Bijou had just given the children some flowers, and was now speaking to the Abbé Courteil.
"And you too, monsieur, I want to decorate you with my flowers! There, now, just tell me if that rose is not beautiful? Ah, if you want a lovely rose, that certainly is one."
She was holding out to him an enormous rose, which was full blown, and looked like a regular cabbage.
The abbé had risen from his seat without loosing the bag containing the loto numbers. He looked scared, and stammered out as he stepped back:
"Mademoiselle, it is indeed a superb flower; but—but I should not know where to put it. The button-holes of my cassock are so small, the stalk would never go through. I am very much obliged, mademoiselle, I really am. I—but there is no place to put it—it is—"
"Oh, but there is room for it in your girdle," she answered, laughing. "There, monsieur, look there—it is as though it had been made for it!"
Standing at some little distance away, she pushed the long stalk of the flower between the abbé's girdle and cassock.
He thanked her as he bowed awkwardly.
"I am much obliged, mademoiselle, it is very kind of you; I am quite touched—quite touched."
At every movement the rose swung about in the loose girdle. It moved backwards and forwards in the most comical way, with ridiculous little jerks, showing up to advantage against the cassock which was all twisted like a screw round the abbé's thin body.