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360 One sees that Julien had no experience of life; he had not even read any novels. If he had been a little less awkward and he had coolly said to the young girl, whom he adored so much and who had been giving him such strange confidences: "admit that though I am not worth as much as all these gentlemen, I am none the less the man whom you loved," she would perhaps have been happy at being at thus guessed; at any rate success would have entirely depended on the grace with which Julien had expressed the idea, and on the moment which he had chosen to do so. In any case he would have extricated himself well and advantageously from a situation which Mathilde was beginning to find monotonous.

"And you love me no longer, me, who adore you!" said Julien to her one day, overcome by love and unhappiness. This piece of folly was perhaps the greatest which he could have committed. These words immediately destroyed all the pleasure which mademoiselle de la Mole found in talking to him about the state of her heart. She was beginning to be surprised that he did not, after what had happened, take offence at what she told him. She had even gone so far as to imagine at the very moment when he made that foolish remark that perhaps he did not love her any more. "His pride has doubtless extinguished his love," she was saying to herself. "He is not the man to sit still and see people like Caylus, de Luz, Croisenois whom he admits are so superior, preferred to him. No, I shall never see him at my feet again."

Julien had often in the naivety of his unhappiness, during the previous days praised sinctrely the brilliant qualities of these gentlemen; he would even go so far as to exaggerate them. This nuance had not escaped mademoiselle de la Mole, she was astonished by it, but did not guess its reason. Julien's frenzied soul, in praising a rival whom he thought was loved, was sympathising with his happiness.

These frank but stupid words changed everything in a single moment; confident that she was loved, Mathilde despised him utterly.

She was walking with him when he made his ill-timed remark; she left him, and her parting look expressed the most awful contempt. She returned to the salon and did not look at him again during the whole evening. This contempt monopolised her mind the following day. The impulse which