"Oh! but it was a different thing with me: I was afraid."
"What of?"
"I was afraid that I should not find you the same as I had seen you in my thoughts. Remember that it had been three years since we bid each other good bye. I remembered distinctly what you were when you went away, and, with imagination helping memory a little, I had reconstructed my Leon entire. But if you had no longer resembled him! What would have become of me in the presence of a new Leon, when I had formed the pleasant habit of loving the other?"
"You make me tremble. But your first greeting reassured me in advance."
"Tut, sir! Don't speak of that first greeting, or you will make me blush a second time. Let us speak rather of that poor colonel who made me shed so many tears. How is he getting along this morning?"
"I forgot to inquire after his health, but if you want me to—"
"It's useless. You can announce to him a visit from me to-day. It is absolutely necessary that I should see him this noon."
"You would be very sensible to give up this fancy. Why expose yourself again to such painful emotions?"
"The fancy is stronger than I am. Seriously, dear Leon, the old fellow attracts me."
"Why 'old fellow?' He has the appearance of a man who died when from twenty-five to thirty years of age."