“So much the better, cousin; I shall not feel humiliated this evening, since for the first time we shall be upon a footing of equality. But, might I ask you why you so despise my asters? I thought that you would probably keep them as a souvenir.”
“Of Rousseau?” she asked with a malicious little smile, and without raising her eyes to mine.
“Naturally that was my meaning,” I answered.
“I am playing a most interesting game,” she said; “do not interrupt me.”
“I know it,” I said. “All the children in Varenne play it, and there is not a lass but believes in the decree of fate that it revels. Would you like me to read your thoughts as you pull out these petals four by four?”
“Come, then, O mighty magician!”
“A little, that is how some one loves you; much, that is how you love him; passionately, that is how another loves you; not at all, thus do you love this other.”
“And might I inquire, Sir Oracle,” replied Edmee, whose face became more serious, “who some one and another may be? I suspect that you are like the Pythonesses of old; you do not know the meaning of your auguries yourself.”
“Could you not guess mine, Edmee?”
“I will try to interpret the riddle, if you will promise that afterward you will do what the Sphinx did when vanquished by OEdipus.”