Alas, alas, it must be said, he felt that he loved Clémence de Marly. Notwithstanding all he had seen, notwithstanding all he had condemned, notwithstanding the fear that she could not make him happy even if he could obtain her, the belief that it would be impossible to win her, and the conviction that she loved another--alas, he felt, and felt bitterly, that at length, indeed, he loved, and loved with the whole energy of his nature. He reproached himself with weakness; he accused himself of the follies that he had so often condemned in others. Was it her mere beauty that he loved? he asked himself. Was it the mere perfection of form and colour that, in a few short years, would fleet with fleeting seasons, and give place to irremediable decay? Was he, who had believed that loveliness could have no effect on him, was he caught by the painted glittering of a mere beautiful statue? No; he felt there was something more. He felt that she had given him sufficient insight into her original nature to show him that, though spoiled by after circumstances, she had been made by the hand of God that which he had always believed he could love, that bright being where the beautiful form, and the beautiful heart, and the beautiful mind were all attuned together in one grand and comprehensive harmony of nature. He felt that such was the case, and his sensations were only the bitterer that it should be so. He had thus paused and meditated some little time full of his own thoughts and nothing else, when a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder, and, turning round, he saw his friend the Chevalier. "Why, Albert," he said, "in what melancholy guise are you here meditating? I met Clémence upon the stairs just now, and she told me that I should find you here, tasting the morning air upon the ramparts. I expected to see you with your eye roving enchanted over this fine scene, looking as usual halfway between a mad poet and a mad painter; and lo! instead of that, here you are planted upon the rampart like a dragoon officer in garrison in a dull Dutch town, with your heel beating melancholy time on the pavement, and your eyes profoundly cast into the town ditch. In the name of Heaven, why did you not make Clémence come on to enliven you?" The Count smiled with a somewhat bitter smile. "It would have hardly been necessary, and hardly right to try," he replied; "but you miscalculate my power, D'Evran. The lady left me with an intelligible hint, not only that she was not about to follow me, but that I was not to follow her." "What, saucy with you, too!" cried the Chevalier laughing. "I did not think that she would have had determination enough for that." "Nay, nay, you are mistaken, Louis," replied the Count; "not in the least saucy, as you term it, but quite mistress of herself, of course, to do as she pleased."