What her feelings might be towards me, as I say, I could not be sure; for, little as I knew of girls, I had picked up enough scraps of knowledge to be quite sure in my own mind that they were strangely unaccountable creatures, and that you could not judge either them or a good many other things entirely by outside appearances.

And again, it was borne in upon me very strongly, and as never before, that, where two start fairly level, if one goes ahead, the other must exert himself or be left behind.

Carette was going ahead in marvellous fashion.

I felt myself in danger of being left behind, and that set my brain to very active working.
I had a better education, in the truest sense of the word, than most of my fellows, thanks to my mother and grandfather and Krok and M.Rousselot, the schoolmaster.

That gave me the use of my brains.