Jean is no longer tranquil; Jean is no longer happy. He sees approach
with impatience, and at the same time with terror, the moment of his
departure. With impatience--for he suffers an absolute martyrdom, he
longs to escape from it; with terror--for to pass twenty days without
seeing her, without speaking to her, without her in a word--what will
become of him? Her! It is Bettina; he adores her!

Since when? Since the first day, since that meeting in the month of May
in the Cure's garden. That is the truth; but Jean struggles against and
resists that truth. He believes that he has only loved Bettina since the
day when the two chatted gayly, amicably, in the little drawing-room.
She was sitting on the blue couch near the widow, and, while talking,
amused herself with repairing the disorder of the dress of a Japanese
princess, one of Bella's dolls, which she had left on a chair, and which
Bettina had mechanically taken up.

Why had the fancy come to Miss Percival to talk to him of those two young
girls whom he might have married? The question of itself was not at all
embarrassing to him. He had replied that, if he had not then felt any
taste for marriage, it was because his interviews with these two girls
had not caused him any emotion or any agitation. He had smiled in
speaking thus, but a few minutes after he smiled no more. This emotion,
this agitation, he had suddenly learned to know them. Jean did not
deceive himself; he acknowledged the depth of the wound; it had
penetrated to his very heart's core.

Jean, however, did not abandon himself to this emotion. He said to
himself:

"Yes, it is serious, very serious, but I shall recover from it."