"Of what are you thinking?" he asked her, with a familiarity that was perhaps a little too sympathetic. Lauriane seemed surprised at this impertinent question. She looked him straight in the face with an expression that seemed to say: "What business is that of yours?" But she replied with a smile, not seeking to defend herself with unnecessarily stern words:
"I was not thinking of anything."
"That is impossible," rejoined D'Alvimar; "one is always thinking of something or somebody."
"But we think vaguely, so vaguely that in a moment we have forgotten."
Lauriane did not speak truly. She had been thinking of Charlotte d'Albret, and we will translate all that had passed through her mind in that brief reverie.
That poor princess had appeared to her, as it were, to make the reply which D'Alvimar was seeking, and that reply was as follows:
"A maiden who has never loved sometimes accepts rashly the first love that presents itself, because she feels impatient to love, and sometimes she falls into the arms of a knave who tortures her, wrecks her life and deserts her."
D'Alvimar was far from suspecting the curious warning that that young heart had received; he fancied that she was indulging in a bit of coquetry, and the game attracted him, although his heart was as cold as marble. He persisted.
"I will warrant," he said, "that you have dreamed of a love more real than that which Monsieur de Bois-Doré parades before you; of such a love as you could inspire in a man of heart, even if you could not yourself feel it."
No sooner had he uttered these commonplace words of challenge, in a tone to which he was able to give a melting quality and which he deemed most persuasive, than Lauriane suddenly withdrew her arm from his, turned pale and stepped back.