In the pavilion, Madame Deberle had just felt a slight chill.  Despite the bright sunshine she thought it rather cold, and she requested Malignon to hand her a white cashmere burnous that was hanging from the handle of a window fastening.  Malignon rose to wrap the burnous round her shoulders, and they began chatting familiarly on matters which had little interest for Helene.  Feeling fidgety, fearing that Pauline might unwittingly knock the children down, she therefore stepped into the garden, leaving Juliette and the young man to wrangle over some new fashion in bonnets which apparently deeply interested them.

Jeanne no sooner saw her mother than she ran towards her with a wheedling smile, and entreaty in every gesture.  “Oh, mamma, mamma!” she implored.  “Oh, mamma!”

“No, no, you mustn’t!” replied Helene, who understood her meaning very well.  “You know you have been forbidden.”

Swinging was Jeanne’s greatest delight.  She would say that she believed herself a bird; the breeze blowing in her face, the lively rush through the air, the continued swaying to and fro in a motion as rythmic as the beating of a bird’s wings, thrilled her with an exquisite pleasure; in her ascent towards cloudland she imagined herself on her way to heaven.  But it always ended in some mishap.  On one occasion she had been found clinging to the ropes of the swing in a swoon, her large eyes wide open, fixed in a vacant stare; at another time she had fallen to the ground, stiff, like a swallow struck by a shot.

“Oh, mamma!” she implored again.  “Only a little, a very, very little!”

In the end her mother, in order to win peace, placed her on the seat.  The child’s face lit up with an angelic smile, and her bare wrists quivered with joyous expectancy.  Helene swayed her very gently.

“Higher, mamma, higher!” she murmured.

But Helene paid no heed to her prayer, and retained firm hold of the rope.  She herself was glowing all over, her cheeks flushed, and she thrilled with excitement at every push she gave to the swing.  Her wonted sedateness vanished as she thus became her daughter’s playmate.

“That will do,” she declared after a time, taking Jeanne in her arms.

“Oh, mamma, you must swing now!” the child whispered, as she clung to her neck.

She took a keen delight in seeing her mother flying through the air; as she said, her pleasure was still more intense in gazing at her than in having a swing herself.  Helene, however, asked her laughingly who would push her; when she went in for swinging, it was a serious matter; why, she went higher than the treetops!  While she was speaking it happened that Monsieur Rambaud made his appearance under the guidance of the doorkeeper.  He had met Madame Deberle in Helene’s rooms, and thought he would not be deemed presuming in presenting himself here when unable to find her.  Madame Deberle proved very gracious, pleased as she was with the good-natured air of the worthy man; however, she soon returned to a lively discussion with Malignon.