After luncheon, a diabolic idea occurred to him: Why shouldn't he take a definite advance on his conjugal rights? The blood went to his head. He began to breathe a little heavily as he pressed Rose against him. When they were seated, the usual ceremony took place after the usual rebuffs. She allowed her lover's hand to wander. Their mouths, meanwhile, were kissing, drinking one another. After a moment of calm, M. Hervart, on his knees now, took one of Rose's feet in his hand. He caressed the ankle and she made no resistance, when he became more daring, though much moved, still she did not protest, and did no more than whisper, "Xavier! No! No!" Nothing more happened. M. Hervart did not dare. While, feeling very uncomfortable, he was deploring his virtue, Rose fondled him and called him naughty. "It's curious," he thought, "that they all have the same vocabulary by nature." He was ashamed. Nothing makes a man ashamed so much as having failed in his purpose, what ever may have been the cause of his failure. He said, a little nervously: "Let's walk a little. Let's do something." "What an idiot I am," he thought, as they walked along the Couville road, where there are rocks and a little heather and foxgloves among the birch-trees; "after all, she's my wife." On the following days the same manoeuvre was repeated several times, and M. Hervart always hesitated at the decisive moment. "Besides," he wondered, "would she let me? I can hardly violate my fiancée, can I? I have taught her nothing she doesn't know. If we came on to untried lessons, how would she take it?..." He continued: "Dismal pleasures for me. I've had enough of them. It was amusing only the first time." Finally, one evening when they had gone out alone, a thing which never had happened before, he was a little more daring.... The darkness made Rose receive her lover's caresses more willingly than usual. She was expecting them. The thing which had appeared so bold to M. Hervart obviously seemed already quite natural to her.... "Much more natural, perhaps, than allowing me to touch her breast or the under side of her arm...." M. Hervart made bold to ask for more.... "Rose! Rose!" But the girl recoiled. Suppressing a cry, Rose got up and said: "Let's go indoors." She added, a moment later, "It's wrong Xavier, it's wrong. Respect me." "What logic," said M. Hervart to himself. "Respect me! But it's true, I made a mistake. With young girls especially one must begin at the end." The next day they met very early and Rose, refusing to listen to anything he had to say, refusing even to give him a friendly kiss, pronounced the sentence on which she had been meditating: "I am angry. If you want me to pardon you, go away at once and write to me a week hence that everything's arranged for our marriage. I love you. You will realise that when I am your wife, but not before. I have been willing to play with you and you have tried to abuse the privilege. It's wrong. Go!"