Bijou, assisted by Pierrot, was handing the coffee round, when suddenly she darted off in pursuit of Paul de Rueille, who had just come out of the drawing-room, and was descending the steps which led on to the terrace.

"Stop, stop! Where are you going?" she called out.

"Oh, only for a stroll," he answered, without looking round, "to get a breath of air, if that is possible with this heat."

Bijou had already caught him up.

"Oh, no, what about the play?—You must come and work."

"My head aches."

"Work will take it away! You really must come, we have only three days."

"But I am not indispensable; you can do without me," said Rueille irritably.

"Oh, but you always do the writing."

"From dictation; it is not necessary to be very clever for that."

"Yes it is; and then, too, we are used to you."

She was on the step above him, and, bending forward, she put her arms round his neck, and said in a coaxing tone:

"Paul, dear, come now, just to please me, you would be so nice, so very nice!"

M. de Rueille, turning abruptly, unclasped the soft arms, which encircled his neck and rested against his face.

"All right, all right!" he said, in a hoarse 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 fagged 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 assure you."

With a resigned look, M. de Rueille took his seat at a side table with a marble top. He then took up the manuscript, 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.

"Paul quarrelling with Bijou!" repeated Madame de Rueille, putting down the newspaper she had been reading, "impossible!"

"Yes, really!" affirmed the abbÉ, quite horrified. "M. de Rueille is vexed with Mademoiselle Denyse!"

"Come here, Bijou!" called out the marchioness, and the young girl tripped across the room to her grandmamma, and knelt down on the cushions at her feet.

"You ought not to let Bijou go on in that way with you!" said M. de Rueille, going up to Jean, and speaking in a low voice.

"Go on in what way? are you dreaming?"

"I am not dreaming at all. Denyse is twenty years old, you know!"

"Twenty-one," corrected the young man.

"All the more reason—she really ought to behave more carefully!"

"Poor child, she behaves perfectly!" and then looking at his cousin, he added: "I really don't know what's up with you?"

"Oh, I'm in the wrong," murmured M. de Rueille, slightly embarrassed. "Of course, I'm quite in the wrong!"

"Absolutely so!" said Blaye drily, getting up from his arm-chair.

On seeing him move towards the door, Bijou left the marchioness, and rushed across to him:

"Oh, no! you are not going away! Grandmamma, tell him that he is not to leave us like this!"

"Come now, Jean," said the marchioness, half joking and half scolding, "don't plague them so!"

The young man sat down again in despair.

"And this is the country!" he exclaimed, "this is rest and holiday! I have to work like a nigger, writing plays—plays with couplets—and then go to bed regularly at two in the morning, and this is what is called being in clover!"

Pierrot had listened to this outburst with apparent solemnity.

"Continue, old man," he said jeeringly, "you interest me!"

Bijou laughed, and Jean, looking annoyed, turned towards Pierrot, and said sarcastically, "You are very witty, my dear boy!"

"Children, you are perfectly insufferable!" exclaimed Madame de Bracieux, raising her voice. She was looking at them in surprise, wondering what wind had suddenly risen to bring about this storm. She could not account for all these disagreeable little speeches, and the hostile attitude they had taken up, and which was quite a new thing to the old lady. Once again she called Bijou to her. The young girl was standing looking round at everyone with a questioning expression in her soft eyes.

"Do you know what's the matter with them?" asked the marchioness.

"I have no idea, grandmamma," she answered innocently, the wondering look still on her face.

"Don't you see how cross they are?" continued the marchioness.

"Yes, I can see that they are cross, but I do not know what it's all about; if it is on account of the play, why, we won't have it! I don't want to worry everyone with it, just because I like it; but I do like it immensely."

Just at this moment M. de Rueille called out:

"Well, are we going to work at this, yes or no? I have had enough of sitting waiting here like an imbecile."

"Where are we?" asked Jean, in a way which meant, "As there's no getting out of it, let us start at once."

"We've told you where we are—" answered Rueille, "we've told you twice."

Bijou interposed, explaining in a conciliatory tone:

"It is where the poet has to answer Venus."

"Ah, yes! exactly, I remember! She has accused him of all sorts of things, and you want him to defend himself—"

"In a couplet."

"Yes, I understand—where are you going though?"

Bijou was just crossing the room.

"I am going across to sit by M. Giraud; he won't worry me like all of you."

The tutor blushed, and moved slightly to make room for her on the divan on which he was seated. Denyse glided on, and took her place at his side.

"We are listening," she said.

Jean was twisting a pencil and a piece of paper about in his fingers.

"What did Venus answer?" he asked.

M. de Rueille, with an absent-minded expression on his face, was watching a moth fluttering round the lamp near him.

"What did Venus answer?" called out several voices together, as loudly as possible.

