"Let it be for to-day, my Flamin; I'll tell thee some time," replied Victor.
"I will tell it to thee myself," Flamin began, more quickly and warmly. "Thou thinkest, perhaps, I shall be jealous. And look thou, did I not know thee, I should be so: truly, another would be so, if he had thus lighted upon thee here, and put all things together,—thy late retreat from our summer-house out into the foliage, thy writing without a light, and thy singing of love"—
"To Emanuel," said Victor, softly.
"Thy sending off that leaf to her"—
"It was another from her album," said he.
"Still worse; that I did not even know. Thy lingering in St. Luna, and a thousand other signs, which do not immediately occur to me,—thy going off alone today"—
"O my Flamin, this is going too far! thou seest with other eyes than those of friendship."—
Here Flamin, who never could dissemble without immediately becoming what he assumed, and who could never recount an offence without falling into the old anger, grew warmer, and said, in a less friendly manner,—
"And others, too, see it,—even the Chamberlain, and the Chamberlain's wife."
This tore Victor's heart.