Bijou Part 21

"And would what?"

"Oh, nothing," answered the count, annoyed with himself. "I don't know what I was going to say."

"Bijou!" called out the marchioness suddenly, "Madame de Juzencourt wants to see the children; go and fetch them. You will allow them to come down, Bertrade? and you, too, monsieur?" she added, turning to the abbe.

M. de Clagny looked vexed at being separated from Denyse. It seemed to him already as though he could not do without her.

She soon came back, followed by Marcel and Robert, leading by the hand a superb baby-child of four years old, who was smiling amiably and confidingly as he trotted along.

"This is my G.o.dson," she said, introducing him with evident pride.

"Isn't he a pet, and so beautiful and good. He's a love!"

"Bijou is so good to that child," said Madame de Rueille, "she is always looking after him and is teaching him now to read."

"So early!" exclaimed M. de Clagny, in a reproachful tone, "is he being taught to read already?"

"Bijou teaches him plenty of other things, too, don't you, Bijou?"

asked the marchioness; "you are teaching him Bible history, are you not? Two days ago he told me about Moses, and he knew it all very well."

"Oh!" exclaimed the count jeeringly, "I should like to hear that. Poor unfortunate little mite!"

In a graceful, winsome way, Bijou knelt down by the child. On hearing "his story" mentioned, the poor little fellow looked at her beseechingly.

"Now, Fred, tell it," she said.

Docile, but with a discontented expression on his face, the little fellow looked up at his G.o.d-mother.

"Tell about Moses, you know it very well."

"Well then," began Fred resolutely, "they put him in a 'ittle basket, 'ittle Moses, and they put the basket on the Nile----"

He stopped abruptly, his face bathed in perspiration.

"And then, what happened?" asked Bijou.

"Don't know," replied the little fellow briefly; "don't know any more--don't know, I tell you. Say it yourself--what happened."

"Nonsense! come now, have you made up your mind not to answer?"

The child replied coaxingly:

"P'ease don't make me say it!"

Denyse insisted, however.

"Oh, yes! now something happened when Moses was going down the Nile.

What was it--what happened?"

He thought for a minute, his face puckered up, his eyes shut, and then, just when everyone had given up hoping for anything more, he cried out, delighted at having remembered:

"Puss in boots came! and called out: 'Help! help! it's the Marquis of Carabas--he's drowning.'"

"There, you see," said Bertrade, laughing, "this is what comes of teaching him so many fine things at the same time."

M. de Rueille added:

"Yes, a day or two ago Denyse gave him a stunning 'Puss in Boots' that we brought with us from Pont-sur-Loire, and this has evidently done Moses a great deal of harm."

Bijou turned towards her cousin, and exclaimed in astonishment:

"Denyse! how long have you taken to calling me Denyse?"

"Oh, I don't know," answered Rueille, "sometimes I do."

"Why, you never do! I thought you were vexed," and then, bending towards her G.o.dchild, and taking him up in her arms, she said, laughing: "My poor little Fred, we have not had much success this time, have we?"

Giraud, who was standing just behind her, gazed at her admiringly. She clasped the child, who was smiling at her, closer still, and murmured in a caressing tone:

"Fred! my dear Fred! I do so love you, if you only knew."

On hearing his own name p.r.o.nounced so tenderly, the young tutor had started involuntarily, and he had had the greatest difficulty in keeping himself from advancing towards Denyse. He had turned so pale, too, and such a strange, drawn look had come over his face, that Pierrot, who, as a rule, was not endowed with much power of observation except in matters relating to Bijou, noticed it, and asked:

"What's the matter with you, Monsieur Giraud? you look so queer! are you ill?"

Denyse turned round abruptly, and asked with interest:

"You are not well, Monsieur Giraud?"

"I? oh, yes! perfectly well, thank you, mademoiselle. I don't know what made Pierrot fancy that."

"Oh, well!" said the youth, with conviction, "look at yourself; you look awfully queer! Besides, for the last three or four days you have not been yourself; you must have something the matter that you don't know of."

"I a.s.sure you," stuttered the poor fellow, in a perfect torture, "I a.s.sure you that there is nothing the matter with me."

M. de Clagny had approached them. He was looking enviously at little Fred nestling against Bijou's pretty shoulder.

"Your G.o.dson is perfectly superb!" he said.

"Yes, isn't he? and he adores me!"

Dinner was announced just at this moment, and Bijou gave the child, who was getting sleepy, to the English nurse who had come for him.

With a disagreeable expression on his face, young La Balue, who was standing just by Denyse, offered her the sharp angle of his arm. With some difficulty she managed to slip her hand through, and, with a resigned look on her face, went in with him to dinner.

At table M. Giraud was at the other side of her, and half wild with delight at finding himself placed next her, he felt that he was more shy and awkward than ever. His timidity, which had hitherto been extreme, seemed to increase. He dared not say a word, and he was in despair, because he felt that he was making himself ridiculous.

He was not only in love with Denyse for her beauty, her grace, and her wonderful charm, but he venerated her for her goodness, which seemed to him to be infinite.

When he had been an usher in a certain college, he had one day murmured some foolish words of affection to the daughter of the headmaster, and he remembered still with awe the contemptuous anger with which the young lady had reproached him for having, in his position, dared to lift his eyes to her.