"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."
"They do nothing else, though. Well, as long as my brother knows it, and as long as it suits him--"
"It suits him to-day, anyhow, for he told them to join him in the wood."
"He told _them_?" repeated the old lady; and then she continued slily, "and so the tutor has been gathering roses, too?"
"Yes," replied Denyse, with her beautiful, frank smile, and not noticing her grandmother's mocking intonation, "he has been gathering roses, too."
"He probably enjoyed that more than shooting rabbits," said the marchioness, glancing at a tall young man who was just entering the room, "for if he went to join your uncle in the wood, he did not stay long with him anyhow!"
"Why--no!"--said Bijou in astonishment, and then leaving her grandmother, she advanced to meet the young man.
"Did you not find uncle, Monsieur Giraud?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, mademoiselle," he replied, turning very red. "Yes, certainly, we found M. de Jonzac; but--I--I was obliged to come in--as I have some of Pierre's exercises to correct." And then, doubtlessly wanting to explain how it was that he had come into that room, he added, slightly confused: "I just came in here to see whether I had left my books about--I thought--but--I do not see them here--"
He had not taken his eyes off Bijou, and was going away again when the marchioness, looking at him indulgently, and with an amused expression in her eyes, called him back.
"Will you not stay and have a smoke here, Monsieur Giraud? Is there such a hurry as all that for the correction of those exercises?"
"Oh, no, madame!" answered the tutor eagerly, retracing his steps, "there is no hurry at all."
The old lady leaned forward towards Madame de Rueille, who was silently working at a handsome piece of tapestry, and said to her with a smile: "He is not like the abbé--this young man!"
Bertrade lifted her pretty head and answered gravely:
"Because the poor fellow, after coming to us as gay as a lark a fortnight ago, and winning all our hearts, will go away from here sad and unhappy, his heart heavy with grief or anger."