Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/368

348 Mathilde had fallen into all the anguish of the most extreme timidity. She was horrified at her position.

"What have you done with my letters?" she said at last.

"What a good opportunity to upset these gentlemen, if they are eavesdropping, and thus avoiding the battle," thought Julien.

"The first is hid in a big Protestant Bible, which last night's diligence is taking far away from here."

He spoke very distinctly as he went into these details, so as to be heard by any persons who might be concealed in two large mahogany cupboards which he had not dared to inspect.

"The other two are in the post and are bound for the same destination as the first."

"Heavens, why all these precautions?" said Mathilde in alarm.

"What is the good of my lying?" thought Julien, and he confessed all his suspicions.

"So that's the cause for the coldness of your letters, dear," exclaimed Mathilde in a tone of madness rather than of tenderness.

Julien did not notice that nuance. The endearment made him lose his head, or at any rate his suspicions vanished. He dared to clasp in his arms that beautiful girl who inspired him with such respect. He was only partially rebuffed. He fell back on his memory as he had once at Besançon with Armanda Binet, and recited by heart several of the finest phrases out of the Nouvelle Heloise.

"You have the heart of a man," was the answer she made without listening too attentively to his phrases; "I wanted to test your courage, I confess it. Your first suspicions and your resolutions show you even more intrepid, dear, than I had believed."

Mathilde had to make an effort to call him "dear," and was evidently paying more attention to this strange method of speech than to the substance of what she was saying. Being called "dear" without any tenderness in the tone afforded no pleasure to Julien; he was astonished at not being happy, and eventually fell back on his reasoning in order to be so. He saw that he was respected by this proud young girl who never gave undeserved praise; by means of this reasoning he managed to enjoy the happiness of satisfied vanity.