"Where were you, cousin?"
"I don't know. Thoughts are sometimes so scattered that it is hardly possible to give a clear impression."
Putting her hands in the Count's she jumped lightly to her feet. The young men led the girls back to the farm, and silence descended upon the Five Divisions of the Globe.
But love made every one of these young creatures somewhat unsettled, and it was long before either of them slept. Esperance and Genevieve talked low, and long silences broke their confidences. Count Styvens had brought cigarettes for Maurice and Jean. All three stayed and talked a long time in the painter's room. Alone with men, Styvens lost all the timidity that sometimes made him awkward. His broad and cultivated mind, his humanitarian philosophy unaffected by his religious beliefs, the sincere simplicity with which he expressed himself, made a great impression on Jean and Maurice.
"That man," said the latter to his friend, "is of another epoch, an epoch when he would have been a hero or a martyr!"
"Perhaps he may yet be both," murmured Jean.
CHAPTER XIX
Next morning Albert Styvens asked Maurice to show him the portrait of Esperance. He gazed at it a long time in silent admiration. He could gaze his fill at a portrait without outraging the conventions.
"What marvellous delicacy! Oh! the blue of the eyes! The mother of pearl of the temples!"
He sat down, quivering with emotion, and looked frankly at Maurice.