With the utmost self-possession Henri had contrived to put some distance between Helene and himself.  He also expressed his sense of Malignon’s favor, and seemed to share his wife’s delight at the prospect of seeing their little sister settled at last.  Then he turned to Helene, and informed her that she was dropping one of her gloves.  She thanked him.  They could hear Pauline laughing and joking in the garden.  She was leaning towards Malignon, murmuring broken sentences in his ear, and bursting into loud laughter as he gave her whispered answers.  No doubt he was chatting to her confidentially about her future husband.  Standing near the open door of the pavilion, Helene meanwhile inhaled the cold air with delight.

It was at this moment that in the bedroom up above a silence fell on Jeanne and Monsieur Rambaud, whom the intense heat of the fire filled with languor.  The child woke up from the long-continued pause with a sudden suggestion which seemed to be the outcome of her dreamy fit: 

“Would you like to go into the kitchen?  We’ll see if we can get a glimpse of mamma!”

“Very well; let us go,” replied Monsieur Rambaud.

Jeanne felt stronger that day, and reaching the kitchen without any assistance pressed her face against a windowpane.  Monsieur Rambaud also gazed into the garden.  The trees were bare of foliage, and through the large transparent windows of the Japanese pavilion they could make out every detail inside.  Rosalie, who was busy attending to the soup, reproached mademoiselle with being inquisitive.  But the child had caught sight of her mother’s dress; and pointed her out, whilst flattening her face against the glass to obtain a better view.  Pauline meanwhile looked up, and nodded vigorously.  Then Helene also made her appearance, and signed to the child to come down.

“They have seen you, mademoiselle,” said the servant girl.  “They want you to go down.”

Monsieur Rambaud opened the window, and every one called to him to carry Jeanne downstairs.  Jeanne, however, vanished into her room, and vehemently refused to go, accusing her worthy friend of having purposely tapped on the window.  It was a great pleasure to her to look at her mother, but she stubbornly declared she would not go near that house; and to all Monsieur Rambaud’s questions and entreaties she would only return a stern “Because!” which was meant to explain everything.

“It is not you who ought to force me,” she said at last, with a gloomy look.

But he told her that she would grieve her mother very much, and that it was not right to insult other people.  He would muffle her up well, she would not catch cold; and, so saying, he wound the shawl round her body, and taking the silk handkerchief from her head, set a knitted hood in its place.  Even when she was ready, however, she still protested her unwillingness; and when in the end she allowed him to carry her down, it was with the express proviso that he would take