Far from seeming proud of her conquest, Sophy has grown more friendly and less exacting towards everybody, except perhaps the one person who has wrought this change.  Her noble heart no longer swells with the feeling of independence.  She triumphs modestly over a victory gained at the price of her freedom.  Her bearing is more restrained, her speech more timid, since she has begun to blush at the word “lover”; but contentment may be seen beneath her outward confusion and this very shame is not painful.  This change is most noticeable in her behaviour towards the young men she meets.  Now that she has ceased to be afraid of them, much of her extreme reserve has disappeared.  Now that her choice is made, she does not hesitate to be gracious to those to whom she is quite indifferent; taking no more interest in them, she is less difficult to please, and she always finds them pleasant enough for people who are of no importance to her.

If true love were capable of coquetry, I should fancy I saw traces of it in the way Sophy behaves towards other young men in her lover’s presence.  One would say that not content with the ardent passion she inspires by a mixture of shyness and caresses, she is not sorry to rouse this passion by a little anxiety; one would say that when she is purposely amusing her young guests she means to torment Emile by the charms of a freedom she will not allow herself with him; but Sophy is too considerate, too kindly, too wise to really torment him.  Love and honour take the place of prudence and control the use of this dangerous weapon.  She can alarm and reassure him just as he needs it; and if she sometimes makes him uneasy she never really gives him pain.  The anxiety she causes to her beloved may be forgiven because of her fear that he is not sufficiently her own.

But what effect will this little performance have upon Emile?  Will he be jealous or not?  That is what we must discover; for such digressions form part of the purpose of my book, and they do not lead me far from my main subject.

I have already shown how this passion of jealousy in matters of convention finds its way into the heart of man.  In love it is another matter; then jealousy is so near akin to nature, that it is hard to believe that it is not her work; and the example of the very beasts, many of whom are madly jealous, seems to prove this point beyond reply.  Is it man’s influence that has taught cooks to tear each other to pieces or bulls to fight to the death?

No one can deny that the aversion to everything which may disturb or interfere with our pleasures is a natural impulse.  Up to a certain point the desire for the exclusive possession of that which ministers to our pleasure is in the same case.  But when this desire has become a passion, when it is transformed into madness, or into a bitter and suspicious fancy known as jealousy, that is quite another matter; such a passion may be natural or it may not; we must distinguish between these different cases.