"I looked for her in the library, the boudoir, the drawing-room, and the garden, before I came here," Maurice continued, in the same grave tone. "She has disappeared just at the moment when I have made up my mind to have an understanding without further delay."
Madeleine's speaking countenance betrayed her surprise, for it seemed strange that Maurice should desire an especial interview with his cousin, whom he saw at all hours; and stranger still that he appeared to be so much disturbed.
"How serious you look, Maurice! Are you troubled? Has anything occurred to cause you unhappiness?"
"I can have no disguises from you, Madeleine. I am thoroughly sick at heart. In the first place, my father and my grandmother have violently opposed my determination to embark in an honorable and useful career of life;—that threw a cloud over me almost from the hour I entered the château. I tried to forget my disappointment for the moment, that no shadow might fall upon your birthday happiness; besides, I clung to the hope that I might yet convince them of the propriety, the policy, the actual necessity of the step I propose to take. My father, yesterday, stunned me with a piece of intelligence which renders me wretched, yet forces me to act. I have given him my promise; there is no retreat. I must bring this matter to a climax, be the sequence what it may; and yet I dread to make the very first movement."
"I am too dull to read the riddle of the sphinx, and your words are as enigmatical. I have not begun to find their clew," replied Madeleine, pausing in the garland she was forming, and letting the ivy drop unnoticed around her.
The first impulse of Maurice was to gather the fallen leaves; the second prompted him gently to force the dress, she was so tastefully adorning, out of her hands, and toss it upon the table.
"I see your task is nearly completed, and Bertha's toilet for the ball will be sufficiently picturesque to cause the Marchioness de Fleury to die of envy; can you not, therefore, rest from your labors, good fairy dressmaker, and talk awhile with me? I need consolation,—I need advice,—and you alone can give me both."
"I?" Madeleine spoke that single word tremulously, and a faint flush passed over her soft, pale face.
"You, Madeleine, you, and you only!"