I wished to make him suffer, and I succeeded.  Spite inspired me.  I behaved as a nobleman might to an inferior.  I preserved an excellent bearing, displayed great attention, much politeness, and an icy stiffness.  I determined to give him no chance to make me blush at my ignorance, and, to this end, I acted so as to anticipate all his observations by accusing myself at once of knowing nothing, and by requesting him to teach me the very rudiments of things.  When I had finished my first lesson I saw in his penetrating eyes, into which I had managed to penetrate myself, a desire to pass from this coldness to some sort of intimacy; but I carefully avoided making any response.  He thought to disarm me by praising my attention and intelligence.

“You are troubling yourself unnecessarily, monsieur,” I replied.  “I stand in no need of encouragement.  I have not the least faith in my intelligence, but of my attention I certainly am very sure; but since it is solely for my own good that I am doing my best to apply myself to this work, there is no reason why you should compliment me on it.”

With these words I bowed to him and withdrew to my room, where I immediately did the French exercise that he had set me.

When I went down to luncheon, I saw that Edmee was already aware of the execution of the promise I had made the previous evening.  She at once greeted me with outstretched hand, and frequently during luncheon called me her “dear cousin,” till at last M. de la Marche’s face, which was usually expressionless, expressed surprise or something very near it.  I was hoping that he would take the opportunity to demand an explanation of my insulting words of the previous day; and although I had resolved to discuss the matter in a spirit of great moderation, I felt very much hurt at the care which he took to avoid it.  This indifference to an insult that I had offered implied a sort of contempt, which annoyed me very much; but the fear of displeasing Edmee gave me strength to restrain myself.

Incredible as it may seem, my resolve to supplant him was not for one moment shaken by this humiliating apprenticeship which I had now to serve before I could manage to obtain the most elementary notions of things in general.  Any other than I, filled like myself with remorse for wrongs committed, would have found no surer method of repairing them than by going away, and restoring to Edmee her perfect independence and absolute peace of mind.  This was the only method which did not occur to me; or if it did, it was rejected with scorn, as a sign of apostasy.  Stubbornness, allied to temerity, ran through my veins with the blood of the Mauprats.  No sooner had I imagined a means of winning her whom I loved than I embraced it with audacity; and I think it would not have been otherwise even had her confidences to the abbe in the park shown me that her love was given to my rival.  Such assurance on the part of a young man who, at the age of seventeen, was taking his first lesson in French grammar, and who, moreover, had a very exaggerated notion of the length and difficulty of the studies necessary to put him on a level with M. de la March, showed, you must allow, a certain moral force.