"Grandmamma has told me that you are going away. I am sure that it is because of me?"

He nodded a.s.sent, and she put her little hand through his arm, and moved in the direction of another room, which was almost empty.

"Please," she began, in a beseeching tone, "please, do not go away."

"And I, in my turn," he answered, deeply moved, "must say, please, Bijou, do not ask what is impossible. I have not been able to be with you without getting as foolish as all the others. I have let myself go on dreaming, just as fools dream, and now that all is over, I must try to become wise again, and to forget my dream, and in order to do that I must go away, very far away, too."

"You thought that--that I should say yes?" she asked.

"Well, you were so good to me, so sweet and confiding always, that I did hope--yes, G.o.d help me--I did hope--that perhaps you would let me go on loving you."

"And so it was my fault that you hoped that?" she said dreamily.

"It wasn't your fault--it was mine; one always does hope what one wants."

"Yes, I am sure that I ought not to have behaved as I did with you."

And her eyes filled with tears as she murmured, almost humbly: "I am so sorry! will you forgive me?"

"Bijou!" exclaimed M. de Clagny, almost beside himself. "My dear Bijou, it is I who ought to ask your forgiveness for causing you a moment's sadness."

"Well, then, be kind--don't go away! not to-morrow, at any rate!

Promise me that you will come to Bracieux to-morrow to see us act our play! Oh, don't say no! And then, afterwards, I will talk to you--better than I could this evening." And gazing up at him with her soft, luminous eyes, she added: "You won't regret coming, I am sure."

Jean de Blaye was just pa.s.sing by at that moment, and Bijou stopped him, and said, in a coaxing way:

"Won't you ask me for a waltz? do, please, you waltz so well."

And laying her hand on his shoulder, she disappeared, just as Pierrot arrived to claim his dance.

"Leave your cousin in peace," said M. de Jonzac, who was seated on a divan watching the dancing. "You are much too young to ask girls to dance with you--I mean girls like Bijou."

"Ah, how old must I be then before I can ask them--not as old as you, I suppose?"

"You certainly have a nice way of saying things."

"I say, father, why do Jean and Henry say that young La Balue gets to be worse and worse form?"

"Young La Balue? Oh, I don't know."

"They say that he makes himself up."

"That's true."

"And that he gets to be worse and worse form! How?"

"If you want to know how, you have only to ask your cousins: they will tell you."

"They won't, though! I asked them, and Jean just said, 'Don't come bothering here.' Are we going home soon?"

"Going home? why, your cousin is sure to stay for the cotillion."

"I was very stupid to come here instead of staying with M. Giraud and the abbe."

"Ah, by the bye, why didn't he come--M. Giraud? Bijou asked for an invitation for him."

"Yes, but he wouldn't come: he is awfully down in the dumps, and has been for some time. He doesn't eat, and he doesn't sleep either; instead of going to bed, he goes off walking by the river all night."

"And you don't know what's the matter with him?"

"The matter with him! I think it is Bijou that is the matter with him."

"What do you mean? Bijou the matter with him?"

"Why, yes, it's the same with Jean, and Henry, and Paul. You can see very well, father, that they are all running after her, can't you? not to speak of old Clagny, who isn't worth counting now." He stopped a minute, and then finished off, in a sorrowful way: "and not to speak of me either, for I don't count yet."

"Oh! you exaggerate all that," said M. de Jonzac, quite convinced that his son was in the right, but not wanting to own it. "Bijou is certainly very pretty, and it is not surprising that--"

Pierrot interrupted his father eagerly.

"Oh! it isn't that she is just pretty only, but she is good, and clever, and jolly, and everything. They are quite right to fall in love with her, and, if I were only twenty-five--"

"If you were twenty-five, my dear young man, she would send you about your business, as she does the others."

"That's very possible," replied Pierrot philosophically, but at the same time sadly; and then, pointing to Bijou, who was just standing talking to Jeanne Dubuisson in the middle of the room, he said: "Isn't she pretty, though, father? Just look at her; she is dressed absolutely like Jeanne, their dresses are just alike, st.i.tch for st.i.tch, as old Mere Rafut says. I'm sure that, if they mixed them up when they were not in them themselves, there'd be no telling which was which after; and yet like that on them, I mean, they don't look alike at all! Do you think I might venture to ask her for a dance, father--Jeanne Dubuisson?"

"Oh, yes; she is good-hearted enough to give you one!"

A minute or two later and Jeanne went off with Pierrot for the next dance. M. Spiegel crossed over to Bijou, and asked her for the waltz which was just commencing, but she shook her head, saying:

"I am so tired, if you only knew!"

"Only just a little turn, won't you?" he begged. "Ever since the beginning of the evening I have not been able to get a single waltz with you."

"Oh, no; please don't ask me! I do want to rest; I--" and then, suddenly making up her mind to speak out, she said, "Well, then, no; it isn't that--I know I am not clever at telling untruths--I am not at all tired, but I don't want to waltz with you, because--"

"Because?"

"Because I am afraid of hurting Jeanne's feelings--"

"Hurting Jeanne's feelings! But how?" he asked, in surprise.

"Well, it sounds very vain what I am going to say, but I must tell you all the same. Why, I think that Jeanne worships you to such a degree that she is jealous of everyone who approaches you, or who speaks to you, or who looks at you even!"

M. Spiegel looked displeased; he knitted his brows, and his placid-looking face suddenly took a hard expression.

"She has told you so?"

Bijou answered with the eagerness and embarra.s.sment of anyone feeling compelled to tell an untruth.