"Yes, Constance, I promise; I will tell you all my thoughts."
Frédéric was not absolutely truthful at that moment, but his falsehood was excusable, for his entire confidence just then would not have afforded great pleasure to Constance, who was convinced that her lover thought of no one but her, and who, despite her tranquil air, her gentleness, and her confidence, loved Frédéric too ardently not to be susceptible to jealousy, a sentiment which, in women, is almost always inseparably connected with love.
The Comte de Montreville returned to Paris after an absence of nearly a month. Under any other circumstances, Frédéric would have been surprised at the length of a journey which might have been completed in a fortnight, but in Constance's company he had given little thought to it. When he saw his father again, however, all his memories of Dauphiné rushed back into his mind; he was embarrassed in his presence, longing to question him, but shrinking from it.
The count himself did not seem the same as before his departure; he was often pensive and abstracted, as if his thoughts were engrossed by some subject; and when he looked at his son, he, too, seemed to desire and dread an explanation. At last, Frédéric ventured to question him, and, contrary to his expectation, his father replied with no trace of the stern, cold manner which he was wont to assume on approaching that subject.
"Have you been in Dauphiné?" said Frédéric; "did you go to Vizille?"
"Yes," said the count; "I visited the neighborhood of that village, including the wood where you lived so long."
"And did you see that—girl?"
"No, I did not see her; she had left her cabin only a few days before, and there was nobody there but an old shepherd."
"What! Sister Anne not at her old home? Is it possible? And what of Marguerite?"