Denyse was going forward to meet them, but he stopped her abruptly.
"No, please don't, they'd stick to us all the time, and I shouldn't have you to myself at all. It's such a piece of luck for me to be with you for a minute without Monsieur Giraud; he's always at my heels, especially when I'm anywhere near you."
Bijou was looking attentively at the two men, who were coming towards her, but who were so deeply absorbed that they had not seen her, and between her somewhat heavy eyelids appeared that little gleam which gave at times a singular intensity of expression to her usually soft-looking eyes.
"Very well," she answered, entering the stable, "let us take Patatras his clover without them."
M. de Rueille was walking along with his eyes fixed on the gravel of the garden-path. He looked up on hearing the door open. Jean de Blaye pointed to the stable.
"Look here," he said, "that's the cause of all the trouble and worry that I can detect in every single word you say; and it's the cause, too, of the sort of petty spite that you have against me."
"Indeed!" replied Rueille, putting on a joking air; "and what is that pray?"
"Why, Bijou, of course. Oh, you need not try to deny it. Do you think I have not followed up, hour by hour, all that has been passing in your mind?"
"It must have been interesting."
"Don't humbug; you are scarcely inclined for that sort of thing just now. I saw very well just when you began to admire Bijou, quite unconsciously, more than one does admire, as a rule, a little cousin one is fond of. It was the evening of the Grand Prix at Uncle Alexis' when she sang—why don't you speak?"