At the end of an hour I returned to the drawing-room.  My uncle was there; M. de la Marche was staying to dinner; Edmee seemed meditative but not melancholy; the abbe’s eyes were putting questions to her which she did not understand, or did not wish to understand.

M. de la Marche accompanied my uncle to the Comedie Francaise.  Edmee said that she had some letters to write and requested permission to remain at home.  I followed the count and the chevalier, but after the first act I made my escape and returned to the house.  Edmee had given orders that she was not to be disturbed; but I did not consider that this applied to myself; the servants thought it quite natural that I should behave as the son of the house.  I entered the drawing-room, fearful lest Edmee should have retired to her bed-room; for there I could not have followed her.  She was sitting near the fire and amusing herself by pulling out the petals of the blue and white asters which I had gathered during a walk to the tomb of Jean Jacques Rousseau.  These flowers brought back to me a night of ecstasy, under the clear moonlight, the only hours of happiness, perhaps, that I could mention in all my life.

“Back already?” she said, without any change of attitude.

“Already is an unkind word,” I replied.  “Would you like me to retire to my room, Edmee?”

“By no means; you are not disturbing me at all; but you would have derived more profit from seeing Merope than from listening to my conversation this evening; for I warn you that I feel a complete idiot.”

“So much the better, cousin; I shall not feel humiliated this evening, since for the first time we shall be upon a footing of equality.  But, might I ask you why you so despise my asters?  I thought that you would probably keep them as a souvenir.”

“Of Rousseau?” she asked with a malicious little smile, and without raising her eyes to mine.

“Naturally that was my meaning,” I answered.

“I am playing a most interesting game,” she said; “do not interrupt me.”

“I know it,” I said.  “All the children in Varenne play it, and there is not a lass but believes in the decree of fate that it revels.  Would you like me to read your thoughts as you pull out these petals four by four?”

“Come, then, O mighty magician!”

“A little, that is how some one loves you; much, that is how you love him; passionately, that is how another loves you; not at all, thus do you love this other.”

“And might I inquire, Sir Oracle,” replied Edmee, whose face became more serious, “who some one and another may be?  I suspect that you are like the Pythonesses of old; you do not know the meaning of your auguries yourself.”

“Could you not guess mine, Edmee?”

“I will try to interpret the riddle, if you will promise that afterward you will do what the Sphinx did when vanquished by OEdipus.”

“Oh, Edmee,” I cried; “think how long I have been running my head against walls on account of you and your interpretations.  And yet you have not guessed right a single time.”