Marie and the young man walked together, but a little apart. The
sailor, full of ardent desires, was determined to break the reserve
that checked him, of which, however, he was not the dupe. He fancied
that he could succeed by dallying with the young lady in that tone of
courteous amiability and wit, sometimes frivolous, sometimes serious,
which characterized the men of the exiled aristocracy. But the smiling
Parisian beauty parried him so mischievously, and rejected his
frivolities with such disdain, evidently preferring the stronger ideas
and enthusiasms which he betrayed from time to time in spite of
himself, that he presently began to understand the true way of
pleasing her. The conversation then changed. He realized the hopes her
expressive face had given him; yet, as he did so, new difficulties
arose, and he was still forced to suspend his judgment on a girl who
seemed to take delight in thwarting him, a siren with whom he grew
more and more in love. After yielding to the seduction of her beauty,
he was still more attracted to her mysterious soul, with a curiosity
which Marie perceived and took pleasure in exciting. Their intercourse
assumed, insensibly, a character of intimacy far removed from the tone
of indifference which Mademoiselle de Verneuil endeavored in vain to
give to it.
Though Madame du Gua had followed the lovers, the latter had
unconsciously walked so much more rapidly than she that a distance of
several hundred feet soon separated them.
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