A pause ensues. She looks down; involuntarily he does the same. His eyes rest upon her foot that peeps out beneath the hem of her ball-dress. He recalls how once, on a meadow beneath a spreading oak, kneeling before her he had held that foot in his hands. What a charming, soft, warm little foot it was! She suddenly perceives that he is looking at it; she withdraws it hastily, and with a half-wayward, half-distressed air pulls her skirt farther over her knee. Of course he does not smile, but he wants to. And he could reproach this girl for accidentally in the outline of her features recalling a woman who from all that he could discover concerning her was more to be pitied than blamed. It was odious, cruel; more than that, it was stupid!
Leaning towards her, and speaking more softly than before, he says, gravely, "And I hope that during the cotillon you will confide to me, as an old friend, why you look so sad to-night."
Any other girl would have understood that these words from a man of Edgar's great reserve of character were to pave the way for a declaration.
Stella understands nothing of the kind.
"Why I am so sad?" she replies, simply. "Because----"
At this moment Natalie approaches on the arm of a blonde young man.
"Count Kasin wishes to be presented to you, Stella," she says.
The young man bows, and begs for a dance. Stella goes off upon his arm, not because she has any desire to dance, but because it would be disgraceful for a young girl to sit through an entire ball.
"Who is that young lady?" asks an Englishman of Edgar's acquaintance.
"She is an Austrian,--Baroness Stella Meineck."