M. de Rueille looked aghast, and, stopping his ears, read aloud from the manuscript:

"'You know I do not believe a word of it.'"

"Strike that out," said Jean, "and put: 'I do not believe it at all, you know.' And now the poet answers:

"Is that at all amusing?" asked M. de Rueille.

"Well, hang it all!" exclaimed Jean irritably, "I do not say that it is precisely a chef-d'oeuvre! Bijou asked for a couplet—I have given her a couplet to the best of my ability, but I don't wish to hinder you from giving us a better one."

"To what air will that go?" asked Bijou.

"Ah, yes, that's true, we want an air for it. What is there?"

"You might put 'Air. J'en guette un petit de mon Âge,'" suggested Rueille.

"Does that go to it?"

"What do you mean by 'does it go to it?'"

"Why, that air."

"I don't know. I don't even know what the air is."

"Then why do you suggest that we should take it?"

"Oh! because I often see things to that air: 'J'en guette un petit de mon Âge.' I just remembered seeing it, and there are lots of couplets that are put to it."

"But the poet's lines are longer than that," remarked Bijou, "especially the second one. No—one could never sing them to that air—nor to any other."

"Ah, yes!—I did not think of that."

"Fortunately, Bijou thinks of everything," put in Pierrot, with pride.

"We'll find an air for it presently," said Jean. "Let's go on; do let's go on, or we never shall finish it. Who's on the stage at present?"

And then, as M. de Rueille was biting the end of his pen and watching Bijou, so that he did not appear to have heard, Blaye exclaimed:

"Paul, are you there? or have you gone out for a time?"

"I am there."

"Oh, very well! then will you have the kindness to tell me which of the characters are at present on the scene?"

"Wait a minute! I'll just look."

"What?" exclaimed Bijou, "do you mean to say you have to look before you can tell us?"

"Well, you do not imagine, I presume, that I know by heart all the insane things that each of you has been pleased to dictate to me."

"I know them all anyhow," and then, turning towards Jean de Blaye, she answered his question. "We have on the scene at present, Venus, the Poet, Thomas Vireloque, and the Opportunist, and we said yesterday that after the introduction of the Poet to Venus, we would let Madame de StaËl come in."

"Very well, we will let her enter at once."

"Have you found anyone for Madame de StaËl?" asked Rueille; "up to the present no one has wanted to act her part."

"No," said Bijou; "just now I asked Madame de Juzencourt again, but she refuses energetically; and if Bertrade refuses too—"

"Bertrade refuses absolutely," replied the young wife, very gently.

"It isn't nice of you."

"Is Madame de StaËl indispensable?" asked Uncle Jonzac.

"Quite indispensable," answered Bijou, emphatically. "We must absolutely find some way of—" And then suddenly breaking off, as a new idea struck her, she exclaimed gaily: "Why, Henry can take it—Madame de StaËl's rÔle; he has scarcely any moustache."

"I?" cried Bracieux. "I act Madame de StaËl?"

"She was rather masculine; it will do very well."

"But, good heavens!—I am not going to appear before people I know arrayed in a low-necked dress, a turban, and all padded up—why, it would be frightful!"

"Not at all! Oh, come now—you don't want pressing, I hope?"

"And you are not going to spoil the whole thing by being disobliging over it," added Pierrot, with a virtuous air.

"Disobliging?" exclaimed Henry, turning towards him; "it is very evident that you are not in my place. By the bye, though, you might very well be in my place;" and then seeing that Pierrot looked horror-stricken, he continued: "Why shouldn't you take it instead of me—you have less moustache even than I have!"

"Yes, but I am too scraggy," declared Pierrot cunningly. "Madame de StaËl was rather a stout-looking woman."

"Scraggy? you, the athlete!"

Jean de Blaye knocked the floor with a billiard-cue for silence.

"We will think about who is to act Madame de StaËl when we have found out what she has to say—Well, then, she enters—Are you not going to write, Paul?"

"What do you want me to write?"

"Well, just write: 'Madame de StaËl enters by—' Yes, but that's the point—by which door does she enter?"

"I have put 'from the back of stage.' Whenever you don't tell me how they come in, I always put 'from the back of stage.'"

"All right! Then we will leave 'from the back of the stage.'"

"Madame de StaËl (to Thomas Vireloque): 'I am Madame de StaËl.'

Thomas Vireloque: 'Beg pardon?'

Madame de StaËl: 'I am Madame de StaËl.'

Venus: 'What have you to tell us?'

The Opportunist: 'It is very curious—I took you for a Turk.'

The Poet: 'And I—'"

"Wait a minute!" said M. de Rueille, "I've made a mistake."

"How could you?"

"How could I? The same way we generally do make mistakes, of course—I wasn't thinking."

