"He's not a mere nobody," she thought.
She spoke to him very quickly, without looking at him, because her eye was occupied in seeing if anybody was coming near the counter.
"I come from Genlis, near Dijon.
Say that you are also from Genlis and are my mother's cousin."
"I shall not fail to do so."
"All the gentlemen who go to the Seminary pass here before the cafe every Thursday in the summer at five o'clock."
"If you think of me when I am passing, have a bunch of violets in your hand."
Amanda looked at him with an astonished air. This look changed Julien's courage into audacity. Nevertheless, he reddened considerably, as he said to her.
"I feel that I love you with the most violent love."
"Speak in lower tones," she said to him with a frightened air.
Julien was trying to recollect phrases out of a volume of the Nouvelle Heloise which he had found at Vergy.
His memory served him in good stead. For ten minutes he recited the Nouvelle Heloise to the delighted Mademoiselle Amanda. He was happy on the strength of his own bravery, when suddenly the beautiful Franc-contoise assumed an icy air. One of her lovers had appeared at the cafe door.
He approached the bar, whistling, and swaggering his shoulders. He looked at Julien.
The latter's imagination, which always indulged in extremes, suddenly brimmed over with ideas of a duel.
He paled greatly, put down his cup, assumed an assured demeanour, and considered his rival very attentively.
As this rival lowered his head, while he familiarly poured out on the counter a glass of brandy for himself, Amanda ordered Julien with a look to lower his eyes.
He obeyed, and for two minutes kept motionless in his place, pale, resolute, and only thinking of what was going to happen. He was truly happy at this moment.
The rival had been astonished by Julien's eyes. Gulping down his glass of brandy, he said a few words to Amanda, placed his two hands in the pockets of his big tail coat, and approached the billiard table, whistling, and looking at Julien.
The latter got up transported with rage, but he did not know what to do in order to be offensive.
He put down his little parcel, and walked towards the billiard table with all the swagger he could muster.
It was in vain that prudence said to him, "but your ecclesiastical career will be ruined by a duel immediately on top of your arrival at Besancon."
"What does it matter.
It shall never be said that I let an insolent fellow go scot free."
Amanda saw his courage. It contrasted prettily with the simplicity of his manners.
She instantly preferred him to the big young man with the tail coat.
She got up, and while appearing to be following with her eye somebody who was passing in the street, she went and quickly placed herself between him and the billiard table.
"Take care not to look askance at that gentleman. He is my brother-in-law."
"What does it matter?
He looked at me."
"Do you want to make me unhappy?
No doubt he looked at you, why it may be he is going to speak to you.
I told him that you were a relative of my mother, and that you had arrived from Genlis.
He is a Franc-contois, and has never gone beyond Doleon the Burgundy Road, so say what you like and fear nothing."
Julien was still hesitating. Her barmaid's imagination furnished her with an abundance of lies, and she quickly added.
"No doubt he looked at you, but it was at a moment when he was asking me who you were.
He is a man who is boorish with everyone. He did not mean to insult you."
Julien's eye followed the pretended brother-in-law. He saw him buy a ticket for the pool, which they were playing at the further of the two billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice shouting out in a threatening tone,
"My turn to play."
He passed sharply before Madame Amanda, and took a step towards the billiard table.
Amanda seized him by the arm.
"Come and pay me first," she said to him.
"That is right," thought Julien. "She is frightened that I shall leave without paying."
Amanda was as agitated as he was, and very red. She gave him the change as slowly as she could, while she repeated to him, in a low voice,
"Leave the cafe this instant, or I shall love you no more, and yet I do love you very much."
Julien did go out, but slowly.
"Am I not in duty bound," he repeated to himself, "to go and stare at that coarse person in my turn?"
This uncertainty kept him on the boulevard in the front of the cafe for an hour; he kept looking if his man was coming out.
He did not come out, and Julien went away.
He had only been at Besancon some hours, and already he had overcome one pang of remorse.
The old surgeon-major had formerly given him some fencing lessons, in spite of his gout. That was all the science which Julien could enlist in the service of his anger.