Part 3

"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 abbe, 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:

"'_L'ame d'un symboliste, Madame, est un coffret melancolique d'amethyste A serrure de diamant. Il suffit de savoir l'ouvrir et la comprendre Et le tresor eclos illumine la chambre Et sourit la tristesse aux levres des amants._'"

"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 age_,'" 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 age._' 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 Stael come in."

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

"Have you found anyone for Madame de Stael?" 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 Stael 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 Stael's _role_; he has scarcely any moustache."

"I?" cried Bracieux. "_I_ act Madame de Stael?"

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

_Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?'

_Madame de Stael_: 'I am Madame de Stael.'

_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 Stael_: 'I am Madame de Stael.'

_Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?'

_Madame de Stael_; 'I am Madame de Stael.'

_Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?'

_Madame de Stael_; 'I am Madame de Stael.'"

"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 Maeterlinck 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. Abbe 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 Moliere, 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 Stael 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.

IV.

BIJOU, who, as a rule, was to be seen every morning trotting about, either in the house or the park, did not appear until after the first luncheon-bell.

Pierrot, who had been quite uneasy, rushed across to meet her, and assailed her with questions before she had had time to say good-morning to the marchioness and to her Uncle Alexis.

He wanted to know why he had not seen her as usual in the dairy, where she always went every morning to inspect the cheeses. Why had she not been there, as she had not been out riding?

"How do you know that I have not been out riding?" asked Bijou.

"Because Patatras was in the stable," replied Pierrot. "I went to see."

"Oh, then you keep a watch on me?" she said, laughing.

"That is not keeping a watch on you," answered Pierrot, turning red; "and then, too, it isn't only me! we were both of us--M. Giraud--"

"What grammar--good heavens--what grammar!" exclaimed M. de Jonzac, in despair.

"What's it matter? If there was anyone here, I'd take care to put the style on; but when there's only us!" And then turning to Bijou, he continued: "It's quite true, you know! M. Giraud was just as much surprised as I. He kept on saying all the time: 'We always see mademoiselle every day hurrying about everywhere, she must be ill!' And then I'd say, 'Oh, no! it can't be that! the Bijou is never ill!' You see, Monsieur Giraud, I was quite right--"

"No, you were wrong! I was not exactly ill, but tired, out of sorts. I am only just up."

She walked across to the tutor, who was leaning so heavily against the window-frame that it seemed as though he wanted to hollow out a niche for himself with his back.

"I want to thank you, Monsieur Giraud," said Bijou, holding out her hand to him, "for being so kind as to think about me."

Very pale, and visibly embarrassed, the young man scarcely dared touch the soft little hand lying so confidingly in his; he looked very delighted, though, at being treated with such cordiality, as it was more than he had ever expected again.

"Mademoiselle," he stammered out, seized with a vague desire either to run away or else to give way to his emotion, "please do not believe that I should have taken the liberty of making all those remarks."

"Oh, well, it would not have mattered; there is plenty of liberty allowed with _the Bijou_, as Pierrot would say." And then suddenly looking very thoughtful and absorbed, she asked: "Have they been working at the play this morning?"

"Working?" exclaimed Pierrot, with an air of surprise; "working without you there? Oh, by jingo, no: it's quite enough to peg away at it when you are with us, without going at it while you are away. Oh, no! it would be too bad--that would! We had a dose of it last night--the precious play--and I, more particularly, because I am obliged to work at other things."

Bijou laughed heartily. "Are you not afraid of tiring yourself with working so hard as all that?"

"If he continues at the rate he is going," said M. de Jonzac, "he will never take his degree, will he, Monsieur Giraud?"

"I am afraid not, monsieur, I am very much afraid not," replied the tutor gently. "Pierrot is very intelligent, but so thoughtless, and so absent-minded always, especially since our arrival here!"

"Oh! not any more than you are, at any rate, Monsieur Giraud," retorted Pierrot. "It's quite true! I don't know what's the matter with you, but your thoughts are always wool-gathering, and you don't go in for books as you did before. Why, even _maths_ you don't seem so mad on--you don't do anything now except look after me, and go off writing poetry."

"You write poetry, Monsieur Giraud?" asked Madame de Rueille, entering the room, followed by Jean and Henry.

"Oh, madame," stuttered the poor fellow, not knowing where to put himself nor what to say, "I write some sort, but it is--not exactly poetry."

"You write charming poetry!" said Jean, and then, as the young tutor looked at him in astonishment, he continued: "Yes, you write very good poetry--and then you lose it; little Marcel has just picked up these verses and brought them to me."

He smiled as he held out to Giraud a folded paper, the writing on which was invisible.

"Let me see them!" said Bijou, holding out her hand.

"Oh, mademoiselle!" cried the tutor, stepping forward, terrified, "please do not insist!" And then in order to explain his own agitation, he added: "They are wretched verses; please let me put them out of sight. I will show you some others which are more worth looking at."

Bijou's hand was still held out, and she stood there waiting, looking very frank and innocent.

"Oh, please, Jean, let me see these all the same; that need not prevent M. Giraud writing some more that we can see, too."

"I cannot show you a letter," replied Jean, handing the paper to the distracted tutor, "and this is a kind of letter, and belongs to the person who wrote it."

"Thank you," stammered out Giraud, thoroughly abashed, "I am much obliged, monsieur." And he at once put the troublesome scrap of paper into his pocket out of sight.

"Pierrot!" called out the marchioness, "give me 'La Bruyere'--you know where it is?"

"What's that?" asked the youth, winking.

"'La Bruyere'?"

"You see," remarked M. de Jonzac, looking at his son with an expression of despair on his face, "he does not even know who 'La Bruyere' is!"

Pierrot protested energetically. "Yes, I do know who he is, and the proof is, I can tell you--it's a blue-back."

"A what?" asked the marchioness.

"A blue-back, aunt."

"Explain to your aunt," interposed M. Giraud, "that you have a most objectionable mania for speaking of books by the colour of the binding rather than by their title."

"By George!" exclaimed M. de Jonzac, annoyed, "he never by any chance opens one. He is an absolute ignoramus; just to think that he will soon be seventeen!"

"Poor Pierrot," said Bijou compassionately, "he is not as ignorant as all that!" And then, as her uncle did not answer, she added: "And then, too, he is ever so nice, and he is so strong and well."

"Oh, as to that," said M. de Jonzac, "his health is perfect, and that just makes him all the more insufferable, but not any more intelligent though. Everyone complains about the overtaxing of the intellectual faculties; they say that it is the ruin of children; and so, by way of improvement, they go in now for overtaxing them physically, which is a more certain ruin still."

"Ah, uncle is waging war now," put in Bertrade; "but I am of his opinion, too, for I do not like to think that some day my children will add to the number of the young ruffians we see around us."

"But," objected Henry de Bracieux, "many of them--and some quite young, too--are very intellectual; I know some."

"I, too, know some," said Jean de Blaye; "but, to my way of thinking, they are not precisely intellectual, they are--"

Just at this moment a bell was rung in the hall.

"We must go to luncheon, children," said the marchioness, rising, "Jean will finish his little definition for us at table."

"Oh, I am not particularly keen about it, aunt," said Jean, laughing.

"I am, though; I am no longer 'in the know' of things, as you say, and I don't object to be instructed about certain matters on which I am absolutely ignorant."

On taking her seat at table, the marchioness, addressing Jean, continued:

"You were saying that the young men who were not precisely the intellectual ones were--"

"Oh, I am not good at explanations," he replied.

"That does not matter; go on, anyhow."