"This will be my first," he answered, abruptly, for he was annoyed that she kept up the conversation, as he wished so much to speak to Bertha again.
"Your first!" said Marie, in astonishment. "You surely want to deceive me, for I perceive a large scar on your forehead."
"I got that at the university," he replied.
"How? are you a scholar?" asked Marie, her curiosity still more excited. "Well, then, I suppose you have visited distant countries, Padua or Bologna, or perhaps even the heretics in Wittenberg?"
"Not so far as you think," said he, as he turned to Bertha: "I have never been further than Tübingen."
"In Tübingen?" cried Marie, surprised. This single word, like lightning, unravelled in a moment every thing in her mind which before had been obscure. A glance at Bertha, who stood before her with downcast eyes, her cheeks suffused with the blush of confusion, convinced her that, on that word, hung the key to a long list of inferences which had occupied her thoughts. It was now quite clear why the courteous knight saluted them; the cause of Bertha's tears could be no other, than that of finding Albert had joined the opposite party; the earnest conversation between them, and Sturmfeder's reserve to herself, were satisfactorily explained to her mind. There was no question of their having long known each other.
Indignation was the first feeling that ruffled Marie's breast. She blushed for herself, when she felt she had endeavoured to attract the attention of a young man whose heart was fully occupied by another object. Ill humour, on account of Bertha's secrecy, clouded her features. She sought excuse for her own conduct, and found it only in the duplicity of her cousin. If she had but acknowledged, she said to herself, the feeling which existed between her and the young knight, she never would have shown the interest she took in him; he would have been perfectly indifferent to her; she never would have experienced this painful confusion.
Marie did not deign to give the unhappy young man another look during the evening, and he was too much occupied with the painful sensations of his own mind, to be aware of her ill will towards him. He was also so unfortunate as to be scarcely able to say another word alone and unobserved to Bertha. The ball ended, and left him in doubt as to what her future fate, or the intentions of her father were likely to be. She seized, however, a favourable moment to whisper to him on the staircase, when she was going home, begging him to remain in the town on the morrow, in the hope of finding an opportunity to speak with him.
The two girls went home, both ill at ease with each other. Marie gave short, snappish answers to Bertha's questions, who, whether it was that she suspected what was passing in her cousin's mind, or whether she was overwhelmed by grief, became more melancholy and reserved than ever.
But when they entered their room, silent and cold towards each other, then it was that they both felt how painful was the interruption of their hitherto affectionate intercourse. Up to this eventful evening, they had always assisted each other in all those little services, which unite young girls in friendship. How different was it now? Marie had taken the silver pin out of her rich light hair, which fell in long ringlets over her beautiful neck. She attempted to put it up under her cap, but unaccustomed to arrange it without Bertha's help, and too proud to let her enemy, as she now called her cousin in her mind, notice her embarrassment, she threw it away in a corner, and seized a handkerchief to tie it up.