"That's about it," said Bijou. "I don't know what's the matter with you, but you certainly are absent-minded this evening."

Without answering, Rueille drew his quill-pen across the paper, bearing on heavily, so that the pen gave a plaintive screech.

"What are you doing now?" asked Jean.

"I am crossing it out."

"What are you crossing out?"

"Well, I had written the same sentences over four times each."

Bijou and Blaye got up to examine M. de Rueille's work, and the young girl read out:

"Madame de StaËl: 'I am Madame de StaËl.'

Thomas Vireloque: 'Beg pardon?'

Madame de StaËl; 'I am Madame de StaËl.'

Thomas Vireloque: 'Beg pardon?'

Madame de StaËl; 'I am Madame de StaËl.'"

"Oh, yes," said Bijou, "you must cross that out!"

"No, leave it as it is, on the contrary," protested Jean, laughing; "they'll think that MÆterlinck collaborated with us—it will be capital."

"Supposing we were to retire," proposed M. de Jonzac. "Paul is half-asleep, that's why he wrote the same thing over three times without noticing it. AbbÉ Courteil is fast asleep, and, as for me, I am dying to follow his example."

"Oh," said Bijou, "it is scarcely one o'clock."

"Well, but it seems to me that in the country—What do you say about the matter, Monsieur Giraud?"

"Oh, as for me, monsieur, I could sit up all night without feeling sleepy," replied the young tutor, without taking his eyes off Bijou.

"My dear children," said the marchioness, getting up, "your uncle is quite right, you must go to bed. Bijou, will you see that the books you had out of the library are put back?"

"Yes grandmamma, I will put them back myself."

When the others had gone upstairs, M. de Rueille asked:

"Shall I help you, Bijou? two will do it more quickly—"

"No, you don't know anything about the library; you would mix them all up. I must have someone who knows where the books go." And then turning towards the tutor, who was just going out of the room, she said to him, in the most charming way, as though to excuse the liberty she was taking: "Monsieur Giraud, would you help me to put the books up?"

The young man stopped short, too delighted even for words. As he remained standing there, she pointed to the open door leading into the hall and said gently:

"Will you shut the door, please? And then, if you will take MoliÈre, I will bring Aristophanes, and we will come back for the others—yes, that's it."

As she tripped along with the books, she chattered away, not as though she were addressing her companion, but rather as though she were going on with her thoughts aloud.

"What was Jean looking for in Aristophanes when he only wanted to make Thomas Vireloque and Madame de StaËl talk?" And then breaking off abruptly, she asked:

"Do you think it will be interesting—our play?"

"Oh, yes, mademoiselle."

"Why do you never help us? you ought to work at it, too."

"Oh, I am not very well up in that sort of thing, mademoiselle; politics and society talk are like sealed books to me, and I do not exactly see either—"

"And then, probably, you would rather be just a spectator?"

"Unfortunately, mademoiselle, to my great regret, I shall not even be that."

"What?" she exclaimed, in amazement, "you will not see our play?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"But, why?"

"Oh!" he replied, dreadfully embarrassed, "for a very ridiculous reason."

"But what is it?"

"Mademoiselle—I—"

"Do please tell me why?" she said, and as she leaned forward towards him, looking so graceful and charming, the perfume from her hair plunged the young man into a sort of enervating torpor.

"Why will you not tell me?" she said at length, almost sadly; "don't you look upon me a little as your friend?"

"Oh, mademoiselle," he stammered out, "I—I cannot appear at this soiree because—you will see how prosaic my reason is—the fact is, I have not a dress-coat."

"But you have plenty of time to send for your dress-coat; besides, you will want it for Thursday, there is a dinner on Thursday."

Giraud blushed crimson.

"But, mademoiselle, I cannot send for it either for Thursday or for later on, because I—I haven't one."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all!"

"Oh, you are joking?"

"No, I am not joking, mademoiselle! I do not possess a dress-coat." And then he added with a smile which was quite pathetic: "And there are plenty of poor wretches like I am who are in the same predicament!"

"Oh!" said Bijou, taking the tutor's hand with an abrupt movement, "do forgive me—how horrid and thoughtless I am! You will detest me, shall you not?"

She pressed his hand slowly in a way which sent a thrill through him.

"Detest you?" he stammered out, almost beside himself with joy. "I adore you!—I simply adore you!"

Bijou gazed at him in a startled way, but there was a tender expression in her eyes, which were dimmed with tears. Her voice was quite changed when she spoke again:

"Go away now!" she said, "and do not say that again; you must never, never say it again!"

When he reached the door he turned round, and saw that Bijou had thrown herself down on the divan, and was sobbing, with her face buried in the cushions. He wanted to go back to her, but he did not dare, and, without saying another word, he left the room.

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