"If you like, Mademoiselle," he said to her suddenly with assurance, "I will say that I am your cousin." This little air of authority pleased Amanda. "He's not a mere nobody," she thought. She spoke to him very quickly, without looking at him, because her eye was occupied in seeing if anybody was coming near the counter. "I come from Genlis, near Dijon. Say that you are also from Genlis and are my mother's cousin." "I shall not fail to do so." "All the gentlemen who go to the Seminary pass here before the café every Thursday in the summer at five o'clock." "If you think of me when I am passing, have a bunch of violets in your hand." Amanda looked at him with an astonished air. This look changed Julien's courage into audacity. Nevertheless, he reddened considerably, as he said to her. "I feel that I love you with the most violent love." "Speak in lower tones," she said to him with a frightened air. Julien was trying to recollect phrases out of a volume of the _Nouvelle Héloise_ which he had found at Vergy. His memory served him in good stead. For ten minutes he recited the _Nouvelle Héloise_ to the delighted Mademoiselle Amanda. He was happy on the strength of his own bravery, when suddenly the beautiful Franc-comtoise assumed an icy air. One of her lovers had appeared at the café door. He approached the bar, whistling, and swaggering his shoulders. He looked at Julien. The latter's imagination, which always indulged in extremes, suddenly brimmed over with ideas of a duel. He paled greatly, put down his cup, assumed an assured demeanour, and considered his rival very attentively. As this rival lowered his head, while he familiarly poured out on the counter a glass of brandy for himself, Amanda ordered Julien with a look to lower his eyes. He obeyed, and for two minutes kept motionless in his place, pale, resolute, and only thinking of what was going to happen. He was truly happy at this moment. The rival had been astonished by Julien's eyes. Gulping down his glass of brandy, he said a few words to Amanda, placed his two hands in the pockets of his big tail coat, and approached the billiard table, whistling, and looking at Julien. The latter got up transported with rage, but he did not know what to do in order to be offensive. He put down his little parcel, and walked towards the billiard table with all the swagger he could muster. It was in vain that prudence said to him, "but your ecclesiastical career will be ruined by a duel immediately on top of your arrival at Besançon." "What does it matter. It shall never be said that I let an insolent fellow go scot free." Amanda saw his courage. It contrasted prettily with the simplicity of his manners. She instantly preferred him to the big young man with the tail coat. She got up, and while appearing to be following with her eye somebody who was passing in the street, she went and quickly placed herself between him and the billiard table.