CHATER XVI
THE DAY AFTER
He turned his lips to hers and with his hand
Called back the tangles of her wandering hair.
Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Rênal had been too agitated and too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a single moment become the whole to world her.
"Oh, my God!" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when she saw the dawn break, "if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost." Julien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this one,
"Would you regret your life?"
"Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having known you."
Julien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in broad daylight and with deliberate imprudence.
The continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest actions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only one advantage. When he saw Madame de Rênal again at breakfast his conduct was a masterpiece of prudence.
As for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes, and could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her own nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only lifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Rênal admired his prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repeated, she became alarmed. Could it be that he does not love me? she said to herself. Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he is."
