"I don't care all that much about being reminded of Paris," muttered Jean, without stirring.
Madame de Rueille gazed at him in astonishment. "One would almost think he was in earnest!" she remarked.
"In earnest, but absent-minded!" said the marchioness, and then, turning towards a young abbé, who was playing loto with the de Rueille children, she asked:
"Monsieur, will you tell us whether there is anything interesting taking place on the terrace?"
The abbé, who was seated with his back to the bay-window, looked behind him over his shoulder, and replied promptly:
"I do not see anything in the slightest degree interesting, madame."
"Nothing whatever," affirmed Jean, leaving the window, and taking his seat on a divan.
One of the de Rueille children, forgetting his loto cards, and leaving the abbé to call out the numbers over and over again with untiring patience, suddenly perched himself up on a chair, and, by his grimaces, appeared to be making signals to someone through the window.
"Marcel dear, at whom are you making those horrible grimaces?" asked the grandmother, puzzled.
"At Bijou," replied the child; "she is out there gathering flowers."