She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she sat down

again.

"Well!" said Leon.

"Well!" she replied.

He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, when she

said to him-"How is it that no one until now has ever expressed such sentiments to

me?"

The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand. He from

the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when he thought of the

happiness that would have been theirs, if thanks to fortune, meeting her

earlier, they had been indissolubly bound to one another.

"I have sometimes thought of it," she went on.

"What a dream!" murmured Leon. And fingering gently the blue binding of

her long white sash, he added, "And who prevents us from beginning now?"

"No, my friend," she replied; "I am too old; you are too young. Forget

me! Others will love you; you will love them."

"Not as you!" he cried.

"What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it."

She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that they must

remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a fraternal friendship.

Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did not herself know,

quite absorbed as she was by the charm of the seduction, and the

necessity of defending herself from it; and contemplating the young

man with a moved look, she gently repulsed the timid caresses that his

trembling hands attempted.

"Ah! forgive me!" he cried, drawing back.

Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more dangerous to her

than the boldness of Rodolphe when he advanced to her open-armed. No man

had ever seemed to her so beautiful. An exquisite candour emanated from

his being. He lowered his long fine eyelashes, that curled upwards.

His cheek, with the soft skin reddened, she thought, with desire of her

person, and Emma felt an invincible longing to press her lips to it.

Then, leaning towards the clock as if to see the time-"Ah! how late it is!" she said; "how we do chatter!"

He understood the hint and took up his hat.

"It has even made me forget the theatre. And poor Bovary has left me

here especially for that. Monsieur Lormeaux, of the Rue Grand-Pont, was

to take me and his wife."

And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the next day.

"Really!" said Leon.

"Yes."




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