Part 15 (2/2)
When she discovered that she was being gazed at in this way, her tea-rose complexion took a deeper tint, and she looked confused and embarra.s.sed, as she stood there facing the gentleman, who was still contemplating her without saying a word.
He was a man of between fifty-five and sixty, tall, slender, distinguished-looking, and elegant, and with a very young-looking figure for his years. His face, which was intelligent and refined, had also an almost youthful expression about it, just tinged with a shade of melancholy. As Bijou remained where she was, and appeared to be hesitating and not quite at her ease, the visitor approached, and, raising his hat, said in a very gentle voice:
”Excuse me, mademoiselle, but are you not Denyse de Courtaix?”
Bijou, with her frank, honest expression, looked straight into the eyes fixed so curiously upon her, and answered, smiling:
”Yes, and you?--you are Monsieur de Clagny, are you not?”
”How did you know?”
Denyse sprang out of the rose-bed on to the garden-path, and then, without answering the question in a direct way, she said, with the most trusting, happy look in her eyes:
”Oh! how glad grandmamma will be to see you, and Uncle Alexis, too; ever since they heard that you were coming back to live here, they have talked of nothing else. Let's go at once to find grandmamma.”
She started off, leading the way, looking most graceful and supple, as she pa.s.sed through the large rooms with that gliding movement which was one of her greatest charms.
The marchioness was not in the room where she was usually to be found.
Bijou rang the bell, and requested the servant to find Madame de Bracieux. She then took a seat opposite M. de Clagny, and examined him attentively.
”Paul de Rueille was quite right after all,” she said, ”when he told me that I had seen you long ago--I recognise you.” She gazed with her bright eyes more fixedly into the count's, and repeated pensively: ”I certainly do recognise you.”
”Well, I confess, in all sincerity,” said M. de Clagny, ”that if I had met you anywhere else than at Bracieux, I should not have recognised _you_--you are so much bigger, you know, and then, so much more beautiful that, with the exception of the lovely violet eyes, which have not changed, there is nothing remaining of the little baby-girl of years ago.”
”The name which you gave me still remains.”
”The name? what name?” he asked, in surprise.
”Bijou! don't you remember? it seems that it was you who used to call me that.”
”Yes, that's true! you seemed to me such a fragile little thing, so adorable and so rare--a bijou in fact, an exquisite little bijou. And so they have continued to call you by that name--it suits you, too, wonderfully well.”
”I don't think so! I am afraid it is rather ridiculous to be still _Bijou_ at the age of twenty-one, for, you know, I am twenty-one now.”
”Is it possible?”
”Very possible! in four years from now I shall be quite an old maid!”
The count looked at Bijou with an admiration which he did not attempt to dissimulate, as he answered emphatically:
”_You_ an old maid? oh, never in the world, never!”
Madame de Bracieux was just entering the room.
”How glad I am to see you!” she said, looking delighted, and holding out her hands to her visitor.
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