THE marchioness decided not to speak to Bijou about M. de Clagny that
evening, as she did not want to disturb the young girl's rest.
The following morning, however, she sent for her, and Bijou arrived,
gay and lively as usual. She gave a little pout of disappointment when
her grandmother informed her that she wished to speak to her about
something very serious.
"It concerns one of my greatest friends," began Madame de Bracieux,
"and he is also a friend of yours."
"M. de Clagny?" interrupted Bijou.
"Yes, M. de Clagny. You must have seen that he is very fond of you,
haven't you?"
"I am very fond of him, too, very fond of him."
"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 crepe 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?"