Jacqueline, vol 2 | Page 5

very rooms, as well as to lay bare everything that passes in them
to the public eye, as frankly as if their inmates bivouacked in the open
street. Nothing was private; neither the meals, nor the coming and
going of visitors. It must be said, however, that the inhabitants of these
glass houses were very seldom at home. Bathing, and croquet, or tennis,
at low water, on the sands, searching for shells, fishing with nets,
dances at the Casino, little family dances alternating with concerts, to
which even children went till nine o'clock, would seem enough to fill
up the days of these young people, but they had also to make boating
excursions to Cayeux, Crotoy, and Hourdel, besides riding parties in
the beautiful country that surrounded the Chateau of Lizerolles, where
they usually dismounted on their return.
At Lizerolles they were received by Madame d'Argy, who was
delighted that they provided safe amusement for her son, who appeared
in the midst of this group of half-grown girls like a young cock among
the hens of his harem. Frederic d'Argy, the young naval officer, who
was enjoying his holiday, as M. de Nailles had said, was enjoying it
exceedingly. How often, long after, on board the ship Floye, as he
paced the silent quarter-deck, far from any opportunity of flirting, did
he recall the forms and faces of these young girls, some dark, some fair,
some rosy- half-women and half-children, who made much of him, and
scolded him, and teased him, and contended for his attentions, while no
better could be had, on purpose to tease one another. Oh! what a
delightful time he had had! They did not leave him to himself one
moment. He had to lift them into their saddles, to assist them as they
clambered over the rocks, to superintend their attempts at swimming, to
dance with them all by turns, and to look after them in the difficult
character of Mentor, for he was older than they, and were they not
entrusted to his care? What a serious responsibility! Had not Mentor
even found himself too often timid and excited when one little firm foot

was placed in his hand, when his arm was round one little waist, when
he could render her as a cavalier a thousand little services, or accept
with gladness the role of her consoler. He did everything he could think
of to please them, finding all of them charming, though Jacqueline
never ceased to be the one he preferred, a preference which she might
easily have inferred from the poor lad's unusual timidity and
awkwardness when he was brought into contact with her. But she paid
no attention to his devotion, accepting himself and all he did for her as,
in some sort, her personal property.
He was of no consequence, he did not count; what was he but her
comrade and former playfellow?
Happily for Fred, he took pleasure in the familiarity with which she
treated him--a familiarity which, had he known it, was not flattering.
He was in the seventh heaven for a whole fortnight, during which he
was the recipient of more dried flowers and bows of ribbon than he
ever got in all the rest of his life--the American girls were very fond of
giving keepsakes--but then his star waned. He was no longer the only
one. The grown-up brother of the Wermants came to Treport--Raoul,
with his air of a young man about town--a boulevardier, with his jacket
cut in the latest fashion, with his cockle-shell of a boat, which he
managed as well on salt water as on fresh, sculling with his arms bare,
a cigarette in his mouth, a monocle in his eye, and a pith-helmet, such
as is worn in India. The young ladies used to gather on the sands to
watch him as he struck the water with the broad blade of his scull, near
enough for them to see and to admire his nautical ability. They thought
all his jokes amusing, and they delighted in his way of seizing his
partner for a waltz and bearing her off as if she were a prize, hardly
allowing her to touch the floor.
Fred thought him, with his stock of old jokes, very ill-mannered. He
laughed at his sculling, and had a great mind to strike him after he saw
him waltzing with Jacqueline. But he had to acknowledge the general
appreciation felt for the fellow whom he called vulgar.
Raoul Wermant did not stay long at Treport. He had only come to see
his sisters on his way to Dieppe, where he expected to meet a certain

Leah Skip, an actress from the 'Nouveautes'. If he kept her waiting,
however, for some days, it was because he was loath to leave the
handsome