“‘And pray, who has a right to be jealous of me?’

“‘Oh! you know well enough.’

“It was true; I did know; and she knew that I knew it.  To my shame be it said that I was weak enough to yield to an equivocation which I now see to have been disloyal, but which I then pretended to have been no more than delicacy to Ottilie.  As, in point of fact, there had never been a word passed between us respecting our mutual feelings, I considered myself bound in honor to assume that there was nothing tacitly acknowledged.

“Piqued by her tone and look, I disavowed the existence of any claims upon my attention; and to prove the sincerity of my words, I persisted in addressing my attentions to her.  Once or twice I fancied I caught flying glances, in which some of the company criticised my conduct, and Ottilie also seemed to me unusually quiet.  But her manner, though quiet, was untroubled and unchanged.  I talked less to her than usual, partly because I talked so much to Agalma, and partly because I felt that Agalma’s eyes were on us.  But no shadow of ‘temper’ or reserve darkened our interchange of speech.

“On our way back, I know not what devil prompted me to ask Agalma whether she had really been in earnest in her former allusion to ‘somebody.’

“‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I was in earnest then.’

“‘And now?’

“’Now I have doubts.  I may have been misinformed.  It’s no concern of mine, anyway; but I had been given to understand.  However, I admit that my own eyes have not confirmed what my ears heard.’

“This speech was irritating on two separate grounds.  It implied that people were talking freely of my attachment, which, until I had formally acknowledged it, I resented as an impertinence; and it implied that, from personal observation, Agalma doubted Ottilie’s feelings for me.  This alarmed my quick-retreating pride!  I, too, began to doubt.  Once let loose on that field, imagination soon saw shapes enough to confirm any doubt.  Ottilie’s manner certainly had seemed less tender—­nay, somewhat indifferent—­during the last few days.  Had the arrival of that heavy lout, her cousin, anything to do with this change?

“Not to weary you by recalling all the unfolding stages of this miserable story with the minuteness of detail which my own memory morbidly lingers on, I will hurry to the catastrophe.  I grew more and more doubtful of the existence in Ottilie’s mind of any feeling stronger than friendship for me; and as this doubt strengthened, there arose the flattering suspicion that I was becoming an object of greater interest to Agalma, who had quite changed her tone towards me, and had become serious in her speech and manner.  Weeks passed.  Ottilie had fallen from her pedestal, and had taken her place among agreeable acquaintances.  One day I suddenly learned that Ottilie was engaged to her cousin.