Always up first in the morning, Bijou was in the habit of going downstairs towards seven o'clock, in order to attend to her housekeeping duties.

She always paid a visit to the pantry, and to the dairy, and, with the exception of Pierrot, who was sometimes wandering about the passages with very sleepy-looking eyes, she never met anybody at this early hour.

To her astonishment, therefore, on this particular morning she nearly ran up against M. de Rueille, who was coming out of the library with a book in his hand.

Of all the visitors at Bracieux he was the laziest, so that Bijou laughed as she commented on his early rising.

"How's this?" she asked; "have you finished your slumbers already?"

"Or, rather, I have not commenced them!"

"Oh, nonsense!"

"No, and as I had finished all the literature I had upstairs, I came down to get a book to finish my night with."

Bijou pointed to the sun, which was streaming in by the open window.

"Your night!"

"Oh, as far as I am concerned, you know, unless I am going out shooting, or off by train somewhere, it is night up to ten o'clock, at least!"

"And you are now going to bed again?"

"This very instant."

"But it is ridiculous."

"On the contrary, it is very wise, and all the more so, as, when one is in a bad temper, the best thing to do is to keep one's self out of the way."

"You are in a bad temper?"

"Yes."

"And why?"

Paul de Rueille hesitated slightly before answering.

"I don't know why."

"It's quite true," said Bijou, laughing, "that you were not very amiable yesterday during our journey to Pont-sur-Loire."

"It was your fault!"

"My fault—mine?"

"Yours."

"And pray why?"

"I will tell you if you like."

"Yes, I should like; but not now, because I am keeping some one waiting in the dairy."

"Who is waiting for you?" he asked anxiously.

"The dairy-maid," answered Bijou, without noticing his anxiety.

"Oh! go at once, then, if that is the case," said M. de Rueille sarcastically. "I should not like the dairy-maid to be kept waiting on my account."

"You should come and see the cheeses," proposed Denyse.

"That must certainly be very festive; no, really, are you not afraid that I should find that too exciting, Bijou, my dear?"

"You would find it as exciting, anyhow, as going to bed, and reading over again some old book that you must know by heart. Oh, you know it by heart, I am sure! There is nothing in the library but the classics, or a lot of old-fashioned things; ever since I have come no new books are put in the library, either in the Paris house or here at Bracieux. Grandmamma is so afraid that I should get hold of them; but she is quite mistaken, for I should never open a book that I had been told not to open—never!"

"Grandmamma is afraid of your doing what any other girl would do; you are such an astonishing exception, Bijou!"

"Yes, I am an exception—an angel, anything you like; but either come with me, or let me go, if you please! I don't like to keep people waiting."

"Oh, well, I'll come with you if you like," said M. de Rueille, putting his book down on a side-table.

He followed Bijou without speaking, as she trotted along in front of him. She looked so sweet, going backwards and forwards amongst the great pails of milk; her straw hat, covered with lace, tossed carelessly on her fair hair; her morning dress, of pink batiste, fastened up rather high with a safety-pin.

She inspected everything, gave her orders, and settled all kinds of details, without troubling about her cousin any more than if he did not exist; and then, when she had quite finished, she turned towards him, smiling.

"Now, then," she said, "if you would like a stroll, I am at your service." She turned into one of the garden paths that led to the avenues, and then added, as she looked up at Paul, "I'm listening!"

"You are listening? What do you want me to say?"

"I thought you were going to tell me why you were so bad-tempered yesterday; you said it was my fault."

"Well, it was; you were—" he began, in an embarrassed way; and then he continued, in desperation, "the way you went on, it was not at all like you generally are, nor like you ought to be!"

"Ah! what did I do then?"

"Well, in the first place, you insisted, in the most extraordinary way, that BernÈs should come on to the coach when we met him. Why did you insist like that?"

"Well, it is natural enough when you meet anyone walking a mile away from where you are driving yourself, that you should offer to pick him up; it seems to me that it would be odd, on the contrary, not to offer to pick him up!"

"Yes, agreed; but then it was M. de Clagny who should have offered a seat in his own carriage."

"He never thought of it—"

"Or else he did not care to? And you obliged him to do it whether he would or not?"

"Rubbish! he adores M. de BernÈs. The other day he spent half an hour singing his praises to me in every key."

"Ah! that is probably what made you so pleasant to him?"

"Was I so pleasant?"

