"Have you a duel on?" Bijou asked impetuously.

"A duel if you like to call it that; and a ridiculous one most certainly--a fight with impossibilities. You cannot understand that, my dear little Bijou."

"And you think that grandmamma will understand it better than I could?"

"I do not know! Anyhow, she will listen to me, and she will pity me."

"But I, too,--I would listen, and I would pity you."

"I should not like to be pitied by you!" he said, and the expression of his face betrayed deep suffering.

"You do not care for me, then?" she asked.

M. de Clagny made a movement forward, then stopping himself, he said, with a calmness that contrasted strangely with the troubled look in his eyes and his hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Oh, yes; I do care for you. I care for you very much, indeed." And then picking up his hat, which he had put down on one of the tables, he moved quickly towards the door, which led on to the terrace. "I will wait in the park," he said, "until the marchioness can see me."

When he saw, however, that Bijou had left the drawing-room, he returned, and sank down on a chair, looking suddenly much older from the effect of some mental anxiety which was weighing on him.

The marchioness did not keep him waiting long. She entered the room, with a smile on her face.

"Well, you _are_ an early visitor!" she began; but on seeing the worried look on her old friend's face, she asked anxiously: "Why, what is it? Whatever has happened?"

"A great misfortune."

"Tell me?"

"It is precisely for that I have come so early. You will remember that when I came here for the first time, a fortnight ago, I was admiring Bijou, and you reminded me of the fact that she was your grand-daughter, and might very well be mine?"

"Yes."

"I answered that I knew that perfectly well, but that all that was mere reasoning, and that when the heart remains young it does not listen to reason."

"I remember perfectly well! What then?"

"What then? Well, at present, I love Bijou! I love her with all my heart!"

"Absurd!" exclaimed the old lady, lifting her hands in amazement.

"You are certainly consoling!"

"Well, but--my poor, old friend, what do you want me to say? You do not expect to marry Bijou, do you?"

His eyes were moist, and his voice choked as he replied:

"No; I do not expect to! And yet, I beg you to tell your grand-daughter what I have just confessed to you. I am fifty-nine. I have twenty-four thousand pounds a year. I am neither a bad lot, nor am I utterly repulsive-looking, and I love her as no other man can love her."

"But only think that you are--"

"Thirty-eight years older than she is; it is for me that this difference of age is more to be feared. Yes, I know that, and I am willing to accept all the risks of such a disproportion."

"And she?"

"She? Well, let her decide for or against me. She is twenty-one; she is no longer a child, and she knows what she is about."

"Yes; but that does not prevent me from having a certain amount of responsibility, and--"

"Ah, you see; you are afraid that she may consent!"

"Afraid? oh, dear, no! I am quite convinced that such an ideal little creature has, about the man she dreams of for her husband, a vision of someone quite different from you."

"And, supposing, by chance--I do not expect this at all--but, supposing you were mistaken, what should you do?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing at all. And it is just this--I am afraid that you would use your influence with Bijou."

"No; I shall just tell her what I think; I ought to, under the circ.u.mstances--but nothing more."

"Then you _are_ going to speak to her?"

"Yes."

"May I come again a little later?"

"Oh, no! give me until to-morrow. I shall not speak to her, probably, before this evening; but that need not prevent your coming to dinner if you feel inclined to. It was for the--for the answer that I was putting you off until to-morrow."

"If she should refuse, I shall go away."

"Where?"

"Oh, how can I care where?--my life will be over. I shall go and finish my days in some out-of-the-way spot."

"You talked like that some twelve years ago; and here you are to-day--I cannot say younger than then." The marchioness stopped short, and then continued, with a smile: "Why should I not say it, though? You really do seem younger to me now than you did in those days; you are perfectly astonishing, my dear friend, anyone would think you were about forty-five."

"If only it were true what you say!"

"It is, I a.s.sure you! but you know that does not alter the fact that you are fifty-nine."

M. de Clagny rose to take his leave.

"Farewell!" he said, "until to-morrow." And then, with a pathetic little smile, he added: "Or until this evening. Yes,--towards the end of the day I shall be taken with a violent desire to see her again, and I shall come as I did the day before yesterday, and Thursday, and every day."

He took Madame de Bracieux's hand in his, and clasped it nervously, as he murmured:

"For the sake of our long friendship, I beg you, be merciful to me."