"Oh, well, that's cool. Let's make it up now, shall we?" and, standing on tip-toes, Bijou held her pretty face up, saying, "Kiss me?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise, and looking hurt, "you won't kiss me?"
Paul de Rueille had been so taken aback, that he could scarcely find any words.
"It isn't that I won't, but--well, not here like that, it is so absurd! I cannot understand your not seeing how ridiculous it is."
Bijou shook her rough head, and the loose curls over her forehead danced about.
"No, I do not see that it is at all ridiculous," and then, instead of going any farther, she turned round, and they went back to the house without another word.
On going up into his room, M. de Rueille found his wife reading a letter.
"I have just heard from Dr. Brice," she said, handing him the letter. "It seemed to me that Marcel had not been well just lately."
"Not well--Marcel? Why the child eats and drinks more than I do. He sleeps like a top, too, and grows like a mushroom. Oh, that's good, that is! And what disease has he discovered in the boy--our excellent Brice?"
"Sea-air for a lad who is in such downright good health that it positively makes him unbearable, he is so riotous?"
"Let me see what he says," murmured M. de Rueille, putting on a look of resignation, as he began to read the long letter, in which the doctor advised sea-air as the best remedy for the child in his present nervous state.
"And so he is in a nervous state?" said M. de Rueille jeeringly; "and on account of this, which no one, by the bye, except you, has noticed, we are to leave Bracieux, where the lad is flourishing in this delightful fresh air--it is his native air, in fact--and we are to go and take up our abode at some stupid seaside place? Oh, no! You really do get hold of some ridiculous ideas sometimes."
He was still irritated after his discussion with Bijou, and the idea of going away from her now caused him to speak in a harsh, dry way. He tried to laugh, too, but his laugh sounded forced and hollow.
Bertrade looked at him as she said gently:
"I did not want to tell you the truth straight out; I hoped that you would guess it. Do you not guess?"
"No, not at all," he answered, with a vague feeling of uneasiness.