"What!" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise, "you are going off to Pont-sur-Loire like that, all by yourself? Why, whatever are you going to do there, I wonder?"
"What am I going to do there?" he said, slightly disconcerted. "Why, I have some things to get."
"Will you take me?"
"Take you? But—"
Ever since the evening when he had told Bijou that he loved her, he had avoided, as much as possible, all opportunities of being alone with her. She, on her part, had not changed her behaviour towards him or Henry de Bracieux in any way. She was just as free and cordial in her manner with them as she had been before refusing them her hand; and, indeed, it seemed as though she had forgotten they had proposed to her.
"What?"—she asked, looking astonished. "You won't take me with you?"
Thoroughly uncomfortable, and dreading the long tête-à-tête, yet not daring in the presence of all the others to refuse to take Bijou, he answered, in a joking tone:
"Why, yes! On the contrary, I am highly flattered by the honour you are doing me!"
"That's all right, then. You are very kind."
"Oh, very; but, all the same, you will have to take someone else to be with you as well, because I have some business."