"Monsieur de Morseiul," she said, with a thoughtful lustre shining in her eyes, and giving a deeper and brighter expression to her whole countenance, "I have come to take refuge with you from that young De Hericourt, who evidently intends to persecute me during the whole evening.--But stay, stay, Monseigneur," she added, turning to the Duke, who seemed about to leave them, to speak with some one else: "before you go, hear what I am going to say to Monsieur de Morseiul. You are going, Count, I hear, to take your departure to-morrow morning early: if you would walk with me for half an hour in the gardens ere you leave us, you would much oblige me, as I wish to speak with you.--Now, dear King of Poitou," she continued, turning to the Duke, "you may go. I have no more secrets to make you a witness of." The Duke replied not exactly to her words, but seemed fully to comprehend them; and saying, "Not to-night, Clémence! remember, not tonight!" he left her under the charge of the Count de Morseiul, and proceeded to attend to his other guests. Placed in a situation somewhat strange, and, as it were, forced to appear as one of the attendant train of the bright and beautiful girl, from whose dangerous fascinations he was eager to fly, for a single instant Albert of Morseiul felt slightly embarrassed; but unexpected situations seldom so much affected him as to produce any thing like ungraceful hesitation of manner. Clémence de Marly might not, perhaps, even perceive that the Count was at all embarrassed, for she was deeply occupied with her own fancies; and though she conversed with him not gaily, but intelligently, there was evidently another train of thought going on in her breast all the time, which sometimes made her answer wide from the mark, and then smile at her own absence of mind. The eyes of the young Marquis de Hericourt followed her wherever she turned, and certainly bore not the most placable expression towards the Count de Morseiul; but his anger or his watching disturbed neither Clémence nor her companion, who both had busy thoughts enough to occupy them. After some time the excitement of the dance seemed to rouse Clémence from her musing fit; and, though confined to subjects of ordinary interest, the conversation between her and the Count became of a deeper tone and character, and her heart seemed to take part in it as well as her mind. Albert of Morseiul felt it far more dangerous than before; for though they might but speak of a picture, or a statue, or a song, with which he could have conversed with a connoisseur of any kind, perhaps with more profit, as far as mere knowledge of the subject went, yet there was a refinement of taste evident in the manner in which Clémence viewed every thing, a sparkling grace given by her imagination to every subject that she touched upon, when her feelings were really interested therein, which was very, very winning to a mind like that of Albert de Morseiul.