"Jean," said Bijou, in a pleading tone, "don't leave us in the lurch, please." She was going across to him, her pretty head bent forward, and a most comically beseeching little pout on her lips, when M. de Rueille rose abruptly from his seat, and stopped her on the way: "Oh, he will do your couplets right enough; he likes doing them; sit down, Bijou." The young girl stood still in the middle of the room, surprised at this extraordinary proceeding. "But why don't _you_ sit down?" she exclaimed. "What have you come away from your table for?" "Ah! I have no right to leave the table without your permission?" "Jean!" began Bijou again, "come now, Jean!" Once again M. de Rueille interposed. "Why don't you kneel down to him at once?" he said, in a sharp tone. "Goodness! I don't mind doing that even if he will only be persuaded." She was darting across to her cousin, but Rueille caught her arm, and said angrily: "What nonsense! it is perfectly ridiculous!" Bijou looked at him in amazement, and stammered out: "It is you who are ridiculous!" "Oh, yes, of course," he answered, speaking harshly, "it is I who ought to go and sit down, and I am the one who is ridiculous; in fact, I am everything I ought not to be, and I always do everything I ought not to do." "Whatever is the matter, children?" asked Madame de Bracieux. M. de Jonzac explained, as he emptied his pipe by tapping it gently against a piece of furniture. "Heaven have mercy upon us! It is nothing less than Paul quarrelling with Bijou!" "With Bijou?" exclaimed the old lady, in perfect amazement. "Paul quarrelling with Bijou!" repeated Madame de Rueille, putting down the newspaper she had been reading, "impossible!" "Yes, really!" affirmed the abbe, quite horrified. "M. de Rueille is vexed with Mademoiselle Denyse!" "Come here, Bijou!" called out the marchioness, and the young girl tripped across the room to her grandmamma, and knelt down on the cushions at her feet. "You ought not to let Bijou go on in that way with you!" said M. de Rueille, going up to Jean, and speaking in a low voice. "Go on in what way? are you dreaming?" "I am not dreaming at all. Denyse is twenty years old, you know!" "Twenty-one," corrected the young man. "All the more reason--she really ought to behave more carefully!" "Poor child, she behaves perfectly!" and then looking at his cousin, he added: "I really don't know what's up with you?" "Oh, I'm in the wrong," murmured M. de Rueille, slightly embarrassed. "Of course, I'm quite in the wrong!" "Absolutely so!" said Blaye drily, getting up from his arm-chair. On seeing him move towards the door, Bijou left the marchioness, and rushed across to him: "Oh, no! you are not going away! Grandmamma, tell him that he is not to leave us like this!" "Come now, Jean," said the marchioness, half joking and half scolding, "don't plague them so!" The young man sat down again in despair.