In spite of the awful violence she was doing to herself she was completely mistress of her words.
No regret and no reproach spoiled that night which Julien found extraordinary rather than happy.
Great heavens! what a difference to his last twenty-four hours' stay in Verrieres.
These fine Paris manners manage to spoil everything, even love, he said to himself, quite unjustly.
He abandoned himself to these reflections as he stood upright in one of the great mahogany cupboards into which he had been put at the sign of the first sounds of movement in the neighbouring apartment, which was madame de la Mole's.
Mathilde followed her mother to mass, the servants soon left the apartment and Julien easily escaped before they came back to finish their work.
He mounted a horse and tried to find the most solitary spots in one of the forests near Paris.
He was more astonished than happy.
The happiness which filled his soul from time to time resembled that of a young sub-lieutenant who as the result of some surprising feat has just been made a full-fledged colonel by the commander-in-chief; he felt himself lifted up to an immense height.
Everything which was above him the day before was now on a level with him or even below him.
Little by little Julien's happiness increased in proportion as he got further away from Paris.
If there was no tenderness in his soul, the reason was that, however strange it may appear to say so, Mathilde had in everything she had done, simply accomplished a duty.
The only thing she had not foreseen in all the events of that night, was the shame and unhappiness which she had experienced instead of that absolute felicity which is found in novels.
"Can I have made a mistake, and not be in love with him?" she said to herself. _____
CHAPTER XLVII
AN OLD SWORD _____
I now mean to be serious; it is time
Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious.
A jest at vice by virtues called a crime.
Don Juan, c. xiii. _____
She did not appear at dinner.
She came for a minute into the salon in the evening, but did not look at Julien.
He considered this behaviour strange, "but," he thought,
"I do not know their usages.
She will give me some good reason for all this."
None the less he was a prey to the most extreme curiosity; he studied the expression of Mathilde's features; he was bound to own to himself that she looked cold and malicious.
It was evidently not the same woman who on the proceeding night had had, or pretended to have, transports of happiness which were too extravagant to be genuine.
The day after, and the subsequent day she showed the same coldness; she did not look at him, she did not notice his existence.
Julien was devoured by the keenest anxiety and was a thousand leagues removed from that feeling of triumph which had been his only emotion on the first day.
"Can it be by chance," he said to himself, "a return to virtue?"
But this was a very bourgeois word to apply to the haughty Mathilde.
"Placed in an ordinary position in life she would disbelieve in religion," thought Julien, "she only likes it in so far as it is very useful to the interests of her class."
But perhaps she may as a mere matter of delicacy be keenly reproaching herself for the mistake which she has committed.
Julien believed that he was her first lover.
"But," he said to himself at other moments, "I must admit that there is no trace of naivety, simplicity, or tenderness in her own demeanour; I have never seen her more haughty, can she despise me?
It would be worthy of her to reproach herself simply because of my low birth, for what she has done for me."
While Julien, full of those preconceived ideas which he had found in books and in his memories of Verrieres, was chasing the phantom of a tender mistress, who from the minute when she has made her lover happy no longer thinks of her own existence, Mathilde's vanity was infuriated against him.
As for the last two months she had no longer been bored, she was not frightened of boredom; consequently, without being able to have the slightest suspicion of it, Julien had lost his greatest advantage.
"I have given myself a master," said mademoiselle de la Mole to herself, a prey to the blackest sorrow.
"Luckily he is honour itself, but if I offend his vanity, he will revenge himself by making known the nature of our relations."
Mathilde had never had a lover, and though passing through a stage of life which affords some tender illusions even to the coldest souls, she fell a prey to the most bitter reflections.
"He has an immense dominion over me since his reign is one of terror, and he is capable, if I provoke him, of punishing me with an awful penalty."
This idea alone was enough to induce mademoiselle de la Mole to insult him. Courage was the primary quality in her character.
The only thing which could give her any thrill and cure her from a fundamental and chronically recurring ennui was the idea that she was staking her entire existence on a single throw.
As mademoiselle de la Mole obstinately refused to look at him, Julien on the third day in spite of her evident objection, followed her into the billiard-room after dinner.
"Well, sir, you think you have acquired some very strong rights over me?" she said to him with scarcely controlled anger, "since you venture to speak to me, in spite of my very clearly manifested wish?
Do you know that no one in the world has had such effrontery?"
The dialogue of these two lovers was incomparably humourous. Without suspecting it, they were animated by mutual sentiments of the most vivid hate.
As neither the one nor the other had a meekly patient character, while they were both disciples of good form, they soon came to informing each other quite clearly that they would break for ever.
"I swear eternal secrecy to you," said Julien.