Bijou

Jeanne watched her admiringly as she stood in front of the long glass.

"There is not a single crease anywhere in your habit, and what a pretty figure you have, really, Bijou."

When, at a quarter past two, punctual, as usual, Bijou appeared on the stone steps in front of the half-door, she found Henry de Bracieux there, Jean de Blaye, and Pierrot. M. de Rueille had not yet come downstairs.

The horses, which had been waiting a few minutes, were somewhat restless, as the flies were worrying them. Patatras alone was perfectly calm, nibbling at the hazel tree, and looking peaceably at what was going on around him.

Presently Bertrade opened a window, and called out:

"Don't wait for Paul. He is only just beginning to dress. He will catch you up."

"Would you like to start, Bijou?" proposed Jean.

"I feel almost inclined to let you start without me," she answered, in an undecided way. "Your three horses are jumping about like mad things; they will excite Patatras, who is quite peaceful now. Start on, at any rate—I will join you out there. Nothing annoys me more than to ride a horse that is pulling so that you can hardly hold him in, and that is what I should have to put up with, for certain, if I start with you."

"Then you are going to wait for Paul?" asked Henry, looking bad-tempered.

Bijou pointed to the carriages, which were just coming out of the stable-yard.

"No, I am going to escort grandmamma."

"Well, that is just what will rouse your horse up," said Jean de Blaye.

"Oh, no! Don't you think I know my horse? Anyhow, all I ask you is to start off, and not to trouble yourselves about me."

"You are charming, really," observed Pierrot, moving towards his pony, and then turning towards the others, he added majestically, although, in a vexed tone: "Let us leave her, then, as she does not want to go with us."

"I think that's the only choice left us in the matter," answered Jean, half vexed and half laughing, as he mounted his horse.

Just as they were all three disappearing round the bend of the drive, M. de Clagny came out of the hall. He was looking to see whether his mail-coach had been put in, and was astonished to find Bijou there.

"How nice you look in that red habit," he said, in his admiration. "Generally, red makes anyone look pale, but you—why, it makes you look rosier than ever, if that is possible."

When he heard that she was going to accompany the carriages as far as the meeting-place he was perfectly happy.

The marchioness soon arrived, followed by all the others. She got into the landau with the Dubuissons and M. Spiegel, whilst M. de Clagny took on his coach Madame de Rueille, the children, Abbé Courteil, M. de Jonzac, and M. Giraud. The latter was hypnotised to such a degree by Bijou, who was waiting, ready mounted, for the others to start, that he almost fell off the coach instead of sitting down.

The sun was shining brilliantly when they at last set out on their journey. M. de Clagny was much more taken up with Bijou than with the four horses he was driving. He watched her trotting in front of him, near to the carriage in which the marchioness was driving.

It was the first time he had seen her on horseback, and she seemed to him incomparably pretty and elegant. Whilst he was thus watching her with singular attention, Madame de Bracieux called out to her from the landau:

"What a horribly hot day it is, Bijou dear. I don't like to see you in this blazing sunshine!"

Denyse turned round with a very rosy face.

"Nor do I either, grandmamma, I don't like to see myself in it at all!" She was silent a moment and then she continued: "When we come across Jean, Henry, and Pierrot, I shall desert you."

"Do you think we shall come across them?"

"Oh, yes, certainly! They are going along through the wood, almost the same road that we are taking with the carriages. They are only some twelve or fifteen yards away from us; I heard them a little while ago. As soon as I see them I shall leave you!"

M. de Clagny called to Bijou in order to warn her about a hundred things to avoid. In the coppice she was to beware of the branches; that very morning he had been almost taken out of his saddle when galloping in the wood. She was to take care, too, of the burrows—the wood was full of them; and then she was not to jump all in a heap, as it were; she must never do that, but always remember to lean forward or hold back.

She listened to all this advice smilingly, and with a certain affectionate deference.

"How good you are, Bijou!" he finished up with at last. "How is it you do not tell your old friend who worries you so to go about his business?"

Just at this moment a horseman crossed the road about two hundred yards in front of the carriages, and entered the forest.

"Ah!" said the count, "there's Bernès throwing his paper! he's gone in for the right way of doing things, that is, to go along the whole route first in the opposite direction, dropping the paper, then afterwards one has only to fly along, without troubling about anything."

"What time is it?" asked Bijou.

"Twenty minutes to three," answered Bertrade, looking at her watch. "We shall get to the meet much too soon."

M. de Clagny let his horses walk, and Bijou caught up with the landau again, and began talking to Jeanne. Suddenly she bent her head as though listening to something.

"Ah, there they are!" she exclaimed. "I can hear them!"

"Whom do you hear?" asked the marchioness.

"Why, the others; they are there, and I am going to them. Good-bye, grandmamma." She crossed the ditch at the side of the road, and then pulled up, and, throwing a kiss to Jeanne, called out: "Good-bye to you, too."

But the landau was some distance on, and the coach was just passing. Giraud, seated at the back with the children, was the only one who was looking in Bijou's direction, and it was he who received the farewell kiss she threw to her friend.

"Are you sure to find them?" asked the count, turning round on the box-seat.

"Why, they are only a few steps away," she answered, pointing to the wood. "I have just seen Henry."

Whereupon she disappeared in the thicket, and M. de Clagny looked after her, with an anxious expression on his face.

As soon as she had found a path, Bijou set off at a gallop, going straight ahead, listening eagerly, and looking out as far as she could see in front of her through the gloom of the wood.

Quite suddenly she turned abruptly aside, and rode some little distance into the brushwood, where she remained without moving, and doing all she could to prevent Patatras from making the dead branches crackle under his feet.

Along the path which she had just left came Henry de Bracieux, Jean de Blaye, and Pierrot.

When they were almost level with the spot where Denyse was hiding, they pulled up to wait for a horse that they heard galloping quite near them.

"Whatever have you been doing?" asked Henry, as M. de Rueille appeared in sight. "It is quite ten minutes ago since we saw you at the bottom of the Belles-Feuilles road."

