ALWAYS up first in the morning, Bijou was in the habit of going
downstairs towards seven o'clock, in order to attend to her
housekeeping duties.
She always paid a visit to the pantry, and to the dairy, and, with the
exception of Pierrot, who was sometimes wandering about the passages
with very sleepy-looking eyes, she never met anybody at this early
hour.
To her astonishment, therefore, on this particular morning she nearly
ran up against M. de Rueille, who was coming out of the library with a
book in his hand.
Of all the visitors at Bracieux he was the laziest, so that Bijou
laughed as she commented on his early rising.
"How's this?" she asked; "have you finished your slumbers already?"
"Or, rather, I have not commenced them!"
"Oh, nonsense!"
"No, and as I had finished all the literature I had upstairs, I came
down to get a book to finish my night with."
Bijou pointed to the sun, which was streaming in by the open window.
"Your night!"
"Oh, as far as I am concerned, you know, unless I am going out
shooting, or off by train somewhere, it is night up to ten o'clock, at
least!"
"And you are now going to bed again?"
"This very instant."
"But it is ridiculous."
"On the contrary, it is very wise, and all the more so, as, when one
is in a bad temper, the best thing to do is to keep one's self out of
the way."
"You are in a bad temper?"
"Yes."
"And why?"
Paul de Rueille hesitated slightly before answering.
"I don't know why."
"It's quite true," said Bijou, laughing, "that you were not very
amiable yesterday during our journey to Pont-sur-Loire."
"It was your fault!"
"My fault--mine?"
"Yours."
"And pray why?"
"I will tell you if you like."
"Yes, I should like; but not now, because I am keeping some one
waiting in the dairy."
"Who is waiting for you?" he asked anxiously.
"The dairy-maid," answered Bijou, without noticing his anxiety.
"Oh! go at once, then, if that is the case," said M. de Rueille
sarcastically. "I should not like the dairy-maid to be kept waiting on
my account."
"You should come and see the cheeses," proposed Denyse.
"That must certainly be very festive; no, really, are you not afraid
that I should find that too exciting, Bijou, my dear?"
"You would find it as exciting, anyhow, as going to bed, and reading
over again some old book that you must know by heart. Oh, you know it
by heart, I am sure! There is nothing in the library but the classics,
or a lot of old-fashioned things; ever since I have come no new books
are put in the library, either in the Paris house or here at Bracieux.
Grandmamma is so afraid that I should get hold of them; but she is
quite mistaken, for I should never open a book that I had been told
not to open--never!"
"Grandmamma is afraid of your doing what any other girl would do; you
are such an astonishing exception, Bijou!"
"Yes, I am an exception--an angel, anything you like; but either come
with me, or let me go, if you please! I don't like to keep people
waiting."
"Oh, well, I'll come with you if you like," said M. de Rueille,
putting his book down on a side-table.
He followed Bijou without speaking, as she trotted along in front of
him. She looked so sweet, going backwards and forwards amongst the
great pails of milk; her straw hat, covered with lace, tossed
carelessly on her fair hair; her morning dress, of pink batiste,
fastened up rather high with a safety-pin.
She inspected everything, gave her orders, and settled all kinds of
details, without troubling about her cousin any more than if he did
not exist; and then, when she had quite finished, she turned towards
him, smiling.
"Now, then," she said, "if you would like a stroll, I am at your
service." She turned into one of the garden paths that led to the
avenues, and then added, as she looked up at Paul, "I'm listening!"
"You are listening? What do you want me to say?"
"I thought you were going to tell me why you were so bad-tempered
yesterday; you said it was my fault."
"Well, it was; you were--" he began, in an embarrassed way; and then
he continued, in desperation, "the way you went on, it was not at all
like you generally are, nor like you ought to be!"
"Ah! what did I do then?"
"Well, in the first place, you insisted, in the most extraordinary
way, that Bernes should come on to the coach when we met him. Why did
you insist like that?"
