She glanced sideways at Rueille, her eyes shining beneath her drooping eyelids, whilst he replied, with a touch of irritation in his voice in spite of himself: "Annoyed me, but why should it? Are your affairs any business of mine; have I any voice in the matter of anything that concerns you?" "Which means that if you had a voice in the matter--?" "Ah, there would certainly be many changes, and many reforms that I should make." "For instance?" "Well, I should not allow you, if I were in your grandmamma's place, to be quite as affable and as ready to welcome everyone; I should want to keep you rather more for myself, and prevent your letting strangers have so much of you." "Yes," she said, with a pensive expression, "perhaps you are right." "And all the more so because we shall have you to ourselves for so short a time now." The large candid eyes, with their sweet expression, were fixed on Paul de Rueille as he continued: "You will be marrying soon? You will be leaving us?" Bijou laughed. "How you arrange things. There is no question, as far as I know, of my marriage." "There is nothing definite--no; at least, I do not think so. But, practically, it is the one subject in question, and grandmamma thinks of nothing else." "Oh, well, I am not like her then, for I scarcely ever give it a thought." And then she added, turning grave all at once: "Besides, my marriage is very problematical." "Problematical?" "Why, yes,--in the first place, I should want the man who marries me to love me." "Oh, well, you can be easy on that score; you will have no difficulty about that." Her fresh young voice took an almost solemn tone as she continued: "And then I should want to love him, too." "Oh, so you will. One always does love one's husband--to begin with," said Rueille carelessly; and then he stopped short, thinking that the words "to begin with" were unnecessary. Bijou had not understood, however, nor even heard, for she asked: "What did you say?" "I said that he will be very happy." "Who will be happy?" "The man you love!" "I hope so. I shall do all I can for that!" M. de Rueille seemed to be annoyed and irritated. He said, in a disagreeable way, as though he wanted to discourage Denyse in her dreams of the future: "Yes, but supposing you do not happen to meet with him?" "Well, then, I shall die an old maid, that's all! But I do not see why I should not meet with him. I do not ask for anything impossible, after all!" In a mocking tone, and a trifle aggressive, he, asked: "Would it be very indiscreet to ask you what you expect?" "Oh, not indiscreet in the slightest degree, for I can only answer just as I have already answered, I should simply want _to love him_! I do not care at all about money; I neither understand money nor worship it!" She turned towards her cousin, and said, in conclusion, as she looked up into his face: "Now, I'll tell you, I would agree to a marriage like Bertrade's."