Annette, amused by Julien's useless efforts to win over the child, thought she ought to make up for Marc's ungracious greeting. She questioned Julien about his solitary life with an interest that wandered a little at first, but soon ceased to do so. Julien, who was always more sure of himself when he was sitting in the half-light of a room, talked about himself this time quite frankly. He was simple; he never, or hardly ever, posed, in spite of his desire to please. In his sincerity he revealed a candour that one seldom meets in Paris in a man of his age. When he touched upon subjects that were dear to him, he had a delicacy that veiled a restrained emotion. In these moments of abandon when, in the kindly silence of the encouraging Annette, his true inner nature seemed to blossom, a gleam of moral beauty lighted up his face. Annette looked at him attentively, and what she felt for him was no longer merely a friendly indifference. After this they saw each other regularly on Sundays and a little oftener during the week, when they had a free moment. Julien used as a pretext the books which he lent her; it was quite necessary to accompany them with explanations so that Annette should have less difficulty in understanding them. He brought Marc some rather expensive but badly chosen presents for which the little enemy was by no means grateful to him: he thought them childish and beneath his dignity. But nothing could shake Julien's good will, firmly resolved as he was not to see anything that would disturb him. Solitary spirits who distrust the world lose all discernment, all desire to be discerning, the moment they abandon their distrust in favor of some chosen soul: they are liberated. Julien's mind, ingenious in deceiving itself, arranged to its satisfaction the memories it brought back from each of its visits: everything that Annette had said and everything that surrounded her. (Without being conscious of it, he indirectly glorified himself.) Annette's inattentiveness, her wandering replies, even the bored silences which he sometimes caused her, all rendered her more beautiful and more touching to him. And as, each time, he still discovered some new little trait, which did not accord with the portrait he had made, he kept remaking the portrait, he made it over ten times; and although the portrait no longer resembled what it had been at the beginning, Julien never admitted that there had been a change in its essential constancy. He was ready to alter his ideal of love as many times as the beloved object altered.