They had also exchanged formal salutations, but had not spoken to each other.
More than once, after the night had fallen, Julien had stopped in front of the courtyard of La Thuiliere, and watched the lamps being lighted inside.

But he had not ventured to knock at the door of the house; a foolish timidity had prevented him; so he had returned to the chateau, dissatisfied and reproaching himself for allowing his awkward shyness to interpose, as it were, a wall of ice between himself and the only person whose acquaintance seemed to him desirable.
At other times he would become alarmed at the large place a woman occupied in his thoughts, and he congratulated himself on having resisted the dangerous temptation of seeing Mademoiselle Vincart again.
He acknowledged that this singular girl had for him an attraction against which he ought to be on his guard.

Reine might be said to live alone at La Thuiliere, for her father could hardly be regarded seriously as a protector.

Julien's visits might have compromised her, and the young man's severe principles of rectitude forbade him to cause scandal which he could not repair.

He was not thinking of marriage, and even had his thoughts inclined that way, the proprieties and usages of society which he had always in some degree respected, would not allow him to wed a peasant girl.