"Yes, I am sure that I ought not to have behaved as I did with you." And her eyes filled with tears as she murmured, almost humbly: "I am so sorry! will you forgive me?"
"Bijou!" exclaimed M. de Clagny, almost beside himself. "My dear Bijou, it is I who ought to ask your forgiveness for causing you a moment's sadness."
"Well, then, be kind—don't go away! not to-morrow, at any rate! Promise me that you will come to Bracieux to-morrow to see us act our play! Oh, don't say no! And then, afterwards, I will talk to you—better than I could this evening." And gazing up at him with her soft, luminous eyes, she added: "You won't regret coming, I am sure."
Jean de Blaye was just passing by at that moment, and Bijou stopped him, and said, in a coaxing way:
"Won't you ask me for a waltz? do, please, you waltz so well."
And laying her hand on his shoulder, she disappeared, just as Pierrot arrived to claim his dance.
"Leave your cousin in peace," said M. de Jonzac, who was seated on a divan watching the dancing. "You are much too young to ask girls to dance with you—I mean girls like Bijou."
"Ah, how old must I be then before I can ask them—not as old as you, I suppose?"
"You certainly have a nice way of saying things."
"I say, father, why do Jean and Henry say that young La Balue gets to be worse and worse form?"