"All right, all right!" he said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "I'll come!"

The young girl stepped back, and in the evening-light he could see her large astonished eyes shining as she gazed at him.

"How cross you are!" she said timidly. "What's the matter with you?"

He did not answer, and she asked again: "Won't you tell me?"

"No, no," he said curtly, and then he re-mounted the steps and went into the drawing-room.

Bijou followed him, and whispered to Bertrade:

"I don't know what is the matter with your husband, but he is very bad-tempered."

Madame de Rueille glanced at Paul. He looked rather f.a.gged and nervous, and was trying to appear at his ease, as he talked and laughed noisily with the tutor, who, on the contrary, was silent and reserved.

"Yes, certainly something is the matter with him," said Bertrade, rather uneasy at seeing her husband so strange. "I do not know at all what it is, though," she added.

"Only imagine," Bijou proceeded to explain to the whole room, "Paul wanted to go for a stroll instead of coming to work. Yes, and it was not very easy to get him here, I can a.s.sure you."

With a resigned look, M. de Rueille took his seat at a side table with a marble top. He then took up the ma.n.u.script, and, turning to the page which was commenced, dipped a long, quill pen into the ink.

"When you are ready?"--he said calmly.

"Well, but first of all, where are we?" asked M. de Jonzac.

"Scene three of the second act."

"Still?" exclaimed Bijou, astonished.

"Alas, yes."

"My dear children, you will never have it finished," remarked the marchioness.

"Oh, yes, grandmamma, we shall," said Bijou merrily; "you will see how we are going to work now. Come now, we are at the third scene of the second act,--it is where the poet is defending himself after the accusations--rather spiteful ones, too--which Venus has brought against him."

"Well, and what then?" asked M. de Rueille after a pause.

"Well," said Bijou, "in my opinion, we want a little couplet there; what do you think, Jean?"

Jean de Blaye, with an absorbed look on his face, was lounging in a deep arm-chair, his head thrown back on the cushions. He appeared to be in a reverie, and had not even heard the question.

"Are you asleep?" asked Bijou.

"Did you speak to me?" he asked, turning towards her.

"Why, yes, I did have the honour of speaking to you. I asked you whether a couplet would not be the right thing there--a couplet that would go to some well-known air?"

"Yes," he replied, in an absent sort of way, "that would do very well."

"All right, compose it then."

Jean gave a start; he was quite roused now.

"I am to compose it,--why should I be the one to do it?"

"Because you always do them."

"Well, that's a nice reason," protested Jean. "I should say that is precisely why it is someone else's turn. You have only to set the others to work--Henry, or Uncle Alexis, or M. Giraud, or even Pierrot."

"Why do you say _even_?" asked Pierrot, annoyed. "I should do them quite as well as you."

"Well, do them then! for my part, I have had enough of it."

"Jean," said Bijou, in a pleading tone, "don't leave us in the lurch, please."

She was going across to him, her pretty head bent forward, and a most comically beseeching little pout on her lips, when M. de Rueille rose abruptly from his seat, and stopped her on the way:

"Oh, he will do your couplets right enough; he likes doing them; sit down, Bijou."

The young girl stood still in the middle of the room, surprised at this extraordinary proceeding.

"But why don't _you_ sit down?" she exclaimed. "What have you come away from your table for?"

"Ah! I have no right to leave the table without your permission?"

"Jean!" began Bijou again, "come now, Jean!"

Once again M. de Rueille interposed.

"Why don't you kneel down to him at once?" he said, in a sharp tone.

"Goodness! I don't mind doing that even if he will only be persuaded."

She was darting across to her cousin, but Rueille caught her arm, and said angrily:

"What nonsense! it is perfectly ridiculous!"

Bijou looked at him in amazement, and stammered out:

"It is you who are ridiculous!"

"Oh, yes, of course," he answered, speaking harshly, "it is I who ought to go and sit down, and I am the one who is ridiculous; in fact, I am everything I ought not to be, and I always do everything I ought not to do."

"Whatever is the matter, children?" asked Madame de Bracieux.

M. de Jonzac explained, as he emptied his pipe by tapping it gently against a piece of furniture.

"Heaven have mercy upon us! It is nothing less than Paul quarrelling with Bijou!"

"With Bijou?" exclaimed the old lady, in perfect amazement.