Mouret, however, was living in anguish. Was it possible that this child could torture him in this manner? He could always recall her arriving at The Ladies' Paradise, with her big shoes, thin black dress, and savage airs. She stammered, they all used to laugh at her, he himself had thought her ugly at first. Ugly! and now she could have brought him on his knees by a look, he thought her nothing less than an angel! Then she had remained the last in the house, repulsed, joked at, treated by him as a curious specimen of humanity. For months he had wanted to see how a girl sprung up, and had amused himself at this experiment, without understanding that he was risking his heart. She, little by little grew up, became redoubtable. Perhaps he had loved her from the first moment, even at the time he thought he felt nothing but pity for her. And yet he had only really begun to feel this love the evening of their walk under the chestnut trees of the Tuileries. His life started from there, he could still hear the laughing of a group of little girls, the distant fall of a jet of water, whilst in the warm shade she walked on beside him in silence. After that he knew no more, his fever had increased hour by hour; all his blood, his whole being, in fact, was sacrificed. And for such a child--was it possible? When she passed him now, the slight wind from her dress seemed so powerful that he staggered. For a long time he had struggled, and even now he frequently became indignant, endeavouring to extricate himself from this idiotic possession. What secret had she to be able to bind him in this way? Had he not seen her without boots? Had she not been received almost out of charity? He could have understood it had it been a question of one of those superb creatures who charm the crowd, but this little girl; this nobody! She had, in short, one of those insignificant faces which excite no remark. She could not even be very intelligent, for he remembered her bad beginning as a saleswoman. But, after every explosion of anger, he had experienced a relapse of passion, like a sacred terror at having insulted his idol. She possessed everything that renders a woman good--courage, gaiety, simplicity; and there exhaled from her gentleness, a charm of a penetrating, perfume-like subtlety. One might at first ignore her, or elbow her like any other girl; but the charm soon began to act, with a slow invincible force; one belonged to her for ever, if she deigned to smile. Everything then smiled in her white face, her pretty eyes, her cheeks and chin full of dimples; whilst her heavy blonde hair seemed to light up also, with a royal and conquering beauty. He acknowledged himself vanquished; she was as intelligent as she was beautiful, her intelligence came from the best part of her being. Whilst the other saleswomen had only a superficial education, the varnish which scales off from girls of that class, she, without any false elegance,