Annette was touched. There was real feeling in these words. This mixture of modesty and sad pride struck her; she felt the disappointment and the wounded affection under the shell of coldness. In one of those bursts of emotion which she could not resist, she was seized with a kindly pity for Julien. She said warmly, "No, no, don't regret anything. I thank you. It was quite right of you to talk"--she corrected herself with a touch of mockery that had no sharpness in it this time--"to try to talk. Yes, it isn't easy. You are not used to it. . . . Well, I'm glad you are not used to it. There are plenty of others who are! But there is nothing to prevent me from hoping that I shall make you get used to it. Are you willing? Since you have no one with whom you can talk?" Julien was too much moved to reply, but his look expressed a gratitude that was still shy. Although it was past the hour when she should have been at home, Annette retraced her steps so that they might still have a few minutes together; and she talked to him with a kind, motherly camaraderie, in a simple, cordial tone that was like a cool hand laid on his aching forehead. Yes, he had been hurt, this big boy; with his moody air he needed to be handled very gently. He was coming back to life now. But she had to go in. . . . Annette suggested seeing him again from time to time. And they confessed that, as for the work they had done in the library, they might have done it just as well in the Luxembourg Gardens, or . . . "Or . . . why not at my house?" And Annette, inviting him for some Sunday soon, vanished without waiting for a reply. Ah, how well he might have talked, now that she was no longer there! He went over the whole scene; he felt how kind Annette was. And since this man, who was so well balanced in his intellectual life, was unable to preserve any measure in the things of the heart, he slipped without transition from the thought that his feeling was destined to remain unreturned to the thought that perhaps . . . XVIII Annette had not the least suspicion of what was taking place in Julien. The unengaging appearance of her new companion seemed a guarantee against love, and she thought that in some comic fashion it would also guarantee Julien. She respected him. She pitied him. Pitied, he became sympathetic. It was pleasant to tell herself that she could do him good; and he became more sympathetic to her. But it would never have occurred to her to be on her guard against him, still less against herself.