As he was forcing himself to concentrate his mind on the first of these letters he heard the rustle of a silk dress near him. He suddenly turned round, mademoiselle de la Mole was two yards from his table, she was smiling.
This second interruption put Julien into a bad temper.
Mathilde had just fully realized that she meant nothing to this young man. Her smile was intended to hide her embarrassment; she succeeded in doing so.
"You are evidently thinking of something very interesting, Monsieur Sorel.
Is it not some curious anecdote about that conspiracy which is responsible for comte Altamira being in Paris?
Tell me what it is about, I am burning to know.
I will be discreet, I swear it."
She was astonished at hearing herself utter these words.
What! was she asking a favour of an inferior!
Her embarrassment increased, and she added with a little touch of flippancy,
"What has managed to turn such a usually cold person as yourself, into an inspired being, a kind of Michael Angelo prophet?"
This sharp and indiscreet question wounded Julien deeply, and rendered him madder than ever.
"Was Danton right in stealing?" he said to her brusquely in a manner that grew more and more surly.
"Ought the revolutionaries of Piedmont and of Spain to have injured the people by crimes?
To have given all the places in the army and all the orders to undeserving persons?
Would not the persons who wore these orders have feared the return of the king?
Ought they to have allowed the treasure of Turin to be looted?
In a word, mademoiselle," he said, coming near her with a terrifying expression, "ought the man who wishes to chase ignorance and crime from the world to pass like the whirlwind and do evil indiscriminately?"
Mathilde felt frightened, was unable to stand his look, and retreated a couples of paces.
She looked at him a moment, and then ashamed of her own fear, left the library with a light step. _____
CHAPTER XL
QUEEN MARGUERITE _____
Love!
In what madness do you not manage to make us find pleasure!
Letters of a Portuguese Nun. _____
Julien reread his letters.
"How ridiculous I must have appeared in the eyes of that Parisian doll," he said to himself when the dinner-bell rang.
"How foolish to have really told her what I was thinking!
Perhaps it was not so foolish.
Telling the truth on that occasion was worthy of me.
Why did she come to question me on personal matters?
That question was indiscreet on her part.
She broke the convention.
My thoughts about Danton are not part of the sacrifice which her father pays me to make."
When he came into the dining-room Julien's thoughts were distracted from his bad temper by mademoiselle de la Mole's mourning which was all the more striking because none of the other members of the family were in black.
After dinner he felt completely rid of the feeling which had obsessed him all day.
Fortunately the academician who knew Latin was at dinner.
"That's the man who will make the least fun of me," said Julien to himself, "if, as I surmise, my question about mademoiselle de la Mole's mourning is in bad taste."
Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression.
"So this is the coquetry of the women of this part of the country, just as madame de Renal described it to me," said Julien to himself.
"I was not nice to her this morning. I did not humour her caprice of talking to me.
I got up in value in her eyes.
The Devil doubtless is no loser by it.
"Later on her haughty disdain will manage to revenge herself. I defy her to do her worst.
What a contrast with what I have lost!
What charming naturalness?
What naivety!
I used to know her thoughts before she did herself. I used to see them come into existence. The only rival she had in her heart was the fear of her childrens' death.
It was a reasonable, natural feeling to me, and even though I suffered from it I found it charming.
I have been a fool. The ideas I had in my head about Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.