"Well, it is natural enough when you meet anyone walking a mile away
from where you are driving yourself, that you should offer to pick him
up; it seems to me that it would be odd, on the contrary, not to offer
to pick him up!"
"Yes, agreed; but then it was M. de Clagny who should have offered a
seat in his own carriage."
"He never thought of it--"
"Or else he did not care to? And you obliged him to do it whether he
would or not?"
"Rubbish! he adores M. de Bernes. The other day he spent half an hour
singing his praises to me in every key."
"Ah! that is probably what made you so pleasant to him?"
"Was I so pleasant?"
"Certainly! As a rule you don't pay the slightest attention to him,
but yesterday you had no eyes for anyone but him."
"I did not notice that myself."
"Really? Well, you were the only one who did not, then! You went on to
such a degree that I wondered if it were not simply for the sake of
tormenting me that you were acting in that way!"
Bijou gazed straight at M. de Rueille with her beautiful, luminous
eyes.
"To torment you? and how could it torment you if I chose to be
agreeable to M. de Bernes?"
"How?" stuttered M. de Rueille, very much confused; "why, I have just
told you I am not--we are not accustomed to seeing you make a fuss
like that, especially of a young man! No, I assure you, I was amazed.
I am still, in fact."
"And I am ever so sorry to have vexed you," she said sweetly. "Yes, I
am really; you see, I had never noticed M. de Bernes particularly, and
I wanted to see whether all the nice things M. de Clagny had told me
about him were quite true, and so I was studying him. Will you forgive
me?"
M. de Rueille did not reply to this, as he had another grievance on
his mind.
"With Clagny, too, you have a way of carrying on, which is not at all
the thing. He is an old man; that's all well and good; but, you know,
he is not so ancient yet for you to be able to take such liberties
with him!"
"What do you call liberties?"
"Well, sometimes you appear to admire him, to be in ecstasies about
him; and then sometimes you coax and wheedle him in the most absurd
way, as you did yesterday."
"Yesterday! I coaxed and wheedled M. de Clagny? I?"
"You!"
"But about what?"
"When you would insist, in spite of everything, in driving through Rue
Rabelais; and I'll be hanged if I can see why you wanted to; it's
about as dirty a street as there is, without taking into account that
you might have caused us all to break our necks. Yes, certainly, it
was the most dangerous experiment--your fad! Young Bernes, who is one
of the most out-and-out daring fellows himself, tried to persuade you
out of wanting to go along that street!"
The strange little gleam, which sometimes lighted up Bijou's eyes,
came into them now.
"Yes, that's true!" she said, smiling. "He was wild to prevent our
going down the Rue Rabelais--M. de Bernes! It was as though he was
afraid of something!"
"He was afraid of coming to smash, by Jove, just as I was, and the
abbe, and even Pierrot. I cannot understand how old Clagny could have
let you have your fad out, for he was responsible for the little
Dubuisson girl, and for Pierrot, and you, without reckoning all of
us!"
"Have you finished blowing me up?"
"I am not blowing you up."
"Oh, well, that's cool. Let's make it up now, shall we?" and, standing
on tip-toes, Bijou held her pretty face up, saying, "Kiss me?"
He stepped back abruptly.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise, and looking hurt, "you won't kiss
me?"
Paul de Rueille had been so taken aback, that he could scarcely find
any words.
"It isn't that I won't, but--well, not here like that, it is so
absurd! I cannot understand your not seeing how ridiculous it is."
Bijou shook her rough head, and the loose curls over her forehead
danced about.
"No, I do not see that it is at all ridiculous," and then, instead of
going any farther, she turned round, and they went back to the house
without another word.
On going up into his room, M. de Rueille found his wife reading a
letter.
"I have just heard from Dr. Brice," she said, handing him the letter.
"It seemed to me that Marcel had not been well just lately."
"Not well--Marcel? Why the child eats and drinks more than I do. He
sleeps like a top, too, and grows like a mushroom. Oh, that's good,
that is! And what disease has he discovered in the boy--our excellent
Brice?"
"No disease at all!"
"Oh, well, that's lucky!
