She had waited for love.  Could this be love?  The man who was to be her thought, her life, her soul—­could this be he—­this Jean?  Why not?  She knew him better than she knew all those who, during the past year, had haunted her for her fortune, and in what she knew of him there was nothing to discourage the love of a good girl.  Far from it!

Both of them did well; both of them were in the way of duty and of truth—­she, in yielding; he, in resisting; she, in not thinking for a moment of the obscurity of Jean; he, in recoiling before her mountain of wealth as he would have recoiled before a crime; she, in thinking that she had no right to parley with love; he, in thinking he had no right to parley with honor.

This is why, in proportion as Bettina showed herself more tender, and abandoned herself with more frankness to the first call of love—­this is why Jean became, day by day, more gloomy and more restless.  He was not only afraid of loving; he was afraid of being loved.

He ought to have remained away; he should not have come near her.  He had tried; he could not; the temptation was too strong; it carried him away; so he came.  She would come to him, her hands extended, a smile on her lips, and her heart in her eyes.  Everything in her said: 

“Let us try to love each other, and if we can love, we will!”

Fear seized him.  Those two hands which offered themselves to the pressure of his hands, he hardly dared touch them.  He tried to escape those eyes which, tender and smiling, anxious and curious, tried to meet his eyes.  He trembled before the necessity of speaking to Bettina, before the necessity of listening to her.

It was then that Jean took refuge with Mrs. Scott, and it was then that Mrs. Scott gathered those uncertain, agitated, troubled words which were not addressed to her, and which she took for herself, nevertheless.  It would have been difficult not to be mistaken.

For of these still vague and confused sentiments which agitated her, Bettina had as yet said nothing.  She guarded and caressed the secret of her budding love, as a miser guards and caresses the first coins of his treasure.  The day when she should see clearly into her own heart; the day that she should be sure that she loved—­ah! she would speak that day, and how happy she should be to tell all to Susie!

Mrs. Scott had ended by attributing to herself this melancholy of Jean, which, day by day, took a more marked character.  She was flattered by it—­a woman is never displeased at thinking herself beloved—­and vexed at the same time.  She held Jean in great esteem, in great affection; but she was greatly distressed at the thought that if he were sad and unhappy, it was because of her.