"Where is Bijou?" asked M. de Rueille anxiously, without replying to Henry's question.

"She left us in the lurch, and started with the carriages," answered Pierrot contemptuously.

"Ah!" exclaimed Rueille, in a disappointed tone. And then, turning to his brother-in-law, he continued: "What have I been doing? well, I stopped a minute or two to speak to Bernès, who was with his lady-love; she had come in a cab to a quiet spot, where no one would think of meeting her, just for the sake of seeing Bernès for two or three minutes; they cannot go a day without seeing each other. She's a very pretty girl."

"Yes," said Jean de Blaye, "and a sweet little thing too; and she's been well brought up."

"I had never seen her so near before."

"Now that your horse has had a rest, Paul, we had better get on our way, or we shall miss the start."

"Yes," answered M. de Rueille, setting off again; "but we have plenty of time. Bernès is behind me, you know."

As soon as they had gone on some distance, Bijou came out of the brushwood again. Her complexion was wonderfully brilliant, and eyes shone with the deep blue flame which sometimes made their usually gentle expression disconcerting.

Hubert de Bernès stayed a few minutes, after M. de Rueille had left him, talking to Lisette Renaud.

"Well, then, it is settled?" asked the pretty actress. "In spite of the dinner, you will come early to the theatre?"

"Yes."

"You will stay in my loge?"

"No! I must appear in the theatre."

"But you have a horror of La Vivandière,—which I can quite understand—and yet you are going to see it again?"

When Bijou had invited Bernès to come into Madame de Bracieux's box, he had refused, knowing that it would grieve Lisette to see him there.

Mademoiselle de Courtaix was very well known in Pont-sur-Loire, and was greatly admired by society women and those who were not society women. Her costumes were imitated, and her wonderful beauty envied, for it was said that she was quite irresistible. The young lieutenant was perfectly aware that he, too, had been fascinated by her charms the last few days. His affection for Lisette had hitherto rendered him proof against all such fascination. He was passionately fond of the faithful and devoted young actress, who, for the last two years, had loved him so truly, and who would never accept from him any presents but flowers or trifling souvenirs, which were of no pecuniary value.

Lisette earned some thirty pounds a month at the Pont-sur-Loire theatre, and she had declared that she would not receive from him any presents whatever of any value. He had not dared to insist, as he had feared to wound her feelings, or to cause an estrangement between them. She was very beautiful, but he loved her more for her qualities of mind and heart than for her beauty.

Since he had begun to pay attention to Bijou, whom, until now, he had scarcely ever noticed, he had felt greatly disturbed. It was all in vain that he had said to himself, over and over again, that Lisette, with her large expressive eyes, her delicate complexion, her dazzlingly white teeth, and her beautiful, elegant figure, was far prettier than Mademoiselle de Courtaix. In spite of all this, Bijou's violet eyes, her curly hair, and tempting lips, haunted him.

Lisette, although she had no idea that her happiness was in danger, felt a sort of uneasiness take possession of her, and a vague sadness come over her. She could not understand why Bernès should answer her question in such a harsh way.

"I shall have to see La Vivandière again because, in order to refuse a seat that was offered me in a box, I was obliged to say that I had promised to go with some of my brother-officers to the theatre."

"Who was it who offered you a place?"

"An old lady whom you do not know—Madame de Bracieux—you are much wiser now, are you not?"

"Madame de Bracieux," she said, feeling sad, without knowing exactly why she should feel so. "She is the grandmother of Mademoiselle de Courtaix."

"How did you know that?" he asked, in surprise.

"Why, just as everyone else knows it in Pont-sur-Loire."

"In the meantime," he said, in an irritated tone, "I shall miss the meet if I don't look out."

"Don't stay," said Lisette regretfully, "enjoy yourself—and I shall see you this evening?"

"Yes—this evening." Just as he was entering the wood, he turned round in his saddle, and called out: "Above all, take care that they do not see you; don't go where the carriages are."

And then, taking the path along which Bijou had gone, some little time before, he put his horse to a sharp gallop, in order to make up for lost time. Suddenly he stopped short, trying to distinguish something which he saw some distance ahead of him.

"Well!" he said to himself, "if it isn't a horse without its rider!—some fine gentleman has got himself landed already." As he drew nearer, he saw that the horse had a lady's saddle, and he uttered a cry as he perceived Bijou lying on her back on the grass to the right of the path. One of her arms was stretched out crosswise, and the other was down at her side, her eyes were closed, and her lips parted.

Bernès sprang to the ground, fastened his horse up, and then taking Denyse in his arms, tried to prop her up against a tree. When, however, the girl's head fell languidly on his shoulder, he drew her to him, and, bending over her, kissed her soft curly hair over and over again.

"Bijou, dear Bijou!" he murmured, in spite of himself; "listen to me, will you? answer me—speak to me—I am so wretched seeing you like this."

At the end of two or three minutes Denyse gave a very gentle sigh, and opened her eyes slowly.

At the sight of Bernès her grave face lighted up with a smile.

"Ah!" she murmured, "wasn't it stupid, that fall?"

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

"I don't know. I fancy my horse put his foot in a hole."

"And you went up in the air?"

"That was it," she answered, laughing.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not the least bit in the world!" And then she added pensively: "It's very nice of you to trouble about me, and all the more so as you do not like me, I know."

Hubert de Bernès turned as red as a tomato.

"Oh, mademoiselle, how can you think—"

"I do think so—"

"Well, but," he began, in an anxious voice, "tell me at least whatever makes you imagine such a thing?"

"Oh, everything and nothing; it would take too long to explain. Well, this morning, for instance, when I asked you to go with us to the theatre, you looked quite annoyed, and you refused; oh, yes—out and out. Well, why did you refuse?"

"But, mademoiselle, I—I assure you—"

"There you see, you cannot find a word to say, not even the most common-place excuse."

