"Oh, yes, I can tell by your voice; you speak in a sharp, bitter, irritated way. Tell me why you are so bad-tempered all in a minute?" she asked, in a coaxing tone, leaning against him, and looking up into his face.
"When one is not very good to start with, and one has trouble, it makes one go to the bad; it is inevitable!"
"Poor Jean; things don't go as you want them to, then?"
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
"Why, about--oh, you know very well! I told you the other evening!"
"That again!" he said, getting more and more worked up; "how foolish you are!"
"What, do you mean that you do not care for Madame de Nézel?" exclaimed Bijou.
"Madame de Nézel is a charming woman," he stammered out, in an embarrassed way. "She is an excellent friend whom I like very much, very much indeed, but not in the way you imagine."
"Ah! so much the worse for you; she is a widow, and she is rich; she would just have suited you. Well, then, you like someone else?"
"Oh, no, it is not that; if she had not a farthing it would be all the same to me; it is the other way round, I am not rich enough for her, and then--she would not have me."
"You do not know; you ought to tell her that you love her."
"Very well, then, Bijou, I love you with all my heart--but I know that there is no hope, and, unfortunate wretch that I am, I dare not even ask for any."
"You love _me_!" she exclaimed, in deep distress, and then, stopping short, she repeated: "_you_--Jean?"
"Yes, and what about you? you detest me, do you not?"
"Oh, Jean, how can you say such things? You know very well that I love you, though not in the way you want me to, or as I should like to be able to, but very much, all the same; indeed I do."
She put her hand on his shoulder, obliging him to stand still, and then passed her hand over his eyes.
"Oh, Jean," she exclaimed, in great grief, "tears, and all because of me! Oh, please, don't--no, indeed you must not; do you hear me, Jean?"
He took the little hand, which was stroking his face, and kissed it passionately. Then putting Bijou, who was clinging to him, gently aside, he left her abruptly, and strode off alone.
"THEN, you really mean that you are going?" asked Bijou sorrowfully, as Jeanne Dubuisson folded her dresses into the tray of a long basket trunk.