LITMIR.BIZ

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looking at Bijou would perceive that she is charming. Why should an abbé not perceive that too?"

      "You do not like our poor abbé."

      "Oh, well, you know my opinion. I consider that priests were made for the churches and not for our houses. Apart from that, I like your abbé as well as I do any of them. I like him—negatively; I respect him."

      Bertrade laughed, and said in her gentle voice:

      "It scarcely seems like it; you are very rough on him always."

      "I am rough on him, just as I am rough on all of you."

      "Yes, but then we are accustomed to it, whilst he—"

      "Oh, very well, I won't be rough on him again. I will take care; but you have no idea how tiresome it will be to me. I do like to be able to speak my mind. It was a strange notion of yours, to have an abbé for your children."

      "It was Paul; he particularly wished the children to be educated by a priest, at any rate, to begin with. He is very religious."

      "Well, but so am I—I am very religious, and that is just why I would never have a priest as tutor. Yes, don't you see, if he should be an intelligent man, why, just for the sake of one or two, or even several children—but anyhow only a small number, you make use of his intelligence, which his calling had destined for the direction of his flock, and you prevent him from teaching, comforting, and forgiving the sins of poor creatures, who, as a rule, are much more interesting than we are. If, on the other hand, the priest should be an imbecile, why, he just devotes himself conscientiously to distorting the mind of the little human being entrusted to him, and in both cases you are responsible, either for the harm you do, or the good you prevent being done—Ah! here's Bijou, let me look at her; I shall enjoy that more than talking about your abbé," and the marchioness pointed to her grand-daughter, who was just entering the room, and who looked like a walking basket of flowers.

      Denyse de Courtaix, nicknamed Bijou, was an exquisite little creature, refined-looking, graceful, and slender, and yet all over dimples. She had large violet eyes, limpid, and full of expression, a straight nose, turning up almost imperceptibly at the end, a very small mouth, with very red lips going up merrily at the corners, and showing some small, milky-white teeth. Her soft, silky hair was of that light auburn shade so rarely seen nowadays. Her tiny ears were shaded with pink, like mother-of-pearl, and this same pinky shade was to be seen not only on her cheeks, but on her forehead, her neck, and her hands. It shone all over her skin with a rosy gleam. Her eyebrows alone, which crossed her smooth, intelligent forehead with a very fine, and almost unbroken dark line, indicated the fact that this frail and pretty little creature had a will of her own.

      Bijou, who looked about fifteen or sixteen years of age, had attained her majority just a week ago, but from her perfect and dainty little person there seemed to emanate a breath of child-like candour and innocence. Her charm, however, which was most subtle and penetrating, was distinctly that of a woman, and it was this contrast which made Bijou so fascinating and so unlike other girls. Such as she was, she infatuated men, delighted women, and was adored by all.

      As soon as she entered the room, all rosy-looking in her pink dress of cloudy muslin, with a sort of flat basket filled with roses, fastened round her neck with pink ribbon, everyone surrounded her, glad to welcome the gaiety which seemed to enter with her, for until her arrival the large room had felt somewhat bare and empty.

      Paul de Rueille, who was playing billiards with his brother-in-law, Henry de Bracieux, came to ask for a rose from her basket, whilst Henry, who had followed him, took one without asking.

      The de Rueille children, leaving the abbé, who continued calling out the loto numbers in a monotonous tone, went sliding across to the young girl, and hung about her. Their mother called them back.

      "Leave Bijou alone, children; you worry her!"

      "Robert! Marcel! come here," said the abbé, getting up.

      "Oh, no," protested Bijou, "let them alone; I like to have them!"

      She took the basket from her neck, and was just about to put it down on the billiard-table, when she suddenly stopped.

      "Oh, no! I must have mercy on the game."

      "Isn't she nice? she thinks of everything," murmured Henry de Bracieux, quite touched.

      "Come and kiss me, Bijou," said the marchioness.

      Denyse had just put her basket down on a divan. She took from it a full-blown rose, and went quickly across to her grandmother, whom she kissed over and over again in a fondling way as a child.

      "There," she said, presenting her rose, "it is the most beautiful one of all!" Her voice was rather high-pitched, rather "a head-voice" perhaps, but it sounded so young and clear, and then, too, she spoke so distinctly, and with such an admirable pronunciation.

      "You have not seen Pierrot, then?" asked the marchioness.

      "Pierrot?" said Bijou, as though she were trying to recall something to her memory. "Why, yes, I have seen him; he was with me a minute or two helping me to gather the flowers, and then he went away to his father, who was shooting rabbits in the wood."

      "I might have thought as much; that boy does not do a thing."

      "But, grandmamma, he is here for his holidays."

      "His holidays if you like; but, all the same, if a tutor has been engaged for him, it is surely so that he may work."

      "But he must take some rest now and again, poor Pierrot—and his tutor too."

      "They do nothing else, though. Well, as long as my brother knows it, and as long as it suits him—"

      "It suits him to-day, anyhow, for he told them to join him in the wood."

      "He told them?" repeated the old lady; and then she continued slily, "and so the tutor has been gathering roses, too?"

      "Yes," replied Denyse, with her beautiful, frank smile, and not noticing her grandmother's mocking intonation, "he has been gathering roses, too."

      "He probably enjoyed that more than shooting rabbits," said the marchioness, glancing at a tall young man who was just entering the room, "for if he went to join your uncle in the wood, he did not stay long with him anyhow!"

      "Why—no!"—said Bijou in astonishment, and then leaving her grandmother, she advanced to meet the young man.

      "Did you not find uncle, Monsieur Giraud?" she asked.

      "Oh, yes, mademoiselle," he replied, turning very red. "Yes, certainly, we found M. de Jonzac; but—I—I was obliged to come in—as I have some of Pierre's exercises to correct." And then, doubtlessly wanting to explain how it was that he had come into that room, he added, slightly confused: "I just came in here to see whether I had left my books about—I thought—but—I do not see them here—"

      He had not taken his eyes off Bijou, and was going away again when the marchioness, looking at him indulgently, and with an amused expression in her eyes, called him back.

      "Will you not stay and have a smoke here, Monsieur Giraud? Is there such a hurry as all that for the correction of those exercises?"

      "Oh, no, madame!" answered the tutor eagerly, retracing his steps, "there is no hurry at all."

      The old lady leaned forward towards Madame de Rueille, who was silently working at a handsome piece of tapestry, and said to her with a smile: "He is not like the abbé—this young man!"

      Bertrade lifted her pretty head and answered gravely:

      "No!"

      "You look as though you pitied him?"

      "I do, with all my heart."

      "And why, pray?"

      "Because the poor fellow, after coming to us as gay as a lark a fortnight ago, and winning all our hearts, will go away from here sad and unhappy, his heart heavy with grief or

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