She did not appear to observe his embarrassment, but gently echoing the sigh, remained leaning against the pedestal of a vase of flowers, with her eyes fixed on the profile of his face. She guessed, that he saw nothing in the gilded cage, but her image in his mind. Again she sighed; and with such an expression, that Louis felt it thrill through his frame. He turned his head, and their eyes met. Her's were full of entrancing softness; his, of a grateful passion, which he would fain have rendered less distinct. She smiled tenderly, and stretched her arm towards him. In that moment he remembered how they had separated: he was again in the same position, at her side, her hand in his, and clasped to his lips! The brilliant roses on her cheeks did not lose their brightness, in this speechless, but eloquent avowal of his love. But the Empress had told her to require _words_! Her fair fingers trembled in his, when she falteringly articulated--"Chevalier! you have been so long absent--I thought--" She paused, and looked down. "Not," exclaimed he, "that I had forgotten to be grateful?" She slowly raised her eyes towards his; and while the softest tears swam over her own, and gemmed a dimpled smile; she half whispered,--"the heart is a coward!" "Never your's!" cried he, forgetting his determined self-restraint, in the bewitching mazes of her thousand beauties, in the resistless fascination of her words and looks. With a burning blush, she sunk into a chair, but still yielding her hand to his fervent pressure, she suffered him to drop upon one knee by her side. "Never can you doubt," cried he, "where you have once confided." She averted her head, and shook it mournfully. A tear fell on his hand. Louis's soul was on his lips, as he kissed away that tear. The Countess covered her face, and almost sobbed. He had now no remembrance of any thing but herself. She was agitated, even distressed; and he was the cause! He attempted to speak, but emotion prevented his utterance; he trembled, and grasped her hand; she felt the strong pulsation of his heart against her knee, and softly murmured,--"This Embassador arrives--and you will go!" She interrupted herself, and attempting to rise, exclaimed in disorder, "Oh, that I had never listened to our last conference!" Louis detained her on her seat. He must have been dull as the iron rock, and hard as its material, had he hesitated to understand and to reply to this agitation, this language. But words were inadequate to express the sympathy which seemed to dissolve all his faculties in the one feeling of unutterable love. He could only kneel at her feet, and clasp the hand he had detained, to his throbbing eyes.