The fact was that Bijou, in her cotton dress, with wide pink stripes, and her little apron trimmed with Valenciennes, was really very pretty to look at, foraging about amongst the flowers.
When she discovered that she was being gazed at in this way, her tea-rose complexion took a deeper tint, and she looked confused and embarrassed, as she stood there facing the gentleman, who was still contemplating her without saying a word.
He was a man of between fifty-five and sixty, tall, slender, distinguished-looking, and elegant, and with a very young-looking figure for his years. His face, which was intelligent and refined, had also an almost youthful expression about it, just tinged with a shade of melancholy. As Bijou remained where she was, and appeared to be hesitating and not quite at her ease, the visitor approached, and, raising his hat, said in a very gentle voice:
"Excuse me, mademoiselle, but are you not Denyse de Courtaix?"
Bijou, with her frank, honest expression, looked straight into the eyes fixed so curiously upon her, and answered, smiling:
"Yes, and you?—you are Monsieur de Clagny, are you not?"
"How did you know?"
Denyse sprang out of the rose-bed on to the garden-path, and then, without answering the question in a direct way, she said, with the most trusting, happy look in her eyes:
"Oh! how glad grandmamma will be to see you, and Uncle Alexis, too; ever since they heard that you were coming back to live here, they have talked of nothing else. Let's go at once to find grandmamma."
She started off, leading the way, looking most graceful and supple, as she passed through the large rooms with that gliding movement which was one of her greatest charms.