"No," replied Eugenia warmly; "it is because I love him, that I cannot endure that he should abandon me, to go and amuse himself and forget me."
Her disposition became daily more and more morose: a profound melancholy seemed to take possession of her mind; she no longer took pleasure in anything, and even her health began to give way. Edward perceived all this with the deepest grief, but without knowing how to remedy it. On the other hand, a situation which he had hoped to obtain had been given to another; an office in which he had been promised an engagement was never established; the money he had brought with him from Germany was all gone, and he saw nothing before him but unhappiness for both. Their mutual friendship would have alleviated it, but Eugenia's disposition marred everything.
One morning, when she was in the hall, she heard Edward, in the passage, talking to the cook.
"Catherine," said he, in a low voice, "could you not occasionally look to my linen? Nothing has been done to it since I have been here, and soon I shall not have a shirt that is not torn."
"Indeed," cried Catherine, in a very loud voice, probably that Eugenia might hear her, "I have so much time to amuse myself in that way! Give them to Mademoiselle Eugenia; she might very well undertake to keep them in order, but she thinks of nothing but playing the fine lady."
"Catherine," replied Edward, in a very firm though low voice, "Eugenia gives you no trouble, she asks no favours of you; and consequently, what she does, or what she leaves undone, does not concern you in any manner."
Eugenia, who had approached the door, did not lose a word of this reply: her heart beat with a joy such as she had not experienced for a long time. She would gladly have gone and embraced her brother, but she did not dare to do so; some undefinable feeling restrained her. However, she opened the door, when a servant came from Fanny's aunt, to invite Edward to pass the evening with them. He said that he would go. The heart of Eugenia was again oppressed: she closed the door. "That does not prevent him from going out to enjoy himself," she said. And she threw herself into a chair weeping, and thinking herself more unhappy than ever. The bare idea of what the cook had said, threw her into a violent passion, without, however, leading her to regret her negligence, so much did the thought of her own wrongs prevent her from thinking of those which she inflicted upon others.
At dinner she was more than usually sad, and Edward appeared sad too. A short time after they had left the table, he said that he was going to his own room to study; "And then to spend the evening out?" said Eugenia, with that tone of bitterness which had become habitual to her.
"No," said Edward, "I shall not go."
"And by what wonderful chance?"