"Oh!" said Denyse, in a disappointed tone, "you don't want me with you when we get there."
"But, Bijou, my dear," put in Madame de Bracieux, "you could not, anyhow, go there—just you two! It does not matter if Jean is your first cousin; it would not be the thing, you know! You must take Josephine with you; and even then I don't know whether I ought to allow it—"
"But whatever do you want to do in Pont-sur-Loire?" she added, after a pause.
"Oh, only some errands, grandmamma; you forget that there are always errands to be done for the house. And then, too, I can go and see Jeanne; it is just the day when M. Spiegel is busy and does not go so that I shall not interrupt their billing and cooing."
"It does not seem to me as though they do much billing and cooing!" said M. de Jonzac. "I was watching them yesterday at the paper-chase, and I'm very much mistaken if that engagement is not a very half-and-half sort of affair."
"But why should you think that, Uncle Alexis?" asked Bijou, looking troubled.
"Because the girl looks sad, and the professor indifferent. Haven't you noticed that?"
"No; but then I don't notice things much," she answered.
On the way from Bracieux to Pont-sur-Loire, Bijou and Jean were silent.