When she was alone with M. de Clagny under the big trees, Bijou said, in the sweetest way:
"I came back home this morning, quite wretched at having caused you any sorrow. It seemed to me that I must have been too affectionate in my manner towards you--too free--and that I had made you think something quite different. Is that so?"
"Yes, that is just it--and so you have no affection at all for me?"
"I mean that you like me just as though I were some old relative or another."
"Well, but you do not love me enough to--to--love me as a husband?"
"I do not know at all. I cannot understand myself just what I feel for you. In the first place, I think you are very nice-looking, and very charming, too; and then, when you are here, I feel as though I am surrounded with care and affection. It seems to me that I breathe more freely, that I am gayer and happier, and I have never, never felt like that before--"
Very much touched by what she was saying, and very anxious, too, about what she was going to say, the count pressed Bijou's arm against his without answering.
"Well, then," she continued, "I thought that, as I liked you better than I have ever yet liked anyone, and that, on the other hand, I should never be able to console myself for having caused you so much sorrow, the best thing would be to marry you."
M. de Clagny stopped short, and asked, in a choked voice:
"My darling!" he stammered out, "my darling!"
"I told grandmamma this morning," continued Bijou, "and I must confess that she was not delighted. She did all she could to make me change my mind."
"She thinks that it is mad, for you as well as for me, to marry when there is such disproportion of age; and then, she did not say so, but I could see that there was something troubling her, which troubles me too, though to a much less degree."
"The disproportion in money matters. Yes--it appears that you are horribly rich. Grandmamma said so yesterday, when she told me that you had asked for my hand."
"What can it matter, Bijou, dear, whether I am a little more or less rich?"
"It matters a great deal, with grandmamma's ideas about things especially. Oh, it is not that she thinks it humiliating for me to be married without anything, for I have nothing, you know, in comparison with what you have! No, she looks upon marriage as a partnership, or exchange of what one has. '_Give me what you've got, and I'll give you what I've got_,' as the country people here say. Well, you have your name, which is a good one, and your money, which makes you a very rich man; on my side, I have my name, which is rather a good one, too, and my youth, which certainly counts for something."