Shaking her head so that her hair came down and fell over the young man's shoulder and against his face, she went on talking, laughing all the time, and still leaning against him for support.

"I don't mind, though, at all, for whether you want to or not now, you will have to come with us to the theatre; you cannot refuse."

"But—"

"Oh, there is no but about it. I will have that now for the payment of our bet."

"Our bet?"

"Well, did we not make a bet? I, that there would be an accident, because there always are accidents, you know; and you, that there would not be one at all."

"Yes, but—"

"Well, it seems to me that this is one. Don't you consider it enough—my accident? Well, I wonder what more you want?"

"Yes, it's true," he managed to stammer out. "What an idiot I am! the fact is, I was so frightened—if you only knew."

She looked up at him with a sweet expression in her beautiful eyes, and he was fascinated by her sweetness.

"Thank you again," she said, holding out her little hand to him; "thank you for looking after me; and now you had better go on quickly."

"But can you mount again?"

"Not just yet—I feel a sort of stiffness, and a tired feeling all over. No, will you go on and tell M. de Clagny to come with his carriage and fetch me; don't say anything about it to the others; I don't want grandmamma to know."

As Hubert de Bernès was holding her hand pressed against his lips, Bijou went on impatiently:

"Go now, quickly! ask M. de Clagny to leave his carriage on the road, and explain to him that he will find me in the wood near the road, just where I left him a little while ago. And will you fasten Patatras to a tree before you go away? Thank you!" She looked at him again with her sweetest expression, and asked once more: "It's settled, then, for this evening, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's quite settled," he answered.

As soon as he was out of sight, she lay down again in exactly the same position in which Bernès had found her.

A little later the sound of carriage-wheels was heard along the road, and M. de Clagny, getting down from his coach, entered the wood. At the sight of Bijou, he uttered a cry of horror, and, rushing to her, took her in his arms in his anxiety and anguish.

"Bijou, my love! my darling! dear little Bijou!" And then, like Bernès, he added: "listen to me, Bijou dear; answer me; please speak to me!"

He kissed her soft hair, and drew her closer and closer to him, until at last she opened her eyes, and looked up at him with her pretty, innocent expression; and then, as though she were going to sleep again, she murmured, as she laid her head confidingly against him:

"Ah, you are so nice to me; and I am so happy like this! I should like to stay here always!"

XIV.

As soon as the domestic had gone, Bijou slipped on another peignoir quickly. She then put on some pink kid slippers without heels, which made her little feet look delightfully droll, and with her hair hanging loosely down over the frilled collar of her long, loose dress, she ran downstairs to M. de Clagny.

On seeing her enter the room, the count rose quickly. His face looked drawn and tired, and there was a sad expression in his eyes.

"How good of you to have put yourself about to come so early on my account!" said Bijou, holding out both her hands to him. He pressed them to his lips whilst she went on: "Why, it is scarcely eight o'clock! you must have started from La Norinière awfully early!"

"Don't let us trouble about me; but tell me how you are?"

"Why, I am perfectly well, thank you! You saw yesterday that I followed the paper-chase just as though I had not had any fall beforehand; and then, in the evening at the theatre, I did not look ill, did I?"

"No, not exactly ill; but at the theatre it seemed to me that you were a little excitable and nervous." And then he added sadly: "I did not see much of you though, either; you scarcely troubled about anyone but Hubert de Bernès, and you quite forsook your poor old friend."

She got up and went to him.

"Oh! how can you imagine—" she began, in a coaxing way, but he interrupted her.

"I did not imagine, alas! I saw for myself; and I am not reproaching you, my dear little girl—young people of course prefer young people, it is quite natural!"

"Oh, no!" said Bijou, with evident sincerity; "not at all—I am not so fond as all that of young people generally; and, above all, I cannot endure young men about the age of M. de Bernès."

"Yes, I remember that you told me that once before; you said so the first time I saw you; it was here in this room, when we were waiting together for the arrival of your guests to dinner."

Denyse laughed.

"Well, what a memory you have!"

"Always, when it is a question of you." And then, in a voice which trembled slightly, he asked: "Do you remember something you said to me yesterday?"

"Yesterday?"

"Yes, yesterday, when I was holding you in my arms, and you were nestling against me like a little trembling bird!"

Bijou appeared to be trying to remember what it was. She opened her large eyes wide, and they looked just then like pale violets.

"No, I don't know what it was; I don't remember! I was a little upset after my accident, you know!" And then, as M. de Clagny remained silent, she asked: "Tell me, what could I have said that was so interesting?"

He repeated her words slowly, watching Bijou all the time attentively, as she listened with an amused air, her pretty lips parted.

"You said, 'I am so happy like this; I should like to stay here always.'"

"I don't remember saying that; but, anyhow, I was quite right, because it was perfectly true, you know!"

He drew Bijou to him, and asked:

"Truly, would it not alarm you to see me always near you like that?"

"Why, no, it would not alarm me! Oh, no, not at all!"

"Really and truly?"

"Really and truly! but why do you ask me that?"

"Oh, for no reason at all. Do you know whether Madame de Bracieux is up yet?"

"She does not get up before half-past eight or nine o'clock, especially when she is up late like last night; it was nearly two o'clock when we came in!"

"And you are just as fresh-looking and as pretty as though you had slept all night. Really, though, I should very much like to see Madame de Bracieux."

"You want to speak to her yourself, or is it any message I can take to her from you?"

"No; I want to speak to her myself."

"Well, you know she will probably keep you waiting 'a spell,' as they say in this part of the world."

"Well, I will wait."

Bijou looked at M. de Clagny in surprise. He was pacing up and down the long room.

"What's the matter?" she asked at last, in her curiosity, "for there certainly is something the matter!"

"Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes! You keep marching backwards and forwards. That reminds me—one day I saw Paul de Rueille pacing about like that."

"I saw him, too; it was the night of the La Balue, Juzencourt & Co.'s dinner, whilst you were singing."

