"Your cousin De Blaye is handsome!"
"Jean?" she said, as though she were turning it over in her mind, "is he as handsome as all that? He does not strike me in that way, you see. When people are always together they end by not noticing each other!"
"I am quite sure that he notices you!"
"Oh, no! people don't notice me as much as you think! They care for me because I was left alone in the world at the age of seventeen; and then, when grandmamma took possession of me, like some poor little stray dog, and carried me off to her home, why, they all felt interested in me, and made me very welcome, and I was their Bijou whom they all tried to bring up and to spoil, whose faults are always looked over, and who always has her own way."
"And Bijou is quite right; that's the only good thing there is in life—having one's own way, when one can."
"One always can," she said, speaking as though she were not aware that she was saying anything, and then suddenly advancing towards the bay-window, she exclaimed: "Ah! there, now! the Tourvilles! and grandmamma is not down stairs again yet!"
Bijou went forward to greet the new-comers—a lady dressed very handsomely, followed by a common-looking sort of man, with very stiff manners, who, on the whole, was decidedly snobbish.
Bijou introduced them, "Count de Clagny, Count de Tourville," and then, as the marchioness entered the room, looking very handsome still in her cloudy lace draperies, the young girl turned to M. de Clagny again.
"Well," she said, "and what do you think of the Tourvilles?"
"I don't admire them. But how much Henry de Bracieux has improved in appearance; he is not as good-looking as his cousin yet; but that may come, perhaps."