On their side, MM. de Morin and Périères were astonished at her mode of treating them, and took umbrage at it. Their love for Madame de Guéran was above suspicion and beyond doubt. Both of them young, rich, clever, well-born and good style, they had asked her hand in marriage; and, to please her, and in the hope of winning that hand, they had given up their cherished Parisian habits, the pleasures of the _beau monde_, and had undertaken a voyage, to the dangers of which, as we have already recorded, they were fully alive. This love, the main-spring of their entire conduct and conspicuous at every turn, had naturally increased during the voyage. Men who are already in love cannot with impunity be thrown into close intimacy with the loved one, especially if they are ever of necessity summoned to her side to undergo with her the innumerable vicissitudes of travel, to follow her up hill and down dale, and to share her dangers. * * * * * * With a view to prevailing on them to accompany her to Africa, Madame de Guéran had said to them—"I do not know you sufficiently yet, and I look upon this journey as a method of instruction, so far as your characters are concerned." She had, perhaps, become as wise as she wished to be, but all the time she was pursuing her studies they, in their turn, were learning to know her better, and to appreciate her more fully. Every time they halted she was seen in a new light. Yesterday, so to speak, she was intrepid, cool, and resolute; to-day, in the desert, with the slave caravan before her, she is once more the sympathizing, tender-hearted woman. And, moreover, under the glorious sun of Africa, in the midst of this so luxuriant Nature, her beauty was so transcendent—it burst into full bloom—it positively shone! In the afternoon under a tent, in the evening on board their vessel, she held them captive under the spell of her feeling tones, her exquisite sensibility. They were, consequently, but involuntarily, more in love than ever, absolutely conquered and enslaved, and they suffered, in proportion, from the coolness with which for some days past she had treated them. If they had made up their minds together to find out the cause of this, they might not, possibly, have been so uneasy, but, unfortunately, they mutually distrusted each other. A moment's confidence would have taught them that they had equal grounds of complaint against her, and that she had put them both on identically the same footing. But love would be love no longer if it took to reasoning; it warps the finest natures, and inspires the sincerest hearts with jealousy. M. de Morin attributed the coldness of Madame de Guéran to the love she was beginning to feel for M. Périères, and the latter in his turn, persuaded that his friend was also his successful rival, so far forgot himself as to positively detest him.