"No, oh, no! It was one day when he had some ridiculous duel, and he did not know whether it would be better to tell Bertrade, or not to tell her."

"And what did he do?"

"I fancy he did not tell her anything about it."

"Oh, well, he had more pluck than I have."

"Have you a duel on?" Bijou asked impetuously.

"A duel if you like to call it that; and a ridiculous one most certainly—a fight with impossibilities. You cannot understand that, my dear little Bijou."

"And you think that grandmamma will understand it better than I could?"

"I do not know! Anyhow, she will listen to me, and she will pity me."

"But I, too,—I would listen, and I would pity you."

"I should not like to be pitied by you!" he said, and the expression of his face betrayed deep suffering.

"You do not care for me, then?" she asked.

M. de Clagny made a movement forward, then stopping himself, he said, with a calmness that contrasted strangely with the troubled look in his eyes and his hoarse voice:

"Oh, yes; I do care for you. I care for you very much, indeed." And then picking up his hat, which he had put down on one of the tables, he moved quickly towards the door, which led on to the terrace. "I will wait in the park," he said, "until the marchioness can see me."

When he saw, however, that Bijou had left the drawing-room, he returned, and sank down on a chair, looking suddenly much older from the effect of some mental anxiety which was weighing on him.

The marchioness did not keep him waiting long. She entered the room, with a smile on her face.

"Well, you are an early visitor!" she began; but on seeing the worried look on her old friend's face, she asked anxiously: "Why, what is it? Whatever has happened?"

"A great misfortune."

"Tell me?"

"It is precisely for that I have come so early. You will remember that when I came here for the first time, a fortnight ago, I was admiring Bijou, and you reminded me of the fact that she was your grand-daughter, and might very well be mine?"

"Yes."

"I answered that I knew that perfectly well, but that all that was mere reasoning, and that when the heart remains young it does not listen to reason."

"I remember perfectly well! What then?"

"What then? Well, at present, I love Bijou! I love her with all my heart!"

"Absurd!" exclaimed the old lady, lifting her hands in amazement.

"You are certainly consoling!"

"Well, but—my poor, old friend, what do you want me to say? You do not expect to marry Bijou, do you?"

His eyes were moist, and his voice choked as he replied:

"No; I do not expect to! And yet, I beg you to tell your grand-daughter what I have just confessed to you. I am fifty-nine. I have twenty-four thousand pounds a year. I am neither a bad lot, nor am I utterly repulsive-looking, and I love her as no other man can love her."

"But only think that you are—"

"Thirty-eight years older than she is; it is for me that this difference of age is more to be feared. Yes, I know that, and I am willing to accept all the risks of such a disproportion."

"And she?"

"She? Well, let her decide for or against me. She is twenty-one; she is no longer a child, and she knows what she is about."

"Yes; but that does not prevent me from having a certain amount of responsibility, and—"

"Ah, you see; you are afraid that she may consent!"

"Afraid? oh, dear, no! I am quite convinced that such an ideal little creature has, about the man she dreams of for her husband, a vision of someone quite different from you."

"And, supposing, by chance—I do not expect this at all—but, supposing you were mistaken, what should you do?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing at all. And it is just this—I am afraid that you would use your influence with Bijou."

"No; I shall just tell her what I think; I ought to, under the circumstances—but nothing more."

"Then you are going to speak to her?"

"Yes."

"May I come again a little later?"

"Oh, no! give me until to-morrow. I shall not speak to her, probably, before this evening; but that need not prevent your coming to dinner if you feel inclined to. It was for the—for the answer that I was putting you off until to-morrow."

"If she should refuse, I shall go away."

"Where?"

"Oh, how can I care where?—my life will be over. I shall go and finish my days in some out-of-the-way spot."

"You talked like that some twelve years ago; and here you are to-day—I cannot say younger than then." The marchioness stopped short, and then continued, with a smile: "Why should I not say it, though? You really do seem younger to me now than you did in those days; you are perfectly astonishing, my dear friend, anyone would think you were about forty-five."

"If only it were true what you say!"

"It is, I assure you! but you know that does not alter the fact that you are fifty-nine."

M. de Clagny rose to take his leave.

"Farewell!" he said, "until to-morrow." And then, with a pathetic little smile, he added: "Or until this evening. Yes,—towards the end of the day I shall be taken with a violent desire to see her again, and I shall come as I did the day before yesterday, and Thursday, and every day."

He took Madame de Bracieux's hand in his, and clasped it nervously, as he murmured:

"For the sake of our long friendship, I beg you, be merciful to me."

During luncheon the marchioness seemed preoccupied, and several times M. de Jonzac asked her what she was thinking about.

"Whatever is it?" he said; "you have certainly got the blues."

"Aunt must have gone to bed very late," said Jean de Blaye. "I heard you all come in; it must have been two o'clock." And then, turning to Bijou, he asked: "And how did you enjoy yourself? was it nice?"

"Delightful," she answered, in an absent sort of way.

"That little Lisette Renaud is perfectly charming," said M. de Rueille, "with her beautiful, large sad eyes. You liked her, too, did you not, grandmamma?"

"Yes," answered Madame de Bracieux, "she is perfectly fascinating, and she has an admirable voice. I was astonished to find all that in Pont-sur-Loire; astonished, too, at the elegance of the house. There were plenty of pretty women, and very well dressed, too."

"Nearly all of them wore pink," put in Denyse, "I noticed that."

"Oh! that is through you," said M. de Rueille. "The Pont-sur-Loire ladies see you always arrayed in pink, and as you are considered by them to be tip-top, they have taken to pink, too." And seeing that Bijou looked surprised, he asked: "Well, isn't that quite clear enough?"

"It is quite clear," she answered, laughing, "but a trifle imaginary. No one pays any attention to me, my dear Paul." And then, as Madame de Rueille turned towards her, Bijou appealed to her: "What do you think about the matter, Bertrade?"

"I think that you are too modest."

