Part 46 (1/2)

”What a horribly hot day it is, Bijou dear. I don't like to see you in this blazing suns.h.i.+ne!”

Denyse turned round with a very rosy face.

”Nor do I either, grandmamma, I don't like to see myself in it at all!” She was silent a moment and then she continued: ”When we come across Jean, Henry, and Pierrot, I shall desert you.”

”Do you think we shall come across them?”

”Oh, yes, certainly! They are going along through the wood, almost the same road that we are taking with the carriages. They are only some twelve or fifteen yards away from us; I heard them a little while ago.

As soon as I see them I shall leave you!”

M. de Clagny called to Bijou in order to warn her about a hundred things to avoid. In the coppice she was to beware of the branches; that very morning he had been almost taken out of his saddle when galloping in the wood. She was to take care, too, of the burrows--the wood was full of them; and then she was not to jump all in a heap, as it were; she must never do that, but always remember to lean forward or hold back.

She listened to all this advice smilingly, and with a certain affectionate deference.

”How good you are, Bijou!” he finished up with at last. ”How is it you do not tell your old friend who worries you so to go about his business?”

Just at this moment a horseman crossed the road about two hundred yards in front of the carriages, and entered the forest.

”Ah!” said the count, ”there's Bernes throwing his paper! he's gone in for the right way of doing things, that is, to go along the whole route first in the opposite direction, dropping the paper, then afterwards one has only to fly along, without troubling about anything.”

”What time is it?” asked Bijou.

”Twenty minutes to three,” answered Bertrade, looking at her watch.

”We shall get to the meet much too soon.”

M. de Clagny let his horses walk, and Bijou caught up with the landau again, and began talking to Jeanne. Suddenly she bent her head as though listening to something.

”Ah, there they are!” she exclaimed. ”I can hear them!”

”Whom do you hear?” asked the marchioness.

”Why, the others; they are there, and I am going to them. Good-bye, grandmamma.” She crossed the ditch at the side of the road, and then pulled up, and, throwing a kiss to Jeanne, called out: ”Good-bye to you, too.”

But the landau was some distance on, and the coach was just pa.s.sing.

Giraud, seated at the back with the children, was the only one who was looking in Bijou's direction, and it was he who received the farewell kiss she threw to her friend.

”Are you sure to find them?” asked the count, turning round on the box-seat.

”Why, they are only a few steps away,” she answered, pointing to the wood. ”I have just seen Henry.”

Whereupon she disappeared in the thicket, and M. de Clagny looked after her, with an anxious expression on his face.

As soon as she had found a path, Bijou set off at a gallop, going straight ahead, listening eagerly, and looking out as far as she could see in front of her through the gloom of the wood.

Quite suddenly she turned abruptly aside, and rode some little distance into the brushwood, where she remained without moving, and doing all she could to prevent Patatras from making the dead branches crackle under his feet.

Along the path which she had just left came Henry de Bracieux, Jean de Blaye, and Pierrot.