“Bon ami[*] will push you, mamma! Bon ami will push you!” Jeanne called out, as she danced round her mother.
[*] Literally “good friend;” but there is no proper equivalent for the expression in English.
“Be quiet! We are not at home!” said her mother with mock gravity.
“Bless me! if it will please you, I am at your disposal,” exclaimed Monsieur Rambaud. “When people are in the country—”
Hélène let herself be persuaded. When a girl she had been accustomed to swing for hours, and the memory of those vanished pleasures created a secret craving to taste them once more. Moreover, Pauline, who had sat down with Lucien at the edge of the lawn, intervened with the boldness of a girl freed from the trammels of childhood.
“Of course he will push you, and he will swing me after you. Won’t you, sir?”
This determined Hélène. The youth which dwelt within her, in spite of the cold demureness of her great beauty, displayed itself in a charming, ingenuous fashion. She became a thorough school-girl, unaffected and gay. There was no prudishness about her. She laughingly declared that she must not expose her legs, and asked for some cord to tie her skirts securely round her ankles. That done, she stood upright on the swing, her arms extended and clinging to the ropes.
“Now, push, Monsieur Rambaud,” she exclaimed delightedly. “But gently at first!”
Monsieur Rambaud had hung his hat on the branch of a tree. His broad, kindly face beamed with a fatherly smile. First he tested the strength of the ropes, and, giving a look at the trees, determined to give a slight push. That day Hélène had for the first time abandoned her widow’s weeds; she was wearing a grey dress set off with mauve bows. Standing upright, she began to swing, almost touching the ground, and as if rocking herself to sleep.
“Quicker! quicker!” she exclaimed.