“Do you not know me, Louis?” asked Mariette, holding out her hands to me.
“Know you!” I cried, and if the whole world had been present, I could not have refrained from taking her in my arms and kissing her cheek.
“Know you!” I repeated, “O, yes, I knew you the very first moment I saw you in the carriage on Blackheath.”
“And I did not know you,” said Mariette, artlessly; “but how should I, Louis? Here, you are a great tall man, six feet high; and yet you’re still the same—the same eyes, and the same mouth, only your hair is darker and not so curly.”
“I rode after you all through Greenwich,” I replied, apropos to nothing; for my whole head was in a whirl, and she had left her hand in mine, which did not tend to stay the beating of my heart, “but I could find no trace of you.”
“Sit down, sit down, my children,” said the master of the house, “you are both agitated with your young memories. I will go and call your mother.”
“Let me—let me,” said Mariette, and running to the foot of the little stairs, she exclaimed, “Mamma, mamma, here are Louis and Monsieur De Bonneville.”
Madame de Salins ran down lightly and eagerly, and indeed she was very little altered—looking, perhaps, better than when I had last seen her. It was clear she was sincerely glad to meet us again; and seated round the table, a thousand questions were asked, and about half the number answered. All old feelings and memories revived. We talked of our little cottage on the Rhine, of our meeting in Paris, and our adventures by the way. The stranger joined in frankly and familiarly, evidently knowing all that had befallen us. We formed again, as it were, one family, and at length, emboldened by this renewal of old associations, I turned smiling from the gentleman of the house to Madame de Salins, saying, perhaps abruptly—
“Who is this? May I not be formally introduced to him?”
“Do you not know him, Louis?” she exclaimed, with a look of surprise. “It is my husband—The Count de Salins. How else should I be here?”