"Oh, then, you do not mean to marry me now?" said Edouard, in a tone of deep sadness.
"What am I to do?" cried Geraldine. "See, my dear cousin, how he loved me! How can I marry you when my heart is given to another?"
"You were going to do so, but for a shower of rain," said Edouard, with a vain attempt at gravity. "But take her, M. Alfred: I think after all I'm lucky to have escaped her! I don't forgive you a bit, because it's hard to find out that when at last one thinks one's self loved, the lady was only pretending."
"You do forgive me!" exclaimed Geraldine, shaking her head, and putting his hand into that of Alfred, who shook it warmly.
"Yes, yes!—of course you're pleased! But I must marry now. I shall ask Hélène at Bordeaux to have me, as nobody there will know any thing about my present mishap."
At this moment M. and Mme Delisle returned; their astonishment was of course very great. Edouard gravely introduced the young couple.
"You see, madame," he said, "that while you were walking round the garden, I have managed to lose my wife, and you to find a son-in-law."
"But, my Geraldine," exclaimed her mother, "are you not behaving very badly to Edouard?"
"Not at all!" said the young man: "I could not think of marrying her. Look at her! Five minutes with Alfred has done her more good than all her excursions in search of roses!"
"Mischievous man to betray me!" said Geraldine in her turn, warmly shaking his hand.