The count sprang to his feet, surprised and embarrassed, unable to say a
word. Marie, however, did not wait for him to speak, but said with eager
inquisitiveness:
"What are you looking at through that great pipe?"
Before Ludwig could turn the glass in another direction, the little maid
had taken his seat, and was gazing, with a wilful smile on her lips,
through the "great pipe."
The smile gradually faded from her lips as she viewed the world revealed
by the telescope--the beautiful woman over yonder amid her flowers, her
form encircled by the nimbus of rainbow hues.
When she withdrew her eye from the glass, her face betrayed the new
emotion which had taken possession of her. The lengthened features, the
half-opened lips, the contracted brows, the half-closed eyes, all these
betrayed--Ludwig was perfectly familiar with the expression--jealousy.
Marie had discovered that there was an enchantingly beautiful woman upon
whose phenomenal charms _her_ Ludwig came up here to feast his eyes. The
faithless one!
Ludwig was going to speak, but Marie laid her hand against his lips, and
turned again to the telescope.
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