ughts, and he congratulated himself on having resisted
the dangerous temptation of seeing Mademoiselle Vincart again. He
acknowledged that this singular girl had for him an attraction against
which he ought to be on his guard. Reine might be said to live alone at
La Thuiliere, for her father could hardly be regarded seriously as a
protector. Julien's visits might have compromised her, and the young
man's severe principles of rectitude forbade him to cause scandal which
he could not repair. He was not thinking of marriage, and even had his
thoughts inclined that way, the proprieties and usages of society which
he had always in some degree respected, would not allow him to wed a
peasant girl. It was evident, therefore, that both prudence and
uprightness would enjoin him to carry on any future relations with
Mademoiselle Vincart with the greatest possible reserve.

Nevertheless, and in spite of these sage reflections, the enchanting
image of Reine haunted him more than was at all reasonable. Often, during
his hours of watchfulness, he would see her threading the avenues of the
forest, her dark hair half floating in the breeze, and wearing her white
hood and her skirt bordered with ivy. Since the spring had returned, she
had become associated in his mind with all the magical effects of
nature's renewal. He discovered the liquid light of her dark eyes in the
rippling darkness of the streams; the lilies recalled the faintly tinted
paleness of her cheeks; the silene roses, scattered throughout the
hedges, called forth the remembrance of the young maiden's rosy lips, and
the vernal odor of the leaves appeared to him like an emanation of her
graceful and wholesome nature.

This state of feeling began to act like an obsession, a sort of
witchcraft, which alarmed him. What was she really, this strange
creature? A peasant indeed, apparently; but there was also something more
refined and cultivated about her, due, doubtless, to her having received
her education in a city school. She both felt and expressed herself
differently from ordinary country girls, although retaining the frankness
and untutored charm of rustic natures. She exercised an uneasy
fascination over Julien, and at times he returned to the superstitious
impression made upon him by Reine's behavior and discourse in the forest.
He again questioned with himself whether this female form, in its untamed
beauty, did not enfold some spirit of temptation, some insidious fairy