Part 41 (2/2)
”No, I did not know. And does your wish get fulfilled?”
”They say so.”
”Well, then, mademoiselle, have you a wish quite ready this time, so that you will not be taken unawares?”
”Yes, certainly, I have one; but it can never be realised.”
”Ah! I dare not ask you what.”
”I should like to be quite different from what I am,” she replied, very gently. ”Yes, I should like to be a very pretty girl, in quite humble circ.u.mstances, so that I need not be obliged to go into society, and so that I could marry just whom I liked. I should like to be, in fact, happy according to my own idea of things, without troubling anything about social prejudices and conventionalities.”
”Why should you wish that?” he asked, in a voice that trembled slightly.
”So that I should have the right to love anyone who loved me. I mean, openly; without having to keep it to myself.” And then she added, in a very low voice, ”And without reproaching myself for it.”
She was walking quite close to him, so close, that their shoulders touched at every step.
Giraud was quite agitated with conflicting emotions.
”You say that--as if--as if--you did care for someone?” he stammered out.
He knew that she had turned her face towards him, but she did not speak.
Just at this moment a screech-owl, which was perched quite near them amongst the thick, dark looking foliage of the trees, gave a sudden, wailing, cry, which startled Bijou. She knocked against Giraud as she jumped aside in her fright, and he instinctively put his arms round her. Her soft, perfumed hair brushed against his lips, making him lose his head completely. He forgot everything, and, utterly oblivious of all that separated him from the young girl, he drew her closer to him in a pa.s.sionate embrace, and murmured tenderly:
”Denyse!”
She let him do as he liked, without offering any resistance, but when, at last, he set her free, she said, in a tender, plaintive tone:
”Oh! how wrong it was of you to have done that, how wrong of you!” And then she hid her face in her hands, and he could hear that she was crying.
He tried to console her, but she would not allow him to stay.
”No, go away, please,” she said: ”they will be wondering where you are. I shall come in directly, when I am myself again.”
As he was starting off in the direction of the terrace, she called him back.
”Not that way,” she said. ”Go round by the pool. Don't let them think you have come from here.”
”Let me stay another minute, just to ask you to forgive me. Let me kiss those little hands that I love--”
”Please go! Please go!” she said, in a tone that sounded as though she mistrusted herself.
Before turning into the walk that led round by the pool, Giraud stopped a minute to get another glimpse of Denyse, who, in her light dress, looked like a white spot against the dark background of the trees. He could hear that she was still crying.
”Is that you, Bijou?” asked Jean de Blaye, coming forward in the thick darkness.
<script>