Part 27 (1/2)
”Confound it! again?” said the young tutor, annoyed, and looking reproachfully at his pupil. ”You know that M. de Jonzac objects to your speaking in that way. He particularly wishes you to be more careful, and more correct, in your choice of words.”
”Oh, well! if he were to talk to my friends, he'd hear a few things, and he'd soon get used to it, too. It's always like that; just a matter of getting used to things.”
”I cannot imagine that very well, though,” said Bijou; ”Uncle Alexis letting himself get used to the style of conversation of your friends.”
She drew up whilst she was speaking, and pointed to something in the wood.
”Oh! look at that beautiful mountain ash, isn't it red? How pretty those bunches are!”
”Do you want some of those berries?” proposed Pierrot.
”Yes, I should like some, they are so beautiful.”
The youth entered the coppice, and they heard the branches snapping as he broke them in order to make himself a pa.s.sage, and presently the top of the red tree shook and swayed, now bending down, and now springing up again, as Pierrot shook it roughly.
Bijou, with her head bent, and a far-away look in her eyes, seemed to be in a dream, quite oblivious of what was going on around her. She started on hearing Pierrot's voice as he called out to her to know whether he was to gather a large bunch.
”There is nothing worrying you, is there, mademoiselle?” asked Monsieur Giraud timidly, as he stroked Patatras gently.
”Oh, no! Why?”
”Because you do not seem quite like yourself; you look rather sad.”
”Sad?” she said, forcing a smile. ”I look sad?”
”Yes. Just now, when you pa.s.sed by without seeing us, you looked sad, very sad, and now again--”
”Just now--that's quite possible. Yes, I did not feel quite gay; but, now, why, I have no reason to be otherwise--quite the contrary. I feel so happy here, in this velvety-looking field, and with this beautiful suns.h.i.+ne that I love so much!” And then she added, as though in a dream, and not taking any notice of the young man: ”Yes, I am so happy, I should like to stay like this for ever and ever.”
She pressed her rosy lips to the spray of clematis with which she had been playing the last minute or two, and then put it back into her bodice, not seeing the hand which Giraud was holding out beseechingly towards the poor flowers, which were already withering.
Pierrot came out of the thicket at this moment, carrying an immense bunch of mountain ash berries. Bijou was smiling again by this time.
”You are ever so kind, Pierrot dear,” she said, after thanking him, ”and all the more so as you will have the bother of carrying that for another mile yet.”
”Oh! if it would give you any pleasure, you know, I'd do things that were a lot more bother than that!”
”You are good, Pierrot.”
”It isn't because I'm good;” he said, and then coming nearer, so that he touched the horse, he added very softly: ”It's because I'm so fond of you.”
Bijou did not answer, and in another minute Pierrot began again:
”How well you sang last night. Didn't she, M'sieu' Giraud?”
”Wonderfully well,” said the tutor. ”And what a lovely voice! so fresh, and so pure. I can understand something now which I did not understand yesterday.”
”What may that be?”