"Well, it seems to me that this is one. Don't you consider it enough--my accident? Well, I wonder what more you want?"
"Yes, it's true," he managed to stammer out. "What an idiot I am! the fact is, I was so frightened--if you only knew."
She looked up at him with a sweet expression in her beautiful eyes, and he was fascinated by her sweetness.
"Thank you again," she said, holding out her little hand to him; "thank you for looking after me; and now you had better go on quickly."
"Not just yet--I feel a sort of stiffness, and a tired feeling all over. No, will you go on and tell M. de Clagny to come with his carriage and fetch me; don't say anything about it to the others; I don't want grandmamma to know."
As Hubert de Bernès was holding her hand pressed against his lips, Bijou went on impatiently:
"Go now, quickly! ask M. de Clagny to leave his carriage on the road, and explain to him that he will find me in the wood near the road, just where I left him a little while ago. And will you fasten Patatras to a tree before you go away? Thank you!" She looked at him again with her sweetest expression, and asked once more: "It's settled, then, for this evening, isn't it?"
As soon as he was out of sight, she lay down again in exactly the same position in which Bernès had found her.
A little later the sound of carriage-wheels was heard along the road, and M. de Clagny, getting down from his coach, entered the wood. At the sight of Bijou, he uttered a cry of horror, and, rushing to her, took her in his arms in his anxiety and anguish.
"Bijou, my love! my darling! dear little Bijou!" And then, like Bernès, he added: "listen to me, Bijou dear; answer me; please speak to me!"
He kissed her soft hair, and drew her closer and closer to him, until at last she opened her eyes, and looked up at him with her pretty, innocent expression; and then, as though she were going to sleep again, she murmured, as she laid her head confidingly against him:
"Ah, you are so nice to me; and I am so happy like this! I should like to stay here always!"
She was standing in front of the glass, brushing her hair leisurely. The more she brushed, the more her hair curled, and scented the atmosphere at the same time with a delicate perfume.