Part 4 (2/2)
You don't like that?”
”Not like it? I--good heavens!--why, I think it is perfectly charming!
I tell you, Bijou, that if I were not an old man, I should make love to you all the time!”
”You are not an old man!”
”Very many thanks! If, however, you do not look upon me as quite an old man--which, by the bye, is certainly debatable--I am at any rate a married man.”
”Yes, that's true, and so much the better for you, for there is nothing more stupid and tiresome than men who are always making love.”
”Well, then, you must know a terrible number of people who are stupid and tiresome.”
”Why?”
”Because everyone makes love to you--more or less!”
”Not at all! Why, just think! I was brought up in the most isolated way, like a veritable savage. When papa and mamma were living, they were always ill, and I was shut up with them, and never saw anyone. It is scarcely four years since I came to live with grandmamma, where I do see people.”
”Oh, yes; plenty of them, and no mistake!”
”You speak as though that annoyed you?”
She glanced sideways at Rueille, her eyes s.h.i.+ning beneath her drooping eyelids, whilst he replied, with a touch of irritation in his voice in spite of himself:
”Annoyed me, but why should it? Are your affairs any business of mine; have I any voice in the matter of anything that concerns you?”
”Which means that if you had a voice in the matter--?”
”Ah, there would certainly be many changes, and many reforms that I should make.”
”For instance?”
”Well, I should not allow you, if I were in your grandmamma's place, to be quite as affable and as ready to welcome everyone; I should want to keep you rather more for myself, and prevent your letting strangers have so much of you.”
”Yes,” she said, with a pensive expression, ”perhaps you are right.”
”And all the more so because we shall have you to ourselves for so short a time now.”
The large candid eyes, with their sweet expression, were fixed on Paul de Rueille as he continued:
”You will be marrying soon? You will be leaving us?”
Bijou laughed. ”How you arrange things. There is no question, as far as I know, of my marriage.”
”There is nothing definite--no; at least, I do not think so. But, practically, it is the one subject in question, and grandmamma thinks of nothing else.”
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