But she was all the more vexed and put out because the handsome youth by her side treated her as so perfect a stranger, while she for her part remembered him so well, and how glad she used to be when their childish games were so arranged that "Jaufret"--so they called him then--should be on her side to deliver her from a dragon, or to wake her by a kiss out of magic sleep. And while she now engaged the servant in commonplace talk, she could not help stealing frequent glances at her other companion, noticing how handsome and manly he had become; how with a slight turn of the wrist he could rein in a fiery horse, and yet had such a sad and earnest beauty in his eyes as would have become the very saints in the church of Mont Salvair. What could make him so silent, she kept wondering; and if she were below the attention of so noble a gentleman, how was it that he abstained from all attempt to find favour in the eyes of his lady-cousin? All this perplexed her so much that she gradually left off talking, and entirely forgot the slight anger she had felt at the admonition received. Meanwhile the youth on his side, who had so impatiently watched for this day, wished, as the sun rose higher, that it had never dawned upon him at all, instead of looking down on his joy and sorrow with so heartless a splendour. It is true that from his boyish years he had preserved the image of his cousin as his ideal of all beauty and loveliness, but the spark had smouldered on as a quiet memory in a well-guarded portion of his heart; but now at the first greeting from her lips, at the perfume that floated over to him from her hair, this spark burst out into a mighty flame, and he suffered tortures such as he had never known before. And then her apparent estrangement from him increased his anguish, for although he did not know whether it were disinclination to him personally, or the calm contempt of the Count's daughter for her father's poor retainer which closed her lips and kept her eyes averted, he had leisure enough in these silent hours to estimate with miserable accuracy the social gulf between them, and the duty of crushing every foolish hope. Then, again, his thoughts turned to conjectures as to what possessor he would have to make over the jewel entrusted to him, whether her hand would be given away without her heart, or whether her father in the gloom of sickness had so yearned for his only child, as suddenly to recall her to his deserted home. Even were it so, would his case be less hopeless if he had longer time to learn the full preciousness of the treasure which must at length be surrendered to another?