"She will not come," Edwin said to himself, after pacing up and down once or twice under his umbrella. "The weather is too disagreeable. Besides, perhaps she knows the contents of the Count's letter only too well, and it was merely a gentle way of getting rid of me. Then--what am I to do then. Did she expect me in that case, to open the letter and read what she could not tell me?"--He drew the note from his pocket and again glanced at the address: "'Mademoiselle Antoinette Marchand.' No, if she does not come, has not the courage to come--the fish yonder shall keep the secret."
At this moment a carriage rolled along the avenue and stopped before the open space at the end of the pond. The striped waistcoat swung himself down from the box, and out sprang the beautiful girl, wrapped in a long black silk cloak, with the hood drawn over her head like a nun, looking, with her sparkling eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, more lovely than ever. She nodded to Edwin from the distance and smiled so frankly that all his doubts suddenly vanished, and he secretly begged her pardon for them.
"I've kept you waiting," she said, as she hung lightly on his arm. "But my coachman made me wait. I suppose he did not think the weather suitable for driving. However, I am here now, and it's all the better that it rains; no one will disturb us; I shall not be interrupted in my confession and my 'wise friend's' moralizing and head-shaking will have no hindrance."
"Have I ever shown a decided inclination that way?"
"No, but I fear when you know me better--! True, it is said: 'that which can be comprehended can be forgiven.' But how are you to understand me? Hitherto you have taken me for heaven knows who, at any rate, for some very peculiar person, with good reasons for keeping her incognito. Now when you learn how simply everything can be explained, won't you think it your duty to guide me back to the paths of wisdom and self-sacrifice, which will lead me straight to an early grave? If I had not seen this conclusion foreshadowed so plainly, how gladly I'd have told you long ago what you're now to hear for the first time!"
"Try me and see whether I'm not less stern than my vocation," he forced himself to reply in a jesting tone. "I, like you, am no adept in self-denial, where I feel that I have to assert a natural right, and therefore I lack the first requisites of a moralist. What a foolish awe you have of a poor private tutor! I know professors of philosophy who have done the most absurd things."
"No, no, no!" she said earnestly, gazing down at the wet gravel, over which she was lightly walking. "You don't understand it. You and I are made of very different material. Can you understand why the little fish are better off down in that dark water, than if you bade them to the most luxurious couch of lilies and rose leaves? Every creature lives in its own element, and perishes in an alien one. Don't you see, that I too can philosophize?"
She paused, and for some time walked thoughtfully beside him, while the solemn boy following some twenty paces behind under a large umbrella, trod carefully in the dainty footprints made by his young mistress. The carriage waited in the avenue beyond.
At last she paused a moment, looked him full in the face with a mischievous expression in her large dark eyes, and said: "Before I betray to whom you have given your arm, Won't you tell me what you have taken me for?"
"I would not hesitate a moment," he answered smiling, "but indeed you wrong me. Because I have confessed myself a philosopher, you believe me foolish enough always to fancy things different from what they appear. Thank God, I understand my own interests better. I'm glad when I encounter something which banishes thought, and allows me to dream, as when I listen to beautiful music, enjoy a spring day, or the fragrance of clusters of roses. My thoughts--why should I deny it?--have been very much engrossed by you, perhaps more than was well. But the idea of imputing any blame to you has never occurred to me."