the quarrel, intervened and parted the combatants, which enabled the ravisher to escape into a corner of the salon to enjoy his booty. The note contained no writing. The young scamp had probably taken the paper out of his mother's blotting-book.

A moment after, returning to his adversary and giving him the note, he said in a jeering tone,--