Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/106

 which in her view was just lacking in this man who was acknowledged to have so much genius.

"That little tutor of yours inspires me with a great deal of suspicion," said Madame Derville to her sometimes. "I think he looks as if he were always thinking, and he never acts without calculation. He is a sly fox."

Julien remained profoundly humiliated by the misfortune of not having known what answer to make to Madame de Rênal.

"A man like I am ought to make up for this check!" and seizing the moment when they were passing from one room to another, he thought it was his duty to give Madame de Rênal a kiss.

Nothing could have been less tactful, nothing less agreeable, and nothing more imprudent both for him and for her. They were within an inch of being noticed. Madame de Rênal thought him mad. She was frightened, and above all, shocked. This stupidity reminded her of M. Valenod.

"What would happen to me," she said to herself, "if I were alone with him?" All her virtue returned, because her love was waning.

She so arranged it that one of her children always remained with her. Julien found the day very tedious, and passed it entirely in clumsily putting into operation his plan of seduction. He did not look at Madame de Rênal on a single occasion without that look having a reason, but nevertheless he was not sufficiently stupid to fail to see that he was not succeeding at all in being amiable, and was succeeding even less in being fascinating.

Madame de Rênal did not recover from her astonishment at finding him so awkward and at the same time so bold. "It is the timidity of love in men of intellect," she said to herself with an inexpressible joy. "Could it be possible that he had never been loved by my rival?"

After breakfast Madame de Rênal went back to the drawing-room to receive the visit of M. Charcot de Maugiron, the sub-prefect of Bray. She was working at a little frame of fancy-work some distance from the ground. Madame Derville was at her side; that was how she was placed when our hero thought it suitable to advance his boot in the full light and press the pretty foot of Madame de Rênal, whose open-work stockings,