"Have you told Josephine?" asked Madame Bracieux.

"Yes, Josephine is there, madame," replied the servant.

Jeanne Dubuisson rose, but Bijou stopped her.

"No, don't come with me," she said; "when I feel that there is anyone listening, that is, anyone beside Josephine, I don't do any good." And then, just as she was going out of the room, she turned round, and added: "At three o'clock I shall appear with my hat--and M.

Sylvestre."

When Bijou entered her room, Josephine, the old housekeeper, who had seen two generations of the Bracieux family grow up, was sewing near the window, whilst, in the little room adjoining, the musician was arranging the music-stand, and taking his violin out of the case.

On seeing the young girl, his blue eyes lighted up, and seemed to turn pale against his red face. He was a young man of about twenty-eight years of age, very thin, very awkward, and dressed wretchedly enough; but there was something interesting about his face, an expression that was congenial, and yet, at the same time, told of anxiety and of trouble.

"How warm you are, Monsieur Sylvestre!" said Bijou, as she held out her hand to him; "and they have not brought you anything to drink yet!

Josephine!" she called out, as she moved towards the door between the two rooms, "will you tell them to bring--ah, yes, what are they to bring? What will you take, Monsieur Sylvestre?--beer, lemonade, wine, or what? I never remember!"

"Some lemonade, if you please; but you really are too good, mademoiselle, to trouble about me."

"I forgot to buy the music you told me to get when I was at Pont-sur-Loire," said Denyse, interrupting him. "You will scold me."

"Oh! mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, in a scared way, "_I_ scold you?"

"Yes, you! If you do not scold me you ought to. Now, let me see! What are we going to play? Ah! I was forgetting! I am going to ask you if you will begin by accompanying me at the piano; it is just a silly little song I am learning."

"What song is it?"

"'Ay Chiquita'! it is quite grotesque, isn't it? But we have an old friend who adores it, and he asked me to sing it for him."

"Oh! as to that!--'Ay Chiquita'--it isn't so grotesque; but it has been worn out, that's all. Ah!" he added, looking at the music, "you sing it in a higher key. I was wondering, too--"

"Yes, I sing it higher; that makes it more dreadful still. Oh, dear!

how I do wish I had a deep voice; they are so lovely--deep voices, but there are none to be heard!"

"They are rare, certainly; but there are some, nevertheless."

"I have never heard one," said Bijou, shaking her head.

"Well, but you might hear one if you liked."

"Where?"

"Why, at the Pont-sur-Loire theatre. Yes, Mademoiselle Lisette Renaud, a young actress, with a great deal of talent, and she is very pretty, too, which is not a drawback, by any means."

"She has a beautiful voice?"

"Very beautiful! I hear her, on an average, three times a week, without reckoning the rehearsals with the orchestra, and, I can a.s.sure you, I have never had enough."

"Ah! Do you think she would sing at private houses?"

"Why, certainly! She does sing sometimes at Pont-sur-Loire."

"I will ask grandmamma to have her here. Where does she live?"

"Rue Rabelais. I do not remember the number, but she is very well known."

After a short silence, the professor asked:

"Why should you not go to the theatre to hear her? That would interest you much more."

"Grandmamma would never let me."

"I know, of course, that society people do not go to the Pont-sur-Loire theatre--it is not considered the thing; but there are circ.u.mstances,--for instance--in a fortnight from now there is to be a performance for the benefit of disabled soldiers, organised by the _Dames de France_; everyone will go to that."

"And they will play things that will be all right?"

"Oh! some comic opera or another, and varieties from other things; but I am sure Lisette Renaud will be on the programme, and several times, too. These are the best sort of things that we have at the theatre."

"You are not drinking anything, Monsieur Sylvestre," said Bijou, approaching the tray which had been brought in, and pouring out the lemonade for the young man.

The gla.s.s which she pa.s.sed to him showed the effect of the contact of her hand.

"Are you not still too warm to drink?" she asked. "This lemonade is very cold."

He took the gla.s.s with a hand that trembled slightly, and stood there, with his arm stretched out, looking at Bijou with pa.s.sionate admiration.

"Monsieur Sylvestre," she said, smiling, "a penny for your thoughts."

The young man's face, which was already red, flushed deeper still. He drank his lemonade at a draught, and hurried to the piano.

"Let us begin, mademoiselle! shall we?" he said, and he played the short symphony of the song in a hesitating way, as though his fingers refused to act. This was so noticeable, that Denyse asked him:

"What is the matter with you? you are not in form to-day, at all."

"Oh, it's nothing, mademoiselle; I--it is so warm."

Being rather short-sighted, and never using a lorgnette, Bijou was obliged to bend forward to read the words of the song, and sometimes, in doing so, she touched the professor's hair or shoulder. This served to increase his agitation, and at times he could scarcely see what he was playing, whilst his fingers would slip off the notes.

"Really, you are not at all in form to-day," repeated Bijou, surprised.

"I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, I--I don't know what is the matter with me."

"Nor I either; I can't tell at all," she said, laughing.

He was getting up from the piano, but she begged him to sit down again.

"No! if you don't mind," she said, "I should like to work up two or three old songs."

She began at once to read at sight, bending over in order to see better, whilst the poor young man, who was now pale, did his best to follow her, in spite of the buzzing in his ears and the clamminess of his fingers.

When the lesson was over, Bijou went to fetch her hat, and then came back and put it on at the gla.s.s near the piano.