"Certainly! As a rule you don't pay the slightest attention to him, but yesterday you had no eyes for anyone but him."

"I did not notice that myself."

"Really? Well, you were the only one who did not, then! You went on to such a degree that I wondered if it were not simply for the sake of tormenting me that you were acting in that way!"

Bijou gazed straight at M. de Rueille with her beautiful, luminous eyes.

"To torment you? and how could it torment you if I chose to be agreeable to M. de BernÈs?"

"How?" stuttered M. de Rueille, very much confused; "why, I have just told you I am not—we are not accustomed to seeing you make a fuss like that, especially of a young man! No, I assure you, I was amazed. I am still, in fact."

"And I am ever so sorry to have vexed you," she said sweetly. "Yes, I am really; you see, I had never noticed M. de BernÈs particularly, and I wanted to see whether all the nice things M. de Clagny had told me about him were quite true, and so I was studying him. Will you forgive me?"

M. de Rueille did not reply to this, as he had another grievance on his mind.

"With Clagny, too, you have a way of carrying on, which is not at all the thing. He is an old man; that's all well and good; but, you know, he is not so ancient yet for you to be able to take such liberties with him!"

"What do you call liberties?"

"Well, sometimes you appear to admire him, to be in ecstasies about him; and then sometimes you coax and wheedle him in the most absurd way, as you did yesterday."

"Yesterday! I coaxed and wheedled M. de Clagny? I?"

"You!"

"But about what?"

"When you would insist, in spite of everything, in driving through Rue Rabelais; and I'll be hanged if I can see why you wanted to; it's about as dirty a street as there is, without taking into account that you might have caused us all to break our necks. Yes, certainly, it was the most dangerous experiment—your fad! Young BernÈs, who is one of the most out-and-out daring fellows himself, tried to persuade you out of wanting to go along that street!"

The strange little gleam, which sometimes lighted up Bijou's eyes, came into them now.

"Yes, that's true!" she said, smiling. "He was wild to prevent our going down the Rue Rabelais—M. de BernÈs! It was as though he was afraid of something!"

"He was afraid of coming to smash, by Jove, just as I was, and the abbÉ, and even Pierrot. I cannot understand how old Clagny could have let you have your fad out, for he was responsible for the little Dubuisson girl, and for Pierrot, and you, without reckoning all of us!"

"Have you finished blowing me up?"

"I am not blowing you up."

"Oh, well, that's cool. Let's make it up now, shall we?" and, standing on tip-toes, Bijou held her pretty face up, saying, "Kiss me?"

He stepped back abruptly.

"Oh!" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise, and looking hurt, "you won't kiss me?"

Paul de Rueille had been so taken aback, that he could scarcely find any words.

"It isn't that I won't, but—well, not here like that, it is so absurd! I cannot understand your not seeing how ridiculous it is."

Bijou shook her rough head, and the loose curls over her forehead danced about.

"No, I do not see that it is at all ridiculous," and then, instead of going any farther, she turned round, and they went back to the house without another word.

On going up into his room, M. de Rueille found his wife reading a letter.

"I have just heard from Dr. Brice," she said, handing him the letter. "It seemed to me that Marcel had not been well just lately."

"Not well—Marcel? Why the child eats and drinks more than I do. He sleeps like a top, too, and grows like a mushroom. Oh, that's good, that is! And what disease has he discovered in the boy—our excellent Brice?"

"No disease at all!"

"Oh, well, that's lucky!

"But he orders him to have sea-air."

"Sea-air for a lad who is in such downright good health that it positively makes him unbearable, he is so riotous?"

"Read what he says."

"Let me see what he says," murmured M. de Rueille, putting on a look of resignation, as he began to read the long letter, in which the doctor advised sea-air as the best remedy for the child in his present nervous state.

"And so he is in a nervous state?" said M. de Rueille jeeringly; "and on account of this, which no one, by the bye, except you, has noticed, we are to leave Bracieux, where the lad is flourishing in this delightful fresh air—it is his native air, in fact—and we are to go and take up our abode at some stupid seaside place? Oh, no! You really do get hold of some ridiculous ideas sometimes."

He was still irritated after his discussion with Bijou, and the idea of going away from her now caused him to speak in a harsh, dry way. He tried to laugh, too, but his laugh sounded forced and hollow.

Bertrade looked at him as she said gently:

"I did not want to tell you the truth straight out; I hoped that you would guess it. Do you not guess?"

"No, not at all," he answered, with a vague feeling of uneasiness.

