"But," put in M. de Jonzac, seeing that Denyse looked annoyed, "what interest could your cousin possibly have in wanting to go down that street?"
"That's what I wondered," said Pierrot, looking puzzled; and then, suddenly taken with another idea, he added: "I can tell you there was somebody who didn't like it, and that was M. de Bernès. I don't know what took him, but he did pull a long face. Oh, my! I can tell you he did look blue."
Henry de Bracieux laughed.
"I know why he was pulling such a long face, poor old Bernès; he was afraid of being blown up—"
"Blown up?" asked Bijou, innocently opening her limpid eyes wide in surprise, whilst Jeanne's face, usually so impassive, turned almost purple. "Blown up? by whom?"
And then, as there was a dead silence, which became more and more embarrassing, Bijou turned to her friend.
"Let's go out for a stroll in the garden, Jeanne, shall we?" she said.
"I'll come with you," remarked Pierrot promptly; but Bijou pushed him gently back.
"No! we shall do very well by ourselves, thank you; you would worry us."
As the two girls were descending the hall-door steps, Bijou said to Jeanne, who was just behind her, and who had not quite recovered from her embarrassment: