"Mademoiselle Bijou, your grandmamma wants you."
Denyse ran into the house, her silk skirts rustling as she went. She did not even stay to answer young La Balue, who, pointing to Henry de Bracieux as he stood with the light showing up his profile, had just remarked:
"Bijou," said the marchioness, "I want you to sing something for us."
"Oh! grandmamma, please"--she began, in a beseeching tone, and looking annoyed.
"M. de Clagny wants to hear you," said Madame de Bracieux, insisting.
"Oh, very well, then, I will, certainly," replied Bijou pleasantly, without taking into account that her way of consenting was not very flattering for the rest of her grandmother's guests.
She went to the piano, and, taking up a guitar, put the pink ribbon which was attached to it round her neck, and then came back and took up her position in the midst of the semi-circle formed by the arm-chairs.
"I am going to accompany myself with the guitar," she said; "it is simpler." And then turning to M. de Clagny, she asked: "What do you want me to sing? Do you like the old-fashioned songs?" and without waiting for a reply, she began the ballad of the "Petit Soldat":
"Je me suis engagé Pour l'amour d'une blonde."
She had a good ear and a pretty voice, which she used skilfully, and it was with plaintive sweetness that she sang the touching story of the young soldier who "veut qu'on mette son coeur dans une serviette blanche."
The drawing-room soon filled when Bijou began to sing, and the various expressions on the different faces were most amusing to see.
Jean was listening in a nervous, excited way, pulling his fair moustache irritably through his fingers.
M. de Rueille, affected in spite of himself by the doleful air, and annoyed that all these people should be admiring Bijou, was pacing up and down at the other end of the drawing-room, pretending not to be listening to the music.
Pierrot, with his mouth open, was all attention. Young La Balue, with his elbow resting on a side-table in an awkward and ridiculous pose, kept his colourless eyes fixed on the young girl in a gaze which he tried to make magnetic, and with such bold persistency that Henry de Bracieux felt the most extraordinary desire to walk up to him and box his ears. Even Abbé Courteil was carried away by the plaintive ballad; he was deeply moved, and sat there with his eyes stretched wide open, breathing heavily. Hubert de Bernès only was listening with polite attention, but comparative indifference. As to the ladies, all, except, perhaps, Gisèle de la Balue, admired Bijou sincerely.