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delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the happiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to herself, "he is worthy of being my master since he was on the point of killing me. How many handsome young society men would have to be melted together before they were capable of so passionate a transport."

"I must admit that he was very handsome at the time when he climbed up on the chair to replace the sword in the same picturesque position in which the decorator hung it! After all it was not so foolish of me to love him."

If at that moment some honourable means of reconciliation had presented itself, she would have embraced it with pleasure. Julien locked in his room was a prey to the most violent despair. He thought in his madness of throwing himself at her feet. If instead of hiding himself in an out of the way place, he had wandered about the garden of the hotel so as to keep within reach of any opportunity, he would perhaps have changed in a single moment his awful unhappiness into the keenest happiness.

But the tact for whose lack we are now reproaching him would have been incompatible with that sublime seizure of the sword, which at the present time rendered him so handsome in the eyes of mademoiselle de la Mole. This whim in Julien's favour lasted the whole day; Mathilde conjured up a charming image of the short moments during which she had loved him: she regretted them.