During the bout with her sister Louise sat beside Vera and conversed with her, while the Baron, who glanced constantly in her direction, stood with Dupré and his assistants at the edge of the arena. Louise displayed no shyness; indeed she plied Vera with questions some of which Vera found rather embarrassing. Many of them referred to the Baron, whose name Louise mentioned with a certain hesitation. He was a soldier? and had fought in the wars with the Emperor? He must be a favourite with men--and, oh yes, this undoubtedly, with the ladies! And Mademoiselle herself, she moved in the great world--ah, it must be pleasant to have the entrée there! Mademoiselle was doubtless fiancée? Vera admitted, laughing, that this was so and yet not so, a reply which puzzled her companion not a little. Louise reflected. "Ah, Mademoiselle," she said, "perhaps I have solved the conundrum--Mademoiselle is betrothed to her cousin, Monsieur le Baron; but betrothals to cousins, as all the world knows, are not to be accounted as serious contracts; they are made for the convenience of both, but are not intended to be regarded seriously?" Louise gazed so intently in Vera's eyes as she put forward this suggestion that Vera was too surprised to laugh as she had at first felt inclined to do. "My cousin?" she said; "_Mon Dieu_, no; the Baron is not of the kind to take the trouble to be fiancé for considerations of convenience." "The Baron is not then betrothed to Mademoiselle?" murmured Louise, and presently she began to speak of the fencing, no longer interested--as it appeared to Vera--in the conundrum with regard to Mademoiselle's betrothal. Which very naïve conversation went to convince Vera that howsoever gifted the fair Louise might be in the manly attribute of fencing, there was still much of the woman remaining in her composition. She watched Louise somewhat carefully after this, anxious to learn more as to her interest in Henri's affairs, when it was easy to perceive that though obviously avoiding the Baron, doubtless for reasons of her own, the girl's eyes constantly turned in the direction of her cousin. "Poor little Louise!" thought Vera. "Henri of all people!" Afterwards she sought an opportunity to add a word of warning. "My cousin D'Estreville, to whom you suspected me of being engaged," she said, laughing, "is not one I would trust with my heart. He is the same to all women, implying much but meaning nothing. He is _par excellence_ a soldier. Women are--for him--toys to be played with in time of peace. Henri is not one to bind himself; he takes his amusement where he finds it." "All men that I have seen are like that," said Louise unexpectedly; "yet I believe that it comes to each man once in his life to take a woman seriously."