"Oh, yes," said Giraud, who was gazing at the young girl with admiring eyes, "Mademoiselle Denyse is too modest. Yesterday evening everyone in the house was looking at her, and even the actress herself—"

"It's your imagination, Monsieur Giraud!" exclaimed Bijou, interrupting him hastily. "I never noticed that anyone was interested in our box; but even if they were, it does not follow necessarily that it was at me that—"

"Evidently not," remarked Henry de Bracieux, in a chaffing tone. "It was grandmamma in whom the natives were so deeply interested."

"No! but it might have been Jeanne Dubuisson."

"Yes, that's true! She is not known at all in Pont-sur-Loire, therefore the sight of her would naturally make a sensation."

Bijou shrugged her shoulders.

"You know that I have a horror of people making a fuss about me, and you say things like this all the time to tease me."

"If you have a horror of making a sensation," exclaimed Pierrot, "that great Gisèle de la Balue is not like you, I can tell you. She's one who would change places with you. Yesterday, at the paper-chase feed, she was bothering round everyone like a great meat-fly; even Bernès sent her about her business."

"I think young Bernès is very nice," said the marchioness. "I was noticing him all the evening yesterday, and I like him very much. He is very natural, has good manners, and is not by any means stupid."

Jean de Blaye noticed that Bijou was screwing up her lips into a little pout of indifference.

"You don't appear to be of the same opinion as grandmamma?" he said.

"Oh, dear me! Yes, I am."

"Well, you are not enthusiastic; you may as well own it."

"Why, yes, I own it."

The marchioness turned to her grand-daughter:

"Ah! and what have you against him?"

"Why, nothing, grandmamma, nothing at all! I think he is just like everyone else, and so when I see him I can't go into ecstasies over him—that's all."

"I fancy," remarked M. de Rueille, "that the man isn't born yet about whom you would go into ecstasies. You are very good-hearted, very indulgent. You look upon everyone as all very well in a negative sort of way, but, practically, it is quite another matter."

"Oh, you exaggerate!"

"I exaggerate? Well, then, just mention one man, one only, who is according to your fancy."

"Why, M. de Clagny, for instance!"

"You think he is nice; you like him?" said the marchioness. "Yes, but how? You would not marry him, I presume?"

"Oh, no!" answered Bijou, laughing, "I don't want to marry him."

Just as they were all leaving the table, Jean de Blaye asked:

"Has anyone any commissions for Pont-sur-Loire?"

"What!" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise, "you are going off to Pont-sur-Loire like that, all by yourself? Why, whatever are you going to do there, I wonder?"

"What am I going to do there?" he said, slightly disconcerted. "Why, I have some things to get."

"Will you take me?"

"Take you? But—"

Ever since the evening when he had told Bijou that he loved her, he had avoided, as much as possible, all opportunities of being alone with her. She, on her part, had not changed her behaviour towards him or Henry de Bracieux in any way. She was just as free and cordial in her manner with them as she had been before refusing them her hand; and, indeed, it seemed as though she had forgotten they had proposed to her.

"What?"—she asked, looking astonished. "You won't take me with you?"

Thoroughly uncomfortable, and dreading the long tête-à-tête, yet not daring in the presence of all the others to refuse to take Bijou, he answered, in a joking tone:

"Why, yes! On the contrary, I am highly flattered by the honour you are doing me!"

"That's all right, then. You are very kind."

"Oh, very; but, all the same, you will have to take someone else to be with you as well, because I have some business."

"Oh!" said Denyse, in a disappointed tone, "you don't want me with you when we get there."

"But, Bijou, my dear," put in Madame de Bracieux, "you could not, anyhow, go there—just you two! It does not matter if Jean is your first cousin; it would not be the thing, you know! You must take Josephine with you; and even then I don't know whether I ought to allow it—"

"But whatever do you want to do in Pont-sur-Loire?" she added, after a pause.

"Oh, only some errands, grandmamma; you forget that there are always errands to be done for the house. And then, too, I can go and see Jeanne; it is just the day when M. Spiegel is busy and does not go so that I shall not interrupt their billing and cooing."

"It does not seem to me as though they do much billing and cooing!" said M. de Jonzac. "I was watching them yesterday at the paper-chase, and I'm very much mistaken if that engagement is not a very half-and-half sort of affair."

"But why should you think that, Uncle Alexis?" asked Bijou, looking troubled.

"Because the girl looks sad, and the professor indifferent. Haven't you noticed that?"

"No; but then I don't notice things much," she answered.

On the way from Bracieux to Pont-sur-Loire, Bijou and Jean were silent.

In the town just near the station, they met Madame de Nézel, who had come in from The Pines by the half-past two train. On seeing her, Bijou made a little movement, and was just about to speak to her cousin, but, on second thoughts, she said nothing, and only looked up at him, with a sweet expression in her bright eyes. Jean, feeling awkward and confused, had pretended not to see Madame de Nézel, and she, instead of going on into the centre of the town, had turned down a narrow street, by some waste ground and gardens. As she got out of the carriage with Josephine at the Dubuissons' door, Bijou asked:

"Where shall I find you? And at what time?"

"At the hotel; I will tell them to put the horse in at six o'clock if that will suit you?"

"At six o'clock!" she exclaimed, in astonishment. "Oh, well! you must have plenty of things to do! Three hours and a half of shopping in Pont-sur-Loire!"

Impatient and wishing above all things to escape Bijou's innocent questioning, Jean offered to start earlier, but she refused.

"Oh, no! why should you? I shall be delighted to stay as long as you wish with Jeanne!"

Mademoiselle Dubuisson was at home. Denyse thought she looked sad, and her eyes had dark circles round them.

"What is the matter now?" she asked. "There's something wrong."

"Yes, things are not quite right."

"Is—your fiancé?"

"Oh, it's just the same."

"Which means——"

"That I think he has got—well—a little cool. But there is something else that has upset me to-day."

"What is it?"

"Oh, well! it is an event that really does not concern me at all; but it has made me feel wretched all the same." She avoided looking at Bijou as she continued: "You know that—Lisette Renaud?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, she is dead—this morning."

