The girls looked at each other. "I promise to say nothing, but you must watch her carefully." They were just going in when Maurice joined them, out of breath. "Hello! cousin. Where do you spring from?" "I have been looking for you for half an hour to give you the programme, edited by Jean and enlivened by your humble servant. Here you are, and here you are, naughty lady, who gives no word of warning to her lover of early morning escapades." "Oh! Maurice, it was I who led Genevieve astray, and I am doubly repentant. She will tell you why." Maurice grew serious. "What means that haggard face, cousin, and the collar of your dress is all wet? Come, come, Genevieve herself seems ill at ease. I would like to know what you two have been up to." "Well! take her into that grove, you will find a bench there, and she will tell you all about it. I am going to rest," replied Esperance. Genevieve and Maurice sat down in the grove. After she had told him what had happened, she added, "What seems to me to make it really serious is that I believe the Duke to be in earnest." "Love and flirtation often look alike," said the young man shrugging his shoulders. "I don't think so," said the girl with conviction, and continued sadly, "Esperance is fighting against this infatuation with all her strength, but I am very uneasy. And if the Duke should love her enough to offer to marry her!" "You think that likely?" "What can resist love? Tell me that." And her beautiful eyes, swimming with tears, looked anxiously, trustingly into the young man's face. "I tell you what I truly believe. And that is, that Esperance loves the Duke." The young painter meditated for a long time. "Come on, we must go back," he said finally. "We must get ready for the rehearsal." He left the girl with exhortations to reason with his cousin. "What the deuce is our will for if we can't exercise it?" "Maurice, I am brave and determined, you know that. My sister and I have struggled unaided, she since she was thirteen! I since I was eight. I thought that she was enough to fill all my life, and now...." "And now," he asked tenderly, taking her hand. "All my life is yours! I should not tell you this, but you can judge by my doing so the impotence of will against...." She drew away her hand hastily, ran to the staircase and disappeared. He heard the door open and his cousin's voice saying, "How pale you are, Genevieve!" "What are you dreaming about, Cousin Maurice?" said Albert, putting his hand gently on his shoulder. That hand felt to Maurice as heavy as remorse. "Let us go and see what is going on," said the young painter. "There is Jean coming to look for us now." CHAPTER XXIV