"Your godson 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.
He had now frankly and bluntly told this beautiful, wealthy, and nobly-born girl that he adored her, and, in reply, she had spoken to him sweetly and affectionately, discouraging him, but taking care not to wound him.
He began now to pity himself and his own fate, firmly believing that his life, having been crossed by this hopeless love, would be wretched for ever-more.
How could he expect that, having once known and loved a woman like Mademoiselle de Courtaix, he would ever be able to love any woman whom he would be in a position to marry.