"Both equally?"
The girl blushed; she did not know how to express what she felt. Edouard approached her, gently put his arm about her waist and said to her tenderly:
"If Alfred should not come to see you again, would you be very much disappointed?"
"Why, I should think of him sometimes,—we would talk together about him; that is all."
"And suppose it were I who did not come again—would you console yourself in the same way by talking with him?"
"Oh! never, never!" cried the girl, in a tone that came from her heart.
"Dear Isaure! then it is I whom you love with love!"
Isaure softly raised her beautiful blue eyes to Edouard’s face; her expression, in which her whole soul was depicted, left no possible doubt in his mind who was master of her heart. In his intoxication, Edouard embraced her and imprinted a kiss on her lips. Instantly they heard a mocking laugh behind them.
The lovers turned their heads, but they saw no one.
"Didn’t you hear something?" asked Isaure anxiously.