Clotilde rewarded M. de Nailles with a smile—the first smile she had given him since their quarrel about Jacqueline.
"My wife has got over her displeasure," he said to himself, delightedly.
Jacqueline, on her part, well remembered the day when Hubert had spoken to her for the first time of his intended journey, and how he had added, in a tone which she now knew to be badinage, but which then, alas! she had believed serious: "Suppose we go together!"
And her impulse to shed tears became so great, that when they left the dinner-table she escaped to her own room, under pretence of a headache.
"Yes—you are looking wretchedly," said her stepmother. And, turning to M. de Nailles, she added: "Don't you think, 'mon ami', she is as yellow as a quince!" Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been his little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time with repugnance.
"You are suffering, my poor Jacqueline!" he ventured to say.
"Oh! not much," she answered, with a glance at once haughty and defiant, "to-morrow I shall be quite well again."
And, saying this, she had the courage to laugh.
But she was not quite well the next day; and for many days after she was forced to stay in bed. The doctor who came to see her talked about "low fever," attributed it to too rapid growth, and prescribed sea-bathing for her that summer. The fever, which was not very severe, was of great service to Jacqueline. It enabled her to recover in quiet from the effects of a bitter deception.
Madame de Nailles was not sufficiently uneasy about her to be always at her bedside. Usually the sick girl stayed alone, with her window- curtains closed, lying there in the soft half-light that was soothing to her nerves. The silence was broken at intervals by the voice of Modeste, who would come and offer her her medicine. When Jacqueline had taken it, she would shut her eyes, and resume, half asleep, her sad reflections. These were always the same. What could be the tie between her stepmother and Marien?