"Dead!—What of?"

"People think she killed herself," said Jeanne, almost in a whisper.

"But how?"

"By taking morphia. You know they could not go into details before me, but I understood, from what they were saying, that it was after an explanation she had had with M. de Bernès."

"When?"

"Yesterday after the theatre, or else this morning. Papa and M. Spiegel were talking of it at luncheon; but in a vague sort of way, so that I should not understand."

"How fearfully sad!—I can quite understand that it should have upset you."

"Yes; it is only natural, and all the more so as, just now, troubles from love affairs touch me very nearly—and for a good reason!" she added, with a sad little smile.

"That poor little actress!" said Bijou, in a tone of regret. "As a rule, I don't care much for women who are on the stage, but this one seemed to be nice, and then, she really did sing well—it is a pity!—M. de Bernès must be wretched!"

"Do you think people really are so wretched when they cause others to suffer?" asked Jeanne, still not looking at Bijou. "I don't think they are! There are the thoughtless people, who make others suffer without knowing it, and then there are the others, who cause people to suffer because it amuses them; and neither the former nor the latter know what it is to feel remorse—"

As Jeanne stood still, lost in thought, a far-away look in her eyes, Bijou stroked her friend's face gently.

"There, don't think any more about these sad things, Jeanne, dear," she said. "Your grief won't change anything when the mischief is already done, and you are making yourself wretched all in vain. Come, now, let us talk about our play, and about dress, or no matter what—oh! by the bye, about dress, does yours fit well at last?"

"It fits; but it does not suit me!"

"Oh, that's impossible!"

"No, it's very natural, on the contrary! I have not your complexion, remember! I am paler than you are, and that pink makes me paler still; and then I am thin, and the little gathered bodice, which shows up your pretty figure to perfection, makes me look no figure at all—it does not matter, though—it's of no importance whatever!"

"What do you mean by saying it is of no importance?"

"Why, yes, don't you see, Bijou dear, that whether one is well or badly dressed, if one is just common-place as I am, one would always pass unnoticed by the side of anyone as beautiful as you are."

Bijou turned her eyes up towards the ceiling, and said, in a half-serious, half-joking way:

"My poor dear child, you are wandering—you don't know at all what you are talking about!" And then suddenly changing her tone she asked: "What time do you start to the races to-morrow?"

"I don't know. Papa will have arranged that with M. Spiegel. Ah, tell me! shall you go early to the Tourvilles' dance? I don't want to get there before you."

Denyse was looking at her watch.

"Oh! I must go!" she exclaimed. "They want some gardenias at home for button-holes; I don't know where I shall be able to get any; someone told me of a florist up by the station somewhere."

"By the station? but there are only market-gardeners there, no florists."

"Yes, it seems that in that little lane—you know—to the right of the quay—"

"Lilac Lane, I know where you mean; but there are only vegetable gardens there, and some waste ground, and then a few small houses, that are generally rented by officers because they are near to the barracks."

"Well, anyhow," said Bijou, getting up, "I'll go and look round there!"

Denyse was the first to arrive at the hotel. Jean de Blaye was rather behind time, and when he did appear, he looked sad, and his face was very pale. He had met Madame de Nézel by appointment, but she had only come to break off entirely with him, and this freedom was of no use to him now; but, at the same time, there was nothing left for him to do but accept his fate. They were both wretched and discontented with each other, and yet they had been obliged to stay together at their trysting-place, because Bijou, escorted by the old housekeeper Josephine, had been rambling up and down the lonely lane for a good part of the afternoon. She had gone backwards and forwards as though in search of something, and with a persistency which Jean could not understand, and which made him feel very uneasy.

When they were driving across the square by the station at three o'clock, she had, perhaps, seen Madame de Nézel turning down Lilac Lane. If that were so, she had probably wanted to assure herself whether her suspicions were correct. How inquisitive and fond of ferreting she must be, then—this Denyse whom he loved so dearly, and who had, without knowing it, ruined his whole life.

He apologised for his unpunctuality, and helped Bijou into the carriage, whilst she assured him in the sweetest way that he was not late at all.

Just as he was wondering how he could ask her what she had been doing, she volunteered the information he wanted.

"Do you know you will have your gardenias for to-morrow after all? But it has been difficult to get them. I have been running about all over Pont-sur-Loire nearly all the afternoon. They sent me to the queerest little streets, where I got lost, and never found the place at all."

Delighted at this proof of Bijou's innocence, Jean exclaimed involuntarily:

"Ah! that was what you were hanging about for in Lilac Lane?"

She fixed her large astonished eyes on him, as she asked:

"However did you know? Did you see me?"

"I did not," he answered quickly; "one of my friends told me."

"Who was it? Do I know him—your friend?"

"I don't think so; he's an officer in Bernès' regiment. Ah, by the bye, what do you think! The poor little actress you heard last night—well, she has killed herself!"

"Yes, I know; it is a great pity!"

Bijou said this in a tone which made it impossible to continue the conversation on this topic. She was so dignified, and her meaning was so plain, that Jean almost regretted having said a word to her of this affair, considering that it was a trifle delicate; but, after all, as he said to himself, Bijou was no child; she would soon be twenty-two!

At four o'clock, M. de Clagny arrived at Bracieux, his heart beating fast at the thought of seeing Bijou again, and of seeing her quite free and unconstrained as usual, for she would not yet know of his proposal.

He was very much disappointed on hearing that she was at Pont-sur-Loire, and that she had gone there with Jean. He asked the marchioness to tell him candidly just what she thought would be the result of his advances with reference to the young girl, and Madame de Bracieux replied that she could not approach the subject now, as Denyse had declared to them all that very morning that "she thought M. de Clagny charming, but that she should not like to marry him."

He stood the shock fairly well, but insisted that Bijou should be told that evening of his proposal. She would then have until the next day to think it over, and that was what he wished.

