“There’s a kill-joy for you!” observed Madame Dobson.
“Oh, I have checkmated him,” replied Sidonie; “only I must be careful. I shall be closely watched now. He is so jealous. I am going to write to Cazaboni not to come again for some time, and you must tell Georges to-morrow morning to go to Savigny for a fortnight.”
CHAPTER XV. POOR LITTLE MAM’ZELLE ZIZI.
Oh, how happy Desiree was!
Frantz came every day and sat at her feet on the little low chair, as in the good old days, and he no longer came to talk of Sidonie.
As soon as she began to work in the morning, she would see the door open softly. “Good morning, Mam’zelle Zizi.” He always called her now by the name she had borne as a child; and if you could know how prettily he said it: “Good morning, Mam’zelle Zizi.”
In the evening they waited for “the father” together, and while she worked he made her shudder with the story of his adventures.
“What is the matter with you? You’re not the same as you used to be,” Mamma Delobelle would say, surprised to see her in such high spirits and above all so active. For instead of remaining always buried in her easy-chair, with the self-renunciation of a young grandmother, the little creature was continually jumping up and running to the window as lightly as if she were putting out wings; and she practised standing erect, asking her mother in a whisper:
“Do you notice IT when I am not walking?”