"But he orders him to have sea-air."
"Sea-air for a lad who is in such downright good health that it
positively makes him unbearable, he is so riotous?"
"Read what he says."
"Let me see what he says," murmured M. de Rueille, putting on a look
of resignation, as he began to read the long letter, in which the
doctor advised sea-air as the best remedy for the child in his present
nervous state.
"And so he is in a nervous state?" said M. de Rueille jeeringly; "and
on account of this, which no one, by the bye, except you, has noticed,
we are to leave Bracieux, where the lad is flourishing in this
delightful fresh air--it is his native air, in fact--and we are to go
and take up our abode at some stupid seaside place? Oh, no! You really
do get hold of some ridiculous ideas sometimes."
He was still irritated after his discussion with Bijou, and the idea
of going away from her now caused him to speak in a harsh, dry way. He
tried to laugh, too, but his laugh sounded forced and hollow.
Bertrade looked at him as she said gently:
"I did not want to tell you the truth straight out; I hoped that you
would guess it. Do you not guess?"
"No, not at all," he answered, with a vague feeling of uneasiness.
"Well, then, you were right just now; not only Marcel, and his
brothers too, for that matter, are better at Bracieux than anywhere
else, but he has nothing the matter with him."
As M. de Rueille looked surprised, she continued, in a tranquil way:
"It is Marcel's father who is not quite himself, who needs a change of
air, and who will, I am sure, decide on having a change."
"Well, really," he stammered out, "I do not know what you mean."
"I mean that you must leave Bracieux for a time," she answered,
speaking very distinctly.
"Do you particularly wish me to tell you why?"
"I do."
"You are unwise to insist. You know that in a general way I never
interfere in anything that you choose to do, or leave undone."
"Yes, you have always been very sweet and very sensible about
everything," said M. de Rueille, "and I thoroughly appreciate--"
"Oh, there is no need to say anything about all that. I have always
left you quite free to act in every way as you preferred, and now, in
this matter, I do not bear you any ill-feeling whatever, and I should
never have spoken to you of it if I had not seen that you are going
too far. I have confidence in you, so that I know you will be on your
guard; but I know how fascinating Bijou is, and I can see perfectly
well that, next to poor young Giraud, you are the one who is the most
infatuated."
"Yes, you are quite right, I am infatuated; but, as you say yourself,
there is no danger whatever, and whether I go away, or whether I stay
here, it is all the same; that will make no difference whatever."
"Yes! if you stay you will certainly make yourself ridiculous, and
probably wretched, too. I am speaking to you now just as a friend
might. Let us go away; believe me, it would be better."
"Well, but when we came back again--for we should come back, shouldn't
we? in two months at the latest--things would, be exactly as they were
before."
"No, it would be quite different," she answered carelessly. "In two
months' time she will be married, or nearly so."
"Married!" exclaimed M. de Rueille, astounded. "Married! Jean is going
to marry her, then?"
"Why, no! Jean is not going to marry her. He's another one who would
do well to make himself scarce."
"Well, if it is not Jean, I do not see--it is not Henry, I presume?"
"No, not Henry either. He understands perfectly well that, with what
he has, he cannot marry Bijou."
"Well, who is it, then? Who is it?"
"Why, no one at all--that is, no one in particular."
"You spoke, on the contrary, as though you were affirming something
that was quite settled. You said: _In two months' time she will be
married, or nearly so_. What did you mean by that? Why don't you want
to tell me? You have been told not to? It is a secret?"
"No, it is merely a supposition, I assure you, that is all."
"And this supposition you will not tell me?"
"No."
After a short silence Madame de Rueille began again:
"I showed grandmamma the doctor's letter; she is very sorry about our
going away. She adores the children, and then, too, she likes to have
the house full at Bracieux."
"And she let herself be gulled with this story about Marcel's nervous
condition? I am surprised at that; she is so sharp!"
"If she was not _gulled_, as you call it, she allowed me to think that
she was. I shall see you again presently: I must get ready for
breakfast."