ALTHOUGH Bijou had superintended the laying of the cloth, and had
herself attended to the flowers, the service, and the _menus_, she was
ready for dinner before anyone else.
Carrying in her arms an enormous bunch of roses, she entered the
drawing-room just as the marchioness had gone upstairs to dress.
She was so much taken up with arranging her flowers on a side-table
that she did not see M. de Clagny, who was watching her attentively as
she came and went, with the pretty, graceful movements of a bird as it
flies backwards and forwards before finally perching itself.
At length, however, he spoke, and the sound of his voice made Denyse
start.
"It's very certain that it came direct from Paris--that pretty dress,"
he said.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bijou, scared, "you nearly frightened me." And then,
going up to the count, and daintily patting her light, gauzy dress,
she continued: "That pretty dress did not come from Paris; it was made
at Bracieux, near Pont-sur-Loire."
Thoroughly astonished, the count asked:
"Oh, no! by whom, then?"
"By Denyse, here present, and by an old sewing-woman, who is a dresser
at the theatre."
He had risen, and was now walking round the young girl in almost timid
admiration. She was so pretty, emerging from the pinky-looking cloud,
which seemed to scarcely touch her dainty little figure, and out of
which peeped her shoulders, tinted, too, with that singular pinky
gleam which made her delicate skin look so velvety and soft.
M. de Clagny could not help thinking that Bijou was not only beautiful
to look at, but fascinating in the extreme, with her tempting mouth,
and her innocent, frank eyes. The charm of her person was rendered all
the more complex by this same child-like expression.
Whilst he was examining her curiously, Bijou was saying to herself
that "this old friend of grandmamma's" was much younger-looking than
she had imagined him to be. He certainly did make a good appearance,
tall and slender, with his hair quite white on his temples, whilst his
fair moustache had scarcely a touch of grey. His brown eyes had a
gentle expression, and his mouth, sometimes mocking, and at times even
almost cruel, showed, when he smiled, the sharp, white teeth, which
lighted up his whole face in a singular way.
The silence was getting embarrassing, until Bijou at last broke it:
"Grandmamma has not come down then yet? I expected to find her here."
"She went away to dress just as you came in."
"She will never be ready."