Bijou.

by Gyp.

I.

MADAME DE BRACIEUX was working for her poor people. She poked her thick, light, tortoise-sh.e.l.l crochet-needle into the ball of coa.r.s.e wool, and putting that down on her lap, lifted her head and looked across at her great-nephew, Jean de Blaye.

"Jean," she said, "what are you gazing at that is so interesting? You stand there with your nose flattened against the window-pane, just exactly as you did when you were a little boy, and were so insufferable."

Jean de Blaye lifted his head abruptly. He had been leaning his forehead against the gla.s.s of the bay-window.

"I?" he answered, hesitating slightly. "Oh, nothing, aunt--nothing at all!"

"Nothing at all? Oh, well, I must say that you seem to be looking at nothing at all with a great deal of attention."

"Do not believe him, grandmamma!" said Madame de Rueille in her beautiful, grave, expressive voice; "he is hoping all the time to see a cab appear round the bend of the avenue."

"Is he expecting someone?" asked the marchioness.

"Oh, no!" explained M. de Rueille, laughing; "but a cab, even a Pont-sur-Loire cab, would remind him of Paris. Bertrade is teasing him."

"I don't care all that much about being reminded of Paris," muttered Jean, without stirring.

Madame de Rueille gazed at him in astonishment. "One would almost think he was in earnest!" she remarked.

"In earnest, but absent-minded!" said the marchioness, and then, turning towards a young abbe, who was playing loto with the de Rueille children, she asked:

"Monsieur, will you tell us whether there is anything interesting taking place on the terrace?"

The abbe, who was seated with his back to the bay-window, looked behind him over his shoulder, and replied promptly:

"I do not see anything in the slightest degree interesting, madame."

"Nothing whatever," affirmed Jean, leaving the window, and taking his seat on a divan.

One of the de Rueille children, forgetting his loto cards, and leaving the abbe to call out the numbers over and over again with untiring patience, suddenly perched himself up on a chair, and, by his grimaces, appeared to be making signals to someone through the window.

"Marcel dear, at whom are you making those horrible grimaces?" asked the grandmother, puzzled.

"At Bijou," replied the child; "she is out there gathering flowers."

"Has she been there long?" asked the marchioness.

It was the abbe who answered this time.

"About, ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, madame."

"And you consider that Bijou is not interesting to look at?" exclaimed the old lady, laughing. "You are difficult to please, monsieur!"

Abbe Courteil, who had not been long in the family, and who was incredibly shy, blushed from the neck-band of his ca.s.sock to the roots of his fair hair, and stammered out in dismay:

"But, madame, when you asked if anything interesting were taking place on the terrace, I thought you meant--something--something extraordinary, and I never thought that the presence of Mademoiselle Bij--I mean, of Mademoiselle Denyse--as she always gathers her flowers there at this time every day--I never thought that you would consider that as--"

The sentence ended in an unintelligible way, whilst the abbe, very much confused, continued shaking the numbers about in the bag.

"That poor abbe," said Bertrade de Rueille, very quietly, "you do frighten him, grandmamma."

"Nonsense! nothing of the kind! I do not frighten him; you exaggerate, my dear."

And then, after a moment's reflection, Madame de Bracieux continued:

"The man must be blind then."

"What man?"

"Why, your abbe! Good heavens, what stupid answers he makes."

"But, grandmamma--"

"No! you will never make me believe that a man could watch Bijou at work amongst the flowers, and not consider her '_interesting to look at_!'--no, never!"

"A man, yes; but then the abbe is not exactly a man."

"Ah! what is he then, if you please?"

"Well, a priest is not--"

"Not exactly like other men in certain respects! no, at least I hope not; but priests have eyes, I suppose, and you will grant that, if they have not eyes like those of other men, they have eyes such as a woman has, at any rate. Will you allow your abbe to have eyes like a woman?"

"Why, yes, grandmamma, I will allow him to have any kind of eyes he likes."

"That's a good thing. Well, then, any woman looking at Bijou would perceive that she is charming. Why should an abbe not perceive that too?"

"You do not like our poor abbe."

"Oh, well, you know my opinion. I consider that priests were made for the churches and not for our houses. Apart from that, I like your abbe as well as I do any of them. I like him--negatively; I respect him."

Bertrade laughed, and said in her gentle voice:

"It scarcely seems like it; you are very rough on him always."

"I am rough on him, just as I am rough on all of you."

"Yes, but then we are accustomed to it, whilst he--"

"Oh, very well, I won't be rough on him again. I will take care; but you have no idea how tiresome it will be to me. I do like to be able to speak my mind. It was a strange notion of yours, to have an abbe for your children."