"Well, then, you were right just now; not only Marcel, and his brothers too, for that matter, are better at Bracieux than anywhere else, but he has nothing the matter with him."

As M. de Rueille looked surprised, she continued, in a tranquil way:

"It is Marcel's father who is not quite himself, who needs a change of air, and who will, I am sure, decide on having a change."

"Well, really," he stammered out, "I do not know what you mean."

"I mean that you must leave Bracieux for a time," she answered, speaking very distinctly.

"Do you particularly wish me to tell you why?"

"I do."

"You are unwise to insist. You know that in a general way I never interfere in anything that you choose to do, or leave undone."

"Yes, you have always been very sweet and very sensible about everything," said M. de Rueille, "and I thoroughly appreciate—"

"Oh, there is no need to say anything about all that. I have always left you quite free to act in every way as you preferred, and now, in this matter, I do not bear you any ill-feeling whatever, and I should never have spoken to you of it if I had not seen that you are going too far. I have confidence in you, so that I know you will be on your guard; but I know how fascinating Bijou is, and I can see perfectly well that, next to poor young Giraud, you are the one who is the most infatuated."

"Yes, you are quite right, I am infatuated; but, as you say yourself, there is no danger whatever, and whether I go away, or whether I stay here, it is all the same; that will make no difference whatever."

"Yes! if you stay you will certainly make yourself ridiculous, and probably wretched, too. I am speaking to you now just as a friend might. Let us go away; believe me, it would be better."

"Well, but when we came back again—for we should come back, shouldn't we? in two months at the latest—things would, be exactly as they were before."

"No, it would be quite different," she answered carelessly. "In two months' time she will be married, or nearly so."

"Married!" exclaimed M. de Rueille, astounded. "Married! Jean is going to marry her, then?"

"Why, no! Jean is not going to marry her. He's another one who would do well to make himself scarce."

"Well, if it is not Jean, I do not see—it is not Henry, I presume?"

"No, not Henry either. He understands perfectly well that, with what he has, he cannot marry Bijou."

"Well, who is it, then? Who is it?"

"Why, no one at all—that is, no one in particular."

"You spoke, on the contrary, as though you were affirming something that was quite settled. You said: In two months' time she will be married, or nearly so. What did you mean by that? Why don't you want to tell me? You have been told not to? It is a secret?"

"No, it is merely a supposition, I assure you, that is all."

"And this supposition you will not tell me?"

"No."

After a short silence Madame de Rueille began again:

"I showed grandmamma the doctor's letter; she is very sorry about our going away. She adores the children, and then, too, she likes to have the house full at Bracieux."

"And she let herself be gulled with this story about Marcel's nervous condition? I am surprised at that; she is so sharp!"

"If she was not gulled, as you call it, she allowed me to think that she was. I shall see you again presently: I must get ready for breakfast."

M. de Rueille went up to his wife, and asked, in a half-timid way:

"You are angry with me about it?"

"I? why should I be angry about what you cannot help? You are in the same situation as Jean, M. Giraud, Henry, the accompaniment professor, Pierrot, and others that we don't know of, not to speak of the abbÉ, who, at present, is always to be found somewhere round about where Bijou is."

"Oh!"

"It's perfectly true; the only thing is that, as far as he is concerned, he is unconscious of it. Without understanding the why and wherefore, he, too, is captivated by Bijou's charms just the same as all the others who come near her. I am quite sure that he, too, will be unhappy about going away from here; but he will not be able to explain to himself even the cause of his unhappiness. Ah! there's the bell; I shall never be ready; you had better go on down."

---

"Pierrot," said the marchioness, after breakfast, when everyone had assembled in the morning-room, "you did not give me my book yesterday?"

Pierrot, who was talking to Bijou, turned round, somewhat taken aback.

"What book, aunt?"

"Dumas' novel for the curÉ."

"Ah, yes; I could not think what book you meant!"

"You forgot to do my errand?"

"Not at all! but Pellerin hadn't it."

"Oh, why—he always has everything one wants!"

"Well, he hadn't got that; and, what was better still, he didn't seem to know the book at all!"

"Nonsense!"

"No, it's quite true! and he's an obstinate sort of beggar, too, he would have it that it wasn't by the father—what's his name? ah! I've forgotten already."

"Dumas!"

"Dumas! yes, that's it; and he kept on saying all the time, 'I know my Dumas well enough, and that book was never written by him.' Well, anyhow, he promised to try to get it, and to send it to you if it is to be had."

