"You were wrong," continued Gaston. "The only indiscretion committed has been by your employer, the flower-merchant. Eve is interested in you, she loves you without knowing your name. Her sincere solicitude goes back already for four years; it is only one, Louise, since I had the happiness of first seeing you. It was here. The next day Mlle, de Rouvray received a visit from me, and a few days afterward your parents kindly admitted me to their house."
An expression of happiness lighted Louise's delicate features.
"Then, just now," she said after a moment's interruption, "you divined my thoughts?"
"I heard Miss Clarisse Dufresnois. I suffered as you suffered. I hastened to justify myself to you."
"Oh, Gaston, how much better is your beautiful cousin than I!"
They now passed in the contra-dance; Eve's hand was not slow in taking Louise's; the two girls shivered at once.
Eve must have seemed singularly absent to her partner; she did not cease to watch Louise and Gaston, she was troubled, and was conscious of a strange uneasiness.
"Why this extreme emotion?" she asked herself; "oh! how my heart beats! I tremble, I suffer, my eyes are growing dim! What is the matter with me? Who is this young girl, and what is Gaston saying to her? They pronounced my name, I believe!"
Gaston was talking enthusiastically to Louise.