Even when there was nothing left for her to refuse him she pushed Julien away from her with a genuine indignation, and straightway threw herself into his arms. There was no plan apparent in all this conduct. She thought herself eternally damned, and tried to hide from herself the sight of hell by loading Julien with the wildest caresses. In a word, nothing would have been lacking in our hero's happiness, not even an ardent sensibility in the woman whom he had just captured, if he had only known how to enjoy it. Julien's departure did not in any way bring to an end those ecstacies which thrilled her in spite of herself, and those troubles of remorse which lacerated her. "My God! being happy--being loved, is that all it comes to?" This was Julien's first thought as he entered his room. He was a prey to the astonishment and nervous anxiety of the man who has just obtained what he has long desired. He has been accustomed to desire, and has no longer anything to desire, and nevertheless has no memories. Like a soldier coming back from parade. Julien was absorbed in rehearsing the details of his conduct. "Have I failed in nothing which I owe to myself? Have I played my part well?" And what a part! the part of a man accustomed to be brilliant with women. CHAPTER XVI THE DAY AFTER He turned his lips to hers and with his hand Called back the tangles of her wandering hair. _Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170. Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Rênal had been too agitated and too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a single moment become the whole to world her. "Oh, my God!" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when she saw the dawn break, "if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost." Julien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this one, "Would you regret your life?" "Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having known you." Julien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in broad daylight and with deliberate imprudence. The continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest actions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only one advantage. When he saw Madame de Rênal again at breakfast his conduct was a masterpiece of prudence. As for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes, and could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her own nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only lifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Rênal admired his prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repeated, she became alarmed. "Could it be that he does not love me?" she said to herself. "Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he is."