“No matter,” continued Vera. “I do not care to know when or how you heard it. I can imagine they did not say much to you about me. But allow me to ask you in my turn if you have not another name besides that under which I had the honor of presenting you to her majesty!”
“My name is Fleurange,” replied the young girl simply, “but it is not the one I habitually bear.”
“And your other name?” asked Vera, with a trembling voice.
Fleurange was astonished at the manner in which this question was asked, and still more so at the effect of her reply, which produced a frightful change in the listener's face.
“Gabrielle!” repeated she. “I guessed rightly, then.”
An embarrassing silence followed this exclamation. Fleurange did not know what to say. She awaited an explanation of the scene which appeared more and more strange. But while she was looking at Vera with increased surprise during this long silence, a sudden apprehension seized her, and a faint glimpse of the truth flashed across her mind. Nothing could have been more vague than the remembrance of the name mentioned before her but once, but that time it was in a conversation respecting George, and she bethought herself that she understood it to be a question of a marriage the princess desired for her son. Was it with reluctance Vera had now brought the permission for another to accompany him? Such was the question Fleurange asked herself. Approaching Vera, therefore, she said to her softly:
“If you have come with a message, how can I thank you sufficiently, mademoiselle, for taking the trouble of bringing it yourself!”
Vera hastily withdrew her hand, and retreated several steps; then, as if suffering from an emotion she could not overcome, she fell into an arm-chair beside the table, and for some moments remained pale and breathless, with a gloomy, forbidding air, wiping away from time to time with an abrupt gesture the tears which, in spite of all her efforts, escaped from her eyes.
Fleurange, motionless with surprise, looked at her with mingled interest and astonishment, but, the frank decision of her character prevailing over her timidity, she came at once to the point.
“Countess Vera,” said she, “if I have not guessed the motive that brings you here, tell me the real one; there is something in all this which I do not understand. Be frank; I will be likewise. Let us not remain thus towards one another. Above all, do not look at me as if we were not only strangers, but enemies.”