M. de Rueille was sorting out the letters, which had arrived during breakfast-time.

"Here's a letter from your bookseller, grandmamma," he said; "he evidently has not been able to get it."

"Open it, Paul, will you?"

Rueille tore open the envelope, and, taking out the letter, read as follows:

"Madam,—It is quite impossible to get the book which your nephew asked for. As we were anxious to execute your order, we sent to several of the principal booksellers, and even wired to Paris, but we were informed that there is not, and there never has been, a book entitled, 'Le BÂton de M. Molard.'"

"Le BÂton de M. Molard?" repeated the marchioness, not understanding in the least. "What is he talking about?" and then, all at once, the explanation of the mystery dawned upon her, and she exclaimed, in consternation: "Ah, I see! 'Le BÂton de M. Molard' is 'Le BÂtard de MaulÉon,' translated by Pierrot into his own language. I was quite right in wanting to write the title for him, but he would not hear of it."

M. de Jonzac turned his eyes up towards the ceiling with a tragic gesture of despair.

"He is incorrigible—absolutely hopeless," he said, half laughing and half vexed.

"I can't help it, I am as I was made," said Pierrot, blushing furiously and very much annoyed. "And then, too, I didn't know what I was doing yesterday; we were almost upset going into Pont-sur-Loire."

"Almost upset?" exclaimed Madame de Bracieux, "upset! why, how?"

"Because Bijou had the insane idea of wanting to go down the Rue Rabelais with the coach; and so M. de Clagny went—the old fool."

"Stop! that's enough!" interrupted the marchioness; "will you kindly speak more respectfully when you have anything to say about my old friend Clagny?"

"Well, all the same, your old friend hasn't got his head screwed on very well, considering his age. He might have killed us; and, besides that, I can tell you we did kick up a shindy in the Rue Rabelais. The coach scraped against the curb-stones; all the kids were running along nearly under the horses' heels; then the sound of the horn brought all the women to the windows, and didn't they exclaim when they saw what it was. That part wasn't so bad, either, for there were some jolly pretty ones, I can tell you; weren't there, Paul?"

As M. de Rueille appeared to be preoccupied, and did not answer, Pierrot turned to the abbÉ.

"Weren't there, M. Courteil?"

"I don't know," answered the abbÉ, with evident sincerity; "I was not noticing."

Pierrot did not intend to give in.

"Oh, well, Bijou noticed them anyhow, for I can tell you she did look at them, and with eyes as sharp as needles, too; they shone like anything."

"I?" she exclaimed, her pretty face turning suddenly red. "It was your fancy, Pierrot; I never saw anything. I was much too frightened."

"Frightened of what?" asked the marchioness.

"Why, of being upset, grandmamma. Pierrot is right about that; we were nearly upset."

"He is right, too, in saying that it was an insane idea to want to go with a carriage and four horses down a wretched little street like that; however could you have had such an idea?"

Bijou glanced at Jeanne Dubuisson, who, with her eyes fixed on the carpet, had turned very red, too, and was listening to the discussion without taking any part in it.

"Oh, really, I don't know. I think it was M. de Clagny telling me that his horses were so well in hand that he could make them turn round on a plate. And so, as the Rue Rabelais is rather narrow and winding, I said: 'I am sure you could not go along Rue Rabelais.'"

"No!" protested Pierrot, "it was not quite like that. You said, 'Let us go down Rue Rabelais, I should like to see it.' And, then, as he hesitated—for we may as well give him credit for having hesitated—you stuck to it as hard as you could."

"But," put in M. de Jonzac, seeing that Denyse looked annoyed, "what interest could your cousin possibly have in wanting to go down that street?"

"That's what I wondered," said Pierrot, looking puzzled; and then, suddenly taken with another idea, he added: "I can tell you there was somebody who didn't like it, and that was M. de BernÈs. I don't know what took him, but he did pull a long face. Oh, my! I can tell you he did look blue."

Henry de Bracieux laughed.

"I know why he was pulling such a long face, poor old BernÈs; he was afraid of being blown up—"

"Blown up?" asked Bijou, innocently opening her limpid eyes wide in surprise, whilst Jeanne's face, usually so impassive, turned almost purple. "Blown up? by whom?"

And then, as there was a dead silence, which became more and more embarrassing, Bijou turned to her friend.

