Part 32 (1/2)
”And it would suit you wonderfully well.”
”But shouldn't you mind my being dressed like you?” asked Jeanne, rather timidly.
”On the contrary, I should love it! Would you like us to make the dress here? I would try it on, and like that we should be sure that it was right.”
”How sweet you are! Plenty of other girls in your place would only trouble about themselves.”
”Listen, supposing you wrote for the crepe to be sent to-morrow.” And then she added laughing, ”M. de Bernes asked me yesterday evening if I had not any commissions for Pont-sur-Loire. I might have given him that to do!”
”He would have been slightly embarra.s.sed.”
”Why? It is easy enough to buy pink crepe with a pattern.”
Mere Rafut, who had been busy sewing, without uttering a word, but just pulling her needle through the work with a quick regular movement, now lifted her face, all wrinkled like an old apple, and remarked drily:
”And even without!”
”Without what?” asked Bijou.
”Without a pattern. Oh, no, it isn't he who'd be embarra.s.sed! Why, he always helps to choose Mademoiselle Lisette Renaud's dresses.”
”Lisette Renaud, the singer?” asked Jeanne eagerly, whilst Denyse, very much taken up with her work, did not appear to have heard.
”No, mademoiselle, the actress.”
”Well, that's what I meant. Ah! and so M. de Bernes knows her?”
The old sewing-woman smiled.
”I should just think he does. He's known her more than a year and a half.”
”Ah!” said Jeanne, evidently interested, ”she is so pretty, Lisette Renaud! I saw her in _Mignon_ and in the _Dragons de Villars_ too.”
”Oh, yes!” said Mere Rafut, ”she is pretty, too, and as good as she is pretty! If you only knew!”
”Good?” repeated Jeanne, ”but--”
”Ah, yes! For sure, she isn't a young lady like you, mademoiselle! But ever since she has known M. de Bernes, I can tell you, she won't look at anyone else. And he's the same, as far as that goes, and that's saying a good deal, for, nice-looking as he is, there's plenty of ladies after him, ladies in the best society, too, in officers'
families; and they do say the Prefect's wife admires him! Oh, my, he doesn't care a snap for them all, though! He's got no eyes for anyone but Lisette; but you should see him when he's looking at her--it's pretty sure that if he was an officer of high rank he'd marry her straight off, and he'd be quite right, too--”
”Jeanne!” interrupted Bijou, ”that's the first bell for luncheon.” And when they were out of the room she said, in a very gentle voice, with just a shade of reproach: ”Why do you let Mere Rafut tell you things you ought not to listen to?”
”Oh, goodness!” cried Jeanne, blus.h.i.+ng and looking confused, ”her story wasn't so very dreadful; and then, even if it had been, how do you think I could help her telling it?”
”Oh! that's easy enough, the only thing to do is not to reply or pay any attention; you would see that she would soon stop.”
”Yes, you are right,” and throwing her arms round Bijou, Jeanne kissed her.
”You are always right,” she said; ”and I, although I look so serious, am much more thoughtless than you, and much weaker-minded, too; I never can resist listening if it is anything that interests me.”