"What do you mean by saying it is of no importance?"
"Why, yes, don't you see, Bijou dear, that whether one is well or badly dressed, if one is just common-place as I am, one would always pass unnoticed by the side of anyone as beautiful as you are."
Bijou turned her eyes up towards the ceiling, and said, in a half-serious, half-joking way:
"My poor dear child, you are wandering--you don't know at all what you are talking about!" And then suddenly changing her tone she asked: "What time do you start to the races to-morrow?"
"I don't know. Papa will have arranged that with M. Spiegel. Ah, tell me! shall you go early to the Tourvilles' dance? I don't want to get there before you."
"Oh! I must go!" she exclaimed. "They want some gardenias at home for button-holes; I don't know where I shall be able to get any; someone told me of a florist up by the station somewhere."
"By the station? but there are only market-gardeners there, no florists."
"Yes, it seems that in that little lane--you know--to the right of the quay--"
"Lilac Lane, I know where you mean; but there are only vegetable gardens there, and some waste ground, and then a few small houses, that are generally rented by officers because they are near to the barracks."
"Well, anyhow," said Bijou, getting up, "I'll go and look round there!"
Denyse was the first to arrive at the hotel. Jean de Blaye was rather behind time, and when he did appear, he looked sad, and his face was very pale. He had met Madame de Nézel by appointment, but she had only come to break off entirely with him, and this freedom was of no use to him now; but, at the same time, there was nothing left for him to do but accept his fate. They were both wretched and discontented with each other, and yet they had been obliged to stay together at their trysting-place, because Bijou, escorted by the old housekeeper Josephine, had been rambling up and down the lonely lane for a good part of the afternoon. She had gone backwards and forwards as though in search of something, and with a persistency which Jean could not understand, and which made him feel very uneasy.
When they were driving across the square by the station at three o'clock, she had, perhaps, seen Madame de Nézel turning down Lilac Lane. If that were so, she had probably wanted to assure herself whether her suspicions were correct. How inquisitive and fond of ferreting she must be, then--this Denyse whom he loved so dearly, and who had, without knowing it, ruined his whole life.