"Who is it?" asked the young girl, drawing herself up.

"It is I--Jean! Why, do you mean to say that you won't even do me the honour of recognising my voice. What are you doing out here in this pitch darkness?"

"I am taking a stroll."

"All alone?"

"I came out to join the Dubuissons, but I thought afterwards that it was better not to disturb them, and so I came here all alone."

"It must be quite a change for you to be alone, isn't it? And what in the world do you do when you are all by yourself?"

"I think."

"Oh! what a big word!"

"Well, I dream dreams, if you like that better?"

"Well I never! That's what I never should have thought you would do.

They are surely not in the least like ordinary dreams--yours?"

"Because--?"

"Because dreams are usually incoherent, strange and quite improbable."

"Well?"

"Well, your dreams must be admirably sensible and reasonable; they must resemble you."

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Well, for the pleasant things you are saying."

"Oh! they are not exactly pleasant things; they are true, though.

Besides, I have not come here just to say pleasant things to you, but to talk to you seriously."

"Seriously?"

"Yes! I have undertaken a mission for some one else. I have promised to speak to you to the best of my ability in the name of some one who did not care to speak for himself."

"Who is this some one else?"

"Henry! He begged me to ask you whether you would authorise him to ask grandmamma for your hand?"

"My hand! Henry?" she exclaimed, and her accent expressed her bewilderment.

"Is that so very astonishing?"

"Why, yes!--it is as though he were my brother--Henry!"

"Well, but he is not your brother, nevertheless; therefore do not let us trouble about him as a brother, but as a lover. What is your answer?"

"My answer! why does Henry apply to me first? Instead of asking my permission to speak to grandmamma, he ought to have asked grandmamma's permission to speak to me."

"There; didn't I say that you were a most excellent little person, always knowing the correct thing, and all the rest of it!"

"Is it wrong of me to be like that?"

"Oh, no! it is not wrong--on the contrary! only it is a trifle embarra.s.sing. Tell me, now that I have made this mistake in speaking to you first, will you give me an answer? or must I set to work to put matters right again, by applying now to grandmamma, who in her turn will apply to you, etc., etc."

"No, I will give you my answer."

"Well, then, let me finish my rigmarole. Count Henry de Bracieux was born on the 22nd of January, 1870. His entire fortune, until after the death of his grandmother, consists of twenty-four thousand pounds, which amount brings in--"

"Oh! you needn't trouble to tell me about money matters; in the first place, they don't interest me, and then, as I do not wish to marry Henry, it is useless to tell me all that!"

"Ah! you do not wish to marry him! Why?"

"For several reasons, the best of which is that I know him too well."

"It certainly is not very flattering, this reason of yours!"

"I mean what I said just now, that, living with Henry as I have done for the last four years, I consider him as a brother."

"Then that applies to me, too; do you look upon me, too, as a brother?" asked Jean de Blaye, trying to speak in an indifferent tone.

"You, oh, no! not at all; you are thirty-five at least!"

"No, thirty-three."

"Only that?--ah, well, it's all the same! you don't seem to me like a brother!"

She was silent a moment, thinking, whilst he stood waiting, with a sort of vague hope.

"You seem to me more like an uncle," she said at last.

"Oh!" remarked Jean, with an accent that betrayed his vexation, "that is very nice."

"You are annoyed with me for saying that?" she asked, in her pretty, coaxing way.

"Oh, not at all! I am delighted, on the contrary; it is very satisfactory, for, with you, one knows exactly what to count on; and then, if one has any delusions, well, they don't have to hang fire."

"You had delusions--what were they?"

"No, I hadn't one of any kind."

"Oh, yes, I can tell by your voice; you speak in a sharp, bitter, irritated way. Tell me why you are so bad-tempered all in a minute?"

she asked, in a coaxing tone, leaning against him, and looking up into his face.