Just at this moment a screech-owl, which was perched quite near them amongst the thick, dark looking foliage of the trees, gave a sudden, wailing, cry, which startled Bijou. She knocked against Giraud as she jumped aside in her fright, and he instinctively put his arms round her. Her soft, perfumed hair brushed against his lips, making him lose his head completely. He forgot everything, and, utterly oblivious of all that separated him from the young girl, he drew her closer to him in a passionate embrace, and murmured tenderly:
"Denyse!"
She let him do as he liked, without offering any resistance, but when, at last, he set her free, she said, in a tender, plaintive tone:
"Oh! how wrong it was of you to have done that, how wrong of you!" And then she hid her face in her hands, and he could hear that she was crying.
He tried to console her, but she would not allow him to stay.
"No, go away, please," she said: "they will be wondering where you are. I shall come in directly, when I am myself again."
As he was starting off in the direction of the terrace, she called him back.
"Not that way," she said. "Go round by the pool. Don't let them think you have come from here."
"Let me stay another minute, just to ask you to forgive me. Let me kiss those little hands that I love—"
"Please go! Please go!" she said, in a tone that sounded as though she mistrusted herself.