"Your highness is forgetting that I see as clearly in your heart what is going on now as I saw your carriage coming from the Carmelite convent, traversing the town and stopping under the trees fifty paces off from my house."
"Then explain what is there?"
"My lord, the princes of your house have always hungered for a great and hazardous love affair."
"I do not know what you mean, my lord," faltered the prince.
"Nay, you understand to a T. I might have touched several chords in you—but why the useless? I went straight to the heartstring which sounds loudest, and it is vibrating deeply, I am sure."
With a final effort of mistrust the cardinal raised his head and interrogated the other's clear and sure gaze. The latter smiled with such superiority that the cardinal lowered his eyes.
"Oh, you are right not to meet my glance, my lord, for then I see into your heart too clearly. It is a mirror which retains the image which it has reflected."
"Silence, Count Fenix; do be silent," said the prelate, subjugated.
"Silence?—you are right, for the time has not come to parade such a passion."
"Not yet? may it expect a future?"