He ought to have shown himself more expansive and less restrained.

But it was her fault, for she had abashed him! The incongruity between the woman who cried with voluptuous suffering in her letters and the woman he had seen, so thoroughly mistress of herself in her coquetries, was truly too much! "However you look at them, these women are astonishing creatures," he thought.

"Here is one who accomplishes the most difficult thing you can imagine: coming to a man's room after having written him excessive letters.

I, I act like a goose.

I stand there ill at ease.