If I wave my hat, it will be a sign that I bring a favorable answer." Claudet pressed his hand; they separated, and Julien descended the newly mown meadow, along which he walked under the shade of trees scattered along the border line of the forest.
The heat of the midday sun was tempered by a breeze from the east, which threw across the fields and woods the shadows of the white fleecy clouds.

The young man, pale and agitated, strode with feverish haste over the short-cropped grass, while the little brooklet at his side seemed to murmur a flute-like, soothing accompaniment to the tumultuous beatings of his heart.

He was both elated and depressed at the prospect of submitting his already torn and lacerated feelings to so severe a trial.

The thought of beholding Reine again, and of sounding her feelings, gave him a certain amount of cruel enjoyment.

He would speak to her of love--love for another, certainly--but he would throw into the declaration he was making, in behalf of another, some of his own tenderness; he would have the supreme and torturing satisfaction of watching her countenance, of anticipating her blushes, of gathering the faltering avowal from her lips.