De Blenau paused. Insensibly, whilst he was speaking, Pauline had suffered his arm again to glide round her waist. Her hand somehow became clasped in his, and as he told the tale of his affection, the tears of many a mingled emotion rolled over the dark lashes of her eye, and chasing one another down her cheek, fell upon the lip of her lover, as he pressed a kiss upon the warm sunny spot which those drops bedewed.
De Blenau saw that those tears were not tears of sorrow, and had love been with him an art, he probably would have sought no farther; for in the whole economy of life, but more especially in that soft passion Love, holds good the homely maxim, to let _well_ alone. But De Blenau was not satisfied; and like a foolish youth, he teased Pauline to know why she had at first received him coldly. In good truth, she had by this time forgotten all about it; but as she was obliged to answer, she soon again conjured up all her doubts and suspicions. She hesitated, drew her hand from that of the Count, blushed deeper and deeper, and twice began to speak without ending her sentence.
"I know not what to think," said she at length, "De Blenau: I would fain believe you to be all you seem,--I would fain reject every doubt of what you say."
Her coldness, her hesitation, her embarrassment, alarmed De Blenau's fears, and he too began to be suspicious.
"On what can you rest a doubt?" demanded he, with a look of bitter mortification; and perceiving that she still paused, he added sadly, but coldly, "Mademoiselle de Beaumont, you are unkind. Can it be that you are attached to another? Say, am I so unhappy?"
"No, De Blenau, no!" replied Pauline, struggling for firmness: "but answer me one question, explain to me but this one thing, and I am satisfied."
"Ask me any question, propose to me any doubts," answered the Count, "and I will reply truly, upon my honour."
"Then tell me," said Pauline,---- But just as she was about to proceed, she felt some difficulty in proposing her doubts. She had a thousand times before convinced herself they were very serious and well founded; but all jealous suspicions look so very foolish in black and white, or what is quite as good, in plain language, though they may seem very respectable when seen through the twilight of passion, that Pauline knew not very well how to give utterance to hers. "Then tell me," said Pauline, with no small hesitation--"then tell me, what was the reason you would suffer no one to open your hunting coat, when you were wounded in the forest--no, not even to staunch the bleeding of the side?"
