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14 CHAPTER II. As soon as Consuelo saw a favorable moment, she left the saloon and went into the garden. The sun had set, and the first stars were shining serene and white in a sky still rosy in the west, already hlack in the east. The young artist sought to inhale calmness in that pure and fresh air of the early autumn evening. Her bosom was oppressed with a voluptuous languor; and yet she experienced remorse on that account, and invoked all the strength of her mind in aid of her will. She might have asked herself," Can I not tell if I love or if I hate ? " She trembled as if she felt her courage abandon her at the most dangerous crisis of her life; and for the first time, she did not find in herself that rectitude of the first impulse, that holy confidence in her intentions which had always sustained her in her trials. She had left the saloon to withdraw from the fascination which Anzoleto exercised upon her, and she had experienced at the same time, as it were, a vague desire to be followed by him. The leaves had begun to fall. When the border of her dress made them rustle behind her, she thought she heard steps following hers, and, ready to fly, not daring to turn round, she remained chained to the spot by a magic power. Some one did follow her in fact, but without daring and without wishing to show himself; it was Albert. A stranger to all those little dissimulations which are called proprieties, and feeling himself, in the greatness of his love, superior to all false shame, he had left the room an instant after Consuelo, resolved to protect her without her knowledge, and to hinder her persecutor from rejoining her. Anzoleto had remarked that simple earnestness, without beingmuch alarmed by it. He had seen Consuelo's agitation too clearly, not to consider his victor...
