“Bon ami[*] will push you, mamma! Bon ami will push you!” Jeanne called out, as she danced round her mother.

[*] Literally “good friend;” but there is no proper equivalent for the
    expression in English.

“Be quiet!  We are not at home!” said her mother with mock gravity.

“Bless me! if it will please you, I am at your disposal,” exclaimed Monsieur Rambaud.  “When people are in the country—­”

Helene let herself be persuaded.  When a girl she had been accustomed to swing for hours, and the memory of those vanished pleasures created a secret craving to taste them once more.  Moreover, Pauline, who had sat down with Lucien at the edge of the lawn, intervened with the boldness of a girl freed from the trammels of childhood.

“Of course he will push you, and he will swing me after you.  Won’t you, sir?”

This determined Helene.  The youth which dwelt within her, in spite of the cold demureness of her great beauty, displayed itself in a charming, ingenuous fashion.  She became a thorough school-girl, unaffected and gay.  There was no prudishness about her.  She laughingly declared that she must not expose her legs, and asked for some cord to tie her skirts securely round her ankles.  That done, she stood upright on the swing, her arms extended and clinging to the ropes.

“Now, push, Monsieur Rambaud,” she exclaimed delightedly.  “But gently at first!”

Monsieur Rambaud had hung his hat on the branch of a tree.  His broad, kindly face beamed with a fatherly smile.  First he tested the strength of the ropes, and, giving a look at the trees, determined to give a slight push.  That day Helene had for the first time abandoned her widow’s weeds; she was wearing a grey dress set off with mauve bows.  Standing upright, she began to swing, almost touching the ground, and as if rocking herself to sleep.

“Quicker! quicker!” she exclaimed.

Monsieur Rambaud, with his hands ready, caught the seat as it came back to him, and gave it a more vigorous push.  Helene went higher, each ascent taking her farther.  However, despite the motion, she did not lose her sedateness; she retained almost an austre demeanor; her eyes shone very brightly in her beautiful, impassive face; her nostrils only were inflated, as though to drink in the air.

Not a fold of her skirts was out of place, but a plait of her hair slipped down.

“Quicker! quicker!” she called.

An energetic push gave her increased impetus.  Up in the sunshine she flew, even higher and higher.  A breeze sprung up with her motion, and blew through the garden; her flight was so swift that they could scarcely distinguish her figure aright.  Her face was now all smiles, and flushed with a rosy red, while her eyes sparkled here, then there, like shooting stars.  The loosened plait of hair rustled against her neck.  Despite the cords which bound them, her skirts now waved about, and you could divine that she was at her ease, her bosom heaving in its free enjoyment as though the air were indeed her natural place.