The impression of that meeting was not effaced; it was always there, persistent, and very sweet, till Jean began to feel disturbed.
"Is it possible"-- so ran his meditations--"is it possible that I have been guilty of the folly of falling in love madly at first sight?
No; one might fall in love with a woman, but not with two women at once." That thought reassured him.

He was very young, this great fellow of four-and-twenty; never had love entered fully into his heart.

Love! He knew very little about it, except from books, and he had read but few of them.

But he was no angel; he could find plenty of attractions in the grisettes of Souvigny, and when they would allow him to tell them that they were charming, he was quite ready to do so, but it had never entered his head to regard as love those passing fancies, which only caused the slightest and most superficial disturbance in his heart.
Paul de Lavardens had marvellous powers of enthusiasm and idealization.
His heart sheltered always two or three grandes passions, which lived there in perfect harmony.

Paul had been so clever as to discover, in this little town of 15,000 souls, numbers of pretty girls, all made to be adored.