"Isn't she nice? she thinks of everything," murmured Henry de Bracieux, quite touched.
"Come and kiss me, Bijou," said the marchioness.
Denyse had just put her basket down on a divan. She took from it a full-blown rose, and went quickly across to her grandmother, whom she kissed over and over again in a fondling way as a child.
"There," she said, presenting her rose, "it is the most beautiful one of all!" Her voice was rather high-pitched, rather "a head-voice" perhaps, but it sounded so young and clear, and then, too, she spoke so distinctly, and with such an admirable pronunciation.
"You have not seen Pierrot, then?" asked the marchioness.
"Pierrot?" said Bijou, as though she were trying to recall something to her memory. "Why, yes, I have seen him; he was with me a minute or two helping me to gather the flowers, and then he went away to his father, who was shooting rabbits in the wood."
"I might have thought as much; that boy does not do a thing."
"But, grandmamma, he is here for his holidays."
"His holidays if you like; but, all the same, if a tutor has been engaged for him, it is surely so that he may work."
"But he must take some rest now and again, poor Pierrot—and his tutor too."