"Oh, that's impossible!"
"No, it's very natural, on the contrary! I have not your complexion, remember! I am paler than you are, and that pink makes me paler still; and then I am thin, and the little gathered bodice, which shows up your pretty figure to perfection, makes me look no figure at all—it does not matter, though—it's of no importance whatever!"
"What do you mean by saying it is of no importance?"
"Why, yes, don't you see, Bijou dear, that whether one is well or badly dressed, if one is just common-place as I am, one would always pass unnoticed by the side of anyone as beautiful as you are."
Bijou turned her eyes up towards the ceiling, and said, in a half-serious, half-joking way:
"My poor dear child, you are wandering—you don't know at all what you are talking about!" And then suddenly changing her tone she asked: "What time do you start to the races to-morrow?"
"I don't know. Papa will have arranged that with M. Spiegel. Ah, tell me! shall you go early to the Tourvilles' dance? I don't want to get there before you."
Denyse was looking at her watch.
"Oh! I must go!" she exclaimed. "They want some gardenias at home for button-holes; I don't know where I shall be able to get any; someone told me of a florist up by the station somewhere."
"By the station? but there are only market-gardeners there, no florists."