"Let's go out for a stroll in the garden, Jeanne, shall we?" she said.

"I'll come with you," remarked Pierrot promptly; but Bijou pushed him gently back.

"No! we shall do very well by ourselves, thank you; you would worry us."

As the two girls were descending the hall-door steps, Bijou said to Jeanne, who was just behind her, and who had not quite recovered from her embarrassment:

"I know why you looked so conscious just now; you were thinking of the gossip about that actress—I've forgotten her name—whom M. de BernÈs knows. I had not thought of it at the time, and so it did not trouble me. You see I was right when I told you that it was a mistake to listen to MÈre Rafut's tales."

"Yes, you always are right!" answered Jeanne pensively; "I said then that you are always right!"

---

After Bijou's departure, the men one after another left the drawing-room.

"What's the matter, Bertrade?" asked the marchioness, as soon as she found herself alone with Madame de Rueille. "Paul looked very queer during breakfast!"

"Did you think so?" said the young wife, not wishing either to acknowledge it or to tell an untruth about the matter.

"I did think so, and you looked queer too; and as I watched you both, an idea dawned upon me."

"And what is this idea?"

"It is that my dear little Marcel is no more ill than I am, and that the letter you showed me this morning is nothing but a pretext for getting your husband away from here; is that so?"

Madame de Rueille was too straightforward to be able to deny the fact.

"It is so!"

"And so you are jealous, and jealous of Bijou?"

"Not jealous, oh, dear no! not in the least; but anxious."

"About Bijou?"

Madame de Rueille looked serious as she shook her pretty head.

"No, about Paul."

"You are not afraid of your husband going too far, I suppose?"

"No!"

"Well, what then?"

"I am anxious about his peace of mind, and then, too, I do not care for him to make himself completely ridiculous."

"You must know, my dear Bertrade, that I have seen for some time past that Paul was gone on Bijou, just as all the others are—for there is no mistake about it, they all are; and the last few days I have noticed that your abbÉ even has begun to lose his indifference; don't you think so?"

"It is very possible!"

"Yes, and I am sure that he isn't going along quite so peacefully in his worship of God as formerly?"

"And that does not displease you either, grandmamma, does it? Come, now, own it!"

"Oh, well; as long as it is just a little beneficial upset for him, I don't mind; but I should not like it to develop into anything serious—you understand where I draw the line?"

"No, because I always pity all those who are suffering from such little upsets—as you call them—even when they are mild, I think they are calculated to make people suffer greatly."

"You always see a darker side of things than I do; at all events, I think that the idea of carrying Paul off is a very excessive and unwise kind of remedy. He keeps a strict guard over himself, and no one suspects the true state of things except you—"

"And all the others!"

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it."

"Well, even if it be so, that is of no importance, provided that Bijou does not suspect it herself. Why do you not answer?"

"Because I am not of the same opinion as you, grandmamma, and you do not like that as a rule, particularly when it is a question of Bijou."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said, nothing else."

"Then, according to you, Bijou has noticed it from—"

"From the very first day."

"And even if that should be so, she cannot help it! Besides, what danger does she run?"

"None at all."

"Paul is honourable."

"Undoubtedly, and even if he were not, Bijou would have nothing to fear for several reasons."

"What are they?"

"Well, in the first place—her own indifference. Paul makes about as much impression on her, I believe, as a table."

"Next?"

"Next? Why, that's all!"

"You said 'several reasons,'—you have given me one; let us hear what the others are."

"Oh, no!" said Madame de Rueille, "it was just my way of speaking."

"Nonsense! you are not clever at telling untruths, my dear Bertrade; I am pretty sure I know what you thought!"

"I don't think you do."

"Well, you'll see! You were thinking that one of the reasons why Bijou will never take any notice of Paul is—"

"Because he is married."

"Yes, of course; but you fancy, too, I am sure of it, that Bijou is thinking of someone else? Ah, you see! you don't answer now! Yes, you believe, as your husband does—he told me so two or three days ago—that she is madly in love with young Giraud!"

"Oh, grandmamma, what an unlikely supposition! In the first place, Bijou is not, and never will be, madly in love with anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when she marries, it will be in a reasonable, calm sort of way, just as she does everything else."

"But when will it be?"

"When will it be? Well, I do not know exactly—soon, I think."

"Then you are saying that just at random? You are speaking of the future in just a vague sort of way?"

"The future always is vague, grandmamma," answered Madame de Rueille, smiling.

---