Denyse and Jean returned just at dinner-time. When they came downstairs, everyone was at the table, and the topic of conversation was the death of poor Lisette Renaud.

M. de Rueille had been out riding, and had met some officers, who were on duty there, and who had, of course, told him the story.

"It is fearful," said Bertrade, "to think of that poor girl killing herself; she was so pretty, and so young."

"It is just because one is young that one would commit suicide, if unhappy; otherwise one would have to go on being wretched for so long a time," said Giraud in a strange voice, which resounded in the spacious dining-room.

XV.

"Exactly, but you care for him as though he were your father, or a delightful old uncle, whilst he does not care for you either as though you were his daughter, or niece; in short, you will be very much astonished—"

"Astonished at what?" asked Bijou timidly.

"At—well, he wants to marry you, that's the long and short of it."

"He, too?" murmured the young girl, looking bewildered.

"What do you mean by 'he, too'?" exclaimed the marchioness, bewildered in her turn; "who else wants to marry you that you say 'he, too '?"

Denyse blushed crimson.

"I ought to have told you all that before, grandmamma," she said, sitting down on a little stool at Madame de Bracieux's feet; "but we have been so dissipated just lately, what with the paper-chase, the theatre, the races, and the dances, that I don't seem to have had a minute, and then, too, it was not very interesting either."

"Ah! that's your opinion, is it?"

"Well, considering that I don't want to marry either of them."

"Well, but who is it, child, who is it?" asked the marchioness.

"Why, just Henry and Jean. Jean spoke to me first for Henry, who, it seems, had got him to ask me whether I would allow him to ask your permission to marry me. I answered that he ought to have asked you first and not me—"

"You are a real little Bijou, my darling."

"But that it really did not matter, as I did not want to marry him."

"He is not rich enough for you, my dear."

"Oh, I don't know anything about that. And then, too, all that is quite the same to me, but I should not like Henry for a husband. I know him too well."

"Ah! and what about Jean?"

"Jean, too, I should not like as a husband. That is just what I told him, when, after I had refused Henry, he began again on his own account."

"They go ahead—my grandchildren. Now I can understand how it is that, for the last few days, they have had faces as long as fiddles."

There was a short silence, and then Madame de Bracieux remarked, as though in conclusion:

"I know then, now, what your answer is to my poor old friend Clagny."

"How do you know, though?"

"Because if you will not have either of your cousins, who are, both of them, in their different ways, very taking, it is scarcely probable that you would accept an old friend of your grandmother's."

"But he, too, is very taking!"

"Yes, that's true; but he is sixty years old!"

"He does not look it!"

"He is though."

"I know; but that does not make any difference to the fact that I should not mind marrying him any more than I should Jean or Henry."

"You do not know what marriage is; you do not understand."

Bijou half closed her beautiful, bright eyes.

"Yes," she said, speaking slowly, "I do understand quite well, grandmamma."

"Well, all this is no answer for me to give to M. de Clagny."

"Is he coming to-day?"

"He is coming directly."

Bijou moved uneasily on her footstool, and then, after a moment's consideration, she said:

"You can tell him, grandmamma, that I am very much touched, and very much flattered that he should have thought of me, but that I do not want to marry yet—" And then, laying her head on the marchioness's lap, she added: "because I am too happy here with you."

"My little Bijou! my darling Bijou!" murmured Madame de Bracieux, stooping to kiss the pretty face lifted towards her, "you know what a comfort you are to me; but, all the same, you cannot stay for ever with your old grandmother. I am not saying that, though, in order to persuade you into a marriage that would be perfect folly."

Denyse looked up at the marchioness, as she asked:

"Folly? But why folly?"

"Because M. de Clagny is thirty-eight years older than you are, and he will be quite infirm just when you are in your prime; and such marriages have certain inconveniences which—well—which you would be the first to find out."

Bijou had risen from her low seat on hearing the sound of carriage-wheels, which drew up in front of the hall-door. She looked through the window, and then ran away, saying:

"Here he is, grandmamma!"

During luncheon, Madame de Bracieux announced, in a careless, indifferent way:

"M. de Clagny is leaving here; he came to say good-bye to me this morning."

Bijou looked up, and Jean de Blaye remarked:

"He is leaving here? Why, it seemed as though he had taken root in this part of the world."

"Oh," put in M. de Rueille, "old Clagny's roots are never very deep."

Bijou turned towards the marchioness.

"When is he leaving, grandmamma?" she asked anxiously.

"Why, at once; to-morrow, I think. Anyhow, we shall see him to-night at Tourville; he is going to the ball in order to see everyone to whom he wants to say good-bye."

"And he is not going to the races?"

"No, he is busy packing."

"And our play to-morrow!" exclaimed Denyse, in consternation. "He had promised me over and over again to come to it."

The marchioness glanced at her grand-daughter, and said to herself that, decidedly, even with the kindest heart in the world, youth knows no pity.

Bijou's arrival at the Tourville ball was a veritable triumph. In her pink crêpe dress, which matched her complexion admirably, she looked wonderfully pretty, and different from anyone else.

"Just look at the Dubuisson girl," said Louis de la Balue to M. de Juzencourt. "She has tried to get herself up like Mademoiselle de Courtaix. She has copied her dress exactly, and just see what she looks like. She might pass for her maid, and that's the most she could do. How is it, now?"

M. de Juzencourt laughed gruffly.

"Why, it's just that if the outside is the same, what's inside it isn't the same. Isn't she going to be married?"

"Yes, she's going to marry a young Huguenot, who must be somewhere about, hiding in some corner or another. Ah! No! he isn't in a corner either. There he is, like all the others, fluttering round 'The Bijou.'"

"And you? You don't flutter round her?" asked M. de Juzencourt.

"I? I'd marry her—because, sooner or later, one's got to get married, or one's parents make a fuss, because of keeping up the name, you know—but as to fluttering round—By Jove, no! that isn't in my line!" and then, in a languid way, he went off to Henry de Bracieux.

