Her young head became a stage on which strange plays were acted. What
one reads is good or bad for us, according to the frame of mind in which
we read it--according as we discover in a volume healing for the sickness
of our souls--or the contrary. In view of the circumstances in which she
found herself, what Jacqueline absorbed from these books was poison.

When, after the physical and moral crisis through which she had passed,
Jacqueline resumed the life of every day, she had in her sad eyes, around
which for some time past had been dark circles, an expression of anxiety
such as the first contact with a knowledge of evil might have put into
Eve's eyes after she had plucked the apple. Her investigations had very
imperfectly enlightened her. She was as much perplexed as ever, with
some false ideas besides. When she was well again, however, she
continued weak and languid; she felt somehow as if, she had come back to
her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now
seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered.
Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the 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.




CHAPTER VI