He had smiled in speaking thus, but a few minutes after he smiled no more.

This emotion, this agitation, he had suddenly learned to know them.

Jean did not deceive himself; he acknowledged the depth of the wound; it had penetrated to his very heart's core.
Jean, however, did not abandon himself to this emotion.

He said to himself: "Yes, it is serious, very serious, but I shall recover from it." He sought an excuse for his madness; he laid the blame on circumstances.
For ten days this delightful girl had been too much with him, too much with him alone! How could he resist such a temptation?
He was intoxicated with her charm, with her grace and beauty.

But the next day a troop of visitors would arrive at Longueval, and there would be an end of this dangerous intimacy.