"How hot it is," he began, glancing at him dreamily, and speaking in a low voice, with an affected drawl. "You are lucky not to turn red. You've got such a complexion, though, that's true. You look like a regular Hercules, and yet, with that, your complexion is as delicate—"

As he was leaning towards him, and looking sentimental, Henry exclaimed impatiently, in his full, sonorous voice:

"Oh! hang my complexion!" and turning away, he left young La Balue planted there in the middle of the drawing-room, and went off himself to Jean de Blaye, who, with a melancholy expression on his face, was standing at some distance off, watching Bijou through the intricacies of a dance, for which six partners had all tried to claim her.

When M. de Clagny approached Denyse, and bowed to her ceremoniously, she said at once, without even returning his bow:

"Grandmamma has told me that you are going away. I am sure that it is because of me?"

He nodded assent, and she put her little hand through his arm, and moved in the direction of another room, which was almost empty.

"Please," she began, in a beseeching tone, "please, do not go away."

"And I, in my turn," he answered, deeply moved, "must say, please, Bijou, do not ask what is impossible. I have not been able to be with you without getting as foolish as all the others. I have let myself go on dreaming, just as fools dream, and now that all is over, I must try to become wise again, and to forget my dream, and in order to do that I must go away, very far away, too."

"You thought that—that I should say yes?" she asked.

"Well, you were so good to me, so sweet and confiding always, that I did hope—yes, God help me—I did hope—that perhaps you would let me go on loving you."

"And so it was my fault that you hoped that?" she said dreamily.

"It wasn't your fault—it was mine; one always does hope what one wants."

"Yes, I am sure that I ought not to have behaved as I did with you." And her eyes filled with tears as she murmured, almost humbly: "I am so sorry! will you forgive me?"

"Bijou!" exclaimed M. de Clagny, almost beside himself. "My dear Bijou, it is I who ought to ask your forgiveness for causing you a moment's sadness."

"Well, then, be kind—don't go away! not to-morrow, at any rate! Promise me that you will come to Bracieux to-morrow to see us act our play! Oh, don't say no! And then, afterwards, I will talk to you—better than I could this evening." And gazing up at him with her soft, luminous eyes, she added: "You won't regret coming, I am sure."

Jean de Blaye was just passing by at that moment, and Bijou stopped him, and said, in a coaxing way:

"Won't you ask me for a waltz? do, please, you waltz so well."

And laying her hand on his shoulder, she disappeared, just as Pierrot arrived to claim his dance.

"Leave your cousin in peace," said M. de Jonzac, who was seated on a divan watching the dancing. "You are much too young to ask girls to dance with you—I mean girls like Bijou."

"Ah, how old must I be then before I can ask them—not as old as you, I suppose?"

"You certainly have a nice way of saying things."

"I say, father, why do Jean and Henry say that young La Balue gets to be worse and worse form?"

"Young La Balue? Oh, I don't know."

"They say that he makes himself up."

"That's true."

"And that he gets to be worse and worse form! How?"

"If you want to know how, you have only to ask your cousins: they will tell you."

"They won't, though! I asked them, and Jean just said, 'Don't come bothering here.' Are we going home soon?"

"Going home? why, your cousin is sure to stay for the cotillion."

"I was very stupid to come here instead of staying with M. Giraud and the abbé."

"Ah, by the bye, why didn't he come—M. Giraud? Bijou asked for an invitation for him."

"Yes, but he wouldn't come: he is awfully down in the dumps, and has been for some time. He doesn't eat, and he doesn't sleep either; instead of going to bed, he goes off walking by the river all night."

"And you don't know what's the matter with him?"

"The matter with him! I think it is Bijou that is the matter with him."

"What do you mean? Bijou the matter with him?"

"Why, yes, it's the same with Jean, and Henry, and Paul. You can see very well, father, that they are all running after her, can't you? not to speak of old Clagny, who isn't worth counting now." He stopped a minute, and then finished off, in a sorrowful way: "and not to speak of me either, for I don't count yet."

"Oh! you exaggerate all that," said M. de Jonzac, quite convinced that his son was in the right, but not wanting to own it. "Bijou is certainly very pretty, and it is not surprising that—"

Pierrot interrupted his father eagerly.

"Oh! it isn't that she is just pretty only, but she is good, and clever, and jolly, and everything. They are quite right to fall in love with her, and, if I were only twenty-five—"

"If you were twenty-five, my dear young man, she would send you about your business, as she does the others."

"That's very possible," replied Pierrot philosophically, but at the same time sadly; and then, pointing to Bijou, who was just standing talking to Jeanne Dubuisson in the middle of the room, he said: "Isn't she pretty, though, father? Just look at her; she is dressed absolutely like Jeanne, their dresses are just alike, stitch for stitch, as old Mère Rafut says. I'm sure that, if they mixed them up when they were not in them themselves, there'd be no telling which was which after; and yet like that on them, I mean, they don't look alike at all! Do you think I might venture to ask her for a dance, father—Jeanne Dubuisson?"

"Oh, yes; she is good-hearted enough to give you one!"

A minute or two later and Jeanne went off with Pierrot for the next dance. M. Spiegel crossed over to Bijou, and asked her for the waltz which was just commencing, but she shook her head, saying:

"I am so tired, if you only knew!"

"Only just a little turn, won't you?" he begged. "Ever since the beginning of the evening I have not been able to get a single waltz with you."

"Oh, no; please don't ask me! I do want to rest; I—" and then, suddenly making up her mind to speak out, she said, "Well, then, no; it isn't that—I know I am not clever at telling untruths—I am not at all tired, but I don't want to waltz with you, because—"

"Because?"

"Because I am afraid of hurting Jeanne's feelings—"

"Hurting Jeanne's feelings! But how?" he asked, in surprise.

"Well, it sounds very vain what I am going to say, but I must tell you all the same. Why, I think that Jeanne worships you to such a degree that she is jealous of everyone who approaches you, or who speaks to you, or who looks at you even!"