She replied with a smile, and they walked side by side until the rain began to fall, when she drew nearer to him, and they entered the station talking gayly.

“Your umbrella is better than Virginia’s skirt,” she said.

“And what is Virginia’s skirt?”

“Have you not read Paul and Virginia?”

“No.”

She looked at him with a mocking smile, wondering what superior men read.

Not only had he not read Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s romance, nor any others, but he had never been in love.  He knew nothing of the affairs of the heart nor of the imagination.  Leisure must be had for light reading, and even more for love, for they require a liberty of mind and an independence of life that he had not.  Where could he find time to read novels?  When and how could he pay attention to a woman?  Those that he had known since his arrival in Paris had not had the slightest influence over him, and he retained only faint memories of them.  On the contrary, thinking of this walk in the rain, he remembered this young girl with a vividness entirely new to him.  She made a strong impression on him, and it remained.  He saw her again, with her smile that showed her brilliant teeth, he heard the music of her voice, and the bare plain that he had walked so many times now seemed the most beautiful country in the world to him.  Evidently there was a change in him; something was awakened in his soul; for the first time he discovered that the hollow and muscular conoid organ called the heart had a use besides for the circulation of blood.

What a surprise and what a disappointment!  Was he going to be simpleton enough to love this young girl and entangle his life, already so hard and heavily weighted, with a woman?  A fine thing, truly, and nature had built him to play the lover!  It is true that only those who wish it fall in love, and he knew the power of will by experience.

But he soon lost confidence in himself.  Away from Phillis he could do as he wished, but with her it was as she wished.  With one look she mastered him.  He met her, furious at the influence she exercised over him, and against which he had struggled since their last meeting; he left her, ravished at feeling how profoundly he loved her.

To a man whose life had been ruled by reason and logic until this moment, these contradictions were exasperating; and he only excused himself for submitting to them by saying that they could in no way modify the line of conduct that he had traced out for himself, nor make him deviate from the road that he followed.

Rich, or even with a small fortune, he might—­when he was with her and in her power—­let himself be carried away; but when he was dying of hunger he was not going to commit the folly of taking a wife.  What would he have to give her?  Misery, nothing but misery; and shame, in default of any other reason, would forever prevent him from offering himself to her.